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      Trump administration to drop case against plant polluting Louisiana’s ‘Cancer Alley’

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      The Donald Trump administration has formally agreed to drop a landmark environmental justice case in Louisiana’s “Cancer Alley” region, marking a blow to clean air advocates in the region and a win for the Japanese petrochemical giant at the centre of the litigation.Legal filings made public on Friday morning reveal that Trump’s Department of Justice agreed to dismiss a long-running lawsuit against the operators of a synthetic rubber plant in Reserve, Louisiana, which is allegedly largely responsible for some of the highest cancer risk rates in the US for the surrounding majority-Black neighborhoods.The litigation was filed under the Biden administration in February 2023 in a bid to substantially curb the plant’s emissions of a pollutant named chloroprene, a likely human carcinogen. It had targeted both the current operator, the Japanese firm Denka, and its previous owner, the American chemical giant DuPont, and formed a central piece of the former administration’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) efforts to address environmental justice issues in disadvantaged communities. A trial had been due to start in April 2025 following lengthy delays.Community leaders in Reserve had expressed grave concerns about the case’s future following Trump’s return to the White House after the president moved to gut offices within the EPA and justice department responsible for civil rights and environmental justice.On Friday, 84-year-old Robert Taylor, a resident in Reserve who has lost a number of family members to cancer, described the move as “terrible” for his community.“It’s obvious that the Trump administration doesn’t care anything for the poor Black folk in Cancer Alley,” Taylor said. “[Trump’s] administration has taken away what protections we had, what little hope we had.”Filings show that parties involved in the litigation, including lawyers for Denka and DuPont, met on Wednesday and agreed jointly with the US justice department to dismiss the case.The EPA referred all questions about the lawsuit to the US justice department, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment.DuPont did not immediately respond to a request for comment.A spokesperson for Denka did not respond to questions from the Guardian but issued a statement thanking the Trump administration and lauding Louisiana’s Republican governor, Jeff Landry, for his “unwavering support”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe chemical firm pointed to a $35m investment in emissions offsets and said “the facility’s emissions are at an historical low”. The company “remains committed to implementing the emissions reductions achieved as we turn the page from this relentless and draining attack on our business”, the statement added.According to the complaint filed in 2023, emissions from the plant pose “an imminent and substantial endangerment to public health and welfare”. The lawsuit had specifically singled out the risk to children living near the plant and those attending an elementary school situated close to the plant’s fence line. It noted that average readings at an air monitor near the school between April 2018 to January 2023 showed that those under 16 could surpass the EPA’s excess cancer risk rate within two years of their life.On Friday, Taylor vowed to continue pushing back against pollution.“We are going to fight them and prepare ourselves to keep going. We were preparing for the worst, and I don’t know how it could get any worse now that the government has totally abandoned us, it seems.” More

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      DoJ investigation into cases against Trump marked by vested interests

