this hearing is called to order the goals of achieving energy independence and reducing our global warming pollution cannot be adequately addressed without a transformation of our transportation sector more than any other this sector lies at the very nexus of these twin problems which are facing our nation two thirds of the oil which we consume every day currently goes into the transportation sector it is a simple fact that during the years after congress mandated a doubling of fuel economy standards from thirteen point five to twenty  five but since then our fuel economy standards have been stuck in neutral or even in reverse and our dependence on foreign oil has skyrocketed to roughly sixty percent plug in hybrid electric vehicles hold the potential to radically transform our use of oil while the transportation sector is powered mostly by oil the nationwide electricity grid runs on very little only three percent according to the energy information administration increasing the use of plug in hybrids can help to make driving much less petroleum intensive by using electricity such a transformation could have  incredible effect according to the department of energy's pacific northwest national laboratory replacing our passenger vehicle fleet with plug in hybrids could reduce our oil consumption by six point five million barrels a day our global warming by twenty seven percent moreover turning our vehicle fleet into plug in hybrids would not require a significant expansion of our electrical infrastructure because plug in hybrids would primarily be charged at night during off peak hours that same study found that seventy three percent of our existing passenger fleet could be powered using the existing electrical generation infrastructure now some  automakers have produced plug in hybrid prototypes and are beginning to announce long term plans to manufacture them we need to ensure that these promises not only become reality but they are surpassed we cannot afford to wait five years or more to begin seriously looking to unlock the potential of this technology it is already possible to convert the roughly one million hybrid vehicles that will be on the road this year into plug in vehicles capable of getting one hundred and fifty miles per gallon this conversion would allow existing hybrids to begin travel between twenty to sixty miles on a single charge the next generation vehicles would allow americans to go from zero to sixty miles on barely a drop of oil consumers were clamoring for a revolution in automotive technology innovation such as plug in hybrid should not have been sitting on the shelf for so long after all this isn't rocket science it is auto mechanics we have to make sure that we pay attention to all of these new technologies that have the potential to reduce our oil dependence and emissions of heat trapping gases and listen to the american people all across the country who are calling for them we have the technology we have the innovation the only thing that has been missing is the will and now i would like to turn and recognize the ranking member of the warming first i said any policy must produce tangible improvements to the environment i also believe that any policy must protect the economy and include participation of all the industrialized countries including china  india global warming policy must support advanced technological progress because technology not taxes or regulation provide us with the best options to reduce u s dependency on foreign oil and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions between established technology like nuclear power and solutions like fertilizing carbon dioxide eating plankton the range of technology possibilities to address oil dependency  greenhouse gas emissions are fascinating researchers are reaching breakthrough technologies to improve existing ideas and what better technology to win the race than a car hybrid car technology  at the racetrack plug in hybrid cars hold even greater promise of reducing our reliance on foreign oil and greenhouse gas emissions early indications suggest that if this technology were fully employed it could reduce oil consumption by six million barrels a day and greenhouse gas emissions by twenty seven percent which is very promising indeed should plug in hybrid car technology be the winner of this race to free us from foreign oil and greenhouse gas the answer is i don't know and i don't think anybody else does either it shouldn't be up to me or any of my colleagues in congress to decide ultimately it should be consumers who decide when they choose which products they will buy after all with gas prices what they are i doubt it will take a congressional mandate to sell a car that gets one hundred and fifty miles to the gallon despite the promise plug in hybrid technology is expensive and it is still unclear if it is effective on a mass scale to be sure it appears that this technology is still a breakthrough or two away from being parked in everyone's driveway maybe we will see breakthroughs in hybrid technology perhaps there is another technology that will move us beyond gasoline such as biodiesel hydrogen fuel cells or liquefied coal already we are seeing the private sector taking interest in private or plug in hybrid technology is here to inform us about the research into this technology on monday ford motors and southern california edison announced the joint initiative on plug in hybrid research that is also good news but while ford motor mulally said that plug in hybrids could probably be in showrooms in five to ten years he made no firm predictions or promises like any smart business ford motors is waiting to see if technology develops funding research sure there is promise in plug in hybrid technology i am glad to see the private sector is willing to fund it indeed but i caution my colleagues against believing technological breakthroughs are merely as a result of money and funding for nearly four decades congress devoted billions to nuclear fusion research hoping for a breakthrough in energy production so far we are still waiting for commercial results we can't afford to wait fo decades for a breakthrough that will release us from our dependency on foreign oil we now know that hybrids are fast the question is will they be fast enough to win this technological race i hope today's hearing will help us to begin to answer this this with the committee the yin was i went hiking saturday up in the cascades in washington state and saw mile after mile of dead and dying fir trees killed by the budworm that can ravage our forest because it doesn't get cold enough to kill them anymore sunday the next day i went to everett washington and saw the roll out of the boeing seven hundred and eighty seven dreamliner an incredible piece of technology that reduces co pollution twenty percent per passenger mile one fifth less co emissions because of the use of technology yesterday i talked to a guy named david moore who works at vulcan inc in seattle he is one the first to have a prius plug in his car in his daily commute the number that got me in his description of his plug in prius is that finally since he got the car several months ago he has driven one thousand two hundred miles before he had to put a gallon of gasoline in it i think a promise to americans that you can drive to work thirty miles a day spend zero dollars