But upon taking back the White House in January, President Donald Trump issued an executive order titled \u201cUnleashing American Energy\u201d<\/a> that called for reviews of multiple energy and transportation policies, including federal spending for electric vehicles. <\/p>\n Days later, the U.S. Department of Transportation suspended the NEVI charging program and halted programs until guidance was updated.<\/p>\n Sixteen states, including California and Washington, filed a lawsuit arguing the Trump administration violated a law that was already on the books by withholding the money assigned to the NEVI program.<\/p>\n The case went before U.S. District Court in Seattle and on Tuesday, Judge Tana Lin<\/a> issued a partial preliminary injunction that called for restoring the program\u2019s funding.<\/p>\n Agreeing with the plaintiffs, Lin wrote<\/a>, \u201cWhen the Executive Branch treads upon the will of the Legislative Branch, and when an administrative agency acts contrary to law, it is the Court\u2019s responsibility to remediate the situation and restore the balance of power.\u201d<\/p>\n Lin mentioned that after the Department of Transportation suspended NEVI funding, a California state employee in March tried to access more than $310,000 owed on construction of a Tesla charging station in San Diego that was already underway. But the submission was met with an error message that read: \u201cRequest cannot be processed. One or more Program Code balances has been exceeded.\u201d<\/p>\n Lin\u2019s decision did not mention the specific location of the San Diego charging station.<\/p>\n The ruling has drawn extra attention because of the pop culture reference Lin used at the start of her 66-page decision.<\/p>\n \u201cIn a 1995 episode of \u2018The Simpsons\u2019,\u201d Lin wrote, \u201cHomer must cut short a tearful goodbye with his long-lost mother after her traveling companions protest that their \u2018electric van only has 20 minutes of juice left!\u2019 \u201c<\/p>\n \u201cSome 26 years later,\u201d Lin said, \u201cCongress sought to address the phenomenon that has come to be known as \u2018range anxiety\u2019: the unease experienced by electric vehicle (\u201cEV\u201d) drivers when they are unsure where the next charging station might be, and whether their car\u2019s battery has sufficient charge to get them there.\u201d<\/p>\n A Biden appointee, Lin has served as judge in the Western District of Washington since December 2021.<\/p>\n The Department of Transportation blasted the decision.<\/p>\n \u201cAnother day, another liberal judicial activist making nonsensical rulings from the bench because they hate President Trump,\u201d a department spokesperson said in a statement<\/a> that went on to say the NEVI program under Biden and former transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg \u201cwas a disaster and failed miserably to deliver EV chargers.\u201d<\/p>\n Saying it\u2019s \u201cno secret that the Trump administration is beholden to the fossil fuel agenda,\u201d California Attorney General Rob Bonta said<\/a> his office is pleased with the \u201corder blocking the administration\u2019s unconstitutional attempt to do so, and California looks forward to continuing to vigorously defend itself from this executive branch overreach.\u201d<\/p>\n The ruling is not the end of the debate, however.<\/p>\n Lin placed a stay on her preliminary injunction until July 1 so the Department of Transportation can file an appeal to the Ninth Circuit, which is based in San Francisco. If an appeal is not filed by then, the injunction goes into effect on July 2.<\/p>\n The Department of Transportation says it is assessing its legal options.<\/p>\n While Lin said her decision applies to most of the states that filed the lawsuit \u2014 including California \u2014 the motion was denied for the states of Minnesota and Vermont as well as the District of Columbia.<\/p>\n That\u2019s because Lin said the plaintiffs in those jurisdictions had not demonstrated specific examples of projects that had been delayed, canceled, \u201ca budget thrown into chaos\u201d or had requests for proposals withdrawn.<\/p>\n California has faced off the with Trump administration on multiple fronts.<\/p>\n Earlier this month, Trump signed three resolutions<\/a> passed on Capitol Hill to prevent California from banning the sale of new gasoline-powered cars and light trucks in the Golden State by 2035. Gov. Gavin Newsom and Bonta responded by filing a lawsuit<\/a> saying Trump improperly used the Congressional Review Act to revoke California\u2019s Clean Air Act waivers.<\/p>\n Originally Published: June 25, 2025 at 1:13 PM PDT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A federal judge in Seattle has ordered the Trump administration to roll back an executive order freezing billions…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":16160,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5134],"tags":[5229,64,1582,276,16055,356,5495,1370,50,80,3549,7264,7289,522,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-16159","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-ca","11":"tag-california","12":"tag-california-news","13":"tag-courts","14":"tag-energy","15":"tag-latest-headlines","16":"tag-news","17":"tag-politics","18":"tag-san-diego","19":"tag-sandiego","20":"tag-top-stories-sdut","21":"tag-transportation","22":"tag-united-states","23":"tag-united-states-of-america","24":"tag-unitedstates","25":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","26":"tag-us","27":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114749449456094667","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16159"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16159\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/SUT-L-TESLA-CHARGING-0625-01.jpg\")
A vehicle receiving a fast-charge at a Tesla charging station located on the corner of Sixth Avenue and A Street in downtown San Diego. (Rob Nikolewski\/The San Diego Union-Tribune)<\/p>\n