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      Donald Trump’s investigation into the criminal cases brought against him during the Biden administration, including the special counsel prosecutions, will be overseen by a group of justice department officials who all have vested interests that could undercut even legitimate findings of misconduct by prosecutors.The new attorney general, Pam Bondi, has taken steps in recent weeks to create the “weaponization working group” to carry out Trump’s day one executive order directing the department to review possible abuses of the criminal justice system over the past four years.Bondi’s group, according to her memo laying out its structure, will be composed of the attorney general’s office, the deputy attorney general’s office, the office of legal policy, the civil rights division and the US attorney’s office for the District of Columbia as it examines cases that angered Trump.The investigation is already politically charged because the group is tasked with sending reports to Trump’s deputy chief of staff for policy, Stephen Miller, an arrangement that deputizes the justice department to the White House in an unusual way.But the involvement in various adversarial litigation against the Biden administration by the lawyers leading the five offices conducting the investigation – notably into former special counsel Jack Smith’s team that indicted Trump – give rise to a tangle of possible conflicts.The problem with conflicts is that they could undercut any conclusions finding impropriety even if they are colorable claims, such as the allegation that a top prosecutor once tried to strong-arm a defense lawyer into making his client give evidence to incriminate Trump.And for all of the discussion by Trump’s allies that there should be some civil or criminal proceedings against members of the previous administration, an actual or perceived conflict of interest, could risk a judge dismissing any attempt to pursue claims in court.The justice department did not respond to a request for comment.The possible conflicts are varied: some of the justice department officials were defense lawyers in the very cases they will now be investigating, while others signed onto positions defending Trump in civil and criminal matters.Bondi and Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general nominee, pledged to consult about any potential conflicts with career attorneys. But some of those career attorneys were recently fired – and replaced in at least one instance by a lawyer who worked for Blanche when he defended Trump.Bondi’s possible conflict arises with the special counsel prosecutions, after she signed on to an amicus brief that supported Trump and urged the federal judge in Florida who oversaw the classified documents case to dismiss the charges because Smith was illegally appointed.The deputy attorney general’s office will soon to be led by Blanche and his principal deputy Emil Bove, who were the lead defense lawyers for Trump in the special counsel prosecutions as well as the New York criminal trial – meaning they faced off directly with the Biden justice department.The head of the justice department’s office of legal policy, Aaron Reitz, was formerly in Texas attorney general Ken Paxton’s office, which joined a lawsuit against the Biden administration over its controversial initiative to address violence and threats against school administrators.The head of the justice department’s civil rights division, Harmeet Dhillon, was most recently the principal at the Dhillon Law Group, which Trump and the Republican National Committee retained as counsel in various civil litigation matters.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionAnd, if confirmed to the role, the acting US attorney in Washington, Ed Martin, would be investigating the very prosecutors and the FBI agents he personally faced off with as a defense lawyer for multiple people charged in connection with the January 6 riot at the US Capitol.Martin has separately come under scrutiny because, after he became the acting US attorney, he dismissed a case against one of his ex-January 6 rioter clients before he had formally withdrawn from the representation.He later explained to the presiding US district judge that it was an oversight and he had simply forgotten to remove his name as the “counsel of record” when that client decided to appeal the case and retained a new lawyer.But it remains unclear whether Martin has actually withdrawn himself as the defense lawyer after the court notified him that he was not permitted to file a removal request because his membership with the DC bar – partly the jurisdiction he oversees as acting US attorney – had lapsed.The overlapping vested interests also extend past the justice department to the White House itself, the final destination for the weaponization group’s findings, according to the executive order Trump signed on his first day back in office.Miller, the deputy chief of staff for policy orchestrating the immigration crackdown, will receive the final report. Coincidentally, one of Miller’s lawyers during the investigations into Trump was John Rowley – who was also part of the Trump legal team.Also on the wider Trump legal team was Stanley Woodward, now serving as a top lawyer in the White House chief of staff’s office.Woodward was the lawyer pulled into a contentious meeting in 2022 convened by Jay Bratt, a senior prosecutor on the special counsel team who allegedly suggested Woodward’s application to be a DC superior court judge would be derailed if he did not convince his client, Trump bodyman Walt Nauta, to testify against Trump. More

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      Top US prosecutor quits over pressure to investigate Biden climate spending

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      A top federal prosecutor has quit after refusing to launch what she called a politically driven investigation into Biden-era climate spending, exposing deepening rifts in the US’s premier law enforcement agency.Denise Cheung, head of criminal prosecutions in Washington, resigned on Tuesday after Trump appointees demanded she open a grand jury investigation into Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) grants based largely on an undercover video, multiple people familiar with the matter told CNN.The directive came from the acting deputy attorney general Emil Bove through Ed Martin, Trump’s nominee for Washington DC US attorney. Officials wanted Cheung to investigate EPA contracts awarded during Biden’s tenure and freeze related funding, CNN reported.In her resignation letter, Cheung wrote to Martin that she and other prosecutors had determined there was insufficient evidence to warrant grand jury subpoenas, even if senior officials cited the Project Veritas video as justification.“When I explained that the quantum of evidence did not support that action, you stated that you believed that there was sufficient evidence,” Cheung wrote to Martin. “You also accused me about wasting five hours of the day ‘doing nothing’ except trying to get what the FBI and I wanted, but not what you wanted.”The dispute stems from the EPA administrator, Lee Zeldin’s claim last week about $20bn in climate law funding being held in a Citibank account.The resignation adds to broader upheaval within the justice department, where prosecutors considered unaligned with current leadership have faced termination, particularly those involved in January 6 investigations. More