fifteen cents on your fuel and go one two hundred miles before you spend a dollar to saudi arabia is a pretty good deal it is not future rocket science it is here today plug in hybrids are the technological cavalry they have arrived just in time we have to make sure they get implemented you recharge the hybrid and run it off the electricity more than the gasoline you emit one fourth the amount of carbon into the atmosphere if the electricity production comes from gas fired may be one of the lowest if not the lowest from hydropower so in our part of the world if you can plug them in you are getting renewable energy right from the start into the car and i think this will go a long way i do think there needs to be greater development on the intrigued by all of this i intend to take the testimony with me and i apologize for having to leave early today but i look forward to america moving forward the final comment i would make is that in central oregon is a company who has been on the forefront of hydrogen recognizes the gentlelady from california ms solis thank you mister chairman i am delighted that you are having this hearing today i often complain about the hardships that my district faces in los angeles particularly east los angeles one of the harder hit areas that our carpool lanes are made more accessible for those who purchase those vehicles i am really proud to say today that we heard mention from the other side of the aisle about the innovations that are coming forward from places such as obscure districts like continue to promote that i am a strong advocate to see that we do as much as we can and bring about change at the local level the grass roots level because i really believe that our young people and our children when we see them at our local schools often ask about what are we doing about changing climate change and what are we doing to help improve the environment and what kind of future am i going to have and i think we all have to act responsib to join in this love fest i want to thank and compliment you for holding this hearing today on plug in hybrid vehicle technology and the potential to reduce our reliance on oil and particularly on imported oil i believe it is one of those great opportunities for bipartisan cooperation clearly it is incumbent upon all of us in america and especially upon policymakers to pursue alternatives to oil and alternatives to imported oil and plug in hybrid technology holds great potential in my state of arizona we face air pollution problems and we face long commutes and the possibility of being able to do those with hybrid vehicles that run on electricity and do not further pollute or cause additional greenhouse gases is a great potential  i certainly agree that there are tremendous possibilities for hybrid vehicles and in addition to the gain we can achieve from them in terms of issues of environment and issues of global warming there is also the development of battery technology i think it is well known that we lag behind the japanese in battery technology that is one of the reasons we are not as far ahead in hybrids and plug in hybrids as we might be fortunately that language remains in the bill and it is now law and we are doing more aggressive things i hope we can do even more this is certainly a step in the right direction and we need to pursue every alternative energy source we can and again i compliment the chairman on the hearing the chairman i thank the gentleman and i mister chairman i thank you for the hearing and i want to thank our witnesses for taking the opportunity to come and talk with us on this issue as you have heard we are all interested in what we do to achieve energy independence how we  go about making energy independence an attainable realistic goal for our country and we appreciate your participation in the discussion today i am looking forward to what we are going to hear about the plug in hybrids and their being a part of the solution as we move forward where i come from right outside of nashville tennessee we have a lot of auto manufacturing  there is so much creativity and so much innovation that is going on in this industry and we want to be certain that we encourage that mister shadegg just talked about a provision he had in the energy bill we had passed  two years ago now we are also working on an additional bill that is going through our committee just finished our energy commerce committee we are looking at how to spread that innovation i do have some concerns one is the cost hybrids are about three thousand dollars more than a conventional car and then a plug in hybrid is about six thousand dollars more as you are talking with consumers that becomes an obstacle so that is something that i am concerned about then the battery is only going to last a six to eight year period of time then you have the disposal problem with the battery so those are all obstacles and problems that need to be solved as we move forward on the issue also as we view this i want to be certain we don't pick winners and losers on energy technology there should be others are not in the future they may choose to buy hybrids but we need to be certain that is done by incentives in the market and not mandates from the government we need to know that this is going to be a part of our discussion mister chairman thank you all our witnesses today in its brief history this committee has addressed many of the critical topics related to our dependence on foreign oil and the impacts of global warming but the subject of today's hearing may be the most important yet the overwhelming majority of our dependence on foreign oil is directly tied to the cars we drive there is simply no way to be serious about lessening the influence of opec reducing prices at the pump of working families or cutting down on tailpipe emissions that are choking our air and warming our planet without making our cars more efficient i and my wife drive american made vehicles i decided to vote with my believe actually that it is essential that we compete as a country and that our industry compete for the efficiency market because that is a big part of why u s auto manufacturers are losing market share when one compares american hybrids and the average mileage available in an american car with that available in a japanese or another foreign made car i have also noticed that there are currently systems available for my car which would take it from market the systems that are being built by small companies that inherently have to cost more money to the consumer because they are not dealing with the scale and quantity of hundreds of thousands of vehicles that the original manufacturers could crank out so the sooner that we  hopefully get on board and use the ingenuity that we have been hearing about and the creativity and technological prowess this country is famous for the better the challenge for this congress is how to push plug ins over the company is a leader in the plug in hybrid business fitting existing hybrids with the batteries and equipment needed to convert plug in hybrids mister vieau brings more than thirty years experience in high technology and component businesses we welcome you mister vieau whenever you feel comfortable please beg outside this building today we have a couple of demonstration vehicles that implement some of the technology that you have spoken so eloquently