Congressional Republicans are launching an investigation into Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm’s madcap road trip through the southeast United States this summer. The excursion was a four-day “taxpayer-funded publicity stunt” promoting electric vehicles (EVs).
A press release announcing the probe says that the trip was “intended to draw attention to the billions of dollars the White House is pouring into green energy and clean cars.” That quote is from an NPR report by Camila Domonoske, who rode along on the trip from Charlotte, North Carolina, through South Carolina and Georgia, to Memphis, Tennessee — a route that pundits have dubbed the “southern battery belt.”
The caravan certainly did draw attention. You tend to do that when you get the cops called on you.
That happened in Grovetown, Georgia, when the Energy diva’s fleet blocked an EV charging station, forcing a family with an infant child and a dangerously low charge on their EV battery to call 911. The incident happened during a sweltering Georgia heat wave.
To add insult to injury, the car that blocked the charging station was gas powered.
But desperate times call for desperate measures. Granholm had a schedule to keep, and the limited number of properly working EV chargers along her planned route was threatening to interrupt it. Bidenomics can’t wait, as she told Good Morning America in July:
Granholm: In fact, this is what the president’s trying to solve for: whether it’s on a transportation corridor, or you may be traveling along a freeway and afraid that you’re not going to find a charging station. He wants them every 50 miles, no more than one mile off the freeway
Reporter: How long do you think before that infrastructure is really built up?
Granholm: Within the next 18 to 24 months.
Granholm later blamed her staff for “poor judgment” in blocking the charging station. But considering that her team put an infant in danger, her flippant explanation is not enough for the House Oversight Committee.
On Tuesday, GOP leaders sent a letter chastising the Canadian-born former Michigan governor. They wrote, “This taxpayer-funded publicity stunt illustrates yet again how out of touch the Biden Administration is with the consequences of policies it has unleashed on everyday Americans.”
Committee Chairman James Comer signed the letter, along with Texas Republican Pat Fallon, who is the Chair of the Subcommittee on Economic Growth, Energy Policy and Regulatory Affairs.
They accused Granholm of political motivation, calling her out for using gas-powered cars to “boost the charade of the effectiveness of green energy.” They wrote: “Your fleet of EVs could not complete the trip without the support of the fossil fuel industry, which you and the Biden Administration have been intent to vilify and destroy.”
It’s true that Granholm has been an environmental radical for decades, even lending her visage and voice to what critics call a “cringe” anti-fossil fuels music video broadcast in 2018:
Demanding a little maturity, Comer and Fallon have given Granholm until October 10 to produce a long list of backup documentation on the expedition, including records about an “isolated hardware issue” related to the Cadillac Lyriq she drove, and papers pertaining to the fact that Teslas were banned from her caravan. They are also requesting a briefing with her staff no later than October 3.
