Matt Casale Director, Environment Campaigns, U.S. Public Interest Research Group »

Ten years ago, electric vehicles made up less than one quarter of one percent of total U.S. car sales. But after the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, we’re on track to install thousands of electric vehicle charging stations across the country.

This will be the first-ever U.S. investment in electric vehicle charging stations. Let me repeat that. For the first time ever in American history, the federal government would be funding the necessary charging infrastructure that we need to transition away from gas-powered cars.

Here’s why this matters:

In the U.S., transportation is the greatest contributor to climate warming emissions, and the majority of those emissions come from everyday cars and trucks. Personal vehicles also emit toxic air pollution which harms our health. That’s why PIRG has been working for years to increase adoption of clean, emissions-free electric vehicles (EVs) by calling for 100% of car sales to be fully electric by 2035 (or sooner). To get there, we need to do three things: make electric vehicles cheaper and easier for people to buy, strengthen emission standards and build out infrastructure to support electric cars.

The bipartisan infrastructure package puts one of those key pieces of the puzzle into place.

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