At the end of the most recent legislative session, the Missouri legislature sent House Bill (HB) 2062 to the governor. While this bill has numerous issues, it does have a silver lining—increased protections against electric vehicle (EV) charging mandates.
Certain municipalities, such as the City of St. Louis, have mandated that if certain residential and commercial businesses engage in new constructions or major renovations, they must install, maintain, and operate EV charging stations on their own dime.
HB 2062 would provide statewide exemptions for churches and nonprofits from EV charging station mandates. But what about everyone else?
As I have written before, these types of mandates are an unnecessary government intrusion into the free market. All businesses should be protected from EV mandates—not just churches and nonprofits.
At the local level, the City of St. Louis has also included some exemptions from its mandate. Businesses that the city council has determined a visitor wouldn’t typically stay long enough at to warrant charging their vehicle are exempt from the mandate. Currently public-level charging is exceptionally slow (which is part of the reason why installing them is wasteful), but what happens when charging improves and people use charging stations during shorter stops? Will many of these businesses no longer be exempt?
A stronger version of a state law with more than just narrow exemptions would render these concerns at the municipal level moot. While it’s nice to see protections from these mandates offered to some, shouldn’t those protections be extended to all businesses in our state?
