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Texas to receive $70M to build EV charging network

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The federal grants will fund 47 EV charging stations and related projects in 22 states and Puerto Rico, including 7,500 EV charging ports. Photo by Andrew Roberts/Unsplash

The Biden administration is awarding $623 million in grants to help build an electric vehicle charging network across the nation, and Texas is expected to see a chunk of that funding.

Grants being announced Thursday will fund 47 EV charging stations and related projects in 22 states and Puerto Rico, including 7,500 EV charging ports, officials said.

“America led the arrival of the automotive era, and now we have a chance to lead the world in the EV revolution — securing jobs, savings and benefits for Americans in the process,” said Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. The new funding “will help ensure that EV chargers are accessible, reliable and convenient for American drivers, while creating jobs in charger manufacturing, installation and maintenance for American workers.”

Congress approved $7.5 billion in the 2021 infrastructure law to meet President Joe Biden's goal of building out a national network of 500,000 publicly available chargers by 2030. The charging ports are a key part of Biden's effort to encourage drivers to move away from gasoline-powered cars and trucks that contribute to global warming.

But progress on the network has been slow. Ohio and New York are the only states that have opened charging stations under the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure program. Several other states, including Pennsylvania and Maine, have broken ground on federally funded projects and are expected to open stations early this year. A total of 28 states, plus Puerto Rico, have either awarded contracts to build chargers or have accepted bids to do so.

The grants announced Thursday include $311 million to 36 “community” projects, including two Native American Tribes in Alaska and Arizona. The projects will boost EV charging and hydrogen fueling infrastructure in urban and rural communities, including at high-use locations such as schools, parks, libraries and apartment buildings.

About $70 million will go to the North Central Texas Council of Governments to build up to five hydrogen fueling stations for medium- and heavy-duty freight trucks in Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, Austin and San Antonio. The project will help create a “hydrogen fueling corridor” from southern California to Texas.

Another $312 million in funding will go to 11 highway “corridors” along roadways designated as Alternative Fuel Corridors. The projects include $19.6 million for publicly accessible EV charging facility in Riverside County California, located midway between Los Angeles and Phoenix on the I-10 corridor. The project includes installation of six large chargers for heavy-duty vehicles and 30 fast chargers for light-duty vehicles; solar and battery energy storage systems; and amenities such as rest areas.

A pollution district in San Joaquin Valley, California will receive $56 million to build two state-of-the-art truck charging sites in Taft and Gustine, California, to support two of the nation’s busiest freight corridors along I-5. The sites will feature 90 fast chargers for passenger vehicles, 85 fast chargers for medium to heavy-duty EVs and 17 large chargers. The sites will also enhance grid stability with 63 acres of solar panels and battery electric storage systems.

Another $15 million will go to the Maryland Clean Energy Center to build 87 EV charging stations in urban, suburban and low- and moderate-income communities across the state. Proposed sites include Coppin State University, a historically Black school in Baltimore, and 34 disadvantaged communities with multi-family housing.

Since Biden took office in 2021, EV sales have more than quadrupled and reached more than 1 million last year. The number of publicly available charging ports has grown by nearly 70 percent to 168,426, White House climate adviser Ali Zaidi said.

That number is about one-third of the way to Biden's goal, with six years remaining.

“We are on an accelerating trajectory to meet and exceed the president’s goal to hit 500,000 chargers and build that nationwide backbone,'' Zaidi told reporters Wednesday.

Widespread availability of chargers is crucial to meet another Biden administration goal: ensuring that EVs make up half of all new car sales by 2030. Along with cost, “range anxiety” about a lack of available charging stations is a key impediment to buying an EV. About 80 percent of respondents cited concerns about a lack of charging stations as a reason not to purchase an electric vehicle, according to an April survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago.

Seven in 10 respondents said they would not purchase an EV because they take too long to charge and the battery technology isn’t ready.

Buttigieg and other administration officials brushed those concerns aside and said the future of auto travel is electric.

