Two senators are calling on Attorney General Loretta Lynch to investigate possible crimes committed by Volkswagen as a part of the company’s plan to cheat emissions tests.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., sent a letter to Lynch Monday urging the country’s top law-enforcement official to conduct a thorough investigation into the so-called “defeat devices” installed in the software of the German automaker’s “clean diesel” vehicles.
About 482,000 of the vehicles in the United States, and as many as 11 million around the world, contain the software, which can tell when emissions tests are taking place. The emissions from those vehicles registered 40 times higher during normal driving than in emissions tests.
“We are particularly concerned that Volkswagen and individual executives appear to have made multiple false statements to the government,” the senators wrote. “Officials at Volkswagen should be granted no get-out-of-jail-free card, and the department should accept no plea agreement with Volkswagen that does not ensure any and all information regarding criminal acts by high level officials is provided to the department.”
The scandal, which erupted earlier this month, already resulted in last week’s resignation of CEO Martin Winterkorn. Volkswagen’s stock price has tanked since the revelation of the investigation, and the company has announced it would set aside more than $7.2 billion to fix the software in the vehicles.
Fines from the Environmental Protection Agency could reach $37,000 per vehicle, or about $18 billion total.
Consumers have already filed multiple class-action lawsuits against Volkswagen.
The House Oversight and Investigations subcommittee plans to hold a hearing on the scandal in the coming weeks.
The vehicles’ “defeat devices” contained about 100 million lines of code to circumvent emissions testing by the EPA.
On Friday, the agency announced it would increase its emissions testing on all automakers to test for similar software.
The senators said the government must send a message with criminal charges.
“The recent criminal and deceptive actions by some automakers is unacceptable,” the letter says. “The U.S. government needs to make it clear that these actions, whether involving safety defects, consumer deception or regulatory violations, will not be tolerated by the American public.”
