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REVIEW OF DOE VEHICLE TECHNOLOGIES 

PROGRAM MANAGEMENT AND ACTIVITIES: 

ASSURING APPROPRIATE AND EFFECTIVE 

USE OF TAXPAYER FUNDING 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND 

ENVIRONMENT 

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND 

TECHNOLOGY 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

THURSDAY, JULY 26, 2012 

Serial No. 112–99 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://science.house.gov 
(II) 

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY 

HON. RALPH M. HALL, Texas, Chair 

F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR., 

Wisconsin 

LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas 

DANA ROHRABACHER, California 

ROSCOE G. BARTLETT, Maryland 

FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma 

JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois 

W. TODD AKIN, Missouri 

RANDY NEUGEBAUER, Texas 

MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas 

PAUL C. BROUN, Georgia 

SANDY ADAMS, Florida 

BENJAMIN QUAYLE, Arizona 

CHARLES J. ‘‘CHUCK’’ FLEISCHMANN, 

Tennessee 

E. SCOTT RIGELL, Virginia 

STEVEN M. PALAZZO, Mississippi 

MO BROOKS, Alabama 

ANDY HARRIS, Maryland 

RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois 

CHIP CRAVAACK, Minnesota 

LARRY BUCSHON, Indiana 

DAN BENISHEK, Michigan 

VACANCY 

EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas 

JERRY F. COSTELLO, Illinois 

LYNN C. WOOLSEY, California 

ZOE LOFGREN, California 

BRAD MILLER, North Carolina 

DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois 

DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland 

BEN R. LUJA ́ N, New Mexico 

PAUL D. TONKO, New York 

JERRY MCNERNEY, California 

TERRI A. SEWELL, Alabama 

FREDERICA S. WILSON, Florida 

HANSEN CLARKE, Michigan 

SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon 

VACANCY 

VACANCY 

VACANCY 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENT

HON. ANDY HARRIS, Maryland, Chair 

DANA ROHRABACHER, California 

ROSCOE G. BARTLETT, Maryland 

FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma 

JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois 

W. TODD AKIN, Missouri 

RANDY NEUGEBAUER, Texas 

PAUL C. BROUN, Georgia 

CHARLES J. ‘‘CHUCK’’ FLEISCHMANN, 

Tennessee 

RALPH M. HALL, Texas 

BRAD MILLER, North Carolina 

LYNN C. WOOLSEY, California 

BEN R. LUJA ́ N, New Mexico 

PAUL D. TONKO, New York 

ZOE LOFGREN, California 

JERRY MCNERNEY, California 

EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Thursday, July 26, 2012 

Page 

Witness List ............................................................................................................. 2 

Hearing Charter ...................................................................................................... 3 

Opening Statements 

Statement by Representative Andy Harris, Chairman, Subcommittee on Energy and Environment, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. 

House of Representatives .................................................................................... 13 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 15 

Statement by Representative Brad Miller, Ranking Member, Subcommittee 

on Energy and Environment, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, 

U.S. House of Representatives ............................................................................ 16 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 17 

Witnesses: 

Dr. Kathleen Hogan, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency, Department of Energy 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 18 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 21 

Mr. Rickey Hass, Deputy Inspector General for Audits and Inspections, U.S. 

Department of Energy 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 28 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 30 

Mr. Brian Wynne, President, Electric Drive Transportation Association 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 39 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 41 

Appendix I: Answers to Post-Hearing Questions 

Dr. Kathleen Hogan, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency, Department of Energy .............................................................................................. 62 

Mr. Rickey Hass, Deputy Inspector General for Audits and Inspections, U.S. 

Department of Energy ......................................................................................... 66 

Mr. Brian Wynne, President, Electric Drive Transportation Association ........... 79 

(1) 

REVIEW OF DOE VEHICLE TECHNOLOGIES 

PROGRAM MANAGEMENT AND ACTIVITIES: 

ASSURING APPROPRIATE AND EFFECTIVE 

USE OF TAXPAYER FUNDING 

THURSDAY, JULY 26, 2012 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENT, 

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY, 

Washington, D.C. 

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 9:36 a.m., in Room 

2318 of the Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Andy Harris 

[Chairman of the Subcommittee] presiding. 
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Chairman HARRIS. Good morning. The Subcommittee on Energy 

and Environment will come to order. 

Welcome to today’s hearing entitled ‘‘Review of DOE Vehicle 

Technologies Program Management and Activities: Assuring Appropriate and Effective Use of Taxpayer Funding.’’ In front of you are 

packets containing the written testimony, biographies and Truth in 

Testimony disclosures for today’s witness panels. And right up 

front I will say that the hearing probably won’t be that long because we are going to be voting from probably a little after 10:30 

until after 1 o’clock, so hopefully we can get the information we 

need before we have to go to vote. 

Well, good morning, and I recognize myself for five minutes for 

an opening statement. Good morning, and welcome to today’s hearing. 

Since President Obama took office in January 2009, aggressive 

spending on green energy programs has been a centerpiece of his 

domestic policy agenda. His stimulus legislation spent $33 billion 

at the Department of Energy, mostly devoted to green energy, and 

his budget requests to Congress have repeatedly called for massive 

increases in these same areas. For example, the President’s current 

budget calls for over $1.5 billion in new spending at the Office of 

Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy—an 84 percent year-overyear increase. The bulk of this proposed increase-about $1.1 billionis for vehicle technology development and deployment activities 

that we will focus on today. 

I would like to state at the outset that I am strongly supportive 

of advanced vehicle technologies if the government role is carefully 

limited, and the market matures through free enterprise and 

American innovation, not through the vast spending, mandates and 

special tax treatment that we have today. 

These role-of-government concerns are magnified further by the 

Department of Energy’s poor track record in administering such 

programs. As we will hear from the Inspector General’s office 

today, DOE’s Vehicle Technologies Program has been the subject of 

numerous concerns identified by the IG. These include approving 

cost-share contributions without supporting documentation; failing 

to identify conflicts of interest in the Clean Cities program; failing 

to obtain and review recipient audit reports to ensure appropriate 

accounting of taxpayer funds; and, in one instance, agency inspectors were unable to locate $500,000 worth of equipment purchased 

by one grant recipient. These are all serious matters that must be 

addressed, and I look forward to hearing more about them today. 

We also hope to gain insight into DOE’s management of this program through an examination of DOE’s oversight of a $115 million 

award to an electric vehicle-charging company called Ecotality. The 

questions surrounding DOE judgment and decision-making associated with this award are numerous and complex. Over the course 

of the last 4 months, I have been working to gather more information on the details of this award and its execution. Although first 

requested on March 26, last Friday DOE finally began to provide 

the Subcommittee basic documentation associated with this award, 

such as the original application and assistance agreement with 

DOE. And I might add, this is not something that should have 

been hard to find over at the Department of Energy. 
14 

While much more is needed, and I would note DOE provided additional documents yesterday afternoon that we are still reviewing, 

the limited information we have on DOE grants to this company 

is troubling and raises a number of areas of concern. These issues 

have been summarized in a memo, which was provided to DOE and 

the minority Tuesday evening, and to the company yesterday for 

feedback. At this point, we won’t make any conclusions or comment 

on the status and potential future of EV-related technologies and 

markets. However, the examples we have heard from the IG and 

have found in our research raise numerous questions and concerns 

regarding the effectiveness of the oversight of federal efforts to deploy EVs, as well as DOE’s management and decision-making in 

administering these taxpayer-funded deployment initiatives. 

Nonetheless, the high-level concerns associated with this project 

exemplify my concerns about the overall program including substantial project underperformance and schedule delays; troubling 

audit findings; unusual cost-sharing arrangements in which required recipient matching funds are met by questionable in-kind 

data valuations from consumers that have purchased EVs for their 

personal use; and placing other companies at a significant competitive disadvantage through the subsidization of charging stations 

purchases and installation as well as new product development. 

On top of these concerns, the company’s financial and political 

activities add another layer of concern to the issue. The company 

was totally bankrupt, was almost bankrupt before the stimulus 

grant money was awarded by DOE. However, the company did disclose in SEC filings that it was bailed out by Chinese investors 

that entered into a joint venture with the company to set up a 

manufacturing subsidiary in China. The same Chinese investors 

agreed to pay Ecotality executives $1 million in ‘‘performance bonuses’’ if they secured certain amounts of stimulus funding. That 

is worrisome. 

The company hired lobbyists to engage the White House on DOE projects, went on to be awarded over $100 million in stimulus funding, and the Chinese-funded performance bonuses were awarded. 