about these vehicles in particular the toyota prius vehicle that we have a demonstration of with urban driving testing would indicate between one hundred and one hundred and fifty miles per gallon the benefits to us on a vehicle by vehicle basis is a reduction in fuel consumption for the average american of over eighty a reduction of the carbon emissions of over sixty percent on a national basis inclusive of the emissions associated with the production of the electricity that is used to create the energy for the vehicle  this capability is made possible by what i would say is the convergence of three events over the last five years the first of which is the widespread availability of production hybrid electric vehicles  vehicle i think everyone here is quite familiar with them the nature of the vehicle is that it provides additional electrification to a hybrid vehicle it can be plugged in to charge the batteries from a standard household circuit alliance bernstein and a host of the top venture capital companies in america we have over three hundred and eighty employees today around the world including our facilities in ann arbor michigan where we do research and defense related  battery technology development and our facility in watertown and our facility in toronto canada we initially took our technology to a commercial partner black and decker to work with them to create an advanced cordless power tool set first of all to help them advance the state of the art and add space with more powerful batteries and second to demonstrate the capability of this new technology on a commercial scale this has been made possible by this nano phosphate material which we licensed from mit and commercialized in our labs it brings to the market a combination of greater power better safety improved safety and much longer life both calendar life and cycle life a combination of which had never been available previously as a result of this we have been selected by general motors to be a partner in development of their batteries and battery systems for the next generation plug in hybrid vehicles which we expect to see in the market in the next three to five years programs with domestic and international auto companies i say all of this because i want you to understand the seriousness that we take in our business and to understand the primary nature of the business a is to create battery systems that can be implemented themselves and through the major manufacturers of not only automobiles but also trucks and buses we have a message today which i hope is the one key message to leave with you we believe that in all the legislation that you have pending in front of you here today in congress nothing is greater than this plug in hybrid vehicle module conversion and bringing forward the opportunity to get a savings of eighty percent reduction in fuel usage on a  consumer basis and a sixty percent reduction in emissions with little or no change in the infrastructure we have and it can be done in the immediate future i think it is a very strong statement and that is why we as a company have been supporting the activity of creating an after market opportunity building modules that can be put in vehicles not five years from now but tomorrow with these vehicles there is certainly some criticism at times about after market activities and concerns about the viability of it i will say to you that we are very serious about making sure that these vehicles have been nhtsa tested for safety and crash readiness and epa certified for emissions to provide the increases that we have and improvements that we have so testif very much you will have plenty of opportunity during the question and answer period our next witness rob lowe has earned an emmy nomination two golden globe nominations for his work on the west wing he joins  us after most recently transitioning from white house communications director on west wing to california senator and republican presidential candidate in the new show brothers and sisters he believes america is ready for a congressmen inslee sensenbrenner and other members of the committee thank you for the opportunity to appear today before this distinguished panel and although i have been a senior adviser to the president and am currently a republican junior senator from california running for president i am honored to sit before you today because you are the genuine article when it comes to doing the nation's business we all know that you have the ability to be the real stars so thank you like many americans i have watched with increased frustration as our country drifts under the status quo without any concrete national policy for energy independence with the issue of global warming entering the cultural zeitgeist it seemed like that might break the deadlock but so far it appears to have not and now in the war on terror in which our oil addiction helps fund our enemies and we ask our best and brightest to serve and to sometimes to die at least in part to protect our oil needs surely we here at stateside can and must use this critical moment in time to at last begin implementing a responsible and practical plan for energy independence a large segment of the public already knows this i believe american consumers are patriotic and they are smart and they want to do their fair share they have heard of the potential of these electronic cars fuel cells and the dreams of hydrogen but today and even in the near future they can't go out and actually buy any of these dreams that is why i come here today i would like to suggest with your help and the help of your colleagues we may in fact be able to pave the way to use existing breakthrough technology to bring far more efficient green cars to the american public right now new american technology exists today that can transform most conventional hybrids getting forty to fifty miles per gallon into plug in hybrids getting one hundred to one hundred and fifty miles per gallon can go forty miles on a single four hour charge costs sixty cents you plug into a standard electrical outlet and it can save the average consumer over one thousand dollars a year and fleet users up to three thousand five hundred dollars in gas costs while saving one hundred tons  co emissions over the life of the car i recently heard about asystems and their batteries which are powerful smaller safer and longer lasting than anything else on the market they fit in the spare tire well they can increase the on board electrical storage by many multiples and cut gasoline consumption by eighty percent emissions by sixty now i am not a mensa member but i play smart guys on tv so i wanted to know more when i found out that technology has been chosen i read the independent assessment done by the department of energy's premier argonne lab last summer which resulted in one hundred and fifty to two hundred and fifty mile per gallon in urban driving and i checked with some friends who have the cars  and they confirmed these results i found this to be amazing with this education i came here today to ask you why not exercise your leadership right now to put in place  wartime like mobilization plan to find out if this new technology can cut our oil consumption by eighty percent starting right now certainly congress should be able to provide the same kind of early user tax credits for these plug in modules that were so