Biden’s DEI Policies Zap Electric Vehicle Charging Station Construction

Biden’s DEI Policies Zap Electric Vehicle Charging Station Construction

In 2021, Biden came into office promising the construction of 500,000 electric vehicle charging stations by 2030.

We are less than 6 years away, yet only 7 have been built. The situation is so dire that even Democratic senators are complaining.

Just seven electric-vehicle (EV) charging stations have begun operating with funding from a $5-billion U.S. government program created in 2021, marking “pathetic” progress, a Democratic senator said on Wednesday.

Automakers and others say drastically expanding EV-charging stations is crucial to the wide deployment of electric vehicles, which are part of the Biden Administration’s efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.The seven EV-charging stations deployed to date under a 2021 U.S. program consist of a few dozen total charging ports, said Shailen Bhatt, who heads the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), at a Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) committee hearing.

“That is pathetic. We’re now three years into this … That is a vast administrative failure,” said Senator Jeff Merkley [D-OR]. “Something is terribly wrong and it needs to be fixed.”

What is the reason for the discrepancy between the ambitious goal and the disastrous reality? The Washington Free Beacon obtained internal memos from the Department of Transportation and interviewed those responsible for overseeing the project’s implementation to find out.

It turns out that the administration’s own “Diversity—Equity—Inclusion” initiatives are stalling EV Charging Station construction.

Shortly after taking office, the president signed an executive order mandating that the beneficiaries of 40 percent of all federal climate and environmental programs should come from “underserved communities.” The order also established the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council, which monitors agencies such as the Department of Transportation to ensure the “voices, perspectives, and lived realities of communities with environmental justice concerns are heard in the White House and reflected in federal policies, investments, and decisions.”

In order to qualify for a grant, applicants must “demonstrate how meaningful public involvement, inclusive of disadvantaged communities, will occur throughout a project’s life cycle.” What “public involvement” means is unclear. But the Department of Transportation notes it should involve “intentional outreach to underserved communities.”

That outreach, the Department of Transportation states, can take the form of “games and contests,” “visual preference surveys,” or “neighborhood block parties” so long as the grant recipient provides “multilingual staff or interpreters to interact with community members who use languages other than English.”

“This all just slows down construction,” says Jim Meigs, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute who focuses on federal regulation.

The DEI mandates are also hindering the implementation of the CHIPS and Science Act, a bipartisan measure designed to enhance U.S. semiconductor supply chains and support private-sector investment in domestic research and manufacturing.

“If you look through the notice of funding opportunity, which is the Commerce Department’s requirements in order to get funding, there’s literally the word diversity, equity and inclusion and DEI requirements littered throughout,” said Chris Nicholson, head of research at the firm Strive Asset Management. Strive, which was founded by former presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy, has more than $1 billion in assets.

“Although this money is announced in some sense, it’s not even going to be given,” said Nicholson, who has researched the semiconductor industry. “That’s the key here. It’s not even going to be given unless [funding recipients], step by step, they meet, and they prove they’re meeting all of these DEI requirements.”

…According to [Rep. Jim Banks’ (R-IN)] memo, applicants for CHIPS for America funding must have a plan to employ ex-convicts, expand employment opportunities for people with “limited English proficiency,” hire more women for construction jobs, and produce a plan for contracting “diverse suppliers” that are women- and minority-owned.

In addition, applicants for large grants must guarantee “affordable, accessible, reliable, and high quality” child care for all workers, including all construction workers, allowing CHIPS and Science Act funding to be used for child care center construction.

It would be karmic if the Biden administration were to end because its agenda was thwarted by the race-based rules it embraced.

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