President Biden signed the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law in November 2021, allocating $7.5 billion for electric vehicle charging. Of this, $5 billion is dedicated to building a network of chargers along major highways, called the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure program.
During his interview Sunday on CBS's "Face the Nation," Secretary Pete Buttigieg was questioned about having built only a few electric vehicle (EV) charging stations, despite having billions in taxpayer funds for the project.
"The Federal Highway Administration says only seven or eight charging stations have been produced with the $7.5 billion investment that taxpayers made back in 2021," noted Margaret Brennan. "Why isn't that happening more quickly?"
"The President's goal is to have half a million chargers up by the end of this decade," Buttigieg began. "In order to do a charger, it's more than just plunking a small device into the ground; there's utility work. And this is also really a new category of federal investment, but we've been working with each of the 50 states. Every one of them is getting formula dollars to do this work."
As he reiterated the goal of having 500,000 chargers installed by 2030 – which is just a mere six years away – Brennan laughingly reminded him that in three years, only seven or eight have been completed.
She also brought up Donald Trump, who often addresses President Biden's decision to force the automobile industry towards making 56% of car batteries electric and 13% hybrid by 2032, when gas powered is "the vehicle that everybody wants."
"He's not wrong," said Brennan.
David Williams, president of Taxpayers Protection Alliance, says the slow and expensive progress shows that "the government really can't build anything."
"Even after spending billions of dollars only to have a handful of EV chargers shows that the government is inept at building things," he argues. "It also shows that they're more concerned about optics than they are about actually accomplishing their goals."
Williams says the people in the private sector who are building charging stations across the country are doing so at a pretty decent pace, and he believes "this should be left to the private sector."
As far as the government is concerned, he says it has nothing to do with technology or EVs.
"It has everything to do with government incompetence and taxpayers being taken advantage of," Williams contends.
Williams was pleased to see Brennan bring up the issue and push back with facts, and he notes that this interview came just after NBC's Peter Alexander's heated Q&A with White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre about "student loan relief" and the fact that people who chose not to go to college are on the hook for the Biden administration's bailout.
"They're not getting debt relief because they didn't go," Alexander noted before correcting Jean-Pierre's assertion that the indebted are "literally being crushed."
In short, Williams is glad to see questions asked and answers demanded from the government.
"It's about time, because this is a lot of money," he says. "We need the media, we need everyone to push back on politicians when they claim victory."
