Boston sues Trump administration over $20m EV charger grant cancellation
The city of Boston is suing the Trump administration over the cancellation of a $20 million federal infrastructure grant by the US Department of Transportation. The federal agency reportedly withdrew the funding partly because the project included support for EV charging stations.
Image: Stellantis
_Reuters_ reports that the grant was first awarded to the city of Boston in 2022 through the Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity (RAISE) programme. It was intended to help fund the Roxbury Resilient Corridors project, a nearly $34 million scheme covering improvements to three streets in Boston’s Roxbury neighbourhood.
The project covered road repairs, pavement widening measures, and plans to improve bus services, and crucially, expand EV charging infrastructure. According to Boston’s lawsuit, the charging stations accounted for less than one per cent of the project’s cost. Despite this, the Department of Transportation reportedly cancelled the grant in September 2025, stating that the project was inconsistent with the administration’s priorities due to the inclusion of funding for EV charging infrastructure.
Boston is now challenging this decision in the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts, arguing that the department lacked the authority to rescind the grant on this basis. The city is also alleging violations of the Administrative Procedure Act and constitutional separation-of-powers principles. It added that it even offered to remove the chargers from the scheme, but the DoT still refused to reinstate funding.
“Boston earned this competitive grant to meet community needs and address long-needed infrastructure upgrades,” Boston Mayor Michelle Wu said in a statement on Monday. “The City of Boston will continue to fight back against lawless federal attacks, and we urge the court to reverse the Trump administration’s illegal actions and restore these critical funds for Roxbury.”
The RAISE programme was established under the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and aims to fund transport projects intended to improves areas such as safety, accessibility and environmental sustainability. Boston says its Roxbury project addresses all three, with the area facing some of the highest concentrations of traffic injuries and fatalities in the city.
This comes amid wider changes to US federal support for EV infrastructure. In August 2025, electrive reported that the Trump administration had released $5 billion in previously frozen funding under the NEVI programme, although states were required to follow revised requirements for use of the funds. Boston’s cases is not the first legal challenge over the cancellation of federal transport grants. Albuquerque filed a similar lawsuit after the DoT withdrew an $11.5 million RAISE grant for an urban trail project, arguing that the project conflicted with the administration’s preference for infrastructure supporting vehicular travel. That case remains pending.
Earlier this year, a US court ruling permanently prohibited the DoT from withholding funds from the NEVI programme or revoking previously approved state implementation plans.