critical in bringing down the prices and jump starting the current growth and demand for standard hybrids obviously game changing advances are sometimes met with indifference or even resistance from the establishment with that said can't our amazing and powerful detroit automotive industry be given a message together with effective incentives to speed up their conversion to plug in hybrids by using this or any other technological advance in the west wing someone asked my character sam seaborn why he wasn't practicing law at a big law firm making a lot of money instead of grinding it out in a life of public policy and he answered with this story and forty our armed forces weren't among the twelve most powerful in the world but obviously we were going to fight a big war and roosevelt said the united states would produce fifty thousand planes in four years and everybody said it was a  for any viable mass marketed plug in under the status quo or a major push now to jump start the conversion of plug ins from the growing millions of hybrids coming to our roads with what is at stake in the world today it is not much to ask we have done far more in the pursuit of far less and yet when inspired our government is capable of amazing achievement as i once said on the west wing over the past half century we have split the a have spliced the gene and roamed tranquility base we have reached for the stars and never have they been closer to being in our grasp new science new technology is making the difference between life and death and we need a national commitment equal to this unparalleled moment of possibility that was fiction we are here today to deal with reality but the stars are aligned the time is now and patriotic and smart americans await this founder and president of the center for security policy and a leading thinker on the national security implications of our energy dependence he was the deputy assistant secretary of defense for nuclear forces and i guess it is senator lowe said about the national security implications of the plug in hybrid option about two years ago almost to the day i had a chance to testify before this body's armed services committee about what was then pending as a significant public policy problem which was communist china's attempt to buy a major american oil company un sure we have internalized as well as we should which is that energy insecurity can translate into tremendous national security problems indeed i think it was a catalyst for world war ii when the imperial japanese feared that they were not going to have access to the energy needs that they believed they needed because of growing competition or perhaps a determination by organization called the set america free coalition unless such steps are adopted it would appear as a practical matter we will inevitably find ourselves on a collision course with communist china particularly if worldwide demand for oil approaches anything like the projected sixty percent growth over the next two decades in my testimony i go on to enumerate a variety of other potential national security threats arising from our energy insecurity as you know mister chairman something on the order of three quarters of the world's proven oil reserves are in the ideology i think is best described as islamofascism we and our allies are as mister lowe mentioned as a result transferring enormous wealth in the form of payments for imported petroleum to people who are trying to kill us not least our putative friend so called moderate regime saudi arabia is using such funds to promote a pincer movement against the west involving wahhabi recruitment and indoctrination via saudi funded mosques madrassas political influence operations prison and military chaplain programs and campus organizations on the one hand and muslim brotherhood front organizations on the other our enabling of so much behavior is the height of foll an irresponsible and certainly unsustainable practice from the national security perspective moreover various suppliers of oil over the years have recognized that the threat of supply constrictions can translate into a weapon against the united states and other oil consuming nations in my testimony i enumerate half a dozen of them we have not seen another oil it as an immoral act or something they would be opposed to in principle it is simply that it doesn't serve their interest at the moment that could change at any time especially if the world becomes more dependent  on opec oil terrorists appear to understand as well the dependency of our economy on imported oil and the ease with which interruptions of the supply can be affected through attacks not here but on the infrastructure elsewhere in fact had the abqaiq processing facility in saudi arabia not narrowly avoided a devastating attack we would be even now in the midst of a full blown energy crisis as a result of that facility being off line for some time what is to be done i mentioned the set america free coalition one of  is here i thank him for his work among other things in the field of educating people about the hybrid option but also if i may just mention the importance of diversifying our energy uses particular in the transportation sector in other ways as well in the set america free blueprint we talk about ethanol not just from corn but from other sources meth l not just from coal but from other sources as well all of which can be part of an alternative fuel approach fuel choice if you will if enabled by flexible fuel vehicles  one of your colleagues spoke of driving today there are about five million of them on the road i cannot for the life of me understand why we allow any cars sold in america today to be other than flexible fuel vehicle vehicles it costs about one hundred dollars to make them when you are doing them en masse and with very few exceptions every one of them would benefit and you instantaneously create the opportunity for diversifying the fuel that powers our transportation sector let me turn in closing to the matter at hand there are others on the panel who are more capable of talking about the technology i would suggest to you mister chairman that the kinds of steps that you and your colleagues are now taking constitute a veritable tsunami behind the idea of bringing to market not in ten to fifteen years but today a technology that may not be perfect today but could rapidly begin to address the problem that we are facing the insecurity arising from our dependency particularly in our transportation sector from the consumption of inordina amounts very inefficiently of oil most of which comes from people who are trying to kill us i began with a threat from china let me close with one it is my understanding that we may well see coming to wal marts near you the chery a vehicle communist china proposes to sell for perhaps as little as seven thousand maybe ten thousand dollars perhaps for as little as twelve thousand to thirteen zero thanks to their dominant position with all due respect in the battery technology business you may be able to see american consumers offered vehicles that could get a flexible fuel vehicle feature perhaps five hundred miles per gallon of gasoline from a chery that is a flexible fuel and plug in hybrid electric vehicle i dare say that will be the end of detroit if that vehicle is available in large numbers in america in the near future