LAKEPORT
Lake County Arts Council to hold auditions for the 2025 Spring Dance Festival
Calling all Lake County Dancers! Do you want to share your talent at our 2025 Spring Dance Festival? The Lake County Arts Council is holding auditions on March 1 at the Lakeport Dance Center to find this year’s top talent. You must notify us so that we can assign you a time to audition by submitting basic information about your dance at by following this link: https://forms.gle/CgNPQAaWhbZUEuq29 Participants must be able to attend the following key dates at the MAC in Lakeport: Dress Rehearsal on April 11 from 5 to 9 PM and the Show, April 12 from 11 AM to 8 PM. This show has been a time-honored local tradition for over 40 years, and we welcome you to participate in celebrating dance in our county. All proceeds from the show support the efforts of the Lake County Arts Council. Have questions? Reach out to bbrookes@lakearts.org or call Blair at (209)269-6766.
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WASHINGTON
Padilla, Schiff, EPW Democrats demand answers after Trump illegally pulls zero-emission vehicle infrastructure funding
U.S. Senators Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff (both D-Calif.), members of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works (EPW), joined all Democratic members of the Committee in demanding answers from Department of Transportation (DOT) Secretary Sean Duffy about the abrupt cutoff of funds for the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) Formula Program. The Joint Office of Energy and Transportation approved California’s five-year NEVI Deployment Plan on September 29, 2023, granting the state $384 million for critical zero-emission vehicle infrastructure along its highways, but the Trump Administration has illegally frozen the NEVI program.
The NEVI program — included in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law — provides funding directly to states for installing public zero-emission vehicle charging stations, which would lower fuel costs for families, reduce U.S. dependence on fossil fuels, and create construction jobs nationwide. In a memo to state departments of transportation, the Federal Highway Administration announced states will no longer have access to $3 billion in previously approved federal funds for future construction projects.
“All 50 states plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico invested time and resources to prepare their plans, and all plans were approved by the U.S. Department of Transportation. Your abrupt cutoff of NEVI funding disregards these efforts and subjects states and their partners to delay, uncertainty, and bureaucratic red tape. It also threatens the jobs, innovation, and environmental benefits that this program was ready and authorized to deliver through implementation,” wrote the Senators.
“Unfortunately, your refusal to release NEVI funds to states is part of a larger, ongoing pattern by the Trump Administration of subverting the Constitution’s dedication to Congress of authority over federal spending,” continued the Senators. “As sweeping and vague as recent Executive Orders may be in expressing the administration’s policy preferences, they do not provide license under the Constitution to cut off funding for programs authorized and funded by Congress and enacted into law, and upon which our sovereign states have justifiably relied.”
The NEVI program invests in states to accelerate the nationwide buildout of public zero-emission vehicle charging infrastructure. States have already awarded more than $510 million in NEVI funding to construct charging ports, with more contracts ready to move forward. By pulling this funding, the Trump Administration is jeopardizing planned construction that could establish charging stations every 50 miles along 70 percent of major travel corridors by the end of 2055. Canceling this funding would leave many families, particularly in rural communities, without access to affordable zero-emission vehicle chargers.
Expanding access to reliable chargers will give Americans more choices in vehicles by making clean energy options more practical and by reducing dependence on expensive fossil-fueled cars. If implemented, NEVI investments will help curb the carbon pollution driving climate change, which poses an increasing threat to the U.S. economy and to American families through higher prices for groceries, insurance, and more.
In addition to Senators Padilla and Schiff, Senators Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Angela Alsobrooks (D-Md.), Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-Del.), Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) also signed the letter.
The Senators requested documents and information by February 18, 2025, and an immediate reinstatement of NEVI funding.
Senator Padilla has consistently fought to reduce emissions across the transportation and freight sectors. Last year, Padilla successfully pushed the Biden Administration to launch a National Zero-Emission Freight Corridor Strategy to guide the national deployment of zero-emission medium- and heavy-duty freight transportation vehicle (ZE-MHDV) charging and fueling infrastructure, which followed his efforts to call on the Joint Office to prioritize the deployment of ZE-MHDV as part of its core mission.
Since 2024, Senator Padilla has announced over $440 million for zero-emission vehicle charging and fueling infrastructure from the Charging and Fueling Infrastructure Grant Program. In 2023, Padilla, Senator Cory Booker (D-N.J.), and Representative Nanette Díaz Barragán (D-Calif.-44) introduced the bicameral EVs for All Act, legislation that would increase access to zero-emission vehicles for residents of public housing across the nation.
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