Businesses and Community Leaders Urge Senate to Oppose Rest Area Bill That Threatens to Upend EV Charging Investment

Allowing EV charging stations at rest areas will discourage private investment in electric fuel

NATSO, representing truck stops and travel plazas, and a diverse coalition from restaurants and fuel retailers to city governments, transportation energy providers, and blind entrepreneurs urged lawmakers to oppose the RECHARGE Act (S.4989), introduced by Senators Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), and Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), which threatens to halt private investment in electric vehicle charging stations by amending the longstanding federal law prohibiting automotive services at rest areas.

Incentivizing the thousands of travel centers, gas stations, convenience stores, restaurants, and hotels located near the Interstate Highway to offer electric vehicle charging and other alternative fuels represents the best way to prompt investments in low-carbon fuel technologies and limit range anxiety for electric vehicle drivers.

“Rather than undermine off-highway businesses, policymakers have an opportunity to build upon positive momentum by solving the most pressing existing impediments to charging station investment, rather than creating new ones,” the associations wrote in a letter to the U.S. Senate. “Maintaining the ban on commercialization, and developing incentive programs within that regulatory structure, will foster the proliferation of EV charging in the long-term.”

Allowing EV charging stations at rest areas will discourage private investment in electric fuel by creating an unlevel playing field in which state governments do not have to compete for customers from an advantaged location on the Interstate right-of-way.  Since 1960, federal law has prohibited the sale of automotive services and food at state operated rest areas to encourage competition between private businesses located at the Interstate exits.

Altering the longstanding law prohibiting commercial rest areas also threatens the livelihood of blind business owners who currently enjoy a priority for installing and operating vending machines at Interstate rest areas. If commercialized rest areas were allowed, these business owners would be out of work virtually overnight.

Congress directed state transportation departments to work with the private sector to kick-start a nationwide network of electric vehicle charging stations by establishing the $5 billion National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) Grant Program under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA). The private sector is actively participating in the program in many states. Federal policy set through the IIJA and NEVI grant program is designed to leverage private investment in electric vehicle charging. The RECHARGE Act threatens to undermine those policies when they are just gaining momentum.

NATSO was joined in signing the letter by SIGMA: America’s Leading Fuel Marketers; Energy Marketers of America; National Association of Convenience Stores (NACS); National Federation of the Blind; National League of Cities; National Restaurant Association; and the National Retail Federation.

 

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