“We’re at a moment now where the electric vehicle revolution isn't coming. It is very much here,'' Buttigieg told reporters. EV sales now represent about 9 percent of all passenger vehicle sales, Buttigieg said — a huge increase since Biden took office. He cited a new study showing that EV's cost just 4 percent more than gasoline-powered cars.

"There's been a really remarkable drop in the prices that consumers face for EVs. And we believe we are fast approaching the period when EVs, on average, will be cheaper than internal combustion vehicles,'' Buttigieg said.

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New study shows Houston is still feeling effects of 2014-16 oil crash

lasting impact

A new study from Rice’s Kinder Institute shows that Houston is still feeling the economic effects of the 2014-2016 oil crash, more than a decade later.

Though Houston, nicknamed the Energy Capital of the World, has continued to grow over the time period, the city has still fallen behind other comparable metropolitan areas in earnings and job creation, according to the research. The report is one part of a three-part series that will take a look at regional economic mobility and suggest ideas to expand opportunity.

“When you look at what’s happened in other locations, we’re losing ground,” Flávio Cunha, director of the Center for Economic Mobility at Rice’s Kinder Institute for Urban Research, said in a release. “Our economy is growing, but it’s no longer growing at the rate it used to.”

Global oil prices fell 70 percent between 2014 and 2016, the report said, marking one of the three largest declines since World War II and the longest-lasting downturn since 1986. The report excluded pandemic-related gaps, and it mentions 2017’s Hurricane Harvey as a possible indicator that economic growth stalled after the 2014-2016 oil price crash recovery.

To understand the long-term impact of the crash, researchers compared Houston’s economic performance with 54 metropolitan areas like San Antonio, Pittsburgh and others with less dependence on the energy industry.

Some of the key findings in the report included:

  • Job creation: In 2019, Houston had approximately 240,000 fewer private-sector jobs than similar cities. Employment was 15 percent lower in goods-producing industries and 4 percent lower in the services industries than the control group.
  • Income shifts: Income per resident was 13 percent lower compared to the peer group. Workers who remained employed earned 10 percent less between 2015 and 2019 than in other metros. The 13 percent drop in income equates to roughly $76 billion a year in forgone income, or $10,700 per resident per year in 2025 dollars. The decline was a trend across every age group, education level and sex.
  • Population changes: The rate of people moving to Houston slowed, rather than a surge of people leaving.
  • Hiring changes: Hiring fell sharply for young workers ages 19-24.

Cunha says the most surprising finding was that these trends persisted a decade later. According to the report, by 2024, Houston’s wages and income per resident remained about a fifth and a sixth below those in peer cities, and jobs per resident had continued to lose ground.

“What really surprises me is not that there was this change. It’s that this change has been long-lasting,” he added. “We followed it up to 2024, and we still don’t detect that the economy has recovered from that one shock.”

Read the full report here.

2 fast-growing energy cos. are finalists for Houston Scaleup of the Year

Meet the finalists

From IPOs to groundbreakings, some of Houston's most innovative companies reached major milestones this year.

As part of InnovationMap's 2026 Houston Innovation Awards, the Scaleup of the Year category honors innovative later-stage startups that have recently reached a significant milestone in company growth. Three scaleups have been named finalists for the 2026 award, two of which are in the energy transition sector.

Read more about these businesses, their founders and their breakthrough technologies below. The 2026 winners will be announced on InnovationMap.com in mid-November.

Erock

Energy infrastructure company Erock, previously known as Enchanted Rock, develops dual-purpose microgrids that rely on natural gas and renewable natural gas to produce lower carbon emissions and air pollutants than diesel generators. Its products can provide bridge power before grid interconnection, backup power during outages and dispatchable capacity that supports long-term grid reliability. The company has more than 1,100 megawatts of installed capacity and over 20 years of experience serving commercial, municipal and large-scale technology customers.

