mr. horn, thank you for being here. i think it is appropriate you come before the committee, you apologize for the actions, and that you and vw take full responsibility for what has transpired. it is disappointing. i'm aware our governor has been at the chattanooga facility. i know that the governor, state legislators, the other members of the delegation and i are quite concerned about this. you have a lot of hard-working, honest tennessee people who are at that facility. we are concerned about the actions of a few. we are going to be very precise with you and vw. it is, as the chairman said, basically the who, what, when, where, how and why. why you did it, how you did it, when you did it, lending you -- new, did it go across the brand, was it in new regulations, was it pointed at climate regulations? this is a systemic failure. someonelso point out, could say it is a safety issue. but i say it is an issue of integrity. we appreciate you are here. we look forward to hearing from you. i want t

mr. michael horn. in addition, the subcommittee intends to pursue answers to initial questions concerning the relations of volkswagen. what happened? who was involved? and most important, why? mr. born is appearing before us -- mr. horn is appearing before us voluntarily. this means providing documents to the committee as quickly as possible, including documents that have already been discussed publicly in connection with volkswagen's there is board meetings in germany. as i said before, a number of core questions we pursue today. most critically, what happened, who was involved, why were these actions taken? and we have a number of questions concerning the impact on customers, dealerships, and the public. can expandg mr. horn upon the facts he represents in his testimony. we look to him to explain the current understanding as to what was done to the engines. was it done to deliberately deceive government regulations and regulators? and what is false wagon doing to wagone problem -- folks doing to fix t

mr. horn, i'm glad you came to testify here. while we know all of the things i just talked about, there's a lot more things we do not know. and we need answers for them. for example, volkswagen has not revealed how the device affects the engine. white was installed, and how it was able to evade the tests? you have not revealed when and how the engines equipped will be fixed. whether the fix will affect fuel economy or performance of the vehicle. you have not revealed what volkswagen told regulators over the last year as epa and the california board were trying to figure out why the emissions were out of compliance. you have not revealed whether the voluntary recalls that volkswagen set in place in 2014 were millemerely a ruse. were they trying to figure out what was wrong and fix them? for did they know they had defeat devices were only trying to buy time with regulators? you have not revealed who is responsible for this game. we have all seen the press three points, and we can speculate about

mr. horn can provide important context and expand upon the facts he represents in his testimony. we look to him to explain the current understanding of vw executives about what was done to these engines and if it was done to deliberately deceive government regulations and regulators. and what is being done to fix the problem and make all those who have been affected by their actions? wagon -- folks doing to fix the problem? they made a choice to move forward with engines that now suggest were not compliant. the illegal software was initially deployed in the 1st generation of these diesel engines which account for approximately 340,000 apparn the control systems, these engines have software that remained in place. what tothe company -- the company understand about this software cheat? and what does it mean for fixing them? will some big is your than others? we have questions about compliance and recall programs. i hope we get answers from that agency. why did the epa standard tests and audits f

mr. horn, you can sit in that chair. thank you. thank you and good morning. we now convene this hearing of the oversight and investigation subcommittee on volkswagen emissions cheating allegations, initial questions. let me start off by saying my first car was a volkswagen. it was a '76 beetle. i learned a lot about cars. i could take that thing apart continued to work. i did all the maintenance myself because volkswagen had a legacy as the people's car to be people friendly. i loved that car. loved it a lot. not so much as to call it brad, but i loved that car. but i trusted the car to get me around. i trusted volkswagen would continue to build a reliable car. that word trust alone as you know is the key factor in building customer loyalty. that trust is what helped build volkswagen because we believed its company looked out for customers first. then three weeks ago car owners around the world were shocked to learn that volkswagen admitted it installed software for a number of years in millio