Within a few months of the award, the company’s President was 

an honored guest of the First Lady at the 2010 State of the Union. 

About 9 months after that, the SEC initiated an investigation into 

potential insider trading by company executives associated with the 

award. During the time period of this investigation, DOE continued 

to expand the scope of Ecotality’s award and even awarded a new 

$26 million grant to the company in July of 2011. 

Now, I hope today that DOE can provide its response to Vehicle 

Technologies Program related management concerns. I don’t expect 

we will resolve these questions today, and after we hear from DOE 

and receive additional outstanding documents and materials including more communication with the company, we will likely have 

to revisit this issue later this year. 

Last, I want to emphasize that this hearing is not just a matter 

of oversight of current spending. Its importance and timeliness is 

magnified significantly by the fact that the President has proposed 

a new $1 billion mandatory program called the National Community Deployment Challenge that would dramatically increase 

spending in the very areas of concern that we are examining today. 
15 

1FY13 EERE budget includes $527 million increase in discretionary request and $1 billion 

in new mandatory spending 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Harris follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF SUBCOMMITTEE CHAIRMAN ANDY HARRIS

Good morning and welcome to today’s hearing entitled ‘‘Review of DOE Vehicle 

Technologies Program Management and Activities: Assuring Appropriate and Effective Use of Taxpayer Funding.’’ 

Since President Obama took office in January 2009, aggressive spending on green 

energy programs has been a centerpiece of his domestic policy agenda. 

His Stimulus legislation spent $33 billion at the Department of Energy mostly devoted to green energy, and his budget requests to Congress have repeatedly called 

for massive increases in these same areas. For example, the President’s current 

budget calls for over $1.5 billion in new spending 1 at the Office of Energy Efficiency 

and Renewable Energy—an 84 percent year-over-year increase. The bulk of this proposed increase—about $1.1 billion—is for vehicle technology development and deployment activities that we will focus on today. 

I would like to state at the outset that I am strongly supportive of advanced vehicle technologies if the government role is carefully limited, and the market matures 

through free enterprise and American innovation, not through the vast spending, 

mandates, and special tax treatment that we have today. 

These role-of-government concerns are magnified further by the Department of 

Energy’s poor track record in administering such programs. As we will hear from 

the Inspector General’s office today, DOE’s Vehicle Technologies Program has been 

the subject of numerous concerns identified by the IG. These include: approving 

cost-share contributions without supporting documentation; failing to identify conflicts of interest in the Clean Cities program; failing to obtain and review recipient 

audit reports to ensure appropriate accounting of taxpayer funds; and, in one instance, agency inspectors were unable to locate $500,000 worth of equipment purchased by one grant recipient. 

These are all serious matters that must be addressed, and I look forward to hearing more about them today. We also hope to gain insight into DOE’s management 

of this program through an examination of DOE’s oversight of a $115 million award 

to an electric vehicle charging company called Ecotality. 

The questions surrounding DOE judgment and decision-making associated with 

this award are numerous and complex. Over the course of the last four months, I 

have been working to gather more information on the details of the award and its 

execution. 

Although first requested March 26, last Friday, DOE finally began to provide the 

Subcommittee basic documentation associated with this award, such as the original 

application and assistance agreement with DOE. While much more is needed-and 

I would note DOE provided additional documents yesterday afternoon that we are 

still reviewing-the limited information we do have on DOE grants to this company 

is troubling and raises a number of areas of concern. These issues have been summarized in a memo, which was provided to DOE and the minority Tuesday evening, 

and to the company yesterday for feedback. At this point, we will not make any conclusions, or comment on the status and potential future of EV-related technologies 

and markets. However, the examples we have heard from the Inspector General and 

have found in our research raise numerous questions and concerns regarding the 

effectiveness of the oversight of Federal efforts to deploy EVs, as well as DOE’s 

management and decision-making in administering these taxpayer-funded deployment initiatives. 

Nonetheless, the high level concerns associated with this project exemplify my 

concerns about the overall program including: (1) substantial project underperformance and schedule delays; (2) troubling audit findings; (3) unusual cost-sharing arrangements in which required recipient matching funds are met by questionable inkind data valuations from consumers that have purchased EVs for their personal 

use; and (4) placing other companies at a significant competitive disadvantage 

through the subsidization of charging stations purchases and installation as well as 

new product development. 

On top of these problems, the company’s financial and political activities add another layer of concern to this issue. Ecotality was nearly bankrupt before the stimulus grant money was awarded by DOE. However, the company disclosed in SEC 

filings that it was bailed out by Chinese investors that entered into a joint venture 

with the company to set up a manufacturing subsidiary in China. The same Chinese 
16 

investors agreed to pay Ecotality executives $1 million in ‘‘performance bonuses’’ if 

they secured certain amounts of Stimulus funding. 

The company hired lobbyists to engage the White House on DOE projects, went on to be awarded $100 million in Stimulus funding, and the Chinese-funded performance bonuses were awarded. Within a few months of the award, the company’s 

President was an honored guest of the First Lady at the 2010 State of the Union. 

About nine months after that, the SEC initiated an investigation into potential insider trading by company executives associated with the award. During the time period of this investigation, DOE continued to expand the scope of Ecotality’s award 

and even awarded a new $26 million grant to the company in July 2011.} 

I hope today that DOE can provide its response to Vehicle Technologies Programrelated management concerns. I do not expect we will resolve these questions today, 

and after we hear from DOE and receive additional outstanding documents and materials, we will likely have to revisit this issue later this year. 

Last, I want to emphasize that this hearing is not just a matter of oversight of 

current spending; its importance and timeliness is magnified significantly by the 

fact that the President has proposed a new $1 billion mandatory program called the 

‘‘National Community Deployment Challenge’’ that would dramatically increase 

spending in the very areas of concern that we are examining today. 

I now yield to Ranking Member Miller for an opening statement. 

Chairman HARRIS. I now yield to Ranking Member Miller for an 

opening statement. 

Mr. MILLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I am grateful that this hearing does appear to be, as the title and 

the charter suggest, focused on gathering information about electric 

vehicles program. Obviously that is an important topic, one that is 

more than worthy of Congressional oversight. 

We face an enormous challenge to reduce our dependence on oil, 

reduce our vulnerability to price shocks, market speculation, and 

we obviously are not going to reduce our dependence any time soon 

on the car. Americans show no particular inclination to give up 

their cars and depend entirely upon mass transit, and there are 

certainly some parts of this country including large parts of my district where mass transit is not going to work very well. It is not 

going to be possible to get from your house in Roxboro to a factory 

in Reevesville to go to work. It simply is going to be something that 

applies in perhaps inurban areas and many Americans are not 

going to want to do it. 

So electric vehicles are the promise of transforming our transportation system. There is certainly no guarantee of success. We do 

have a lot of technology that still needs to be developed. We have 

been investing for 20 years. A lot more needs to be done to make 

electric vehicles a practical reality. We have to, for instance, establish fueling stations around the country. I visited one in Raleigh 

that the city installed but it’s one. Obviously that is not going to 

make a big dent in the number of cars on the road that use the 

legacy technologies. 

I do want to say today what I will support in my remaining time 

on this Committee, and I think others should support whether they 

are in the majority or in the minority. I do support the important 

role of Congressional oversight, that is, it is an important check in 

our system of checks and balances on the Executive Branch of government. I will support our requests, our Committee’s requests for 

documents from the Department of Energy. I did—actually, I voted 

against referring criminal charges under 1857 statute for Contempt 

of Congress a couple weeks ago but I voted for the resolution to authorize a civil action for a declaratory judgment on what documents 

Congress was entitled to. I think that we should not just act as 
17 

partisans in our oversight. We should act as the eyes and ears of 

the American people. A great political scientist, Woodrow Wilson, 

described that as the purpose of Congressional oversight. I will 

support that. 

What I don’t support and will not support, and I think others 

should not support, is using Congressional oversight for scandal 

mongering. Obviously some will be embarrassed, justly embarrassed, and worse, by Congressional oversight. But we should 

never hide behind, Congress should never hide behind the speech 

and debate clause of the Constitution to say things that no one— 

that other Americans—would put other Americans at risk of being 

sued for defamation. We can’t just become a conduit for turning 

scandals into the public domain by having made ill-informed insinuations in Congress that can then be picked up by the various 

organs of the media and have it be reported as something said in 

Congress and completely obliviate or evade people’s rights not to be 

defamed in that way. 

