A federal judge in Washington State blocked President Donald Trump's ability to rewrite one of former President Joe Biden's signature policies on Friday.
U.S. District Judge Tana Lin, a Biden appointee, ruled that Trump violated the law when he changed the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) program, which awards grants to states to develop a nationwide network of vehicle chargers. According to the judge, the administration disregarded the Administrative Procedure Act, which says regulatory changes must follow an orderly and transparent public process.
The lawsuit had been brought by a group of Democratic state officials, with support from the environmental group the Sierra Club. The Trump administration lifted an outright freeze on NEVI grants last August in response to another court ruling, but adopted new guidelines for how to distribute them.
"Defendants did not follow the law when they rescinded the program," wrote Lin. "As a result, Plaintiff States have dedicated substantial time, resources, and work that must now be scrapped, duplicated, or re-conceived. For their part, members of the Plaintiff-Intervenor organizations, who had expected to enjoy economic, quality-of-life, and environmental benefits from the implementation of the NEVI Formula Program, have now seen those expectations significantly dampened."
"Such capriciousness runs counter to the Administrative Procedure Act; it is simply not how things are lawfully done," the judge added.
This follows a series of other rulings against Trump's efforts to roll back pro-environmental policy, including the shutdown of a number of offshore wind farm projects the administration has claimed, without any proof, are a risk to national security.
Even before Trump took office, NEVI was one of the more fraught and controversial programs under the Biden administration, as the buildout of the chargers was much slower than initially promised by the Biden administration.