The Trump administration has directed a federal agency to disconnect its electric vehicle charging stations, part of the president’s agenda to roll back progress on EVs and clean energy.
An email shared with Inside Climate News by a federal worker details how the U.S. General Services Administration, which oversees government buildings, purchasing and technology, is shuttering the stations.
“As GSA has worked to align with the current administration, we have received direction that all GSA-owned charging stations are not mission critical,” the email reads.
GSA will take the charging stations out of service as the contracts are canceled. Power to the stations “will be turned off at the breaker. Neither government-owned vehicles nor privately owned vehicles will be able to charge at these stations once they’re out of service.”
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A GSA employee confirmed the veracity of the email and that the chargers would be removed, but declined to elaborate.
The scope of the disconnections is unclear; the email originated from one of GSA’s regional offices. The GSA’s online guide to federal workplace charging is no longer available.
GSA did not provide responses to written questions from Inside Climate News by deadline. The U.S. Department of Energy did not respond to emails and phone calls seeking comment.
The dismantling of the chargers, though, is a significant setback for the program.
One of the GSA’s priorities for the 2024-2025 Fiscal Year was to “address the climate crisis through zero-emission fleet vehicles.” Yet to support widespread EV use, the federal government would need 100,000 charging ports, according to a 2022 Government Accountability Office report.
More than 800 federal buildings, such as those for national laboratories, Veterans Affairs, NASA and military bases, offer electric vehicle chargers, according to a database of alternative fuel stations hosted by the U.S. Department of Energy. One charging station can accommodate several ports; there are more than 3,300 federally managed ports nationwide; some are open to the public, as well as to employees.
GSA and other federal agencies levy fees for employees and the public who use the stations for personal vehicles and that money goes into the U.S. Treasury. There is no fee for government-issued vehicles.
A 2017 study commissioned by the U.S. Department of Energy Vehicle Technologies Office concluded that employees who have access to workplace charging are six times more likely to own an EV than those who lack such access.
Since taking office a month ago, the Trump administration has rescinded former President Joe Biden’s executive orders on climate change mitigation and clean energy, including electric vehicles. Earlier this month, President Trump froze funding for states to build public charging stations, although legal experts say the action is unconstitutional because Congress, not the president, has the authority to appropriate money or defund projects.
Ironically, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who is leading Trump’s government efficiency efforts, owns the country’s largest electric vehicle manufacturer.
Government support for EVs stems from the FAST Act, a bipartisan bill passed in 2015 and signed into law by President Barack Obama. President Joe Biden accelerated the pace of EV adoption and related infrastructure. In December 2021, Biden issued an executive order that required the GSA to purchase only zero-emissions light-duty vehicles by 2027; 100 percent of the federal fleet—more than 450,000 vehicles, not including the U.S. Postal Service—would be electrified by 2035.
In October 2022, GSA and the Department of Veterans Affairs announced the purchase of 140 solar-powered electric vehicle charging stations at 34 VA sites around the country.
Federal agencies under the Biden administration ordered nearly 82,000 zero-emission vehicles and installed 10,500 charging ports at federal facilities nationwide, according to the trade publication Federal News Network. Another 52,500 charging ports were being installed as of last December.
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Lisa Sorg
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Lisa Sorg is the North Carolina reporter for Inside Climate News. A journalist for 30 years, Sorg covers energy, climate environment and agriculture, as well as the social justice impacts of pollution and corporate malfeasance.
She has won dozens of awards for her news, public service and investigative reporting. In 2022, she received the Stokes Award from the National Press Foundation for her two-part story about the environmental damage from a former missile plant on a Black and Latinx neighborhood in Burlington. Sorg was previously an environmental investigative reporter at NC Newsline, a nonprofit media outlet based in Raleigh. She has also worked at alt-weeklies, dailies and magazines. Originally from rural Indiana, she lives in Durham, N.C.
