Biden Vetoes Republican Measure to Block Electric Vehicle Charging Stations

President Biden on Wednesday vetoed a Republican-led effort that could have thwarted the administration’s plans to invest $7.5 billion to build electric vehicle charging stations across the country.

In issuing the veto, Mr. Biden argued that the congressional resolution would have hurt domestic manufacturing as well as the clean energy transition.

“If enacted, this resolution would undermine the hundreds of millions of dollars that the private sector has already invested in domestic E.V. charging manufacturing, and chill further domestic investment in this critical market,” Mr. Biden said in a statement.

The move comes amid a growing political divide over electric vehicles. The Biden administration is aggressively promoting them as an important part of the fight to slow global warming. The landmark climate law signed in 2022 by Mr. Biden, the Inflation Reduction Act, offers incentives to consumers to buy electric vehicles and to manufacturers to build them in the United States.

Republicans, including former President Donald J. Trump, Mr. Biden’s likely challenger in the 2024 election, have attacked electric vehicles as unreliable, inconvenient and ceding America’s auto manufacturing to China, which dominates the supply chain for electric vehicles.

Republicans, with some Democrats, voted to repeal a waiver issued by the Biden administration that allows federally funded electric vehicle chargers to be made from imported iron and steel, as long as they are assembled in the United States.

The “buy American” requirement of the 2021 infrastructure law says that iron and steel produced in the United States must be used for projects funded by the Federal Highway Administration Act. The law includes $7.5 billion to build a national