I hope that that is the purpose of this hearing, and if it is genuine oversight, I support it. It if becomes scandal mongering without doing the research to show a basis for it, I will not support it, 

and now I yield back. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Miller follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF SUBCOMMITTEE RANKING MEMBER BRAD MILLER

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I am grateful that this hearing does appear to be, as the title and the charter 

suggest, focused on gathering information about electric vehicles program. Obviously 

that is an important topic, one that is more than worthy of Congressional oversight. 

We face an enormous challenge to reduce our dependence on oil, reduce our vulnerability to price shocks, market speculation, and we obviously are not going to reduce our dependence any time soon on the car. Americans show no particular inclination to give up their cars and depend entirely upon mass transit, and there are 

certainly some parts of this country including large parts of my district where mass 

transit is not going to work very well. It is not going to be possible to get from your 

house in Roxboro to a factory in Reevesville to go to work. It simply is going to be 

something that applies in perhaps inurban areas and many Americans are not going 

to want to do it. 

So electric vehicles are the promise of transforming our transportation system. 

There is certainly no guarantee of success. We do have a lot of technology that still 

needs to be developed. We have been investing for 20 years. A lot more needs to 

be done to make electric vehicles a practical reality. We have to, for instance, establish fueling stations around the country. I visited one in Raleigh that the city installed but it’s one. Obviously that is not going to make a big dent in the number 

of cars on the road that use the legacy technologies. 

I do want to say today what I will support in my remaining time on this Committee, and I think others should support whether they are in the majority or in 

the minority. I do support the important role of Congressional oversight, that is, it 

is an important check in our system of checks and balances on the Executive Branch 

of government. I will support our requests, our Committee’s requests for documents 

from the Department of Energy. I did—actually, I voted against referring criminal 

charges under 1857 statute for Contempt of Congress a couple weeks ago but I voted 

for the resolution to authorize a civil action for a declaratory judgment on what documents Congress was entitled to. I think that we should not just act as partisans 

in our oversight. We should act as the eyes and ears of the American people. A great 

political scientist, Woodrow Wilson, described that as the purpose of Congressional 

oversight. I will support that. 

What I don’t support and will not support, and I think others should not support, 

is using Congressional oversight for scandal mongering. Obviously some will be embarrassed, justly embarrassed, and worse, by Congressional oversight. But we 

should never hide behind, Congress should never hide behind the speech and debate 

clause of the Constitution to say things that no one—that other Americans—would 

put other Americans at risk of being sued for defamation. We can’t just become a 
18 

conduit for turning scandals into the public domain by having made ill-informed insinuations in Congress that can then be picked up by the various organs of the 

media and have it be reported as something said in Congress and completely 

obliviate or evade people’s rights not to be defamed in that way. 

I hope that that is the purpose of this hearing, and if it is genuine oversight, I 

support it. It if becomes scandal mongering without doing the research to show a 

basis for it, I will not support it, and now I yield back. 

Chairman HARRIS. Thank you very much. I hope that that is the 

sentiment of everyone who sits in Congress, to be honest with you, 

that we don’t use Congress for scandal mongering. 

Anyway, if there are Members who wish to submit additional 

opening statements, your statements will be added to the record at 

this point. 

I would like to introduce the witnesses this morning. The first 

witness is Dr. Kathleen Hogan, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency at the U.S. Department of Energy. Dr. Hogan oversees a more than $900 million annual energy policy program and 

research portfolio including industrial buildings and vehicle technology along with federal energy management. As part of EERE’s 

senior leadership, Dr. Hogan helps to oversee $16.8 billion in stimulus funding. 

Our next witness is Mr. Rickey Hass, Deputy Inspector General 

for Audits and Inspections at the U.S. Department of Energy. Prior 

to this, he was Deputy Inspector General for Audit Services. In his 

current position, he directs a federal workforce of professional auditors and inspectors serving at 13 major DOE sites across the country. He is responsible for all audits, inspections and related reviews 

of the Department’s programs and activities. 

Our third and final witness today is Mr. Brian Wynne, President 

of the Electric Drive Transportation Association. Appointed in 

2004, he acts as Chief Staff Executive of this member-based international organization, which promotes battery hybrid, plug-in hybrid and fuel cell electric vehicles and infrastructure. He previously 

served as the Senior Vice President for Business and Trade at the 

Intelligent Transportation Society of America. 

As each of our witnesses should know, spoken testimony is limited to five minutes after which the Members of the Committee will 

have five minutes each to ask questions. 

I now recognize Dr. Hogan to present her testimony. 

STATEMENT OF DR. KATHLEEN HOGAN, 

DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR 

ENERGY EFFICIENCY, DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY 

Dr. HOGAN. Thank you, Chairman Harris, Ranking Member Miller and Members of the Subcommittee. Thank you for the opportunity to discuss the Department of Energy’s Vehicle Technologies 

Program. 

As part of the President’s all-of-the-above approach to American 

energy, the Department is advancing transportation innovations 

that will reduce our dependence on oil and reduce the hundreds of 

billions of dollars out of the country for oil every year as well as 

to help our vehicle manufacturing industry compete in this global 

industry as well as provide consumers with more transportation 

choices and cost savings, as transportation is the second biggest annual household expense. 
19 

The DOE Vehicle Technologies Program supports a broad portfolio of efforts spanning light, medium and heavy-duty vehicles and 

including advanced combustion engines, advanced fuels and lubricants, lightweight materials and propulsion materials, advanced 

batteries, power electronics and electric motors, vehicle systems 

and enabling technologies as well as to systems to communities 

across the country in their adoption of alternative fuel vehicles. 

As part of this vehicles portfolio, electric vehicles, or EVs, are an important focus. Electricity is cheaper than gasoline at about $1 

per gallon equivalence. It can offer competitive performance, less 

pollution and is almost oil-free. Other countries are certainly recognizing these benefits and making their own investments. We have 

a critical opportunity here to grow U.S. leadership, building upon 

many past successes and the Administration is proposing multiple 

steps to accelerate America’s leadership in EV development and deployment, and DOE is playing an important role. 

Today, DOE-developed battery technology is in nearly every hybrid vehicle on the road, offering savings at the pump. We have 

achieved a 35 percent cost reduction in a next generation of batteries and expect an additional 50 percent reduction by 2014, a key 

step in making these vehicles cost-competitive with current technologies. We are on track to reach a goal of having U.S. manufacturing capacity for half a million EV batteries per year through Recovery Act investments, and our DOE Clean Cities program has 

helped communities save billions since 1993. 

We are also on track to meet milestones in the Transportation 

Electrification Initiative, or TEI, to deploy 13,000 grid-connected 

vehicles and over 20,000 charging points and to meet really the primary purpose, one of the primary purposes, to collect the data necessary to help state and local governments and others better plan 

their EV investment infrastructure for the future. 

It is through TEI that Ecotality, a clean electric transportation 

energy storage company, did compete and win a DOE award to deploy a network of charging stations and to instrument EVs in 

major cities nationwide. As of mid-July, they had completed 55 percent of their planned charging station installations and instrumented 65 percent of their planned vehicles, and they have been 

reimbursed 57 percent of the award amount. 

Building upon this work, we have—DOE has announced the EV 

Everywhere Clean Energy Grant Challenge to help U.S. companies 

lead the world in producing plug-in EVs that are as affordable and 

convenient as gasoline-powered vehicles and to further spur the 

United States to additional cost reductions, to extend vehicle range 

and improve performance and convenience. 

Across this entire portfolio, we do work very hard to protect taxpayers’ investments and serve as careful stewards of taxpayer dollars. We have a comprehensive system in place to do this. This includes competitive, merit-based awards, onsite audits, ongoing 

monitoring. The Inspector General’s efforts are an important part 

of the Department’s oversight and we welcome the IG’s work and 

will continue to continuously improve our programs. 

In conclusion, DOE’s Vehicle Technologies Program has and will 

continue to benefit consumers, improve national security by advancing the technologies necessary to reduce our dependence on oil, 
20 

and help America lead in what is a globally competitive transportation manufacturing effort. 

So I thank you for the opportunity to be here, and will be happy 

to address your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Hogan follows:] 
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Chairman HARRIS. Thank you very much, Doctor, for your testimony. 

I now recognize Mr. Hass for five minutes to present his testimony. 

