The Trump administration has declared that it is rescinding guidance for a $5 billion program that funds EV-charging installations nationwide, potentially halting states’ plans to put billions of obligated but as-yet unspent dollars to work. It’s the new administration’s latest attack on federal climate and clean energy programs authorized by Congress during the Biden administration, and like the others, it’s almost certain to be challenged in court, experts say.

The unexpected news came in a Thursday memo from the Federal Highway Administration, or FHWA, to state transportation departments responsible for managing the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Formula Program. NEVI was created by the bipartisan infrastructure law passed by Congress in 2021 to establish reliable charging along major highways across the country. The program is structured to guarantee states access to funds under federally approved plans through fiscal year 2026.

The memo states that FHWA is ​“immediately suspending the approval” of these state plans pending a U.S. Department of Transportation review. States’ ​“reimbursement of existing obligations will be allowed in order to not disrupt current financial commitments,” the memo notes. But ​“no new obligations may occur” until new guidance is developed and states submit and receive approval for their updated plans — a process that could last through the rest of this year.

The memo’s instructions conflict with longstanding practice of guaranteeing states access to federal highway spending as well as with the structure of the NEVI program set by Congress in the infrastructure law.

“Freezing these EV charging funds is yet another one of the Trump administration’s unsound and illegal moves,” Katherine García, director of the Sierra Club’s Clean Transportation For All campaign, said in a Friday statement. ​“This is an attack on bipartisan funding that Congress approved years ago and is driving investment and innovation in every state, with Texas as the largest beneficiary.” The Lone Star State is slated to receive nearly $408 million from the program.

Of the $5 billion authorized by NEVI, $3.27 billion has been obligated to all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico, according to EV-charging data firm Paren. Of that, roughly $615 million is under contract for constructing almost 1,000 charging sites, Loren McDonald, Paren’s chief analyst, said in a webinar last month.

In a Thursday email, McDonald highlighted that ​“companies that are under contract with a state and have incurred expenses will get reimbursed.” At the same time, ​“the experts in Washington, D.C., that we have spoken to in the last few months believe that changes in NEVI like this would require a change in the law from Congress.”

“Our understanding is that FHWA does not have the authority to actually halt or revise the NEVI program this extensively, but will move forward, creating havoc for several months until lawsuits, the courts, and Congress resolve it,” he wrote.

Under the Biden administration, funding for the NEVI formula program was allocated through fiscal year 2026, and FHWA had approved states’ annual spending plans through fiscal year 2025, Kelsey Blongewicz, a policy analyst at the research firm Atlas Public Policy, told Canary Media last month.

That funding is ​“tied to approved state plans and contracts that makes it nearly impossible to reverse or stop,” Beth Hammon, senior EV infrastructure advocate at the Natural Resources Defense Council, wrote in a blog post last month.

Still, FHWA’s new instructions ​“create great uncertainty for the billions of dollars states and private companies are investing in the urgently needed infrastructure to support America’s highway transportation network,” Ryan Gallentine, managing director at Advanced Energy United, said in a Thursday statement. The trade group represents EV manufacturers, charging infrastructure developers, and other companies involved in NEVI-funded projects.

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“States are under no obligation to stop these projects based solely on this announcement,” he wrote. ​“We call on state DOTs and program administrators to continue executing this program until new guidance is finalized.”

President Donald Trump attacked EVs and the NEVI program on the campaign trail. His administration issued an executive order within hours of his inauguration demanding a halt to all Biden-era climate and clean energy spending and singled out the NEVI program for scrutiny.

Federal agencies have since halted the flow of tens of billions of dollars of federal climate and clean energy funding, drawing outrage from state agencies, nonprofit groups, and companies that have been unable to recover money already spent on projects and programs. Two federal judges have responded to lawsuits challenging the freeze by issuing court orders demanding a halt to them, but a multitude of programs remain inaccessible, according to reports from grant recipients.

Confusion over the NEVI program’s future comes at a moment when significant investments are starting to flow from states to EV-charging manufacturers and charging-network providers — including Tesla — after years of bureaucratic and administrative delays. Federal data as of November tracked 126 operational public charging ports at 31 sites built using NEVI funding.

The Biden administration hoped to spur the buildout of 500,000 public charging stations by 2030, up from about 206,000 today. The NEVI program wasn’t intended to build all those chargers itself but to help install them in places where the economics of providing EV charging aren’t yet supported by the number of EVs on the road, McDonald said.

“In many states, the NEVI program helped jumpstart investment in high-speed EV charging stations, getting high-speed chargers at the gas stations and truck stops where millions of drivers already stop every year,” Ryan McKinnon, spokesperson for Charge Ahead Partnership, a trade group representing fueling-station owners and convenience store chains that make up the majority of NEVI charging sites, said in a Friday statement. ​“Other states dragged their feet.”

According to McDonald, since NEVI was singled out by the Trump administration, six states have indefinitely discontinued work on it, including Ohio, the Republican-led state that installed the program’s first live chargers in 2023.

UPDATE: In a Friday email, an FHWA spokesperson stated the agency is ​“utilizing the unique authority afforded under the NEVI Formula Program to ensure the program operates efficiently and effectively and aligns with current U.S. DOT policies and priorities.”