A Virginia lawmaker who wants electric vehicle charging stations prioritized in rural areas is bringing back a bill that he hopes will make it so.
Del. Rip Sullivan Jr., D-Fairfax County, is filing his bill with the General Assembly for the fourth consecutive year. The legislation is not yet fully drafted but will be “very similar” to the one he carried last year, Sullivan said Monday.
In a bipartisan move, the House of Delegates voted in the 2024 General Assembly session to create an Electric Vehicle Rural Infrastructure Program Fund. The House added a $2 million funding request for budget negotiations (Sullivan had proposed $25 million). It passed with bipartisan support in the Senate, too. However, the General Assembly budget report released in early March included no money for it.
“We stubbed our toe on the budget negotiations,” Sullivan said.
He added: “Certainly the overall concept will be the same, and we’re really hopeful that this time we can get it across the finish line.”
Virginia’s Division of Legislative Services is drafting the proposal, and it should be ready for Sullivan to introduce when the General Assembly reconvenes Jan. 8, he said.
The basic idea is to establish a fund that private businesses could tap into for grants that would cover up to 70% of such nonutility costs as equipment foundations, driveways and surface markings to install EV charging stations in areas with low population density and higher-than-state-average unemployment.
Seventy-eight of the commonwealth’s 95 counties would have been eligible under the population and unemployment metrics in the 2024 bill. That included counties throughout Southwest and Southside Virginia and the cities of Bristol, Buena Vista, Covington, Danville, Emporia, Galax, Martinsville, Norton and Petersburg.
Sullivan said at the time that most of Virginia’s EV charging stations are within a mile of interstates 81, 64, 66 and 95. An Electric Vehicle Rural Infrastructure Program Fund would encourage people with electric cars to visit and dine in farther-flung areas without concern that their car would run out of power, he said.
He pointed to a Richmond Times-Dispatch opinion column, in which Eric Terry, president of the Virginia Restaurant, Lodging and Travel Association, called for EV charging infrastructure in rural areas. In November, the Virginia Department of Energy announced a $1.1 million grant to put charging stations at locations on the Eastern Shore, Norfolk, Suffolk, Petersburg, Essex County and Doswell.
“People are going to be traveling more and more in EVs, and we want people to travel to all places in Virginia, and be comfortable that they’ll be able to find a place to charge their car,” Sullivan said. “People travel to Virginia and they’re confident that they can find a place to fill their cars up with gasoline. It’s important to the entire Virginia economy, and I think it’s time we recognize that.”