Posted on 01/14/2025 5:18:23 AM PST by MtnClimber
When Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm and her staff of clowns bungled a four-day ramble in 2023 to show off the wonder of electric vehicles, the lasting impression would be the report of her advance team blocking an open charger so she wouldn’t have to wait for one. A federal report, however, reveals details that cast the entire charade in an even worse light.
The Granholm tour was to take her from Charlotte, N.C., to Memphis, Tenn., and was intended to justify the billions of taxpayers’ dollars the Biden administration was pouring into green energy initiatives. The message was lost when it was learned, two months after the incident, that “an Energy Department staffer tried parking a nonelectric vehicle” by a charger “to reserve a spot for the approaching secretary,” according to National Public Radio reporter Camila Domonoske, who was along for the ride.
Granholm’s “caravan of EVs — including a luxury Cadillac Lyriq, a hefty Ford F-150, and an affordable Bolt electric utility vehicle — was planning to fast-charge in Grovetown, a suburb of Augusta, Ga.,” said Domonoske. But “one of the station’s four chargers was broken, and others were occupied.”
It wouldn’t look good for the troupe to have to wait for a charge. After all, the entire purpose of the junket was to show the public that EVs are the way to travel. The optics became worse, though, when Granholm’s team “boxed out — on a sweltering day” a family “with a baby in the vehicle” using a car with an internal-combustion engine, Domonoske reported.
Upset by the outrageous manners and ugly display of entitlement by federal functionaries, the family called the police. Turns out Georgia had no law prohibiting non-EVs from parking in charging spaces.
But that staffer did not commit the only misdeed by a federal employee on the rolling celebration. The Energy Department inspector general found that the government workers who supported Granholm were not “conscientious stewards of taxpayer funds,” and further noted that “conscientious stewardship is particularly crucial for matters involving high publicity.” Such as a public relations campaign to push a politically preferred mode of transportation.
In the special report issued earlier this month, the Energy Department Office of the Inspector General determined that within Granholm’s troupe:
36 of the 42 travel vouchers (86 percent) contained lodging expenses that exceeded Government per diem rates. Additionally, we identified seven travel vouchers for which travel expenses exceeded 15 percent of the authorized cost. Further, we found four travel vouchers for which government-issued travel cards were not used for expenses, as required. Moreover, travel voucher warnings addressing potential policy deviations and issues were unaddressed or inadequately justified.
Seems there was more at work than just “a series of events and townhalls highlighting the Biden-Harris administration’s new and existing efforts to build a clean energy economy, create clean energy jobs, and cut costs for all Americans.”
It was, apparently, a pleasure cruise for some staffers.
“The total cost of the 42 travel vouchers was $124,823.94. The total amount by which lodging expenses exceeded per diem rates was $9,487.50, with excess costs per traveler ranging from $50 to $634 per trip,” says the IG report.
“Travelers could have chosen different nearby hotels to reduce travel costs at the government’s expense; however, department officials mentioned difficulties finding hotels with functioning EV chargers onsite or nearby.” The former is indicative of the entitlement mentality among Washington bureaucrats, while the latter underscores the perils of EV travel that activists and politicians want to cover up.
Maybe it was all just a misunderstanding. Maybe the employees were not properly advised on federal travel rules. But our combined decades of observations indicate that government, at all levels, tends to draw people who couldn’t be more unsuited for the jobs they have.
So they spent lots of money and the optics were the opposite of what they intended. We needed DOGE back then.
the best people to ask about how well electric vehicles perform is anyone who used one to escape a hurricane or a wildfire.
No concern about the billions that went for EV charging stations that resulted in almost no new charging stations. Wonder when anyone will got to jail or be sued into oblivion for that obvious fraud. Should be easy to follow the money.
Maybe the soon to be laid off IRS workers can become new auditors under DOGE?
But would you trust them?
Charlotte to Memphis is about 650 miles. Easily done in a day. Unless you’re in an EV. Then it’s easily a couple of days. And why would anyone go to Memphis on purpose?
Emergency lap-dances?................
“Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm and her staff of clowns”
That pretty much describes Biden’s whole DEI administration like the one stealing women’s luggage and then wearing it and the Navy Admiral who doesn’t seem to know what sex
he/she/it is.
What could Gramholm possibly know about energy?
Everything, just ask her.
She knows Nothing zbout EVERYTHING,!
Jennifer Granholm just another one on Biden’s staff of stooges they all have only one word on their resume CLUELESS.
No Teslas, no real EV’s
All on the tour were UAW trash
Six days and counting till the end of this nightmare.
Makes me wonder why they paused in Augusta GA. Not exactly on a Google maps itinerary.
I85 SOUTH to ATL, 20 W to Tuscaloosa, then I22 to Memphis makes more sense. 635 miles, 10 hours in an ICE vehicle.
“Further, we found four travel vouchers for which government-issued travel cards were not used for expenses, as required.”
They probably used their own credit cards. Government credit cards take a while to be issued and become effective. Very likely, these people had not received their government cards in time for the trip, or had not known they had to apply for them.
Not an uncommon problem. I went through the transition to the “government credit card required”. Sounded good on paper for the government. In reality, more paperwork burden, more wasted time for the employees.
Most of the kinks were eventually worked out.
A lot of Truth there. In a Tesla ya just plan your route and the car receives ‘available’ fast charging stations all along the route.
When I was working I would deliberately rent Teslas from Hertz because of their low cost per day, AND despite the haters here they were fun and quiet to drive. Charging was easy and pretty fast, with no stops longer than about 20 min.
I think what it means is they used government issued credit cards for personal expenses not related to travel...........booze, cigs, condoms, etc............ 😉
“Further, we found four travel vouchers for which government-issued travel cards were not used for expenses, as required.”
Pretty clear to me. They did not use government credit cards for expenses.
They used something else for expenses.
If they had committed fraud, it would be a headline.
Concept: FRESH Water quenches thirst
Democrat: “Let’s ban fresh water and mandate that citizens drink salt water instead”
Republican: “Its been tried before and found to kill people”
Democrat: “no, it wasn’t tried correctly before! All one needs to do is sip it instead of gulping the water down- that way they won’t get sick and die”
Republican : “why the pressing need to stop drinking fresh water anyways”
Democrat: “The climate man, the climate! Sheesh, do we have to explain everything?”
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