and it could be i share my colleagues view that we mustn't let that happen from a national join us on very short notice after mayor wynn was left stranded at the austin airport last night because of severe thunderstorms mister hoover represents the city of austin which has risen to a position of national leadership on energy and climate issues the austin climate protection plan will eliminate greenhouse gas emissions from virtually all municipal activities by two thousand and twenty while dramatically  renewable power at austin energy a utility which it works closely with developing a plan for a plug in hybrid fleet mister hoover we welcome you whenever you are ready please hoover thank you mister chairman and members of the committee for the opportunity to speak to you about the potential impact of plug in hybrid vehicles on both the nation's energy usage and global warming the city of austin has an exceptional asset in its municipal utility austin energy the green choice program has led the nation in renewable energy sales for the past five years the energy efficiency and greenbuilding programs for commercial and residential buildings is a national model austin energy is the first electric utility outside of california to join the california climate action registry earlier this year the austin city council adopted a climate protection plan that sets goals and strategies to make austin the leading u s city in the campaign to fight global warming plug in hybrids i believe are part of that future the city's interest to plug in hybrid vehicles took hold as they realized the potential environmental and economic benefits that come with electrifying the transportation system these are reducing foreign oil with domestic resources for energy independence reducing greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles powering vehicles with renewable energy reducing air pollution in urban areas and lowering fuel costs for consumers the benefits that can be realized from plug in hybrids aren't some futuristic idea as you have heard earlier today the vehicle technology and the electric infrastructure fuel these vehicles is here today in january of two thousand and six the city of austin launched plug in partners national campaign to persuade automakers to build plug in hybrids by demonstrating that a market for these vehicles exists today austin energy has taken a lead in forming this national grassroots coalition which now counts six hundred partners including twenty three of the nation's largest cities our city partners include los angeles new york city chicago boston portland oregon seattle san francisco kansas city missouri milwaukee phoenix and memphis this coalition spreads over forty one states and includes state and local governments electric utilities environmental a national security groups and the business community including the largest auto retailer who joined because their ceo believes they can sell plug in hybrid vehicles the automakers have taken notice gm announced plans for t ten years plug in hybrids have the ability to enhance energy independence in the near term at virtually no cost our national power system could charge tens of millions of plug in vehicles without requiring new power plants consumer demand for electricity peaks during the day but more than forty percent of the capacity of generators in the united states sits idle or operates at reduced load overnight it is during the off peak hours tha most plug in vehicles would be charged the department of energy's national lab reported that the nation's existing electric generating capacity could be able to fuel eighty four percent of the u s cars pickups and s and plug in hybrids without a single power plant being built earlier this year the brookings institution announced that nothing could do more to reduce oil dependence more quickly than making cars to connect to the electric grid electric utilities could be the gas station of the future with the infrastructure already in place and the significant unused generating capacity to recharge cars overnight the only thing plug in hybrid vehicle owners would need is an extension cord plug in hybrids offer the most promising approach to reducing carbon emissions and transportation a california air resources board study of emissions along the entire supply chain found that using today's national electric grid a battery powered electric vehicle generates forty percent of the greenhouse gases produced by an equivalent gasoline vehicle this would shift the emissions that impact the public health from urban areas out to power plants where they are more easily controlled as the nation's grid becomes greener so would the transportation sector austin energy produces a lot of wind generated energy mostly at night which provides a perfect fit from environmentally friendly plug ins the green choice customers of austin energy would fuel plug ins from wind from west texas instead of oil from the middle east the environmental benefits of hybrids will be substantially increased as you enact federal policies encouraging the greening of the energy grid gasoline given that half the cars are driven thirty miles or less a plug in with even a twenty mile purely electric range could reduce petroleum fuel consumption by sixty percent in summing up austin energy is  a plug in hybrid i think people are wondering what is it like is it much different than driving a regular car mister lowe well the most marked thing that i found is you get almost competitive with yourself to see exactly how much amazing gas mileage you can be you watch this sort of read out and you realize okay i am going to come off of this stoplight a little slower because i will get literally one hundred  one that i have been driving says one hundred and fifty miles per gallon on the side so people come up to you and stop you on the street and want to know where can i buy it i mean my nonscientific field testing tells me th dream that people have can this happen can we actually produce vehicles like this that the american people can purchase mister vieau there is absolutely no question that we can do it we made dozens of the demonstrations vehicles to show that the associated with that but these are problems that have been solved in numerous ways i can tell you that we as an industry figured out ways to package gasoline and it is much more volatile than what we have in our battery systems so there is work to be done there will be no question about it the big issue  who wouldn't rather get one hundred and fifty miles a gallon than seventeen twenty even thirty there may be people who prefer to expend the money associated with it as the price keeps going up but i can't imagine it has stolen the march in detroit with the prius and perhaps with your camry but what is most important it seems to me is if their principal reason for not introducing as quickly as they a plug in feature is that it didn't jive with their marketing plan which as you know has been built around the motif that you don't have to plug it in on the basis of some particular foreign manufacturer's marketing campaign and i believe this is a wake up call for detroit if indeed there will be a detroit in the future it should be based on the idea that they need to get in front of these kinds of technologies using american know how and wherewithal wherever possible the chairman okay