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      Cruelty and staggering financial costs: why expanding Guantánamo is a grave mistake | Karen J Greenberg and Mike Lehnert

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      Nine days into the country’s 47th presidency, Donald Trump issued an executive memorandum that contained his latest mass deportation plan. The three-paragraph, 148-word order called for a migrant facility located at the US Naval Base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, to be expanded “to full capacity”. The US president later said the camp would house 30,000 migrants.Troop deployments quickly followed and on 4 February, the first planes carrying a few dozen migrants arrived at Guantánamo, with officials sending more each day.If the past is any guide, rather than accelerating Trump’s drive for unprecedented mass deportations, the Guantánamo migrant detention plan is destined to repeat the cruelty, confusion, protracted legal battles and staggering financial costs that have defined US detentions at Guantánamo since the September 11 attacks.Today we know Guantánamo mainly as the detention facility that held a total of 780 war on terror detainees over the past 23 years. The cruelty of Guantánamo has been exhaustively documented, notably in the 2023 UN special rapporteur’s report on the detention facility which described “the depth, severity, and evident nature of many detainees’ current physical and psychological harms”, both those still in Guantánamo and those who had been released as constituting human rights violations.Instead of acting as an effective deterrent, Guantánamo has become a worldwide symbol of US hypocrisy.View image in fullscreenThe US has also found it impossible to bring to trial those who are charged with conspiring in the attacks of September 11. In sum, once detention in Gitmo was set up, it has seemed doomed to perpetual limbo, all too easy to fill up and nearly impossible to empty.And the prison complex, which currently holds 15 prisoners, has served taxpayers poorly as well. It now operates at an astounding estimated cost of $44m – per prisoner per year – up from $13m in 2019 when the prison held 40 detainees. Every ounce of water used on the base must be created by a single desalinization plant. Food, construction material and all other supplies must be brought in by barge. Troops for security and logistics support must be deployed. Medical personnel as well.The war on terror’s prison is not the only warning sign from the past. For decades before September 11, Guantánamo served as a warehouse for migrants, a zone where laws were conveniently pushed aside, and legal resolution remained elusive.Originally established as a coaling station in 1903, the island military base took on a new role in the 1990s when Cubans, and then Haitians fleeing the overthrow of the democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, were apprehended at sea while seeking asylum in the United States.Culminating in Operation Sea Signal, 50,000 migrants were detained over time, with 24,000 in place at the peak, housed in vast expanses of tent cities where conditions were dangerously unsanitary, legal processes slow to nonexistent, and treatment of the migrants reportedly harsh. Despite the Clinton administration’s promises of processing their cases for asylum, most of the Haitians were summarily returned to Haiti. Cubans as well often remained in legal limbo in one “sad camp” or another.Since then, the Migrant Operations Center (MOC) has continued to serve as a holding facility for migrants apprehended at sea. In 2020-2021, the MOC held an average of 14 detainees at a time. By 2024, 37 migrants were housed there, reportedly living in legal limbo, under unsanitary conditions and reported mistreatment and abuse.View image in fullscreenThe sense of deja vu is unsettling. Tom Homan has referred to those who will be sent to Guantánamo as “the worst of the worst”, the same words used by the secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld, when he first set up the post-9/11 prison camp. Tellingly, the first troops sent last week to facilitate the new operations were marines from Camp LeJeune, just as they had been after September 11. And the essential policy parallel holds as well: an administration has given up trying to tackle complex policy problems and has instead embraced viral images of shackled prisoners and tough-talking soundbites that energize its political base.Guantánamo makes a mockery of our claim that we are a nation of laws, prudence and common sense. It has become a global symbol of the US inability to address complex challenges, in this case the unprecedented level of mass migration under way worldwide, with an eye towards a realistic, long-term solution. Nor is there a compelling argument that the threat of detention at Guantánamo will deter those seeking asylum from fears of persecution in their home countries and are willing to risk the dangers of the migration routes.In a 1996 after-action manual based on interviews with military personnel who had served at Guantánamo during the detention operation of the 1990s, the authors made a series of recommendations. The manual highlighted the need to clarify the “legal basis for the operation” and “for understanding the nature and scope of the mission at the outset”.Such clarity, Gen Joseph Hoar, the head of USCentcom at the time wrote, was “paramount”.The general’s warning was ignored after September 11. It is absent today as well in the rapid, indiscriminate, legally vague and underprepared operation currently under way.It’s time to finally take a lesson from the past. The throughline of Guantánamo represents one thing and one thing only: it exists outside the law. It is ineffective, exorbitantly expensive, and will not solve complex, insufficiently addressed policy messes. Using it to tackle migration will lead predictably not to solving a problem but to creating new ones.