mr. horn, for giving us as much background and knowledge of what has taken place to the best of your ability. i've heard a couple of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle refer to what has occurred as cheating. but i would like to say to you that i believe it was an intentional deception. and i think we need to say it as it is. this wasn't a game. this was an intentional deception to bring something on the market that did not meet standards. i want to go back to something my colleague just raised about your testing center at oxnard. i understand that for the better part of the past year, vw was interacting with c.a.r.b. about discrepancies about high emissions involving your vehicles. what is the purpose of the oxnard facility, and is it, as the article suggests, developed to hem volkswagen meet emissions standards? >> to my understanding, yes. and it's directly connected to the research and development department in germany to help them or to get the cars into legal compliance and to t

now, mr. horn, i'm glad you've come today to testify here, because while we know all of the things i just talked about, there's a lot more things we don't know and that we need answers for. for example, vw hasn't revealed how the defeat device affects the engine, why it was installed and how it was able to evade emissions tests. you haven't revealed when and how the engines equipped with this defeat device will be fixed. you haven't told us whether this fix will affect fuel economy or performance of the vehicles. you haven't revealed what volkswagen told regulators over the last year as epa and the california board were trying to pirg out why the vehicles -- figure out why the vehicles' emissions were out of compliance. you haven't revealed whether the voluntary recall that vw set in place in 2014 was just merely a ruse. was the vw group of america actually trying to find out what was wrong with the cars and fix them, or did vw know that the cars had defeat devices on them and were only trying to b

mr. horn, your statements so far don't give me much confidence that we're ever going to see a fix for this vehicles that are impacted. you know, you say that they can't be fixed by a software-only solution, you don't have a nsse timetable as to -- necessary timetable as to when the fix is going to begin. have you been given enough information about how the defeat device affects the engine to actually make informed judgments on whether the fix will actually work? .. they were going to have good fuel economy. they were going to have good engine performance. can you guarantee that any fix you make to the vehicles doesn't affect fuel economy or fuel performance are both? >> at this time if we correct the knox -- the emission standards, the customer will get the mpg. that's my current understanding of whether the full performance of the car, this is something they said in germany, maybe top speed that might be one or two miles per hour might be missing but this is of course something which we will

concerns i raised with mr. horn earlier was mightn about whether we devices with similar problems with other cars. the tools you need to ensure there are no other cheaters out there? we do. >> i'm also concerned about, mr. brooks,s from comments mr. ford made. suggesting there was no corporate responsibility. ag who goesa or the after the individual corporate or otherwise who might be responsible for this. point envision bringing charges like criminal the corporation itself for this intentional deceit? question.ou for the toan't speculate now as exactly what all the enforcement actions will take. already taken the initial enforcement action. we are working with the department of justice on these matters. >> i guess what i'm asking, i won't keep repeating, one more time. we keep talking about the fines because of what happened. is this rise to individual responsibility for those responsible? asthere such a thing criminal action against a corporation? speculating, are those possibilities? >> let me be careful in answe

mr. michael horn. in addition, the subcommittee intends to pursue answers to initial questions concerning the relations of volkswagen. what happened? who was involved? and most important, why? mr. born is appearing before us -- mr. horn is appearing before us voluntarily. this means providing documents to the committee as quickly as possible, including documents that have already been discussed publicly in connection with volkswagen's there is board meetings in germany. as i said before, a number of core questions we pursue today. most critically, what happened, who was involved, why were these actions taken? and we have a number of questions concerning the impact on customers, dealerships, and the public. can expandg mr. horn upon the facts he represents in his testimony. we look to him to explain the current understanding as to what was done to the engines. was it done to deliberately deceive government regulations and regulators? and what is false wagon doing to wagone problem -- folks doing to fix t

what did you know, mr. horne, and when did you know it? >> reporter: that is a key question. one distinction he made is he learned about emissions problems more than a year ago, but it was only last month that that was, in fact, because of a deliberate deception on the part of the company. as you can imagine, tony, michael horne apologized to lawmakers. take a listen. >> i would like to offer a sincere apology for volkswagen's use of a software program that served to defeat the regular emissions testing regime. let me be very clear. we at volkswagen take full responsibility for actions and working with all the relevant authorities in a cooperative way. >> reporter: now, mr. horne also today the lawmakers he believes this deception, this decision to put in software to cheat on emissions standards was made not at the highest corporate levels but at some engineering level. tony, lawmakers just did not buy that. investigations do continue to try to find out precisely who did know what and when. >> yeah. i heard a bit of that testimony. you're right. congressman is pretty hot on t