for you mister hoover austin is committed to making this a commercially viable was something that was kind of far in the future over the horizon the technology was not there because of the batteries in that time frame we have seen because of the support here on capitol hill and by the other groups in washington d c that the automakers have steadily accelerated that timetable as to when these cars are to become available and now you have gm and ford discussing these cars as being real production vehicles that they will see in the near term future th the future where we have the disconnect in my opinion is the fact the battery technology is not keeping up with our hopes so i have a few questions of you mister vieau since you seem to know more about battery technology of qualify the first comment excuse me that i just made as to the actual cells such as like i have in my hand we are having them produced in china and we have multiple factories that are involved in that process the systems themselves that you would see in this car that is out here which is a combination of batteries with a lot of other gear and packaging and so forth is made in america so about half of what you see overall is american content and about half of it is chinese there are no  a different direction i believe by the time that our companies came back they felt that it was a bit of game over our approach to this has been coming outside the box with new chemistries and to reinvent the battery technology and we have been able to change the game substantially i will say that it is not out of any personal desire to go build batteries anyplace outside the u s we made a decision that was somewhat defensive to the company's security which is to make sure that we took advantage of the lowest cost available in materials and resources in the shortest possible period of time to secure a position of global competitiveness for our company in the future and over time we have the resources today and the availability to make choices that will allow us to include north american manufacturing in our plans for the future upon foreign sources of energy from the middle east a lot of the folks there do not like us for foreign services of energy being made in china with lithium ion batteries what do you think pieces of this puzzle in order to make sure that we are successful in this initiative today as a country one of them is the early term incentives to create awareness and to drive demand and to increase volume the second is to spend more money as a nation in the investment research to drive cost and to improve efficiency of the lithium ion systems that we have employed today the third one is the creation of an independent pilot scale and at least a small capable manufacturing scale to science committee for most of my twenty nine years in congress and early on i did an awful lot of overview of the nonnuclear energy research that the department of energy sponsors and a lot of that includes battery on the resources of research activity around the country our people do that on a daily basis the competency that we have as to the fundamental research capability in america i believe is second to none where we have failed in the battery industry is in the commercialization and execution so that investment that has been made has provided some dividends the technology that we are employing today is considered by the industry to be the leading technology for plug in hybrid vehicles of the future  chairman could i just add one quick point on that i think you are absolutely right to be concerned about the industrial capabilities of this country in this technology from a national security perspective as well as from an economic perspective it is the height of folly for us to be depending on china or for that matter japan or korea which are i think the other principal foci of these kinds of technologies at the moment this is a place where we really need for both the defense department's applications i have served on the defense science board panel looking into this and i think there is keen interest in this whole question and it really needs your support thank you the chairman great the gentleman's time has expired the chair recognizes the gentleman from washington thank you first i want to tell you how happy i am that you are here mister vieau eloquently used a metaphor involving our response to world war ii and i have suggested another metaphor which is our apollo project and virtually everything you have all suggested stories because they are good ones and the more that people know them the more they will embrace both of these technologies and the policies they need to drive them i believe we are in a technological race as we were in the original space race right now with the rest of the world to develop the technologies and to manufacture some here and maybe some overseas but we need to keep these technologies homegrown and i think that is the race we are in right now i want to express frustration that this is not moving faster i met a guy while writing this book named felix kramer with a group called calcars in california they developed the first one of these to get them on the road to try to get detroit and others to promote this and i am still frustrated frankly that they are still talking five to ten years to get these mass produced the dreamliner that alan boeing took i do not know maybe six or seven years from conception to roll out these things are on the road today the batteries are manufactured today and we are still talking five or ten years for mass production what would you suggest is the most important thing we could do to  hoover two suggestions one that has already been discussed targeted funding for research on the batteries to help make sure that the commercialization happens sooner and then secondly incentives for consumers to buy plug in hybrids as i mentioned austin energy is willing to put its money up for those types of incentives but i think the federal incentive that was done originally for hybrids was a big part of that i formerly served in the maryland state government we had a state incentive to encourage people to buy hybrids back when they first came into the market and it had a lot to do with pushing that so i think those types of things can be done immediately mister inslee you will be pleased to know that i think both of those are going to be in our bill and that we have a tax incentive for consumers with an increasing amount per megawatt hour of capacity also i passed an amendment with the help of others last week to develop an r and d program to develop the software we need to use these batteries as part of the utility grid because now we have this tremendous ability to use batteries as a storage capacity for the utility grid we had earlier testimony from another committee member said it might have an economic value of three thousand dollars for owners to essentially rent their battery to the utility to store the utility electricity in their grid while you are asleep that is a good way to make some money we hope that will happen i want to focus and a sk you all about the ability i think mister hoover you made reference to the fact that even on today's grid which is mostly coal powered a mostly dirty  even on today's dirty grid we get co savings relative to gasoline and other situations my perception is as that grid becomes