Byron Dorgan

The aviation technology has, in very large part, come from Federal investment into military airplanes.

The Government needs to be involved, Senator, for two very important reasons.

Heroic leadership really overstates almost anything that happens in the Congress by anybody.

We want to provide tax credits for smart grid enabled charging equipment for electric vehicles.

I am a strong supporter of hydrogen fuel cells.

Leadership from Senator Dorgan

Senator Dorgan and your cosponsors, Senator Alexander and Merkley, are to be commended for a bill that provides many of the resources needed to move these vehicles into the deployment fast lane.

The bill should be modified to provide an even playing field for all electric drive technologies.

We commend the sponsors for their leadership on the issue of electric drive vehicle deployment.

We hear it all the time and is usually an excuse for doing nothing.

Government is the problem not the solution.

We need to make sure that we are doing it all, that we support the hydrogen vehicles, that we push evenly.

If nothing else happens, accepting that some other countries are moving toward an electrified fleet, in those countries, they will still use the internal combustion engine.

I believe the answer is yes. We have come up with an approach that says, with respect to electric vehicles, let us develop a series of incentives to further battery technology.

I am as hopeful as anyone that electric vehicles are here to stay, but I think we recognize, particularly in this committee, that sometimes when we try to pick the winners and losers, we do not do a very good job of it.

We appreciate Senator Dorgan's history of leadership on all electric drive and his effort to achieve the right balance between national and more localized efforts.

The electrification of light-duty transportation falls in this category, and we would strongly recommend for the national security and national economic risks articulated by Senator Dorgan that this legislation move forward.

With the adoption of The Electrification Roadmap proposals, which parallel in the main Senator Dorgan's legislation, accompanied with the advantages of the new fuel efficiency standards, those numbers by 2035 decreased to 4 million barrels…

I think generally speaking most that have been working in this field feel that you need to get a battery capability for a 300- to 400-mile range.

Change is very hard to accomplish because we live in a circumstance wedded to what we do.

I believe that in the longer term hydrogen fuel cells are going to be very important.

As we look for ways to increase our energy security, decrease the cost of energy and create new jobs, electric vehicles offer a unique opportunity to make progress on all three of these fronts at once.

If we move toward an electric fleet of transportation vehicles, it will substantially reduce our reliance on foreign oil.

I think there is a great deal to like in this bill.

I think all of us on this committee would agree that electric vehicles have great promise, great potential, and all of us want to see them take off and transform the auto industry.