      Karen J Greenberg is the director of the Center on National Security at Fordham Law and author of The Least Worst Place: Guantanamo’s First 100 Days

      Mike Lehnert (MajGen USMC ret) served as the joint task group commander of the Cuban and Haitian migrant camps during Operation Sea Signal (1995) and the first joint task force commander of JTF GITMO (2002) More

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      Trump names oil and gas advocate to lead agency that manages federal lands

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      Donald Trump has nominated a longtime oil and gas industry representative to oversee an agency that manages a quarter-billion acres of public land concentrated in western states.Kathleen Sgamma, president of the Colorado-based oil industry trade group Western Energy Alliance, was named Bureau of Land Management director, a position with wide influence over lands used for energy production, grazing, recreation and other purposes. An MIT graduate, Sgamma has been a leading voice for the fossil fuel industry, calling for fewer drilling restrictions on public lands that produce about 10% of US oil and gas.If confirmed by the Senate, she would be a key architect of Trump’s “drill, baby, drill” agenda alongside the interior secretary Doug Burgum, who leads the newly formed National Energy Council that Trump says will establish US “energy dominance” around the world. Trump has vowed to boost US oil and gas drilling and move away from Joe Biden’s focus on the climate crisis.The former interior secretary David Bernhardt relocated the land bureau’s headquarters to Colorado during Trump’s first term, leading to a spike in employee resignations. The bureau went four years under Trump without a confirmed director.The headquarters for the 10,000-person agency was moved back to Washington DC under Biden, who installed the Montana conservationist Tracy Stone-Manning at the bureau to lead his administration’s efforts to curb oil and gas production in the name of fighting the climate crisis.Sgamma will be charged with reversing those policies, by putting into effect a series of orders issued last week by Burgum as part of Trump’s plan to sharply expand fossil fuel production.Burgum ordered reviews of many of Stone-Manning’s signature efforts, including fewer oil and gas lease sales, an end to coal leasing in the country’s biggest coal fields, a greater emphasis on conservation and drilling and renewable energy restrictions meant to protect a wide-ranging western bird, the greater sage grouse. Burgum also ordered federal officials to review and consider redrawing the boundaries of national monuments that were created under Biden and other presidents to protect unique landscapes and cultural resources.Sgamma said on social media she was honored to be nominated.She said she greatly respects the agency’s work to balance multiple uses for public lands – including energy, recreation, grazing and mining — with stewardship of the land. “I look forward to leading an agency that is key to the agenda of unleashing American energy while protecting the environment,” she wrote on LinkedIn.But environmentalists warned that Sgamma would elevate corporate interests over protections for public land. “Kathleen Sgamma would be an unmitigated disaster for our public lands,” said Taylor McKinnon at the Center for Biological Diversity, adding that Sgamma has “breathtaking disdain for environmental laws, endangered species, recreation, or anything other than industry profit”.The Wyoming governor, Mark Gordon, said Sgamma’s nomination was an “excellent choice”.“I know she is well-qualified and knowledgeable when it comes to Wyoming, the West, and multiple use of public lands,” Gordon, a Republican, said in a statement.Trump nominated Brian Nesvik to lead the US Fish and Wildlife Service, which also is under the interior department and helps recover imperiled species and protect their habitat.Nesvik until last year led the Wyoming game and fish department, where he pushed to remove federal protections for grizzly bears. That would open the door to public hunting for the first time in decades after the animals bounced back from near-extinction last century in the northern US Rocky Mountains.The Biden administration in its last days extended protections for more than 2,000 grizzly bears in and around Yellowstone and Glacier national parks, a move that was blasted by Republican officials in Wyoming, Idaho and Montana. More