cleaner as we move to more renewable resources including perhaps clean coal someday i believe this technology can get cleaner over time in other words the car you buy today is actually going to get cleaner over time because you are going to be using cleaner electricity is that a fair assessment mister hoover i would agree with that i mean our view has been to put it in a simple way it is much easier to control emissions from the generation side than from the tailpipe side previously  tried to do with automobiles is to deal with what comes out of the tailpipe and to do things to that if you change the mixture that the car runs on so as it is running on a cleaner fuel you are lowering emissions and you are pushing the control of the emissions projections about costs once we get to mass scale production for these vehicles relative to hybrid costs today also as far as operating costs i have heard numbers as low as one cent to two cents per mile whereas gasoline is at conversion of an existing hybrid next year of less than ten thousand dollars we expect that that will go down by about forty percent over a three to five year period by increasing volumes gradually over that time and b improvements in the technology that we have in our product pipeline as far as the operating costs are concerned on the vehicle we are expecting an eighty percent reduction in the consumption of gasoline and in the associated costs now  one of the questions is the cost of the electricity that is used at night in some areas of the country and in the world smart metering is being implemented to take advantage of the lower costs of electricity in the evening as opposed to the daytime costs and so  detroit outside of detroit i should say but really michigan actually during world war ii was known as the arsenal of democracy because we had the manufacturing capability that literally built the armaments that led the world to peace and yet now congress seems to be making a conscious decision to bankrupt detroit and i appreciate the fact that particularly m my principal committee assignment is sitting on the house armed services committee and i wanted that committee assignment because i believe that the first and foremost responsibility of the federal government is to provide for our national defense and to protect the homeland  when we think about what congress is trying to do to achieve energy independenceenergy security which does equal national security i absolutely do believe that we have put detroit  in a bind because we expect them the domestic auto industry to compete internationally in building automobiles with countries like japan which you mentioned about sony in making costs that the foreign automobile industry does not have to pay yet our industry obviously does have to pay them gm has over one million retirees right now who we are paying health care costs on we want to be an active participant in getting to where we need to be as a country yet we are so focused on the antiquated modeling system of cafe which is crazy it is nuts that was actually initiated in the s to get us off the consumption of foreign fuel since that time our consumption of foreign fuel has increased by one hundred percent now i am not a mathematician but it seems like that is not working wouldn't it be better for us as the federal government to assist the domestic auto industry on r and d with lithium ion battery technology and all of these kinds of things because if we do not do so we are literally going to put the domestic auto industry out of business under the cafe standards that just passed the senate chrysler will go bankrupt because of the product mix about seventy percent of their product line is suvs and light trucks et cetera so we are going to bankrupt the domestic auto industry how does that i guess this is my question how does that advance our national security interest and our energy independence interest to bankrupt the domestic auto industry thereby only allowing our consumers the availability of buying foreign cars would like to make at least the first comment on this it is just that we need the domestic auto manufacturing capability now and in the future and i believe that the cooperation of american technology being developed today by us and by others by the way there are a number of other companies working in the same field as aggressively as we are at this point in time the combination of which can be very competitive on the global scale today and i think that without that union of the two and dollars on every ford focus that it sells and they are selling these cars just to comply with these crazy cafe standards we will never be able to compete under this model  sensitive to the concerns you have expressed particularly as i said earlier in response to congressman sensenbrenner the industrial base of this country is a national security imperative i think in a previous appearance before  committee i testified that one of the things that i think we have done a woefully inadequate job on is understanding how dependent we are becoming on foreign suppliers for even the military hardware of this country that may not be available to us in time of war let alone these other industrial capabilities the public is now suddenly aware of this in the context of the dependence that all of a sudden we realize we have on china for food and for other products that are perhaps unsafe that is a microcosm of a larger problem let me give you just one example directly relevant to your constituents i was at the unveiling at the washington auto show of the gm volt it is a very exciting concept car that they are very anxious to produce they say the reason given in response to congressman inslee's question of why is it still five or ten years away is they say they cannot get batteries for that car now i am hopeful that the kinds of technologies that we are talking about here will help rectify that but as long as we continue to rely on china or on japan or on korea or on somebody else to supply this stuff we will always be at the mercy of guys who do not necessarily want the volt to come on the market and to be an effective competitor with their future products misess miller yet the domestic auto industry actually the auto industry is the only industry in america that has carbon constraints placed on it we do not place carbon constraints on the oil and gas industry on the electrical industry or what have you apparently congress has made a conscious decision to do whatever they can to bankrupt the domestic auto industry do you think this is the best way for energy independence i certainly do not more to the point i think if that industry goes away our dependence for other directly militarily relevant vehicles will also become a greater problem so this is not purely  a lunatic economic approach it is also i think a national security problem mister vieau i think that from what i have seen of the american auto companies right now they are beginning to embrace the electrification of vehicles and the chevy volt is a great example of the technological change that can change this whole dynamic that you are talking about having a superior vehicle with superior technology with advances we had that chevy volt at our facility yesterday so all of our employees could drive it and take a look at it and experience it and  motivated by what it means the key point right