STATEMENT OF MR. RICKEY HASS, 

DEPUTY INSPECTOR GENERAL FOR AUDITS 

AND INSPECTIONS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY 

Mr. HASS. Chairman Harris, Ranking Member Miller and Members of the Subcommittee, I appreciate the opportunity to testify on 

the work of the Office of Inspector General concerning the Department of Energy’s Vehicle Technologies Program. As requested by 

the Subcommittee, my testimony today will focus on our May 2012 

reports on the Clean Cities and Transportation Electrification 

grants. 

With the enactment of the Recovery Act, the Department awarded about $300 million in grants to Clean Cities organizations. 

Using about $400 million additional Recovery Act funds, the Department also established the Transportation Electrification program. The Department required fund recipients under both programs to comply with federal regulations governing financial assistance awards. As such, they were required to provide up to 50 

percent of a project’s funding—cost share—and use competitive procurement practices to the maximum extent practical. As of July 

2012, Clean Cities grant recipients had expended about $202 million, and Transportation Electrification program grantees that 

spent about $204 million. 

Because of the significance, we examined various aspects of the 

Department’s management of these programs. For Clean Cities, we 

evaluated whether the initiative had been effectively managed. For 

Transportation Electrification, we sought to determine whether the 

Department obtained and reviewed required audits and cost-incurred reports. We identified needed improvements in financial 

management for both of these programs. 

With regard to Clean Cities, we found the Department had authorized reimbursements and cost-share contributions that either 

did not relate to the grant’s purpose or were not properly supported. We also identified potential conflicts of interest and questionable procurement practices. 

As a result, we questioned about $5 million in direct payments 

and nearly $2 million in cost share. We found these problems occurred in part because the Department had not reviewed grants for 

potential conflict of interest and had not thoroughly reviewed reimbursement requests. Officials also focused on technical issues when 

visiting grantees and did not review compliance with procurement 

requirements. 

Department officials told us that grant recipients were primarily 

responsible for ensuring compliance with federal procurement and 

conflict-of-interest rules. They also indicated that the Department 

relied on a recipient’s vigilance to ensure that funds were efficiently managed. As demonstrated by the results of our work, however, over-reliance on grantees can endanger both the integrity and 

credibility of the program. 
29 

We also found the Department had not obtained and reviewed 

the required financial and compliance audits for the Transportation 

Electrification for-profit recipients that we reviewed. Audits and 

cost reports provide a window into the financial condition of the recipients and aid the Department in determining the reasonableness 

of costs. 

Program officials acknowledge that they were unaware of whether recipients had received their required audits or submitted cost 

reports. They also told us they had not established a process to 

track and resolve audit issues. Officials explained that in the past, 

the guidance on our requirements for for-profit recipients had been 

unclear. 

Now, the Department took certain action to address issues identified in our report. Specifically, it moved quickly to resolve about 

$2.5 million of the questionable costs we identified. Additionally, officials acted to obtain required audit and financial reports. The Department has also updated its guidance on audits and for-profit recipients and sub-recipients. However, the Department disagreed 

with many of our findings and recommendations with regard to the 

Clean Cities program. 

Generally, management did not agree with our conclusion that 

grantees were required to compete procurements. Officials also did 

not believe that certain activities we identified represented conflicts of interest. As such, the Department concluded that many of 

the costs we identified were allowable. 

We remain concerned, however, because coalitions are comprised 

of geographically based networks of individuals and organization 

with mutual business interests. In such situations, and without 

$100 million left to be spent in the Clean Cities area, heightened 

departmental awareness of the potential for conflicts of interest, we 

believe, is essential. 

In addition to the two reports just discussed, we also recently 

issued a report on advanced battery and hybrid components under 

the Vehicle Technologies Program. I would be happy to provide information on that report as well. 

Mr. Chairman, that concludes my statement and I would be 

pleased to answer any questions the Subcommittee may have. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Hass follows:] 
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Chairman HARRIS. Thank you very much, Mr. Hass. 

I now recognize our final witness, Mr. Wynne, to present his testimony. 

STATEMENT OF MR. BRIAN WYNNE, PRESIDENT, 

ELECTRIC DRIVE TRANSPORTATION ASSOCIATION 

Mr. WYNNE. Chairman Harris, Ranking Member Miller, Members of the Subcommittee, good morning. I am Brian Wynne, President of the Electric Drive Transportation Association. I thank you 

for the opportunity to make a statement here today. 

EDTA is the cross-industry trade association promoting the advancement of electric drive technology and electrified transportation. Our members represent the entire value chain of electrified 

transportation including vehicle manufacturers, battery and other 

component manufacturers, utility and energy companies, smart 

grid and charging infrastructure developers. Collectively, we are 

working to realize the economic, national security and environmental benefits of displacing oil with hybrid, plug-in hybrid, battery and fuel cell electric vehicles. 

While I am sure this Committee is well aware of the facts surrounding imported oil dependence, it bears repeating that there is 

a strategic and economic imperative to move toward domestically 

generated electricity as an alternative for transportation. The Congressional Research Service estimates that the United States will 

pay $451 billion for imported oil in 2012. Electricity is ample, affordable and available from diverse domestic resources. 

Building an electric drive industry also has competitive benefits 

for the United States. There is a global energy technology race, and 

the United States has the ability to be the clear leader in developing and manufacturing the transportation solutions and jobs of 

the future. 

There are more than 40 models of hybrid vehicles currently sold 

in the United States. Plug-in models, which include battery electric 

and plug-in hybrids, are also expanding. Manufacturers are planning to increase available offerings of plug-in vehicles to more than 

20 at multiple price points in the next two years. 

Last year, more than a quarter of a million plug-in electric and 

hybrid vehicles were sold in the United States. In the first two 

months of this year alone, Americans bought another 62,000. That 

is more than a thousand vehicles per day, a 30 percent increase 

over the same sales time period in 2011. Year-to-date sales for 

plug-ins through June are 17,350, bringing total sales to more than 

35,000. Fuel cell vehicles, which are also zero-emission vehicles, 

are being proven on roads today and will enter the commercial 

market in 2015. Deutsche Bank has estimated that by 2015, one 

in ten vehicles sold in the United States will be an electric drive 

vehicle. 

The electric car charging market is also growing. The U.S. Department of Energy has documented more than 4,000 public charging stations, and there are more private charging stations to add 

to that. 

In the United States, there is a growing foothold for electric drive 

components and vehicle manufacturing with attendant growth up 

the supply chain in materials and equipment and employment. A 
40 

few examples include the expanding production of electric drive 

motors in Maryland, advanced batteries and vehicles in Michigan, 

California, Tennessee, Missouri and North Carolina. 

We are making great strides in standing up the electric drive 

supply chain and opening new markets for vehicles that use electricity to displace oil. However, transforming the fleet won’t happen 

overnight. Our efforts are enhanced by federal, state and local entities who are working with the industry to speed technology advances and put more vehicles and infrastructure to work. For instance, the Vehicle Technologies Program has been an effective 

partner in the industry’s effort to increase the performance while 

decreasing the cost of batteries. The cost of lithium ion batteries, 

for example, has dropped by a third since 2008. DOE is also working with industry in other critical areas including expanding electric drive in trucks and the development of fuel cell vehicles. 

Beyond technology advances, federal, state and local cooperative 

development initiatives are helping to establish new markets at the 

end of a new supply chain by making it easier for consumers and 

communities to acquire vehicles and infrastructure. At the federal 

level, programs like Clean Cities, which work with more than 100 

regional coalitions to help deploy alternative fuel vehicles and infrastructure beyond electric drive, are effective in addressing initial 

market hurdles. 

To effectively pursue other options for transportation, the public 

and private sectors need to work together to accelerate large-scale 

advances. The return on the public investment is a nation that is 

less dependent on foreign oil, spends its energy dollars domestically 

and competes effectively in the global market for advanced technologies. 

I thank you for your attention and I look forward to your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Wynne follows:] 
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Chairman HARRIS. Thank you very, very much, and thank the 

witnesses for their testimony and being available, reminding Committee Members that rules limit questioning to five minutes. I will 

open the round of questions, and I recognize myself for five minutes. 

You know, I want to thank you, Dr. Hogan for being here. You 

know, part of the reason that we are here today is that we are 

spending taxpayer money. We should always remember that. And 

to be honest with you, there are a lot of folks who think that the 

stimulus money wasn’t spent very well, may have been some crony 

capitalism involved. You know, the President recently identified 

outsourcing and foreign investments as a major issue we should be 

considering. 