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      Trump announces 25% tariffs on foreign steel and aluminum

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      Donald Trump announced 25% tariffs on foreign steel and aluminum on Monday, ramping up his controversial bid to boost the US economy by hiking taxes on imports from overseas.The modified US duties will be enforced “without exceptions or exemptions”, the president declared, dashing the hopes of countries that hoped to avoid them.Trump first imposed steep tariffs on foreign steel and aluminum during his first presidency. The action announced on Monday night ends exemptions granted to certain countries, and increases the duty rate on aluminum.The changes are not due to come into effect until 4 March, however, according to a White House official – raising the prospect of the Trump administration brokering deals with governments seeking reprieve.Countries including Australia have already been making their case and Trump later said he would give “great consideration” to Australia’s request for an exemption to the steel tariffs due to that country’s trade deficit with the US.Trump first trailed his latest tariff actions on Sunday, adding that he would also announce a further set of reciprocal tariffs later in the week, drawing warnings of retaliation from trade partners.“The steel and aluminum tariffs 2.0 will put an end to foreign dumping, boost domestic production and secure our steel and aluminum industries as the backbone and pillar industries of America’s economic and national security,” Peter Navarro, Trump’s top trade adviser, told reporters.“This isn’t just about trade. It’s about ensuring that America never has to rely on foreign nations for critical industries like steel and aluminum.”Trump will also impose a new North American standard requiring steel imports to be “melted and poured” and aluminum to be “smelted and cast” within the region to curb US imports of minimally processed Chinese and Russian metals that circumvent other tariffs.Trump and his allies, who repeatedly claimed that tariffs could “Make America great again” when fighting to regain the White House, believe that higher taxes on imported steel and aluminum will help shore up US industrial heartlands.The US president said he would announce plans to impose reciprocal tariffs on other countries over the next two days. He signed two proclamations as he spoke to reporters in the Oval Office: one ending waivers granted by Joe Biden to steel and aluminum tariffs instituted during his first term, and the other raising duties on both metals to 25%.He also raised the prospect of future US tariffs on cars, semiconductor chips and pharmaceuticals from markets across the world.Asked about the possibility of other countries retaliating against US tariffs, Trump said: “I don’t mind.”Canada’s industry minister said the US tariffs were “totally unjustified”, with Canadian steel and aluminum supporting key US industries including defense, shipbuilding, energy and autos.“This is making North America more competitive and secure,” Francois-Philippe Champagne said in a statement. “We are consulting with our international partners as we examine the details. Our response will be clear and calibrated.”The European Commission said it saw no justification for the tariffs and said President Ursula von der Leyen would meet US vice-president JD Vance in Paris on Tuesday during an AI summit.In South Korea, the industry ministry called in steelmakers to discuss how to minimize the impact of tariffs.Ahead of a meeting with Trump on Wednesday, Indian prime minister Narendra Modi was preparing to offer to cut Indian tariffs in a range of sectors that could boost US exports to the country, government officials in Delhi said.Trump has previously called India a “very big abuser” on trade, and his top economic adviser Kevin Hassett singled out the country as having “enormously high” tariffs in a CNBC interview.This latest wave of tariffs is different than the one imposed by the White House on China last week, which hit all goods traveling from the country to the US with an additional 10% duty. He also threatened Canada and Mexico with the same blanket tariffs, at higher a rate of 25%, only to agree to a one-month delay before pulling the trigger.Trump signed proclamations that raised the tariff rate on aluminum imports to 25% from the previous 10% that he imposed in 2018 to aid the struggling sector. His action reinstates a 25% tariff on millions of tonnes of steel imports and aluminum imports that had been entering the US duty-free under quota deals, exemptions and thousands of product exclusions.The proclamations were extensions of Trump’s 2018 section 232 national security tariffs to protect steel and aluminum makers. A White House official said the exemptions had eroded the effectiveness of these measures.About a quarter of steel used in the US is from overseas, with Canada, Brazil and Mexico as the top providers. South Korea, Japan and Germany are also key markets.China, hit by a 25% steel tariff during Trump’s first administration that was maintained under Joe Biden, is not a significant exporter of steel to the US. But it is the largest exporter of steel to the world, dominating the global market with typically cheaper products. Some countries then export their own steel products, at higher rates, to markets including the US.Trump’s fixation with tariffs has alarmed economists, who have warned their imposition may derail his repeated promises to rapidly bring down prices for millions of Americans.But Trump has defended his strategy, claiming they could raise “trillions” of dollars for the US economy – and that even the mere threat of import duties can prompt countries to bend to his will. “Tariffs are very powerful, both economically and in getting everything else you want,” he said last week.Reuters contributed to this story More

