U.S. President Donald Trump attends a ceremony to award the Mexican Border Defense Medal in the Oval Office of the White House on December 15, 2025, in Washington, DC.
Anna Moneymaker | Getty Images
Sixteen states and the District of Columbia are suing the Trump administration, alleging that more than $2 billion in funding for two electric vehicle charging programs was illegally withheld.
A federal lawsuit filed Tuesday in Seattle is the latest legal battle by Democratic-led states over funding for EV charging infrastructure mandated by Congress under former President Joe Biden, which they say is being “seized” by the Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration.
“The Trump Administration’s illegal attempt to defund electric vehicle infrastructure must end,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta said in a release. “This is just another reckless attempt to stall the fight against air pollution and climate change, slow innovation, hinder green job creation, and leave communities without access to clean, affordable transportation.”
President Donald Trump’s administration has been hostile to EVs, rescinding some Biden-era policies that favored clean cars and trucks in favor of policies more in line with Trump’s oil and gas industry policies.
Department of Transportation officials did not respond to requests for comment.
In February, the Trump administration ordered states to stop spending on EV charging earmarked under a bipartisan infrastructure law passed under the previous administration.
A drone photograph of an electric vehicle charging location in Carlsbad, California, USA, on May 14, 2025.
Mike Blake | Reuters
Several states filed suit against the administration in May, alleging that funding was withheld from the $5 billion National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Program to build charging infrastructure nationwide. A federal judge subsequently ordered the government to waive most of the charger funding in more than a dozen states.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy later issued revised guidance aimed at streamlining state funding applications and making charger deployment more efficient. At least four states (Georgia, Illinois, Maryland and Wisconsin) have announced awards based on auto infrastructure programs, said Lauren McDonald, chief analyst at Chargeonomics, an EV data company that tracks state awards.
A separate lawsuit filed Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington deals with withholding funding for two other programs. $1.8 billion for the Charging and Refueling Infrastructure Grant Program and approximately $350 million for the Electric Vehicle Charger Reliability and Accessibility Accelerator Program.
The lawsuit is led by the attorneys general of California and Colorado, and is joined by the attorneys general of Arizona, Delaware, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin, the District of Columbia, and the governor of Pennsylvania. All are Democrats.
After returning to office in January, President Trump immediately ordered an end to what he called Biden’s “EV mandate.” Mr. Biden aims to have half of all new U.S. car sales made up of electric vehicles by 2030, but his policies did not force American consumers to buy or automakers to sell them.
The auto industry needed to meet both requirements as the number of EVs in its sales mix increased, so Mr. Biden set strict tailpipe emissions and fuel efficiency regulations to encourage EV adoption. Under the Biden administration, consumers would also receive a tax break of up to $7,500 off the purchase price of an EV, but Congressional Republicans ended that program last fall.
The Trump administration is proposing to roll back both exhaust emissions and fuel efficiency standards and eliminate fines for automakers that don’t meet those standards.
President Trump has also repeated misinformation about the status of federal billing programs. If not all funds are available, only a portion of the funds previously obligated have been spent.
“We had to introduce electric vehicles in a very short period of time, even though we didn’t have a way to charge them and a lot of other things,” President Trump said at a Dec. 3 press conference regarding the proposed relaxation of fuel efficiency regulations. “In one particular region of the Midwest, we spent $8 billion to build nine chargers. So it didn’t work out very well.”
The lawsuit comes amid these regulatory changes and as the pace of EV sales in the U.S. slows as mainstream buyers remain concerned about both charging availability and vehicle price.
According to car buying information site Kelley Blue Book, the average price of a new EV last month was $58,638, and the price of all new cars was $49,814.
Meanwhile, automakers are responding accordingly to consumers.
Earlier this week, Ford Motor Co. announced it was pivoting from its once-ambitious multibillion-dollar electrification strategy and instead introducing hybrid electric vehicles and more fuel-efficient gas-powered vehicles.
Honda also announced this spring that it would take a major step back from its EV efforts.
