The hits just keep coming for President Biden's Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm following her publicity stunt "summer road trip" in an electric vehicle during which the proverbial wheels came off, this time courtesy of the House Oversight Committee.
In a letter to Granholm sent Tuesday, Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-KY) and Subcommittee on Economic Growth, Energy Policy, and Regulatory Affairs Chairman Pat Fallon (R-TX) state that they are "alarmed by recent reports of your four-day summer road trip apparently intended to showcase the Biden administration's progress in achieving a radical green agenda."
Specifically, the House Republican lawmakers note that:
Using an internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicle, your Department of Energy (DOE) staff blocked off an EV-only charing station so you could stay on a schedule which was "painstakingly mapped out ahead of time" because of limited, slow, and nonworking EV chargers along your route. In "sweltering" Georgia heat, your staff's action caused a family with an infant child and low charge on their EV battery to call the police out of urgency while waiting at this charging station. You ultimately blamed your staff for "poor judgment" while testifying about preventing other EV vehicles from charging. This taxpayer-funded publicity stunt illustrates yet again how out of touch the Biden Administration is with the consequences of the policies it has unleashed on everyday Americans.
Noting the House GOP's commitment to "preserving freedoms like vehicle consumer choice in the face of an unproven, burdensome, and expensive Biden Administration push to force all Americans to buy EVs," the letter requests "documents and information to understand the purposes, costs, and consequences of your summer 2023 EV road trip."
"[A]t every point on this journey, you relied upon [internal combustion] vehicles using gasoline to try to boost the charade of the effectiveness of green energy," the letter highlights, because the "fleet of EVs could not complete the trip without the support of the fossil fuel industry which you and the Biden Administration have been trying to vilify and destroy."
The Oversight Committee members also noted that Granholm and the Department of Energy "avoided any use of Tesla vehicles or technology" even though, as an embedded NPR reporter on the road trip noted, "Tesla chargers are significantly better than the competition and most of the electric vehicles in the U.S. are Teslas. DOE's exclusion of Tesla from your EV road trip raises questions whether the decision was politically motivated," the letter adds.
Pointing out that Granholm's disastrous EV road trip came just before President Biden announced another prohibition on oil drilling on millions of acres in the Arctic, the letter quips that the "combination of anti-energy policies and China's consolidation of critical minerals necessary for EVs has left American domestic energy producers searching for answers just like [Granholm] and [her] entourage were left searching for chargers."
With a deadline of October 10, the Oversight Committee requested all Department of Energy information and documents:
- related to the road trip
- related to each vehicle that was part of the road trip and of passengers traveling with the entourage
- relating to qualitative or quantitative assessments of the road trip
- related to the cost of the road trip to taxpayers including fuel, promotion, lodging, meals, etc.
- relating to any reimbursement associated with the road trip
- between and among DOE staff and the manufacturers of the electric vehicles on the trip
- containing the word "Tesla" related to the road trip
- relating to the record keeping of emissions produced by all parties on the road trip
- between and among Granholm, her staff, and the White House about the road trip
- between and among Granholm, her staff, and any other executive agency related to the road trip
- between and among Granholm, her staff, and any nongovernmental third parties related to the road trip
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