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      Trump to announce 25% aluminum and steel tariffs as China’s levies against US come into effect

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      Donald Trump has said he will announce new 25% tariffs on all steel and aluminum imports into the US on Monday that would affect “everybody’, including its largest trading partners Canada and Mexico, in another major escalation of his trade policy overhaul.Trump’s pre-announcement came as China’s retaliatory tariffs, announced last week, came into effect. The measures target $14bn worth of products with a 15% tariff on coal and LNG, and 10% on crude oil, farm equipment and some vehicles.The US president, speaking to reporters on Air Force One on Sunday, also said he would announce reciprocal tariffs – raising US tariff rates to match those of trading partners – on Tuesday or Wednesday, which would take effect “almost immediately”. “And very simply, it’s, if they charge us, we charge them,” Trump said of the reciprocal tariff plan.The move on steel and aluminum brought a swift reaction from Doug Ford, the premier of the Canadian province of Ontario, who accused the US president of “shifting goalposts and constant chaos” that would put the economy at risk.Monday’s tariffs would come on top of existing metals duties.The largest sources of US steel imports are Canada, Brazil and Mexico, followed by South Korea and Vietnam, according to government and American Iron and Steel Institute data.By a large margin, Canada is the largest supplier of primary aluminum metal to the US, accounting for 79% of total imports in the first 11 months of 2024. Mexico is a major supplier of aluminum scrap and aluminum alloy.During his first term, Trump imposed tariffs of 25% on steel and 10% on aluminum, but later granted several trading partners duty-free quotas, including Canada, Mexico and Brazil.Joe Biden extended these quotas to Britain, Japan and the European Union, and US steel mill capacity utilization has dropped in recent years. White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said that the new tariffs would come on top of the existing duties on steel and aluminum.Trump’s rollout of tariffs has been widely criticised and prompted volatile market reactions and fear of more to come. Beijing has lodged a complaint with the World Trade Organisation, but otherwise has been muted in its response. The tariffs imposed by Trump are far below the level he had threatened during the election campaign, and analysts have said China was prepared for them.Beijing’s actions – which also include investigations into several US companies including Google – were seen by analysts as measured and allowing room for negotiation.Amid wider pushback against Trump’s economic heavy-handedness, French President Emmanuel Macron warned in an interview broadcast on Sunday that he was willing to go “head-to-head” on tariffs with the US president. “I already did so, and I will did (sic) it again.”Macron told CNN that the EU should not be a “top priority” for the US, saying: “Is the European Union your first problem? No, I don’t think so. Your first problem is China, so you should focus on the first problem.”Macron said tariffs would harm European economies but also the US, given the level of economic ties. “It means if you put tariffs on a lot of sectors, it will increase the costs and create inflation in the US. Is it what your people want? I’m not so sure,” he said.He said the EU must be ready to react to US actions, but stressed that the 27-nation bloc should mainly “act for ourselves”. “This is why, for me, the top priority of Europe is competitiveness agenda, is defence and security agenda, is AI ambition, and let’s go fast for ourselves.“If in the meanwhile, we have [a] tariff issue, we will discuss them and we will fix it.”Trump has long complained about the EU’s 10% tariffs on auto imports being much higher than the US car rate of 2.5%. He frequently states that Europe “won’t take our cars” but ships millions west across the Atlantic every year.The European Commission said on Monday it would react to protect EU interests, but said it would not respond until it had detailed or written clarification of the measures. “The EU sees no justification for the imposition of tariffs on its exports. We will react to protect the interests of European businesses, workers and consumers from unjustified measures,” the commission said in a statement.Trump has also flagged tariffs against Taiwan’s semiconductor industry – which he has repeatedly and without evidence accused of stealing US business. Taiwan now appears to be scrambling to prevent that happening. This week senior economic officials will fly to the US to meet their counterparts. Taiwan’s government and state-run petroleum company are also reportedly taking steps to buy more US gas and oil to reduce Taiwan’s trade surplus – a key factor cited by Trump in enacting tariffs.Reuters contributed to this article. More