So with that, I am going to open the questioning by asking you, 

and I understand that you may not have been in the program at 

the time this award was made on August 5, 2009, but at the time 

the award was made, was DOE aware that a joint venture had 

been signed with the Chinese that committed $2.5 million including a million-bonus to be paid if the DOE award was greater than 

$30 million? I just wonder, was DOE aware? Because this is public 

record. I mean, SEC filings have been made. On August 5th, was 

DOE aware that Ecotality had signed a joint venture agreement 

with a company that would require Ecotality to buy everything 

manufactured by the Chinese, and that intellectual property would 

be transferred, the license would be transferred free to the Chinese 

company. That is a simple question. Was DOE aware? 

Dr. HOGAN. We use a competitive-based process to make our 

award, so—— 

Chairman HARRIS. Dr. Hogan, was DOE aware at the time on 

August 5th when the President announced the award, were they 

aware of this joint venture agreement? 

Dr. HOGAN. As you said—— 

Chairman HARRIS. Dr. Hogan, I only have five minutes. It is a 

yes or no. Were they aware or not? 

Dr. HOGAN. As you said, I was not at the agency at that period 

of time so I cannot—— 

Chairman HARRIS. Let me tell you something, Dr. Hogan. I am 

upset because I asked this question, we asked this question starting back in March and they should have sent us someone here who 

knows. 

Can I have the first slide, please? Since you brag about the competitive nature, this is a slide that shows, and I will tell you, it is 

highly redacted. I have dozens of pages of where the entire page 

is redacted as part of the document dump we had from DOE this 

week. If you see, this is the list of the top six companies who technically could fulfill this award, and appearing in the fourth slot is 

the one who won the award, not the first slot, not the one that had 

the highest grade, but the fourth slot, and tied for third, to be fair 

to them. 

I could tell you, you know, in the NIH, the way the awards are 

given, they start with the one that gets the highest grade and they 

give that one, then they go down the list and then they give these 

awards. DOE had said they were going to award two to ten out of 

this. That is what the proposal said, we are going to award two to 
47 

ten, our intent. They awarded one. It was for $100 million above 

the $30 million threshold for its executives to get a million-dollar 

Chinese-funded bonus, and it was given to the company that didn’t 

get the highest ranking. 

Dr. Hogan, we asked for an explanation of how they were chosen. 

This is what we get back. Could you enlighten me as to why the 

highest-ranked submission didn’t get any funding? 

Dr. HOGAN. First, we awarded more than one grant under this 

award. We awarded a number. I would actually have to go back 

and look at what the actual firms are that are—— 

Chairman HARRIS. Excuse me, Doctor. Just to make clear, we are 

talking about area of interest one, and we believe there was just 

one award to area of interest one, because if there were more 

awards, actually this shouldn’t be redacted because of course if an 

award was given, there is no reason to redact an award. Is that 

correct, Dr. Hogan? Were you responsible for submission of any of 

this information and redaction? 

Dr. HOGAN. We had a team of people working to provide the information. 

Chairman HARRIS. Were you part of the team, Dr. Hogan? 

Dr. HOGAN. I was not part of the team doing the redaction. 

Chairman HARRIS. Okay. So I guess you didn’t even know what 

is underneath the redacted areas. Okay. What is the reason why 

the number one-scored recipient wasn’t, I mean, did they just not 

spend as much, because we know we have lobbying documents. We 

know that Ecotality spent money on lobbying the DOE to get an 

award. You know, their CEO bragged on a conference call that at 

some point we are going to have to play the political card. Why 

wasn’t the number one-scored company awarded a grant? 

Dr. HOGAN. They were a top score—— 

Chairman HARRIS. They were the top score. Why—— 

Dr. HOGAN. They were a top-scoring, you know, award proposer 

and they—— 

Chairman HARRIS. Okay. You have no answer. I understand 

that. I understand. I wish the DOE could be more forthcoming in 

their answer. 

Let me just ask about the cost sharing. The idea is under this 

program, a company gets the money not as a fiscal bailout and this 

company as you may or may not have been aware in their SEC filings had alerted their shareholders that they were about to have 

major fiscal problems if they didn’t get an award. The cost sharing 

is supposed to be 50 percent from the government, 50 percent from 

the company, and most people think cost sharing is actually you 

put something of hard value down, could be money, could be something of easily determined value. And we can’t figure out from the 

documents that the DOE has provided exactly what, but the IG has 

identified cost sharing as a potential issue. 

Is it true that the cost sharing for the personal owners of the 

Volt—in other words, when they go and install an electric station 

at no cost to a personal owner, a personal purchaser of a Volt, that 

the cost share is a number made up somewhere, we can’t figure out 

where because, you know, we are still looking through the documents, assigning some value to the data that will be gathered from 

the charging history of that car and that is the company’s ‘‘cost 
48 

share.’’ That is their skin in the game. Is that a correct assessment 

of what was going on and is this what they think is a real cost 

share? Is this what they expect taxpayers understand is a real 50 

percent cost share is the federal government taxpayer puts up a 

dollar and the company says yeah, there is this data that we think 

is worth a dollar. Is that pretty much more or less what the costshare arrangement was for those personally installed chargers? 

Dr. HOGAN. The cost-share arrangement with Ecotality had a 

number of components to it. One of the components was something 

that you can liken to sort of leasing arrangement for the data that 

we were getting from the vehicle owners, and the arrangements 

that were—that aspect of it is consistent with the cost-share principles that are in the federal acquisition regulations. So, you know, 

for-profit organizations. 

Chairman HARRIS. Well, I do hope DOE eventually provides us 

with those details, and I now recognize Mr. Miller for his questions. 

Mr. MILLER. Thank you. Well, it appears that this hearing is not 

about electric vehicles after all. It does appear that this hearing is 

about scandal mongering, and not a week goes by that we don’t 

hear another scandal involving American business and not technical violations of the law but knowing violations of the law that 

suggest a failure of a moral compass. 

But I don’t know anything about Ecotality. I had not heard of 

them before yesterday in preparing for this hearing. I do not know 

their executives. I do not know anything about them. But I know 

that lightly substantiated charges like what we have heard now in 

this public setting can do real damage to an innocent company. 

There can be real collateral damage in companies upon which innocent depend for their livelihoods and in which investors have put 

some of their life savings, and before we make such thinly—before 

we make allegations like what we have heard today, there should 

be real substance to them. They should be well resourced; and if 

this hearing is about Ecotality, they should be there. They should 

have the chance to know what is being alleged about them and 

they should have a chance to respond, to tell their side of the story. 

Fundamental fairness requires that. Common decency requires 

that. The failure to do it is an abuse of power. 

Now, there have been suggestions about Ecotality’s political influence. They hired a lobbyist. Small towns in my district hire lobbyists to get grants to expand their water and sewer system. Hiring a lobbyist is not an unusual practice by anyone trying to get 

a grant. 

Dr. Hogan, what do you know of the politics or political connections in Ecotality’s or any other companies getting an award under 

this DOE program? 

Dr. HOGAN. The Department of Energy uses a rigorous, competitive, merit-based process for each and every award. 

Mr. MILLER. Did any—was there any political influence by 

Ecotality in getting the award? 

Dr. HOGAN. There is not political influence in any organization 

getting an award through any of these programs. 

Mr. MILLER. And I don’t know anything about the SEC inquiry. 

It has been reported that there is a pending inquiry. There was a 

subpoena issued at one point. When your office—I assume your of-
49 

fice did learn of the SEC inquiry, and what did you do when you 

learned there was an SEC inquiry? 

Dr. HOGAN. So the timing of the SEC inquiry was well after this 

award was in place and underway. So it is important for us to have 

that information but there is no proper action for us to be taking 

based on an SEC inquiry. 

Mr. MILLER. Alright. Actually, Mr. Hass, I think I should have 

directed that question at you. When you learned that there was an 

SEC inquiry, what did you do? 

Mr. HASS. Well, sir, I must preface my question by saying that 

we have done some limited testing with regard to this company 

and this particular grant. However, we haven’t done an in-depth 

audit of it. It is—we have something scheduled in the coming fiscal 

year. However, we haven’t done in-depth testing. 

Mr. MILLER. To any of the witnesses, did any inquiry into your 

own investigation into the SEC’s inquiry into insider trading suggest that it was related to any DOE issues, any DOE grant issues? 

Dr. HOGAN. All we know is that there is an SEC inquiry, and 

again, what we understand is that there is any number of SEC inquiries across any number of companies, and at the point we are 

at with an SEC inquiry there is no action that DOE should be taking. 

Mr. MILLER. And in fact, there were 735 enforcement actions in 

2011 alone, and no telling how many subpoenas were issued as 

part of those actions. 

