100% 'Buy America' Push May Stall EV Charging Supply Chain

Law360 quoted Covington Government Contracts lawyer Mike Wagner in an article examining the Trump administration's proposal to raise the domestic content requirement for federally funded EV charging stations from 55 percent to 100 percent — a move experts say could stall future investment in the U.S. electric-vehicle supply chain and cast further doubt on the $5 billion National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) program.

Mike, who represents contractors in federal and state compliance and enforcement matters in public procurement, explained that the current 55-to-65 percent domestic content range used across federal programs exists for good reason. "That specific range is there for a reason because there's been a lot of analysis of the feasibility of sourcing products and components domestically, and there's been a lot of thinking about the way in which to balance the objectives of maximizing domestic production and manufacturing while also accounting for the fact that we live in a world with globally integrated supply chains," he told Law360.

Mike also flagged a notable tension in the proposal's structure, observing that "what you have, effectively, is a waiver that imposes — at least as it appears in the proposal — a substantially more demanding standard than the baseline from which it is supposedly providing a waiver."