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      Trump administration suspends $5bn electric vehicle charging program

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      The Trump administration has ordered US states to suspend a $5bn electric vehicle charging station program in a further blow to the environmental movement since the president’s return to the White House.In a memo issued on Thursday to state transportation directors, the transportation department’s Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) ordered states not to spend any funds allocated to them under the Biden administration as part of the national electric vehicle infrastructure (NEVI) program.“The new leadership of the Department of Transportation … has decided to review the policies underlying the implementation of the NEVI Formula Program,” Emily Biondi, the FHWA’s associate administrator for planning, environment and realty, wrote in the memo. “Accordingly, the current NEVI Formula Program Guidance dated June 11, 2024, and all prior versions of this guidance are rescinded,” Biondi added.“As result of the rescission of the NEVI Formula Program Guidance, FHWA is also immediately suspending the approval of all State Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Deployment plans for all fiscal years. Therefore, effective immediately, no new obligations may occur under the NEVI Formula Program until the updated final NEVI Formula Program Guidance is issued and new State plans are submitted and approved,” she wrote.Biondi added that until new guidance is issued, reimbursements of existing obligations for designing and building charging stations will be allowed in order to prevent the disruption of current financial commitments.According to an existing page on the energy department’s website, the NEVI program provides funding to states to strategically deploy EV chargers. Funding is available for up to 80% of eligible project costs including the acquisition, installation and network connection of EV chargers, proper operation and maintenance of EV chargers, and long-term EV charger data sharing.Politico reports that as of Thursday, the FHWA removed several website pages that provided information on the NEVI program.In a statement to Politico, Andrew Rogers, a former deputy FHWA administrator under the Biden administration, said that the memo “appears to ignore both the law and multiple restraining orders that have been issued by federal courts”.The outlet further reports Roger saying that the memo appears to be “in direct violation” of the Impoundment Control Act of 1974, a law that restricts presidents from withholding congressionally approved funding.Currently, 14 states have at least one operational EV station, according to EV States Clearinghouse. As of last November, there are 126 public charging ports in operation across 31 NEVI stations in nine states, marking an 83% increase in open NEVI ports since last quarter, according to a NEVI report.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIt added that a total of 41 states have released at least their first round of solicitations, with 35 having issued conditional awards or put agreements in place for more than 3,560 fast-charging ports across more than 890 charging station locations.Throughout his campaign, Trump railed against EVs, at one point saying that supporters of the vehicles should “rot in hell” and that Biden’s support of EVs would bring a “bloodbath” to the US’s automotive industry.Last month, as part of a flurry of executive orders he signed during his first days back in office, Trump revoked a Biden-era order from 2021 that had aimed to make half of all new vehicles sold in the US in 2030 electric. More