Our electric vehicle infrastructure program, where we're distributing
$5 billion to states to establish
a car charging network along our highways,
as well as a companion program called Community Charging, which is another 2.5.
They do carry standards.
We don't want to dictate, of course, all of the particulars of charging stations
that will typically be owned and operated by the private sector
but we do need to make sure certain things are true about them.
We need to make sure that you are not,
for example, confined to an individual
network in order to
be able to purchase power from a given charging station.
Right now, that's often the case.
So it's as if, you know, you could only fill up at a Speedway
gas station if you were a Speedway member, but not if you were a BP member, right.
We need to make these interoperable.
And accessibility is one of the considerations
that's going into this as well.
And as we work with our counterparts in the Department of Energy
to lay out those requirements and expectations for
the states in their investments,
we're going to be, within reason,
laying out some
standards and expectations for how those chargers
ought to work.
Well, you know, one thing we're trying to support is active transportation.
So we need to make sure that people are able to walk or bike or roll
to wherever they need to be and I think that's something that has been
maybe more familiar for people living in city centers of dense
urban areas but can bring benefit everywhere in the country.
When we adopted a Complete Streets approach in my hometown of South
Bend, for example, that really opened up
what had been a road pattern
that was almost hostile to any traffic besides a vehicle.
Really opened that up to people and through that to small business too,
because it became a more inviting place to have a cup of coffee
or browse the store.
So all of these things add up to, I think, a more vibrant local economy,
and they add up to more ease for people getting to where they need to go.
Especially when you start from the principle of safety.
And that's really what's on our mind as we work
to make active transportation available to more Americans.
Many of our grant programs do just that.
E-bikes hold the promise of making it
more natural
for a lot of people to commute to work by bike.
I think that they present
an opportunity in terms of people who are maybe
don't think of themselves as athletes or aren't able to
bike longer distances on traditional bike
to now have a convenience to get around.
Again, safety has to be our guiding principle.
So, you know, local communities, I think, are dealing with the necessity
of managing the
shared spaces and just the rules of the road
in a way that it is safe because these e-bikes can go
obviously faster, not just farther than traditional bicycles,
but we see a lot of potential there and we want to support local community
visions for how they want to put these technologies to use.
The great thing about this role and the daunting thing about this moment
is that we need to be delivering improvements to every mode
of transportation in the country and, you know, we have provisions
in this new infrastructure law that touch on everything from
commercial aviation to pipeline safety.
We're administering a pipeline safety improvement program
that's not getting as much attention as some of the other things,
but it just gives you a sense of the range of what we do.
We work on commercial space travel, port
improvements, anything related to how people or goods move around.
We tend to have some role in it and what we're very proud of
with this infrastructure deal is the opportunity
to make more improvements than we have in certainly my lifetime.
Everything from the ASAP program that we're rolling out next week,
improvements to stations across the country for transit, accessibility
to the airport terminal program,
which also by the way, did a lot for accessibility.
A lot of
ADA improvements are coming to airports around America now through this funding,
and we're proud to be able to bring that to communities of different sizes.
By many measures, the U.S.
doesn't have a single airport in the world's top 25 now.
And that we want to change.
The president definitely wants to change it.
And it starts with the basics, making sure that airports
before we even get to the the finer points of the esthetics of it,
we just need to make sure they work well and that they work well for everybody.
So this round of terminal grants
alone was 84 different airports we're able to make a difference.
And there are big recognizable ones like L.A.X.
all the way down to
Chamberlain, South Dakota,
where they're general aviation terminal right now is a mobile home.
And we're funding them a new building.
But in places like in between, like Huntsville, Alabama,
which will get better restrooms and
finally be able to get
ADA compliance in areas where they hadn't before.
Yeah there was the Cash For Clunkers program, I think during the Obama administration,
the approach that we've pursued has had to do with
reducing the upfront sticker price of EVs through tax credits,
although unfortunately there's
been a lot of congressional, mostly Republican opposition to that.
So it hasn't passed, but we are seeing that the scale effects
are starting to pull down the cost of EVs too.
The cost of charging is a little different because it's in the hands of utilities
that there are 3000 different utilities across the country.
But we're certainly interested to see what kinds of approaches will be taken
locally.
For example, you know,
I used to run a utility as mayor because I ever saw the water works.
And one of the uses that my successor put rescue plan dollars to was to reduce
or forgive utility bills for low income residents on their water charges.
So there are ways this can be done.
It varies from state to state, and it gets a little difficult
for us from the federal level on the transportation side of the House
to have all the visibility into that.
But we're certainly interested in approaches to make the charging as well
as the purchasing of electric vehicles more affordable for more Americans.
One thing that a lot of folks don't realize is that you can often charge
a vehicle with a
regular wall plug.
That's what
frankly, that's what Chasten and I do in Michigan with our plug in hybrid,
although it's quicker and more efficient if you can get a level two charger.
But that only helps you if you live in a single family home or you have a garage.
A lot of people in multi-family dwellings also live in areas
where it's not yet profitable for a company to install a charger.
For example, in the parking lot of your apartment building.
That's where we think the community charging funding that we're going to be
distributing can make a difference.
We buy down the difference
where it doesn't pencil out just yet for the private sector,
but when we get that charger up, it helps drive adoption and helps, of course,
people get in on the fuel savings that come with owning.
That's funded for this fiscal year.
We'll get the first of five years, which across five years
will be two and a half billion.
That will go alongside the 5 billion.
So about 1 billion a year that's going to the states for their own plans.
Those are more toward building out the network of
chargers across the U.S.
highway system.
You know, we do everything
from overseeing the Academy for Merchant Mariners at Kings Point, New York
to licensing commercial space launches and so I think everybody knows
we're the Department of Planes, trains and automobiles.
But even I am repeatedly struck by the sheer range of things we get to work on.
But they're all important and they're all there and they're all exciting.
And there's never been a better time to do this work.
Yeah, it's
you know, we're trying to strike an appropriate balance
in terms of our own travel, even just how I get around the city.
So one idea that I, to be honest, stole from Secretary Granholm was to convert
one of my security detail vehicles to an electric car so that I can
get around
DC on it on a zero emissions basis.
But of course part of my job is to travel to be in lots of different places
at once, we want to see, feel and experience
what's happening on the ground
so that we can make the best possible decisions as we guide
what's ultimately going to be roughly half of the $1.2 trillion of the
president's infrastructure plan.