Congress Quietly Defused the September 30 NEVI Funding Cliff, Pennsylvania Opens Its Fourth and Final NEVI Round for $32 Million, UL Launches a Vehicle-to-Grid Certification Program, and EV Realty Locks In Grid Power for a 27 MW Truck Charging Hub

The September 30 Cliff This Newsletter Has Tracked Is Already Resolved

Last week's issue flagged September 30 as the date the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act's program authorizations expire, putting NEVI's underlying legal authority at risk. That deadline has, in effect, already been handled. On September 2, President Trump signed the Continuing Appropriations and Extensions Act, 2027, a stopgap funding bill the Senate passed 90-6 on August 8 and the House passed 370-48 on September 2. The law funds the federal government at current levels through December 11, and separately extends Highway Trust Fund contract authority, the legal mechanism underlying NEVI and other formula highway programs, through September 30, 2027.

The catch is what the deal leaves out. The extension does not continue the IIJA's advance appropriations, the funding mechanism that gave transit and passenger rail programs money above standard annual levels. Transportation groups including the National Association of Counties and Transportation for America have warned that without those advance appropriations, public transit investment could fall roughly 20% and passenger rail funding roughly 83% from current levels if Congress does not restore them in a full-year FY2027 appropriations bill. Highway and NEVI formula funding is not targeted the same way, but the underlying question of what a five-year reauthorization looks like is unresolved: the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee's BUILD America 250 Act cleared committee 62-2 back in May, and the Senate still has not released a companion bill.

What this means for property owners. If you are relying on an already-open state NEVI round, including any of Pennsylvania's four regional rounds, the September 30 date is a non-event: the money keeps flowing under the extended contract authority. The date that actually matters now is December 11, when the current government funding patch runs out and Congress has to decide whether to pass a full-year transportation bill, another stopgap, or let a real shutdown fight play out closer to the holidays.

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Pennsylvania Opens Its Fourth and Final NEVI Region, $32 Million for 18 Eastern Counties

PennDOT opened the Eastern Region of its NEVI Community Charging Funding Opportunity on September 17, making $32 million available across 18 counties, including Berks, Lancaster, Lehigh, Luzerne, and York. Proposals are due March 12, 2027, and technical questions are due November 23. The same day, Pennsylvania's 50th federally funded EV charging station opened at a Sheetz on Linglestown Road in Harrisburg.

This closes out the set. Eastern is the fourth of four regional rounds PennDOT has run through 2026, following Southeastern, Western ($25 million, opened in September's issue two weeks ago), and Central ($11 million, covered last week). Together they commit the state's full $100 million community charging allocation, on top of the roughly $62 million already spent building out NEVI corridor stations. Pennsylvania says it leads the nation in NEVI-funded stations actually open, with dozens more in planning or construction.

What this means for property owners. If your site is in one of the 18 eastern counties, the portal timeline gives real runway: proposals aren't due until March 2027. If you're outside Pennsylvania, the model is worth watching regardless of where you are: a state that breaks a large formula allocation into staged regional rounds, rather than one all-at-once RFP, gives more sites a real shot over time.

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UL Solutions Launches a Certification Program for Vehicle-to-Grid Chargers

UL Solutions announced a new certification program in mid-September for bidirectional AC EV chargers, testing them against UL 1741 Supplement SC in combination with the SAE J3072 interconnection standard that lets a vehicle's onboard inverter push power back to the grid. Testing is available at UL labs in Fremont, California, and Northbrook, Illinois.

This addresses a real gap in vehicle-to-grid deployment. Bidirectional charging equipment has moved from pilot projects, like the Zum school bus fleet this newsletter covered in San Francisco, toward broader commercial and utility interest, but installers and utilities have lacked a widely recognized third-party safety certification specific to the V2G interconnection itself. A named UL program gives specifiers a standard to point to in procurement and interconnection paperwork, similar to how UL 1741 already anchors solar inverter approvals.

What this means for commercial property owners and fleet operators. If you're evaluating bidirectional charging hardware for a fleet, a multifamily property, or a grid-services contract, ask a vendor whether their equipment carries or is pursuing UL certification under this program. It is an early but concrete signal of which hardware is being built to a standard utilities will trust, rather than a one-off pilot integration.

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EV Realty Locks In Grid Power for a 27 MW Truck Charging Hub Near the Ports of LA and Long Beach

EV Realty announced on September 17 that it has acquired an industrial property on East Philadelphia Street in Ontario, California, in the Inland Empire's warehousing corridor near State Route 60 and Interstate 15, and has confirmed a 9 megawatt grid power reservation with Southern California Edison for a future truck charging hub there. Combined with its existing sites, the reservation brings EV Realty's simultaneous truck-charging capacity in the Inland Empire to 27 megawatts. Construction on the new site is expected to begin in 2027.

The story here is the grid reservation, not the real estate. The Inland Empire is one of the most grid-constrained regions in Southern California for large new electrical loads, and EV Realty is emphasizing that it locked down interconnection capacity with the utility before breaking ground, rather than after. For fleets serving the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, that sequencing is the harder problem to solve.

What this means for commercial property owners and fleet operators. If you're planning depot or hub charging for a Class 8 fleet in a grid-constrained market, treat the utility interconnection study and capacity reservation as the long pole in the schedule, not the site acquisition or the charging hardware. A site with power secured is worth more than a larger site without it.

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By the Numbers

$32 million: Federal NEVI funding in PennDOT's Eastern Region Community Charging round, opened September 17, 2026, for 18 counties.

50: NEVI-funded EV charging stations now open in Pennsylvania as of September 17, 2026, which the state says leads the nation.

September 30, 2027: The new date through which the September 2 continuing resolution extends Highway Trust Fund contract authority, replacing the September 30, 2026 cliff this newsletter has tracked since summer.

27 MW: EV Realty's planned simultaneous truck-charging capacity across its Inland Empire, California sites once its new Ontario hub comes online, following a 9 MW grid reservation confirmed with Southern California Edison on September 17, 2026.

2: UL Solutions testing labs, in Fremont, California, and Northbrook, Illinois, now certifying bidirectional EV chargers under its new vehicle-to-grid program announced in mid-September 2026.

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Sources: the National Association of Counties, the American Public Transportation Association, Transportation for America, the AASHTO Journal, Engineering News-Record, and NPR (continuing resolution and IIJA/Highway Trust Fund contract authority extension coverage, September 2026), the White House and congressional coverage of the Continuing Appropriations and Extensions Act, 2027 (signed September 2, 2026), the U.S. House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure (BUILD America 250 Act status), PennDOT (NEVI Community Charging Eastern Region funding notice and 50th-station announcement, September 17, 2026), MyChesCo, PennWatch, and the Times Leader (Pennsylvania NEVI coverage), UL Solutions (vehicle-to-grid certification program announcement), EC&M, pv magazine USA, Solar Power World, and EV Infrastructure News (UL V2G certification coverage), EV Realty and Southern California Edison (Ontario, California site announcement via GlobeNewswire, September 17, 2026), and The Trucker and EV Infrastructure News (EV Realty coverage). evcharginghelp.com is editorially independent and receives no compensation from any company mentioned.