SOME $7.5 BILLION DOLLARS are being channeled into building tens of thousands of federal charging ports for electric vehicles this decade under the 2021 infrastructure law — part of the Biden administration’s larger goal of creating clean energy jobs while cutting greenhouse gas emissions. Yet the rollout has been slow, Lillianna Byington and Kellie Lunney report.

• Nationwide, just 19 charging locations funded by the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) program were operational as of this month — nearly three years since the law’s enactment. The administration’s goal is a network of publicly and privately funded chargers that totals 500,000 by 2030. The number was at 192,000 as of Aug. 27, according to the administration.
• Private chargers are part of the government’s overall plan, but federally funded ports play a critical role as they’re designed to be fast, interoperable across EV models, easy-to-use, and available to more drivers in places that may not be commercially profitable.
• The rollout has faced challenges, including political partisanship that’s mired EVs and private companies’ struggle to make money. Electrical grids also need to be able to support the level 3 chargers — the fastest available — used by the NEVI program. Private residences often use less costly level 1 or 2 chargers because of the electrical upgrades necessary to ensure the grid can handle a level 3 charger’s output.
• Ulster County, N.Y., bought a completely off-the-grid mobile unit for EV charging, said Jen Metzger, the county executive. “I would say charging infrastructure is one of the biggest blocks to greater EV adoption in the US,” BloombergNEF EV charging analyst Ash Wang said. Read More

SO WHAT’S IT LIKE to take an EV road trip given the state of federally funded EV infrastructure?

• In our latest On The Merits podcast episode, Kellie and Lillianna recount their own EV journey, and how the sluggish rollout of federally funded charging stations is impacting EV drivers and the EV market. Listen Here.

Subscribe to On the Merits on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Megaphone, or Audible.

SECOND CIRCUIT judges Wednesday considered whether a jury that sided with Yale University in a retirement plan dispute was properly instructed, Jacklyn Wille reports.

• The case is an outlier among the hundreds of recent lawsuits challenging retirement plan fees — many of which have settled or been resolved by judges — because the plan participants sought and received a jury trial.
• US Circuit Judges Joseph F. Bianco and Eunice C. Lee appeared skeptical during oral arguments that the jury instructions correctly parsed the distinction between various elements of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act case, including loss and damages.
• The appeal comes after a jury determined that Yale breached its fiduciary duties under ERISA by allowing its retirement plan to pay unreasonable recordkeeping fees. Jurors, however, declined to award damages, ruling that this failure caused no harm because the fiduciary of a well-managed retirement plan could have made the same decisions. Read More

AN INDEPENDENT AGENCY that hears appeals of worker safety and health citations is among the latest targets of litigation aimed at the legality of its structure and adjudicators, Tre’Vaughn Howard reports.

• New Jersey-based Kenric Steel sued the US Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission to block enforcement of a $348,000 safety fine against it. It said the process is unconstitutional because the commission’s leadership panel is illegally shielded from being fired at will by the president, and its in-house judges are installed by the commission’s chair.
• The complaint cited Supreme Court rulings including Lucia v. SEC, which found that Securities and Exchange Commission’s judges are “inferior officers” that must be appointed by the president, courts of law, or heads of department under the Appointments Clause. The litigation will “set the stage nicely” for more lawsuits citing high court decisions focused on reining in federal agencies’ adjudicative powers, said Eric Compere, co-lead of Nixon Peabody LLP’s OSHA practice.
• The case is part of a swath of similar challenges to agency power. The National Labor Relations Board, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and the US Labor Department have all been recently targeted. Read More

Was this newsletter forwarded to you? Subscribe to The Brief and get Bloomberg Law’s top stories delivered free to your Inbox every weekday afternoon, plus a weekend edition.