Advanced Energy Perspectives

As we navigate our way into a new year, our team is reflecting on the legislative wins that drove the electric vehicle (EV) industry forward at a historic pace in 2022 and considering the actions and opportunities they create in the year ahead. This year’s review of enacted federal and state legislation tells a story of increased urgency, funding, and massive commitments by governments and utilities to expand transportation electrification. To synthesize the EV action across the country, Advanced Energy United read and summarized thousands of pages of enacted legislation, which we provide now as a three-part series that covers seven dominant trends.

In our previous post, Charging toward the EV transition. Part 1. we covered the first three trends in EV legislation—looking back at 2022.

The 2022 election is still not in the books, but with the outcome of most contests already known, advanced energy and its champions at the state and federal level were clear winners. Heading into any midterm election we expect to see a swing away from the sitting president’s party. This year that meant the potential to see the progress of the past four years slowed in key states across the country and at the federal level. But now, with the votes mostly tallied, we can say the stage is set for more clean energy progress next year, especially with the funds and incentives from federal legislation arriving in states ready to put it to work.

Since the start of this year’s legislative sessions, Advanced Energy Economy has been tracking energy legislation across all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. Congress through its online PowerSuite platform. PowerSuite provides policy tracking by policy professionals. In the process, we have identified several trends in how states are contemplating the future of their energy, transportation, and building sectors. The bills described in this post, which range from simply introduced to fully signed into law, by no means represent every bill in the country filed this year, but are rather indicative of the attention being devoted to each topic by lawmakers. What follows represents the top 10 state energy legislative issues of 2022.

A new trend is emerging as a growing number of governors and state legislatures are taking action to electrify their state-owned motor vehicles. By accelerating their own transition to clean transportation fleets, states are leading by example while saving taxpayer money, lowering maintenance requirements, reducing emissions, and contributing to energy independence.