The Washington attorney general’s office on Tuesday urged a federal judge in Seattle to order the Trump administration to reinstate funding to build out an electric vehicle charging network.
At issue in court Tuesday was the $5 billion National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure program, or NEVI, that came from the bipartisan infrastructure law former President Joe Biden signed in 2021.
The Federal Highway Administration had previously approved states’ plans for using the money calculated for each state based on a formula.
But in February, the agency rescinded approval of all those state plans, which took years to develop, and started to withhold funding. In a notice to states, federal officials said they had “decided to review the policies underlying the implementation of the NEVI Formula Program.”
The Trump administration maintains it will still disburse funding eventually.
Sixteen states and the District of Columbia sued in May, alleging the Trump administration violated the separation of powers between the legislative and executive branches. A slew of nonprofits, including the Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council and Climate Solutions, later joined the lawsuit.
The plaintiff states cover about $1 billion in withheld federal funding. They were in court Tuesday asking for a preliminary injunction to free up that money. But that ask would only impact the states bringing the lawsuit, while leaving the funding frozen for the rest of the country.
“This passing reference to revised guidance and to changed priorities is simply insufficient to override congressional intent,” said Leah Brown, of Washington’s attorney general’s office. She added that the states aren’t “challenging the ability to revise guidance, but we are arguing that doing so simply is not a sufficient explanation for the actions that they’ve taken.”
The Government Accountability Office has determined the Trump administration was illegally withholding the funding. The White House directed the U.S. Department of Transportation to ignore the watchdog’s “wrong and legally indefensible” ruling.
The transportation department could release a draft of its updated guidance for the charging program this month, according to Politico.
Because this work is ongoing, the Department of Justice argued the states jumped the gun with their lawsuit. Trump administration attorney Heidy Gonzalez said the federal government will eventually approve EV charging funding under the revamped guidelines.
“The agency has no intent to withhold funds from the states,” Gonzalez said. “It just wants the opportunity to review past guidance and to promulgate guidance that comports with the current administration’s policies and priorities.”
U.S. District Court Judge Tana Lin, a Biden appointee, said she was worried the federal government would indefinitely delay new guidance, and in turn postpone funding new chargers. In her questioning, Lin repeatedly sounded skeptical of the Justice Department’s arguments.
In Washington, the money was set to go toward building chargers along Interstate 5 and other highways. It’s one of the biggest chunks of federal funding the Trump administration has tried to claw back. Trump has specifically focused on blocking earmarks for climate efforts, including the “electric vehicle mandate.” Transportation is the biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions in Washington.
Washington is ahead of the curve in EV adoption, with more than 190,000 new registrations in 2024. That was up from 139,000 the previous year. But a lack of reliable public charging remains a major impediment for consumers with “range anxiety,” hampering the states’ efforts to transition away from gas cars.
The state has just half of the fast chargers officials hoped to have by 2025, state Transportation Secretary Julie Meredith wrote in court filings. And the need is only going to rise as more and more drivers switch to electric.
Meredith’s department was accepting grant applications early this year from businesses and nonprofits hoping to get some of the $71 million, but hadn’t awarded any of the money. Other states had spent some of their money.
“We have EV charging stations that are ready to build and we can’t build them,” said Theodore McCombs, of the California Department of Justice, speaking for all the states. “We have contracts with sub-awardees that we want to sign and we can’t sign them. We have solicitations that we want to run, and we can’t run them.”
Lin said she hoped to issue a written ruling within a week.
If Lin’s eventual decision is appealed, the case would go to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
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