concerns i raised with mr. horn earlier was mightn about whether we devices with similar problems with other cars. the tools you need to ensure there are no other cheaters out there? we do. >> i'm also concerned about, mr. brooks,s from comments mr. ford made. suggesting there was no corporate responsibility. ag who goesa or the after the individual corporate or otherwise who might be responsible for this. point envision bringing charges like criminal the corporation itself for this intentional deceit? question.ou for the toan't speculate now as exactly what all the enforcement actions will take. already taken the initial enforcement action. we are working with the department of justice on these matters. >> i guess what i'm asking, i won't keep repeating, one more time. we keep talking about the fines because of what happened. is this rise to individual responsibility for those responsible? asthere such a thing criminal action against a corporation? speculating, are those possibilities? >> let me be careful in answe

i have one last question mr. horn. you told a bunch of us on this committee, after that west virginia university study in may of 2014, everybody was running around trying to figure out what was going on with these cars and why there was a discrepancy between the cast that your engineers didn't know the answer. in fact, the discrepancy was because of a willful act of some engineers germany in the first place. correct? >> that's my understanding. >> those people -- that information about that discrepancy never made it to germany so they can tell your people what was wrong? is that what you're deafing here to-- testifying here today? >> i don't understand. >> you said your people were trying to figure out why there was a discrepancy. there were some people who knew. those are the people who wrote that code in the first place. are you telling me that they never told your u.s. people what the problem was and why there was a discrepancy? >> people who investigated the study in detail, the study and developed software fixes w

but we heard mr. hornestify earlier today that this is not a safety issue, that these cars as they are driven, they're emissions issues but not safety issues. is that correct? >> that's correct. >> so does epa do its own kind of recall that is separate and apart from the national highway traffic safety administration? >> we do. >> and would this be www.recalls.gov that is the website that consumers can go to to find out information about the recall or the possible recall of their vehicle? >> we have not ordered a recall yet. when we do, we will provide that information for sure. >> that information will be on your website? >> yes. >> so i went to the website, truthfulness staff went to the website, they printed it off for me, very grateful for that. you can get information about pesticides, pesticide websites, epa emission recalls where i assume this would fall, is that correct? >> yes. >> when you click on that link, you've got a page not found. website improvements under way. so can you let consumers kno

but heard mr. horn testify earlier today that this is not a safety issue, that these cars as they are driven, they're emissions issues but not safety issues. is that correct? >> that's correct. >> so does epa do its own kind of recall that is vat and apart from the national highway traffic safety administration? >> we do. >> and would this be www.recalls.gov that is the website that consumers can go to to find out information about the recall or the possible recall of their vehicle? >> we have not ordered a recall yet. when we do, we will provide that information for sure. >> that information will be on your website? >> yes. >> so i went to the website, truthfulness staff went to the website, they printed it off for me, very grateful for that. you can get information about pesticides, pesticide websites, epa emission recalls where i assume this would fall, is that correct? >> yes. >> when you click on that link, you've got a page not found. website improvements you said way. so you can let consumers kno

i hope mr. horn can provide some important context for us and expand upon the facts in his testimony. wheel like to him to explain the current understanding of vw executives about what exactly was down to these engines and was it done to deliberately deceive government regulations and regulators and what is vw doing to fix the problem and make whole those affected by the action. at some point in 2009 vw made a choice to move forward with engines that evidence now suggests were not compliant with u.s. emissions standards. the illegal software was initially deployed in the first jen ralgs of these diesel engines that would account for approximately 300,000. however, despite the advancement in their control systems, the software remained in place and if the technology was improving what did the company understand about the software cheating and what does this mean for fixing these vehicles? will some be easier than others? of course, for epa we have questions about compliance and recall programs. why di

