Wyoming Nixes Building Biden’s EV Charging Network ‘That Will Likely Fail’

HALFWAY BETWEEN ROCK SPRINGS AND RAWLINS, Wyo. — Here, at a critical node in President Joe Biden’s plan for a national electric vehicle charging network, there is nothing.

No parking lot, no service station, and no sign that anyone wants to set up shop here.

Just some tire tracks in the snow by a barbed wire fence and the whoosh of vehicles speeding by on Interstate 80. [emphasis, links added]

This overwhelming vacancy is why Wyoming kicked up a dispute that could sap Americans’ confidence in a future EV charging network. Offered millions of federal dollars to build chargers at locations like this one, the state said no.

“Wyoming has no desire to establish infrastructure that will likely fail,” the state said in its plan for how to spend EV charging dollars from the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law.

At the heart of the conflict are the federal government’s strict rules over how frequent high-power stations should be along the nation’s interstate highways.

The Biden administration says that to assuage Americans’ doubts, the plugs should be installed every 50 highway miles, no matter how remote the site is.

Wyoming doubts whether EVs will come in sufficient numbers to justify the huge expense of building and maintaining a powerful charging station in the middle of forest or prairie — and it has lots of company among red-leaning Western states.

In comments to the federal government last year, Wyoming was joined by Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota in saying the program would be “hard to implement in rural states” if the Biden administration did “not implement the provisions with flexibility.”

“There are concerns in those big rural states,” said Jim McDonnell, who tracks state plans as director of engineering for the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials. “How much it’s going to cost, and to get electricity out to these far-flung locations.”

It’s hard to make the case for electric vehicles in any rural area because people drive long distances and often pull trailers — two habits that drain an EV’s battery especially fast.

Wyoming stands out because it is just about as unsuited to EVs and EV drivers as it is possible to be.

The state endures bitterly cold winters — another battery killer — and has a proud tradition of saying no to federal priorities it doesn’t care for, like Medicaid expansion.

It harbors suspicion of green technologies as the nation’s leading producer of coal. And with only about 500 people owning EVs in Wyoming, according to federal data, there aren’t many drivers pleading for charging stations.

And Wyoming’s elected officials are some of the most stalwart EV opponents in Washington, D.C.

…

That said, Wyoming’s response was more interesting than a simple no.

The Cowboy State didn’t reject the federal money, exactly. It said it would build some stations on interstates but not others, and went on to make its own creative suggestion.

It asked the feds to instead fund chargers on the smaller highways that serve its tourist jewels, like Yellowstone National Park and Grand Teton National Park — routes that don’t fit into a formula but see a lot more Tesla traffic than the interstates do.

The approach is supported by another arm of Biden’s government, the National Park Service.

In the end, the authorities in charge of the charging dollars said no. And so the perennial struggle between states and the federal government over the limits of federal power entered the EV era.

Top image via Google Maps’ screencap

Read rest at E&E News