Union and equity rules bog down the $5 billion program.
The White House claims that “President Biden’s leadership and record federal investment” have caused a boom in charging stations for electric vehicles. Yet overwrought regulations and lavish handouts to favored groups have turned the EV charger program into another ineffective part of Mr. Biden’s equity and social-services agenda.
In 2021, under the so-called Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, Congress provided $5 billion over five years to fund a national network of EV charging ports. Almost three years later, the program has created 69 ports, fewer than the rest of the EV sector produces every day. There have been widespread complaints about what one Washington Post article calls the program’s “painfully slow rollout.” The delays are due in part to regulations encouraging unionization, as well as the administration’s goal that at least 40% of clean-energy investments benefit “disadvantaged communities,” the areas that need EV chargers the least.
Continue reading the entire piece here at the Wall Street Journal (paywall)
______________________
Judge Glock is the director of research and a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor at City Journal.
Photo by MASTER/Getty Images