. >> i want to tell you, mr. horn, i don't buy it. the american people, the epa and their counterparts around the world have been defrauded by volkswagon. the company's word isn't worth a dime. >> the panel is investigating last month's admission that volkswagon had installed on board computer software designed to cheat on u.s. government emissions tests. >> i would like to offer a sincere apology, sincere apology for volkswagon use program that served to defeat the emissions testing. >> they will withdraw applications seeking u.s. emissions certification for the jetta, golfs, passat and beatles with diesel engines. they are being stranded at ports giving them no more vehicles to sell. they're working with regulators to get certification. >> we will rebuild the reputation of a company that more than 2 million people world wild including dealers and suppliers to rely upon for the lively hood. >> government prosecutors say they searched the headquarters in germany. the company says it handed over a, quote, comprehensive range of documen

i hope today, mr. horn can provide some important context and expand upon the facts he represented in his testimony. what exactly was done to these engines and was it done to deliberately risk -- to liberally deceive regulators? what is vw doing to fix the problem and make hold those affected by the actions? at some point prior to 2009, vw made a choice to move forward with engines that evidence now suggests were not compliant with u.s. emissions standards. the software was initially deployed in a first generation of these engines, which account for approximately 340,000 of the affected vehicles. however, despite advancement in the vehicles, into future generations, the software made in place. if technology was improving, what did the company understand about the software cheat? what does this mean for fixing this vehicles? , we have, for epa questions about some compliance and recall programs. i hope we can get some clear answers. why did epa's standard compliance tests and audits failed to detect problem,

as i asked for more specificity on the timeline, the answer i got from mr. horne investigating. is this is september 3 and it was a systemic problem and we have u.s.-based dealers who have lots full of product that they now have money out and they cannot sell the product, i would think i would have a little bit more of a timeline on what we are going to do to make the consumers that own the cars hold , how we are going to handle the emissions tests and how we are going to fix this problem. david: do you expect this to lead to legislation? what do you expect to come out of all of this? congresswoman blackburn: yes, indeed, we can go the appropriations route or go in and recall some of these regulations, reposition things they have done through the rulemaking process. but bear in mind that we have road, 500,000 cars on the and there are consumers that are going to have to take an emissions test. they are trying to figure out, is this a car that they can drive or not, or how they are going to be made whole in this situation. just before i let you go, i want to clari

. >> i want to tell you mr. horn, i don't buy it.the american people, the epa, and their counterparts around the world have been defrauded by volkswagen. the company's word isn't worth a dime. >> reporter: the panel is investigating last month's admission that volkswagen had installed onboard computer software designed to cheat on u.s. government emissions test. >> i would like to offer a sincere apology for volkswagen's use of software program that served to defeat the regular emations testing regime. >> reporter: his remarks revealed his plans to withdraw applications seeking u.s. emissions soichgz for the 20 -- certification for the 2016 models. by removing the application, volkswagen is leaving thousands of diesel vehicles stranded at ports nationwide. he says the company is working with regulators to get certification. >> we will rebuild the reputation of a company that more than two billion people rely on for their livelihood. >> reporter: producer say they've searched volkswagen' headquarters in germany. the company says it ha

matthew joins us, and you know what, matthew, i'm going to get to the uaw deal in a moment, but mr. horn, what did you think of him testifying before congress today? >> this is not something that you ever want to have happen in your career as a major executive of european or industrial concern. you don't want to be in front of congress or have this happen. this is a nightmare scenario for you. >> and yet, how did you do? >> he's been a real straight shooter in this thing. he came out at an event in new york city and said, we screwed up and we're going to spend how much of money we need to fix this thing, and he has the back being of his network, and he has been the most outspoken volkswagen executive on this yet. i think that he did well. >> straight shooter, and let me take this on for a second. horn acknowledged that it's hard to believe that top vw officials didn't know about the scam. do you buy it whethe when he sas that? >that? a couple of software engineers just fiddling around with things, and no one in a board meeting approved this. did you buy this? no one in congress bought th

