An approximate $77 million funding mandate originally approved by the Biden administration to put electric vehicle (EV) charging stations at Veterans Affairs (VA) facilities has been directed to medical and health centers.
The funding diversion, approved by VA Secretary Doug Collins, reconstitutes dollars originally approved as part of the ex-president’s 2023 fiscal year budget request to spend upwards of $163.49 million for minor construction projects in addition to the installation of zero-emission vehicle charging infrastructure on VA facility grounds. That budget was eventually approved by a Democrat-controlled Congress.
But as the VA notes, the money originally moved from its construction and technology budget led to zero dollars being spent and no EV charging stations being constructed.
“In Joe Biden’s VA, the department was distracted by woke social-justice programs and green-energy boondoggles, but those days are long gone,” Collins said in a statement on Wednesday. “VA exists to serve veterans, and we’re making sure all of our resources go toward that noble purpose.”
Over $40 Million in Reallocated Funds
Collins used his authority as secretary on Nov. 6, in the midst of the recently concluded government shutdown, to return the roughly $77 million to its construction and technology budget.
Three locations so far have been selected to receive funding, with a VA spokesperson telling Military.com that funding may be allocated to other VA-affiliated sites in the future.
The money being allocated to three locations are as follows:
- $10 million to upgrade VA’s Friendship House compensated work therapy residence in Oklahoma City, OK.
- $21.3 million to expand and renovate the MRI ward at the Providence VA Medical Center in Rhode Island.
- $13.8 million to upgrade the radiation oncology unit at the G.V. (Sonny) Montgomery VAMC in Jackson, Mississippi.
Biden’s $5 billion EV plan unveiled in 2019 during his presidential campaign, and later supported by then-Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, called for 500,000 EV charging stations up and running nationally by 2030.
The plan was later described by now President Donald Trump, during his 2024 presidential campaign, as a “crazy electric Band-Aid.”
