Photo by Possessed Photography on Unsplash
by Erik Gunn, Wisconsin Examiner
May 23, 2024
More than four dozen businesses will share in $23.3 million in federal grants to start building the first batch of new electric vehicle charging stations across Wisconsin, the state Department of Transportation announced Thursday.
The grants total a little less than one-third of the $78 million that will be coming to Wisconsin over the next five years under the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) program and enabled under two pieces of legislation Wisconsin enacted earlier this year.
NEVI was created as part of the federal 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. It requires charging stations to be installed every 50 miles along a state’s designated alternative fuel corridor. Wisconsin’s corridor includes interstate highways as well as other major highways that traverse the state.
Applications for the program were accepted from a total of 53 businesses — gas station convenience stores, hotels and an assortment of other businesses. More than 260 applications were submitted, according to the Wisconsin DOT.
The operators are scattered throughout the state. Recipients are required to match the grant money with private investments equal to 20% or more of the total cost of a project. The outside funding for the 53 projects will total $10.5 million, according to the DOT.
One company, the service station convenience store chain Kwik Trip, accounts for nearly half of the winning EV charging station sites in the first round. Two tribal nations are also among the recipients.
According to the DOT there are now more than 23,000 electric vehicles registered in Wisconsin. The International Energy Agency, an intergovernmental organization with more than 30 member countries, forecasts a 20% increase in electric car sales in the U.S. this year — about 500,000 vehicles, or one out of nine sold.
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I had a great time a couple of weeks ago talking with Becc and Dustyn about Eye On Dunn County and whatever else crossed our minds. If you get a chance go listen to this week's episode of The Menom Podcast. You can also find the podcast on our Infohub page.
In the meantime I am happily working along on the website, trying to hire more freelancers, and trying to remain sane in a world that seems to be spinning out of control. As someone who follows the news fairly closely, I am now waking up in the morning and dreading picking up my phone to discover what fresh hell has been unleashed today. Decisions are falling out of the current administration at a breakneck speed, and most of them seem to not be well-planned.
Money has been cut from aid programs, including AIDS relief around the world. This will result in people dying, and almost certainly in the spread of drug-resistant AIDS variants. Although the administration now claims they are dishing out exemptions for life-saving care, in a lot of cases the damage is already done as people have been fired around the world before the exemptions have gone out. People will die.
Information has also suddenly become the enemy as the Trump administration has taken down websites and thousands of website pages in an attempt to expurgate wokism and words that the current officials deem inexcusable. This is not book burning, but it is the next closest thing in the digital age.
Meantime, Washington seems hell-bent on preying on the poor, the sexually different, immigrants, and anyone else who is not "one of us" - whatever that means. Elon Musk, who, last I checked, has not been elected to any position, has apparently forced his way into control of many government computers that control the substantial Federal flow of money and the hiring of Federal employees. This would appear on the face of it to be yet another act of the administration that is neither legal nor morally justified.
Hang on to your hats - the torrent of illegal and ill-considered acts is only starting.
Press releases and other content not written by a specific Eye On Dunn County author are listed as Eye On Dunn County Staff.
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