Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said her staff’s “poor judgment” was to blame for an incident in which her team angered electric-vehicle (EV) drivers by obstructing EV chargers with a gas-powered car.
Disgruntled EV drivers called police on Granholm’s staffers in Grovetown, Ga., during the energy secretary’s four-day EV road trip in June.
The energy secretary, leading a caravan of electric vehicles, planned to stop to fast-charge at the spot. But upon arriving there, her advance team discovered one of the station’s four chargers was broken, and the others were occupied. An energy department staffer parked a non-electric vehicle by a working charger to save a spot for Granholm.
A family waiting in their car on a hot day with a baby called the police to complain, though authorities couldn’t help.
“I’m calling because I’m in the Grovetown Walmart at the charging station and there’s literally a non-electric car that is taking up a space and said they’re holding the space for somebody else,” a woman told a police dispatcher, according to Fox News. “And it’s holding up a whole bunch of people who need to charge their cars.”
“There are other people who are waiting to charge and they’re still here and they’re not in electric cars,” the caller added. “The sign says you can’t park here unless you’re charging.”
Staffers worked to make amends with the upset family, sending other vehicles to slower chargers to allow the family and the secretary to charge.
Representative Scott Franklin (R., Fla.) asked Granholm about the incident during a Thursday House Science and Technology Committee hearing.
“Let me just say, I have a fantastic young staff, just fantastic,” Granholm said. “It was poor judgment on the part of the team.”
“I can only imagine they wanted to continue moving,” she added.
She went on to say it was not her that was “saving the spot” at the chargers, despite the charger being saved for her to use.
The back-and-forth during the hearing comes after NPR first reported on the incident earlier this week.
The outlet reported that the trip was intended to “draw attention to the billions of dollars the White House is pouring into green energy and clean cars.”
The NPR reporter who followed along on the energy secretary’s road trip concluded, “Electric cars have a road trip problem, even for the secretary of energy.”
Meanwhile, President Biden has set a goal for 50 percent of all new car sales to be electric by 2030.