CLAIM: “Creating hundreds of thousands of jobs in clean energy for American workers, including the IBEW installing 500,000—500,000—charging stations all across America.”
VERDICT: MOSTLY FALSE. They built eight, as of May.
President Joe Biden claimed credit Monday night for building 500,000 electric vehicle (EV) charging stations, as part of the bipartisan infrastructure bill. The reality is that as of May 2024, two and-a-half years after the bill was passed, only eight of the charging stations had been built.
As Breitbart News recently noted:
[Vice President Kamala] Harris has a track record against which to measure her promise [of 3 million additional houses in four years], and it is the failure of the Biden-Harris administration to build the electric vehicle (EV) charging stations that it promised to build under the infrastructure bill of 2021. at a cost of $7.5 billion. The goal was 500,000; two-and-a-half years later, as of May 2024, only eight EV stations had been built.
In May, Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg was asked by CBS News’ Face the Nation to explain why only eight of the promised EV stations had been built:
WATCH: CBS’s Margaret Brennan laughs in Pete Buttigieg’s face when he is unable to explain why only 7 or 8 electric vehicle charging stations have been built despite the Biden admin spending $7.5 BILLION to build chargers. pic.twitter.com/BmFK17Dk5O
— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) May 26, 2024
Buttigieg promised that the remainder would be built by 2030. That could theoretically happen, though it is doubtful.
Regardless, Biden cannot claim credit for 500,000 EV charging stations. It is a promise his successor, whether Harris or former President Donald Trump, will have to fulfill.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of “”The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days,” available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of “The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency,” now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