Do you think a company should be disqualified from applying for 

a contract with the government, a grant from the government because they have received a subpoena? 

Dr. HOGAN. We believe it is actually improper for the Department of Energy to take the presence of an SEC subpoena into account at the point of running a competitive award process. 

Mr. MILLER. Mr. Chairman, my time has expired. 

Chairman HARRIS. Thank you very much. 

I now recognize the gentlelady from Illinois, Ms. Biggert, for five 

minutes. 

Mrs. BIGGERT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for 

holding this hearing. 

I wanted to ask about prioritization within DOE’s vehicle technologies portfolio. The Administration focus seems to be on deployment of electric vehicles. That was the case in the stimulus funding 

as well as the President’s recent request to create a new $1 billion 

EV deployment challenge. 

So my question would be to Dr. Hogan and Mr. Wynne and Mr. 

Hass if he has anything. Are these the right priorities? That is obviously a lot of money, and I wonder if the market viability of electric vehicles would be better served if this funding was spent on 

research and development to make EVs more competitive with gaspowered vehicles instead of focusing on buying and installing 

charging stations. So what are you thoughts on this? Let us start 

with you, Mr. Wynne. 

Mr. WYNNE. Well, thank you very much for the question, ma’am. 

I think the way I look at this is that to electrify transportation, 

there are many, many different elements to it, and frankly, there 

is an important—one of the important elements is understanding 
50 

how people will charge cars that plug into the grid. We will understand that better and better as we get more vehicles on the road. 

But that was indeed the primary justification for this program was 

to understand, let us put some charging out there, let us see how 

people use them. That is the data-gathering element of the program, and that data has yet to be parsed. 

But what we do know is that we are learning that some people 

charge their cars based on how much range the vehicle has. For example, I drive a Chevrolet Volt, which has give or take a 40-mile 

range. I can drive in. My commute one direction is 23 miles. I have 

the opportunity to charge at work and at home. I could do either 

one of those with plugging into that outlet right there because it 

sits in my driveway all night long at home and it sits in the garage 

all day. If I am driving a pure battery electric vehicle, and some 

people are, they might need the opportunity to charge somewhere 

when they are shopping, and that might give them enough range 

to do a couple more chores and so forth. We are learning how this 

is going to work, and I think this is a good use of the public purse 

in conjunction with the research and development in conjunction 

with other R&D elements including manufacturing of batteries and 

so forth. 

Mrs. BIGGERT. If I might ask you then, it just seems from what 

I have heard in that first question that, you know, I think we believe in competition and there was competition for this grant but 

it sounds like the one company got to do the five areas, six areas 

across the country, and it would seem to me, and I had a green car 

several months ago and there was several that came in with their 

charging stations, not only for people that drive the electric cars 

but they could also see how the charging works, and it is very important. But it troubles me that there is not any competition. What 

about these companies that have been developing the charging stations and they can’t compete with a company that has now been 

given a grant and they can provide free charging to so many people 

that are driving the electric cars? Do you think that really takes 

away that competition we should have? 

Mr. WYNNE. I don’t think so, and I am basing my answer on the 

fact that we have so many companies in the charging business, not 

just providing chargers and selling them directly in the marketplace through companies such as Best Buy, for example, but also 

companies like NRG through their EV Go program, which is offering subscription-based opportunities for consumers where they can 

charge—get something installed at their home but also use a network that is being provided. Those are being built out city by city. 

I would be more than happy to provide a list of all the different 

players from small startups to large companies like Siemens, General Electric and Eaton Corporation for the record just so—— 

Mrs. BIGGERT. I would appreciate that. 

Dr. Hogan, I don’t have too much time, if you just have a comment. 

Dr. HOGAN. As you know, we think electric vehicles are just so 

important because of providing consumers additional choice as we 

bring down the costs of these vehicles, really having the opportunity for a dollar-per-gallon equivalent fuel is, you know, in the 
51 

coming years is just such an important opportunity for consumers 

as well as meeting our national security objectives. 

Mrs. BIGGERT. Yield back. 

Chairman HARRIS. Thank you very much. 

I now recognize the gentleman from California, Mr. McNerney, 

for five minutes. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Wynne, do you believe that the grant program that ended up 

awarding Ecotality was rigged or ended up picking winners and 

losers, thereby producing market competitiveness? 

Mr. WYNNE. No, sir, I don’t but that would be based on my personal view of the DOE systems. I would really be much more comfortable deferring that question to our DOE colleagues. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. Okay. Do you think that the DOD grant—the 

DOE grant program is beneficial to the industry? 

Mr. WYNNE. Extremely so, yes, sir. It has been very, very beneficial in leveraging a much larger investment from private industry 

for many sectors of private industry. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. So that effect of getting private companies from 

around to participate under a banner company is a beneficial aspect of this program? 

Mr. WYNNE. Well, I think the program has many, many different 

elements, and the ARRA programs ended up in RDD&D, they 

ended up in research and development. Those are—some of those 

programs are ongoing. The charging elements are extremely important as we understand as more vehicles enter the market. 

So all of these fit into a broader understanding of how to create 

a transportation system that frankly is different than the one we 

built so far, which was built on cheap gas. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. It is going to take a huge investment in infrastructure from the private sector to get there. 

Mr. WYNNE. And that has been ongoing. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. Thank you. 

Mr. Hass, as you know, there is an SEC inquiry regarding insider trading at Ecotality. When your office learned of the inquiry, 

what did your office do? 

Mr. HASS. Proactively, our investigative staff contacted the SEC, 

and we did initiate an investigation into that matter, the results 

of which I would be glad to share in private session. But the investigation was closed. We did not establish any wrongdoing. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. So the investigation has been closed at this 

point? 

Mr. HASS. Yes, sir. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. Thank you. 

Dr. Hogan, you said that the—and I am going into some of the 

positive aspects of your presentation, that there is one-dollar-gallon 

equivalent for electricity. Could you explain what that means a little bit, please? 

Dr. HOGAN. Sure. Clearly, we are spending, you know, $3, $4 per 

gallon on gasoline. If you actually look at the cost of the electricity 

that you need to get the same type of performance activity out of 

an electric car, you can—the equivalent price in electricity maps 

out to be about a dollar-per-gallon equivalent based on electricity. 
52 

Mr. MCNERNEY. So you also expect a 50 percent cost reduction 

in EV batteries within the next few years. How does the U.S. industry stack up to other countries regarding EV battery potential 

for our manufacturing sector? 

Dr. HOGAN. We think we are in a great place right now as we 

look at the growing capacity in the United States for electric vehicles. I think we are very excited about some of the new entrants 

into the electric vehicle space by a variety of manufacturers as well 

as our growing manufacturing capacity for electric vehicle batteries. As I said, we are on pace to have manufacturing capacity 

by 2015 for about a half a million vehicles a year through the Recovery Act investments. So I think right now the United States is 

very well positioned for what is a very quickly growing marketplace. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. So you see EV battery manufacturers in this 

country taking off. What size of market—do you care to speculate 

on how big that market might be in terms of billions of dollars 

or—— 

Dr. HOGAN. Well, I think some of the recent market research reports that are out there are putting the battery market in the $15 

billion or so space in four, five, six years. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. That is pretty significant. 

Do you share that assessment, Mr. Wynne? 

Mr. WYNNE. I do, and to add to that, large-format lithium ion 

batteries, it is energy storage like any other energy storage. It can 

also be utilized in stationary storage for the grid and for cell towers 

and for all manner of things that we need backup for. So most of 

my companies in the battery business have two lines of business: 

they have a transportation line of business and a stationary storage line of business. So we are seeing growth across that spectrum. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. Thank you. I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman HARRIS. Thank you very much. 

I now recognize the doctor from Georgia, Dr. Broun, for five minutes. 

Mr. BROUN. Mr. Chairman, before my time starts, I understand 

you have a question or two, and I would be glad to yield a little 

time. 

Chairman HARRIS. If you can yield me a little time, I would appreciate it. 

Mr. BROUN. I will be glad to. 

Chairman HARRIS. Sure, and it is a single question and it should 

be pretty simple. 

Dr. Hogan, you said that, you know, DOE objectively awards 

these funds under area of interest one under this program, but on 

June 17, 2010, the DOE awarded $15 million to Coulomb Technologies for charging, and you were there then, for charging installation, right? I know you weren’t there in 2009, but June 17, 2010, 

so did you sign off on the award to Coulomb, $15 million for charging infrastructure installation? 