. >> i want to tell you, mr. horn, i don't buy it. the american people, the epa and their counterparts around the world have been defrauded by volkswagen. the company's word isn't worth a dime. the only thing i want to hear today is exactly how will volkswagen make this right by consumers? >> these events -- >> volkswagen is vowing to make changes to its policies but we still don't know how it will compensate customers and dealers who still alleged clean diesel cars to sell to the public. >> i'm stuck thon volcano name. what was that again. >> i think did you it right. i could never -- that's why she read that story. she can do that. i can't do that. >> feds went digging in a california and unearthed buried treasure much check this out. home belongs to cesar, a man who pleaded guilty to armored truck heist in 20 free. he stole a million dollars and yesterday the fbi dug up more than half of it. he had buried more than $600,000 in a tupperware style container in his backyard all in tens and 20's much that's a big tupperware. neighbors

michael horn, the ceo of volkswagen. >> mr.ion to this question and answer session. >> you can see that volkswagen is trying to engage in invasion in order to protect higher-level executives. if they didn't know, they shupt have been on the job. this invofls 11 million vehicles worldwide. they are trying to say they didn't know at the top. what the testimony reminds me of is that this problem had its source not only in john dingell making sure there was not in the quality act. he was the congressman from michigan now retired but there is a flaw in the law where the testing for vehicles, for fuel efficiency and air plaguollutio done by private laps, not the epa, private labs in germany and the united states. these should be done by public lab bra torres held accountable to the public under the rule of law. >> we did just hear the head of vpusa admit that the defeat devices were put in deliberately, because the cars did not meet tougher diesel emission standards. surely, you are able under present law to get criminal prosecutions

mr. horn's testimony? into ahis has turned regular thing with automakers coming to congress and begin the apology process without much to say. he will have a lot of things to look into and he was say, we will look into that, we will look into that, we will look into that. we have the copy of the quote he we areich i can read -- determined to make things right, this includes accepting consequences of our acts, providing a remedy, and beginning to restore the trust of customers, dealerships, customers, regulators. the ceo ofubstitute general motors, toyota, a bunch of people's clothes or the name after the quote and it is the kind of thing we hear. pimm: exactly. i want to give you a chance. you have a story for anybody interested in the topic, tell us about it. jeff: one of the things we did is we looked at how they are reporting injuries. honda and chrysler have said they had problems with that so we take a look at the broader landscape and lo and behold, volkswagen -- you don't know if they have a problem

. >> i want to tell you, mr. horn, i don't buy it. >> reporter: volkswagen has admitted a half million december cars in the u.s., 11 worldwide have software that turns on during the test but turns them off during regular driving so the cars pollute 40 times more than the legal level. who is responsible? how high did this go? the u.s. president says it was not a corporate decision. >> a couple of software engineers who put this in for whatever reasons. >> vw is trying to get the united states of america to believe these are a couple of rogue engineers. i categorically reject that. >> reporter: many of these members were disappointed. so many talking about the vws they or family members had owned, a beetle or passat. one member owns one of those diesel engines and wants relief. >> volkswagen needs to stand up and say, okay, we understand, we will buy your car back. >> reporter: for now dealers have cars they can't sell. vw won't sell next year's diesel cars in the u.s. and some wonder whether the brand can survive. the

mr. white horn. >> good evening madam president and commissioners i'm here to contest the permit granted to joseph he never got a notice and when of the application was submitted a requirement of sf 311 and state law requires the landlord notice the tenants before applying for the permit the gentleman never contacted me and let me know he was seeking for a demolition which had i known would have done a block block notice he's returning this to a commercial space co-authored to the assessors those office a rh2 family 4 unit building two distinct address my address and the address next door to me the address right next door to me basing has been a typically space for the landlord son for a number of years he moved out as the property was purchased by mr. bravo. >> it's a apartment where we live when you first walk in is a living room a long hallway my roommates room a kitchen my room a bathroom and a backdoor to a garden upon receiving the permit the landlord is supposed to accelerate the neighbors the permits was granted no such permit was granted thank you very much. >> no such sign has