Erock completed its initial public offering this year, raising approximately $600 million in gross proceeds. It also grew its contracted power system sales backlog to approximately $1.7 billion, up tenfold year-over-year, with production sold out through 2028, according to the company's application. The company secured a major equipment order from Anthropic, began construction of the 366-megawatt El Paso Electric project supporting Meta's data center campus, and started assembly operations at its Hyperion facility in Cypress, Texas.

Hertha Metals

Hertha Metals produces lower-cost, lower-emission steel and high-purity iron. The company has developed a single-step process that uses natural gas as a direct reductant instead of metallurgical coal, which cuts production costs by more than 25 percent and emissions by up to 50 percent, according to the company. The same process produces high-purity iron needed for high-purity steels and rare earth magnets. The company says it aims to "re-industrialize America’s production of critical materials."

Hertha Metals was founded by CEO Laureen Meroueh in 2022 and emerged from stealth last year with more than $17 million in venture capital funding. The company closed a $133.65 million Series A last month and also broke ground on its $100M high-purity iron factory known as Chalyx in Conroe.

Venus Aerospace

Spacetech company Venus Aerospace is developing a high-thrust rotating detonation rocket engine (RDRE) that replaces the subsonic combustion used in conventional rocket engines. The RDRE is a compact, simpler engine that can deliver up to 15 percent greater efficiency for defense and space applications. It completed its first U.S. flight test of the engine last summer.

Venus Aerospace was founded in 2020 by CEO Cassie Duggleby and CTO Andrew Duggleby. It raised a $20 million Series A in 2022 and $42 million Series A2 in 2025. It closed a $91 million Series B earlier this year and expanded its leadership team. The company is working toward longer-duration and higher-thrust testing and advancing its flight program.

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This article first appeared on InnovationMap.com.

Oxy inks long-term agreements for 2M tons of CO2 capture, transport

carbon contracts

Houston-based Occidental has made two long-term agreements that will expand its carbon management business in the Delaware Basin and the Permian Basin.

Oxy announced Nov. 9 that it has signed agreements with two unnamed project developers to capture and transport approximately 2 million metric tons of CO2 from their existing and new natural gas processing facilities in the Delaware Basin in West Texas annually. The CO2 will be transported for use in Oxy's enhanced oil recovery (EOR) operations in the Permian Basin.

“Securing reliable, long-term sources of CO2 supports Occidental’s advanced recovery strategy to extend the productive life of existing fields and enhance recovery across our conventional and unconventional resource base,” Vishal Gupta, president and general manager of EOR Ventures at Occidental, said in a news release. “The projects, once operational, will help diversify our CO2 supply, improve access to cost-effective resources and create infrastructure that can connect additional carbon capture projects over time. Federal 45Q incentives are an important support for these investments.”

According to the release, the projects have the potential to expand to handle up to 4 million metric tons of C02 per year combined. The first shipments to Oxy are expected in 2029. The unnamed developers will fund and build the infrastructure to capture, transport and deliver the CO2 to Oxy, the company shared in the release.

Additionally, the agreement stipulates that the projects will also include the build-out of nearly 100 miles of new CO2 pipeline infrastructure. The new pipeline is planned to connect with the existing CO2 pipeline network in the Permian Basin. Oxy adds that the pipelines are being designed to handle additional future capacity to "support future conventional and unconventional recovery opportunities" of CO2.

Oxy uses the EOR process to inject stored CO2 back into a producing oil fields to boost the site's performance. The recycled CO2 displaces trapped oil and gas and is then secured in the reservoir. Oxy says that EOR combined with Direct Air Capture (DAC) technology "remove[s] an amount of CO2 equivalent to that emitted during the production and consumption of [its] products."

Oxy subsidiary 1PointFive is developing a $1.3 billion DAC project in the Midland-Odessa area that is slated to be the largest facility of its kind in the world. Known as STRATOS, it's designed to capture up to 500,000 metric tons of CO2 per year. After a component delay, 1PointFive shared in May that it would ramp up operations at the project throughout 2026.

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