Dr. HOGAN. I am aware of that award. 

Chairman HARRIS. Okay. And where was the objective? Were 

there proposals submitted and did they undergo this kind of scrutiny? Because we requested those documents and we don’t have 
53 

them. This is the only document we have about area one interest 

awards. 

Dr. HOGAN. So the Transportation Electrification Initiative had, 

as you have indicated, a number of areas to it, and those were evaluated through a merit-based approach, a robust technical review. 

What we did was select a number of potential awardees across this 

entire initiative and then as can happen, when we went to do the 

awards, one of the selected grantees decided to withdraw. What 

that did was give us the opportunity to go back and look at the list 

of those—— 

Chairman HARRIS. This list? 

Dr. HOGAN. That list. 

Chairman HARRIS. But Coulomb is not on this list. 

Dr. HOGAN. Coulomb was an applicant to the Transportation 

Electrification Initiative area. 

Chairman HARRIS. But I don’t see its name on this list. Now, 

that could be because everything is redacted on this list. Is that 

true, Dr. Hogan? Did Coulomb undergo an objective—— 

Dr. HOGAN. Yes, Coulomb did. 

Chairman HARRIS. Were they the highest-rated in their field? 

Dr. HOGAN. Coulomb was the next ranked award based on the 

merit review process that we did for all the applicants. 

Chairman HARRIS. Could I tell that from this sheet? 

Dr. HOGAN. We can certainly help you find that information and 

walk you through it. 

Chairman HARRIS. But we already asked for the information. Do 

we have to ask be walked through every single piece of information 

or is the Department going to be forthcoming at some point? 

Dr. HOGAN. We—— 

Chairman HARRIS. That was a rhetorical question. 

I yield back to Dr. Broun. 

Mr. BROUN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

These electric vehicles have very poor performance in the marketplace today. They are extremely expensive, and without government mandates and government subsidies, I think very few people 

would even want to buy these cars. Today only very rich people can 

afford to buy these cars, and it seems to me that the only marketplace that is out there is due to government mandates on the automobile industry as well as government subsidies, taxpayers’ money 

that has been put into subsidizing the purchase of the car, subsidizing the charging stations. 

Mr. Wynne, I would like to ask you, if we did not have all these 

government subsidies and mandates, how many of your companies 

do you think would still be in business and how many people do 

you think would actually buy these very expensive automobiles 

that very few people want without subsidies? 

Mr. WYNNE. Congressman, thank you very much for the question. I disagree that the vehicles are too expensive. What we are 

after here basically is the opportunity for consumers to have more 

choice, and as I indicated, we will have 20 vehicles in the marketplace over the next two years. 

Mr. BRAUN. Yeah, that is because—Mr. Wynne, that is because 

of the government mandates. 

Mr. WYNNE. I disagree with that. 
54 

Mr. BROUN. And the marketplace has already shown that these 

electric vehicles are just not things that most people can afford and 

most people want, and this government, particularly this Administration, and even somewhat the previous Administration, has put 

in place mandates and subsidies that are—how much is it per vehicle, the subsidy now per vehicle for your Chevy Volt? How much 

subsidy did you get when you purchased that vehicle? 

Mr. WYNNE. The Chevy Volt is a $7,500 tax credit. That is based 

on a sliding scale. That is the largest battery size on that sliding 

scale. The credits start actually at $2,500. 

Mr. BROUN. Okay. And it is my understanding that this Adminis- tration is actually considering going up to $10,000 tax credit. Is 

that correct? Is that your understanding? 

Mr. WYNNE. That is a proposal, yes. 

Mr. BROUN. That is correct, because nobody wants to buy these 

things. 

Mr. WYNNE. I disagree, sir. 

Mr. BROUN. Well, very few people do. That is not nobody. That 

is an absolute. Very few people want to buy these cars. 

How much was your Chevy Volt when you purchased it? 

Mr. WYNNE. About $40,000. 

Mr. BROUN. And how much would an equivalent car that is run 

by gasoline cost? 

Mr. WYNNE. I wouldn’t buy an equivalent car. It wouldn’t be fair 

to compare those two. 

Mr. BROUN. Well, you are in the business. How about somebody 

else that wanted to buy an equivalent automobile? How much 

would it cost? 

Mr. WYNNE. Well, that is just what I am saying. This is a fundamentally different car. I think the only thing you really can fundamentally—— 

Mr. BROUN. Well, a car drives from one place to another, and you 

yourself said you cannot drive to work and drive home without recharging it, and that electricity has to come from somewhere. 

Mr. WYNNE. No, sir, I didn’t—let me clarify that. I could easily 

drive from home to the office and back without recharging. 

Mr. BROUN. Well, you said that it is a 40-mile range on your vehicle and it is 23 miles to work. I assume it is another 23 miles 

back home, correct? You have got a deficit of 6 miles there. You are 

going to run out of juice before you get home if you don’t charge 

it. 

Mr. WYNNE. I could run out of electricity. The Chevrolet Volt is 

actually configured in such a way—and this is the beauty of electric drive, sir, is, you can configure it for different driving needs. 

It can actually—it has what we call a range extender engine, which 

uses gasoline. 

Mr. BROUN. Well, but we were talking about electricity, not gasoline. 

Mr. WYNNE. It can get me to New York City. 

Mr. BROUN. But you are running on gas at that point, correct? 

Mr. WYNNE. That is correct. 

Mr. BROUN. Okay. So your whole object is not to run on gas, correct? 

Mr. WYNNE. It is to displace petroleum. 
55 

Mr. BRAUN. Well, the point is, without government subsidies, 

without government mandates, these electric vehicles would not— 

would fail in the marketplace and I think that the marketplace 

should be dictating what we are doing here. 

I will yield back. 

Chairman HARRIS. Thank you very much, and the Chair recognizes the gentleman from California, Mr. Rohrabacher, for five 

minutes. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

And let me just note, I drive a hybrid car, and I certainly agree 

with the witness that perhaps this is a good thing for America to 

be heading towards using electricity for our transportation needs 

where it is possible. But I also agree with my colleague, Dr. Broun, 

that this should be a market-driven decision and not something 

where the high and mighty who can take money out of the pockets 

of some people and put it in the pockets of others will decide what 

their transportation decisions will be. 

One question on this. Does this actually save us oil in terms of 

our foreign market situation where we are buying oil from overseas? Are you taking into consideration what produces the electricity? 

Mr. WYNNE. That is the best part of the story, Congressman, and 

thank you for the question. All of our electricity generation in this 

country is domestically produced but for a tiny fraction of oil, some 

of which may come from overseas. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Right. 

Mr. WYNNE. That being places like Hawaii and—— 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. And it is mainly coal, isn’t it? Isn’t that actually more polluting than the oil that we are talking about? 

Mr. WYNNE. Well, I beg to differ. We have multiple studies which 

indicate that plugging your car in, even using coal for the energy 

distribution—I beg your pardon—for the electricity generation is 

cleaner than using gasoline. We have an environmental benefit. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Let me ask you, does the study that you are 

talking about and the studies that you are talking about include 

the costs and the pollution levels that are accumulated by disposal 

of the batteries? 

Mr. WYNNE. The disposal of the batteries is—— 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Is that included in the analysis that you just 

mentioned? 

Mr. WYNNE. But the batteries will be recycled because they are 

extremely valuable batteries, and when we are done with them in 

a car and we are not even actually looking at baking this into the 

price yet, but once we have, we will have a secondary market for 

those batteries and we will be able to amortize the cost of those 

batteries over a longer lifecycle. They will be recycled. They will be 

reused. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. That is ‘‘will’’ but aren’t. 

Mr. WYNNE. Well, we have just begun the process. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. And it is a process that is developing and 

that is why perhaps at times it is best to leave it to the market 

because things mature as the technology matures rather than 

jumping out ahead of something that then causes serious problems 

including the problem of taking money out of somebody’s pocket 
56 

who doesn’t want to buy your product and giving it to somebody 

else in order to get them to buy your product. 

Let me go back to Dr. Hogan. You know, I have been here 24 

years. I have been in an administration and outside. Were you 

asked for this information beforehand by the Committee and you 

have come here and not been able to explain these things that the 

chairman was quizzing you on as to why a company had a lower 

rating but ended up with the grant? It doesn’t sound like you were 

prepared to answer the question. Were you alerted that these questions would be asked? 

