Trump’s attack on EVs is just theater — so far

As President Donald Trump’s first week in office comes to a close, his biggest accomplishments are things many of us anticipated: chaos and confusion.

Some of the many executive orders the president has signed do threaten democracy and others endanger the planet. But others simply endorse hypothetical policies with more spectacle than is necessary, like printing out tweets on paper, signing them with a black Sharpie, and holding them up for the world to see.

The challenge there, of course, is that only legal scholars know at first glance which of Trump’s executive orders will affect policy — and which will get stuck in court for years to come. Nevertheless, the pieces of paper scare and confuse people. And that confusion will hang around, holding up actual progress for a meaningful amount of time. Trump’s first assault on the fictional electric vehicle “mandate” serves as a perfect example of this strategy.

Hours after taking the oath of office, Trump signed an executive order with the cinematic title “Unleashing American Energy.” In it, he outlines several new policies to, as the title implies, “unleash America’s affordable and reliable energy and natural resources.” This is code for: Promote fossil fuel and hobble the renewable energy transition.

While Trump targeted EVs in several questionable ways during his first week, let’s focus on one specific thing in this executive order: Section 7, which is titled “Terminate the Green New Deal.” This section goes after programs that support building out the country’s EV charging infrastructure. It specifically targets the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) Formula Program and the Charging and Fueling Infrastructure (CFI) Grant Program, which came out of one of former President Joe Biden’s signature achievements, the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. Together, the two programs allocate $7.5 billion to build out the US charging infrastructure. Trump wants to halt the disbursement of unspent funds from those programs.

Trump said he was going to do this on the campaign trail. He falsely claimed that trillions of dollars were unspent, and that his administration would “redirect that money for important projects like roads, bridges, dams and we will not allow it to be spent on meaningless Green New Scam ideas.” So it was ironic when, after Trump issued the executive order taking aim at US infrastructure, the Federal Highway Administration, which builds roads and bridges, halted payments and stopped approving new projects out of an abundance of caution.

The Trump administration, to its credit, issued a memorandum a day later, clarifying that the executive order only applied to “funds supporting the ‘Green New Deal.’” The Green New Deal is not the same thing as the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. In fact, while it’s a popular concept, the Green New Deal is not real — it’s not a law at all. Terminating this concept is part of the latest party platform of the GOP, which refers to it as the “Socialist Green New Deal.”

Since Trump promised to freeze this EV charging infrastructure funding on the trail, legal experts have explained that he can’t actually shut down these programs. Doing so would likely violate the Impoundment Control Act of 1974, which prevents US presidents from blocking spending that has been appropriated by Congress. President Trump has also promised to repeal that law and give power to his executive branch. But he would need Congress to do that.

Trump will also need Congress to shut down the programs providing funding for EV charging infrastructure. Meanwhile, 22 out of the 25 congressional districts receiving federal funding for EV manufacturing are represented by Republicans. So any real assault on the industry might face resistance on Capitol Hill, where Republicans have narrow majorities in both the House and the Senate.

“These programs are legally entrenched, widely supported, and designed to withstand political turbulence,” said Kathy Harris, director of clean vehicles, climate, and energy at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “The rhetoric is designed to grab headlines, but the reality is more complicated.”

It’s theater, and it’s nothing new for Trump.

That said, the fact that Trump decided to attack EVs as one of his first acts in office deserves some concern. He’s effectively setting the tone for his presidency, and that tone is decidedly hostile toward the environment.

In addition to freezing funding for EV charging infrastructure, Trump rescinded an executive order from President Biden that called for half of all new vehicles sold to be electric by 2030. Trump also plans to roll back EPA rules issued last year that implement stricter tailpipe emissions standards in an effort to fight climate change. Trump also wants to end EV subsidies and incentives, including the $7,500 tax credit for people who buy new EVs. His executive orders, so far, do none of these things.

The auto industry, to its credit, does not seem too fazed by any of this.

While some companies have rolled back certain plans ahead of Trump’s victory — Ford notably canceled a three-row electric SUV last August — there’s little doubt that when it comes to transportation, the future will be electrified. It would be foolish to bet on fossil fuels at this point. In Harris’s words, “the American auto industry is not in a bubble, and the global auto industry is moving towards these cleaner vehicles.”

Trump is leaving himself a pretty big opening here. By leading with a ban on EV chargers, he’s not taking direct aim at the American auto industry. It almost seems like this executive order is the applause line, and he’s waiting to gauge the audience’s reaction before axing programs, like tax credits, that directly impact carmakers and buyers. And while he’s holding up that order, the signed tweet so to speak, Trump leaves the real stakeholders twisting their caps in their hands, wondering once again if he can really do that.

It will take months, if not years, to find clarity here.