for the bulk of owners in the united states, more than 300,000 horn goal owners, mr.eally cannot put a timetable on those repairs, so that might last all of next year or more. angie: at the testimony today, and a revelation as to who was in -- who in vw made the decision to bypass the omissions rules? of thehat was really one big questions that lawmakers in washington wanted answers. they wanted to know who made the decision and how far up in the food chain it went at volkswagen. really stuck to what the company has said so far, picking the blame on a small group of engineers. that answer did not satisfy the members of congress. they really expressed a lot of skepticism about that. area youk that is one should really keep your eye on, because there is an investigation going on. they are only now starting to get the documents from volkswagen. i think this will be something they really press on in the future. joining us from washington, d.c., covering the volkswagen scandal. thanks, jeff. coming up next, volatility in the u.s. markets eases by the most in 20 months. is

. >> she prayed and said she turned the lights on, hit the horn on the car. >> mrs. apple is in the hospital but she's expected to make a full recovery. >> that's fantastic. i want you to know i have a trend involving the power of the cell phone. remember that story when we get to it in the trend. >> look at the two of you. >> [laughter] go ahead. we will let you know if it's any good. [laughter] >> your horrible. >>> i'm going to set the tone with the forecast. encouraged by a couple things in it. i think you will like it. this afternoon, we have beautiful day, it's our third straight day in the 70s, really nice out there. now the clouds are starting to break. this front is not very strong. it's carrying weights of clouds. couple sprinkles, but overall the evening is still going to be very, very nice. we're at 72 degrees. partly -- a pretty looking sky. are southwest southwest wind is rather busy. 14 miles an hour, patchy clouds and a through midnight, and then as the wind shifted north, our numbers will start to drop into the 50s. a low of 52. a fall jacket back fo

mr. white horn. >> good evening madam president and commissioners i'm here to contest the permit granted to joseph he never got a notice and when of the application was submitted a requirement of sf 311 and state law requires the landlord notice the tenants before applying for the permit the gentleman never contacted me and let me know he was seeking for a demolition which had i known would have done a block block notice he's returning this to a commercial space co-authored to the assessors those office a rh2 family 4 unit building two distinct address my address and the address next door to me the address right next door to me basing has been a typically space for the landlord son for a number of years he moved out as the property was purchased by mr. bravo. >> it's a apartment where we live when you first walk in is a living room a long hallway my roommates room a kitchen my room a bathroom and a backdoor to a garden upon receiving the permit the landlord is supposed to accelerate the neighbors the permits was granted no such permit was granted thank you very much. >> no such sign has

to cost taxpayers big horn dash billions of dollars i will tell you how we address it. >> mr. allen, are you deny your change had problems? >> no. >> space in back -- no i am not. >> no. >> certainly not you. what about your change? >> absolutely not. >> it may be rainbows and unicorns but have you had problems? >> yes. >> everybody has had problems but how do you recognize those and move forward? i guess i start with you since you are the model student if you want to do talk about to access telekinetic it very briefly what problems you saw i think it will be very instructive for us. >> as we look at the challenges from the onset of this very large project we saw some of the challenges being management of scope could be delivered everything we needed to deliver in a 10 month period? no. soviet-backed to the drawing board a number of times for the october 1st time frame to refer functionality to the later months that we knew would not impact our customers and ultimately that came back around with the key decisions made. >> argue trying to improve these deficiencies in your syst

mr. hornsby for being here. i think we are doing this hearing prior to the time that your document production deadline has expired. so we recognize that you are here voluntarily. all of us represent dealers, consumers, suppliers and their lives and livelihoods are extremely important to us. and that's what we have to keep first and foremost. i yield pack, mr. chairman. >> thank you. and the chair recognizes the gentleman from texas, mr. green. >> thank you, mr. chairman. for our witness, we have other subcommittees going on. you will see members coming in and out during the day. when i first heard about it, i was amazed that a company that's as great as volkswagen could let this happen. even to the executives who didn't know. the image of the country in europe and around the world is is so great. our committee wants to get some answers. i would like to understand more about volkswagen's own investigations and your efforts to find the cause of the debacle. mr. horn, please explain volkswagen's