now is that we need to start something today and to demonstrate these capabilities there are pockets of reluctance and resistance around the industry and around the world saying a lot of this cannot be domestic auto manufacturing capacity i think that detroit has made a significant commitment in trying to find a competitive edge in light of a number of factors that she identified flex fuel vehicle manufacturing has been where they have been in trying to find a niche in light of some of the difficulty of getting access to these batteries for their hybrid manufacturing so i do not want to in any way undercut but rather enhance what detroit has already done and the direction that we hope to incent as it relates to plug in hybrid technology i am wondering if any of you can address the issue of why we have not seen any manufacturing of the flex fuel gas electric hybrids let alone any flex fuel plug in hybrids is it an infrastructure issue and the availability of fuels like biodiesel is it primarily the issue of the difficulty of getting the batteries to be able to integrate both technologies into one vehicle my understanding is that perhaps down at virginia tech they have been doing some research have got a car that is a hybrid flex fuel vehicle but are there any others on the road that you are aware of and don't you agree that it makes sense i think mister gaffney you say in your testimony to take the next sort of step or to add the small step of ensuring that we can have vehicle engines that can run on any combination of liquid fuel and electricity beyond that we have to ensure that the liquid fuel is anything from pure gasoline to pure ethanol to biodiesel and anything in between perhaps you might want to comment as well on vehicle engines as it relates to diesel fuel we know that in europe we have far more passenger vehicles that utilize the diesel engine technology what are your thoughts on what we can do in this area  the fuels that you mentioned or failed to mention i should say is methanol and i think the marginal additional cost in programming the chip to ensure that it can also consume methanol is negligible so we ought to be making sure that that is a piece of the flexible fuel vehicle equation as i said in my testimony i cannot imagine why we are not making it an obligation of any car manufacturer not just detroit but of any car manufacturer that wishes to sell cars in the united states they have to have seatbelts for every passenger that is a given they have to have airbags for the front two passengers that is a given they ought to also have a flexible fuel vehicle capability built into the car it just immediately whether there are supply problems right now or whether there are localized areas where you can get this particular alternative fuel or another over time the fleet is transformed into one that has a requirement for a fraction of the gasoline now you may want to use gasoline for other reasons but you do not have to if you have got these other features built into it my hope is you absolutely right that what we will do as a result of what i call the tsunami of legislation is to create incentives to create r and d programs to create demonstration programs to create education programs but most especially to facilitate production in this country so that you will have plug in hybrid electric vehicles that have yes a flexible fuel vehicle capability as well mister hoover if i could offer a couple of thoughts on that it seems that from our view the plug in hybrid is part of the solution but it is not the only solution and our attitude is that we need to sort of diversify the way we fuel vehicles in order to have the purchasing ability for americans to have a vehicle that fits their needs best right now we do that basically by size you pick a car for your needs on that what we need to do is to change the fueling infrastructure and change the engine technology so that cars can run on a multiplicity of fuels that way consumers can pick that type of vehicle that best fits their needs for an urban consumer who does a daily commute a plug in hybrid might be best in other no no not at all i think that the proposition that we have today for plug in hybrid vehicles is a system that is in harmony with a flex fuel vehicle by the very nature of it and the electrification is a piece of the problem i do not think chevy volt and i think the gm platform suggests that the proper combination for the technology we have available today is a vehicle that runs on an electric motor with a series of batteries that power that the batteries can be provided with energy from a number of flexible sources one of those can be a generator that runs on biofuels diesels and a number of different materials and it can be plugged in as well from a local source so having that combination of flexibility is really what the american people want they want to have a vehicle that they can use extensively that they can use relates to flex fuel vehicles has to be on any car sold in the united states it cannot be simply targeted to detroit which has already made a significant commitment in this area i think that again whether it is fuel choice or vehicle choice it is important then of course i appreciate what austin is doing as it relates to the importance of smart grid metering because we have a lot of wind in south dakota just like you have a lot of wind in texas and i think that we have tremendous opportunity for storage capacity in electric vehicles thank you that said i think part of what certainly my thrust here today is to raise awareness that we are even having this discussion that for those who are still in the flat earth society that there is maybe not a problem with our environment okay let us take that off the table certainly you will agree that this is a national security issue so there are two wonderful reasons to be having this debate and when the public tunes into this i think that they will be engaged and like i said in my testimony i believe they do want to do their part one of my best friends has just recently converted his whole fleet to bio diesel he loves it i have been driving this plug in hybrid i have been able to drive some other prototypes when governor schwarzenegger was sworn in all of his official fleet at the swearing in were prototypes from all over the world and they were extraordinary so i think in answer to your question you have to lead the public into an area where they are ready to accept this and are ready to take action and on a parallel track you need to be working with detroit and also making sure that the other foreign manufacturers have the same amount of impediments is not the right word but what is good for the goose needs to be good for the gander i think and so i think it is really a parallel track mister cleaver i have a mobile office in kansas city and incidentally ford motor company has a plant there that produces the escape hybrid but my mobile unit runs on vegetable oil which costs about this up because i think there probably should be a i mean we should use every available source of reducing our dependence on foreign oil and i think we will be making a terrible mistake if we think that we can solve this problem simply perspective the object of the exercise is reducing the amount of oil that we rely upon to power our transportation fleet if we have alternatives to oil that may be use