A federal judge in Washington state has ordered the Trump administration to resume distributing money to build EV chargers to 14 states, which had sued to challenge the ongoing freeze on those funds.

Billions of dollars are at stake, which Congress had allocated to the states in order to install high-speed chargers along highway corridors. The Department of Transportation announced a temporary pause in distributing those funds in February, saying that new guidance for applying for the funding would be published this spring. No new guidance has been published, and the funds remain paused.

The court order is a preliminary injunction, not a final decision in the case itself. The judge also added a seven-day pause before it goes into effect, to allow the administration time to appeal the decision. After seven days, if no appeal has been filed, the Department of Transportation would have to stop withholding funds from the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) program and distribute them to the 14 states.

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