Dr. HOGAN. I was asked to explain how we, I think, you know, 

do our work at the Department of Energy relative to these grants, 

and I can tell you we run a robust, competitive, merit-based process and make the top awards to meet the objectives of the proposals. So I can certainly explain that. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Well, I was sitting here listening and frankly, 

when the chairman asked you about why a company with a lower 

rating ended up with the grant rather than the company with the 

higher rating and that company then ended up with so many problems, you didn’t seem to have an answer for him. Maybe you would 

like to answer now. 

Dr. HOGAN. We can certainly work and certainly—you know, we 

are trying very hard to get you the information that you are interested in. There are, as you may understand, a number of requests 

to the Department for pretty voluminous pieces of information. We 

have a dedicated team put together to—— 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. I only have a couple more seconds. Let me 

just note, Mr. Chairman, this is a pattern. I am sorry, it is a pattern for this Administration, and I have been around for a while 

and this is a pattern of this Administration, and another pattern 

is, a series of grants given in the field of energy to companies that 

go bankrupt, and that is another pattern that we see. This is a 

very disturbing pattern both in the private sector part of it for people who are getting grants, not being able to fulfill the obligation 

that they set and also a disturbing pattern that you are not catching it, that this Administration isn’t catching this beforehand, and 

that is what the Inspector General I think has pointed out is, you 

are not doing your job. 

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman HARRIS. Thank you very much. 

And I would like to welcome the gentlelady from Oregon to the 

Subcommittee, and we did not forget you over there. We alternate 

from majority to minority until all the Subcommittee Members 

have had a chance, so now we will offer you a chance and recognize 

Ms. Bonamici for five minutes for her questioning. 

Ms. BONAMICI. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman Harris and 

Ranking Member Miller. I did understand that. 

I want to thank you all for being here today to speak about this 

topic. It is important not only to the district I represent and to the 

state I am from but also to our country, and in my home State of 

Oregon, we have seen a tremendous growth in electric-vehicle infrastructure and use. As part of the EV project we now have more 

than 350 charging stations in our state, more than 200 additional 

charging stations forecasted. Cities like the city of Beaverton in my 
57 

district, city of Hillsboro have taken the lead and have charging 

stations at their city halls and other public places. Commercial 

partners like Walmart, Kohl’s, Fred Meyer are home to electric 

charging stations as well. Portland State University has Electric 

Avenue, which is a multi-vehicle block with many charging stations 

right in the heart of downtown Portland, and in fact, our professional basketball team, the Portland Trailblazers, gives free parking to the first electric vehicle to arrive at a game. 

Many partners participated in this work, and Ecotality had a 

part, but so did Eaton and General Electric and Conamatsu and 

North Right OpConnect, Shore Power and SPX. Many partners 

have come together to build this infrastructure, and the advancements in deployment of charging station technology, it is not just 

restricted to the Portland metropolitan area, and here is an example. Senator Merkley really put this to the test. He drove the 300 

miles from the northern border of our state to the southern border 

of our state recently in a Nissan Leaf. Importantly, investments 

that have been made by the Department of Energy’s Vehicle Technologies Program have resulted in significant progress in developing electric-vehicle infrastructure but that also helps to attract 

diverse industries and jobs to our region. 

So in considering those accomplishments that Oregon has made 

in this area, I would like to ask the witnesses, would you please 

discuss why the initiative has worked so well in Oregon and how 

might we replicate these successes across the country? 

Dr. HOGAN. Certainly, it is great to hear those great results in 

Oregon. I think you are pointing out exactly the reason we are 

doing many of these projects is that you need to build, you know, 

some awareness. You know, what we are trying to do is spur the 

greater adoption of these vehicles but you can only do that in combination with people being aware of them and working to buy them 

and continuing to speed that adoption. So we are—it is important, 

you know, to work with the market trends that are there and to 

keep sort of pushing forward with the information and continue 

that growth, and that is exactly what efforts like Ecotality are 

doing but it doesn’t happen as quickly everywhere so you have to 

sort of just keep sort of the key elements of the project together 

and keep building that, and I think what we are seeing right now 

with Ecotality, even though they are not quite where we had 

thought they might be at this point in time, they are moving steadily ahead month by month by month, faster in some places than 

others, but we are moving ahead on pace and are ready and expecting to meet the major milestones of the project. So a lot of good 

news there. 

Ms. BONAMICI. Mr. Wynne, your thoughts? 

Mr. WYNNE. Well, first, to begin, congratulations. Oregon truly 

is, I think, a model that others are looking to and not surprising, 

we recognized your former Governor with our E–Visionary Award 

not too long ago for that reason. I think it is a perfect example of 

the federal, state and local partnerships that we were talking about 

with industry, which will be needed, and I agree with the sentiment that this cannot go on forever as a federal program. We cannot—Mr. Rohrabacher, if he was here and he could tell us what 

year he had gotten his hybrid, it was very likely that he got a tax 
58 

credit for that hybrid. Those tax credits have expired, much as 

these tax credits for the existing vehicles will expire. We expect 

this program to have been successful in providing us with some insights that private industry can then utilize to anticipate where 

people’s needs are going to be in changing and build business models around them. 

So I think this is a perfect example of the collaboration between 

industry and government that is going to help us to move to the 

next level of transportation, and I don’t think it is lost on anyone 

in the room that we need to be evolving our transportation, providing our consumers and our fleet operators with new options. 

Ms. BONAMICI. Thank you very much. 

My time is about to expire, but it is my understanding there is 

still a pretty significant wait list in Oregon to get a Leaf. 

So thank you for your testimony and I yield back. 

Chairman HARRIS. Thank you very much. 

We have a couple minutes before we have to go. Mr. Miller, if 

you have any closing statements or any comments? 

Mr. MILLER. Mr. Chairman, I take from that you intend to make 

some closing statements or comments. 

I would encourage the Department of Energy to provide documents. Also to understand if the Members of the majority think the 

Bush Administration cheerfully provided all information requested 

by Congress, their information—their recollection is incorrect. I 

was the chairman of the Oversight Subcommittee for four years, 

and I have got to say, there was not a big improvement when the 

Obama Administration came in, largely because the same people 

were doing it. It wasn’t the political appointees, it was the permanent staff. And there is a tendency to treat requests from Congress 

like FOIA requests. They are not FOIA requests. 

I would also urge the majority to consider in requesting documents if you want a needle, don’t ask for a haystack, and I urge 

the Administration if they have asked for a needle, don’t provide 

a haystack. If there is a valid reason to redact documents, if there 

is proprietary information, information that could be commercially 

damaging, tell us that, and I urge the majority to try to make arrangements to review the documents to satisfy yourself that there 

is some valid reason for not providing the information requested for 

public distribution to see if there is in fact an invalid reason for 

decisions that are the proper subject of Congressional oversight. 

Chairman HARRIS. Thank you very much, Mr. Miller, and I 

couldn’t agree with you more. You know, we will try to be as specific as possible, but again, you know, the hearing was to see about 

management. You know, we got a letter back from May 1st. We 

wrote the letter March 26th, got a letter back May 1st talking 

about the open and transparent process through which Ecotality 

was granted this award and then we get back subsequently two 

months later, let me see, May to June to July, 2–1/2 months later. 

We get this back, which is redacted for everything except the name 

of the company, which is not the top—and just to remind you, Doctor, the score is 823 for the top company, was 748 for Ecotality, and 

505 is kind of the cutoff for acceptable grants. I got to tell you, this 

is not open and transparent. I am astounded that, you know, we 

can’t get a simple answer to the question like gee, why wasn’t the 
59 

top rated given the award, especially since just one award was 

given under area of interest one, just one, but we will ask a series 

of questions. 

I want to thank the witnesses for their valuable testimony and 

Members for their questions. The Members of the Committee may 

have additional questions. We will have additional questions for 

you, much more specific, and we will ask you to respond to them 

in writing. That was 4–1/2 months from my initial request to this 

week when I get this back. I would just ask the Department to be 

a little more timely and perhaps a little less redaction, you know, 

in further inquiries. 

The record will remain open for two weeks for additional comments from Members. The witnesses are excused. Thank you all for 

coming. The hearing is now adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 10:48 a.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.] 

(61) 

Appendix I 

ANSWERS TO POST-HEARING QUESTIONS
62 

ANSWERS TO POST-HEARING QUESTIONS

Responses by Dr. Kathleen Hogan 
63 
64 
65 
66 

Responses by Mr. Rickey Hass 
67 
68 
69 
70 
71 
72 
73 
74 
75 
76 
77 
78 
79 

Responses by Mr. Brian Wynne 
80 
81 
82 
83 
84 
85 

Æ