Democrat Senator Critical of Biden EV Program

It is one thing to get behind a struggling president two years, or even a year from election.

However, now that we are in the main stretch, Democrats are starting to show their real colors to protect their own seats.

To that point, a top Democrat Senator shredded the sluggish rollout of Joe Biden’s EV program that is eating up billions of taxpayer dollars.

What’s Going On

The EV program has been under fire ever since Transportation Secretary Buttigieg announced that only a handful of the funded 500,000 charging ports have been installed.

Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR) hammered Federal Highway Administration Administrator Shailen Bhatt on the sluggish start to the program.

Merkley wanted to address the lack of charging ports available, asking Bhatt exactly how many of the 500,000 ports are in working order roughly two years after the money was approved.

Bhatt responded, “Some of the Bipartisan Infrastructure funds, yes, so six states have deployed… funds.

“I’ll say it’s dozens of ports, so like, under 100.”

After citing other sources that have reported on the subject recently, Merkley answered the question for Bhatt, telling him, “I’ve heard only seven,” then followed that up with, “That is pathetic.”

Merkley concluded, “You can’t really depend on an electric car if there isn’t a charging capability, and the fact that we passed this bill years ago and not one charging station has been built in my state, and only seven, as you put it, seven sites around the country, that is a vast administrative failure.”

Buttigieg blamed this all on the fact that it takes time to put the support infrastructure in place and that we should see significantly more ports online over the next few years.

That would have to be one hell of a pace change considering right now, they are averaging about four ports a year.