A coalition of 17 attorneys general and one state sued the Trump administration Tuesday to restore federal funding for electric vehicle chargers. The lawsuit contends the Department of Transportation has stopped approving new funding for two EV charging infrastructure programs created through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act enacted during the Biden administration.
“This isn’t about party politics," California Attorney General Rob Bonta said during a news conference announcing the lawsuit — the state’s 50th against the Trump administration in 2025. "It’s about the future of our country, our economy and our planet.
“Trump is putting the brakes on projects that would reduce planet-warming pollution and smog, expand access to clean vehicles and create thousands of green jobs," he said. "And in doing so, he’s running over the co-equal branch of Congress that holds the purse strings in this country and under the Constitution.”
At issue are two federal programs run by the U.S. Department of Transportation: the Charging and Fueling Infrastructure Program that provides grants to build a national EV charging network and the Electric Vehicle Charger Reliability and Accessibility Accelerator Program that helps repair, replace and improve broken or non-functioning public chargers. Together the programs provide about $3 billion in funding nationwide, Bonta said.
In their lawsuit, the coalition of Democratic-led states contends the Department of Transportation has “quietly refused to approve” any new project funding under the programs since the spring of 2025, causing states to suspend charging station projects that were already in the works and to delay further building.
The Department of Transportation did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the lawsuit.
The attorneys general for California, Colorado and Washington led the case that also includes the attorneys general of Arizona, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Wisconsin as well as the state of Pennsylvania.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, the California Department of Transportation and the California Energy Commission are also plaintiffs in the lawsuit filed Tuesday in a U.S. district court in Washington state.
Tuesday’s complaint is the second the attorneys general coalition has filed against the Trump administration over EV charger funding. In May, they filed a complaint against the DOT for withholding $5 billion from states that was intended to create a U.S. network of EV charging stations through the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Formula Program.
That lawsuit stemmed from a DOT action in February that announced it would end the program to comply with an executive order President Donald Trump signed on his first day in office to unleash American energy and eliminate the Biden administration’s so-called EV mandate, including subsidies that favor EVs over other technologies.
“Whether you do it expressly directly or implicitly indirectly, you can’t withhold mandated funds,” Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser said at Tuesday’s news conference. “That is the basis of this lawsuit.”
In June, the federal judge in the NEVI case issued a preliminary injunction that declared the Trump administration’s freezing of the funds unlawful and unconstitutional and restored about $1 billion for the states that had sued.
Like the earlier EV charger case, Tuesday’s lawsuit alleges the Trump administration’s refusal to spend congressionally allocated funds for EV infrastructure is unlawful because it violates the separation of powers. The states are asking the court to permanently stop the Trump administration from withholding the money.
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