U.S. lawmakers request documents from Volkswagen over illegal emissions software

U.S. lawmakers on Tuesday requested documents from Volkswagen and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regarding the company's illegal software used to circumvent emissions test for certain models of diesel engine passenger vehicles.

In a letter to Michael Horn, president and CEO of Volkswagen Group of America, the bipartisan leadership of the House Energy and Commerce Committee asked the company to turn over all documents, including those "related to the development, approval, testing and use of the software" installed in nearly 500,000 diesel cars in the United States.

In a separate letter to the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, the committee leaders asked for a detailed timeline of events and activity related to the violations, including how and when the violations were discovered.

"It seems Volkswagen had a dirty little secret, and it's not just consumers who are feeling betrayed," said a joint statement by the committee's chairman Fred Upton and the committee's oversight and investigations panel chairman Tim Murphy.

"There are many unanswered questions and we will get the facts and the answers that the American people deserve."

The committee said they want the information and documents by Oct. 13. The requests came on the heels of last week's announcement that the committee will soon hold a hearing on the Volkswagen scandal.

The software in question, which the company acknowledged deploying in some 11 million vehicles worldwide, allowed the vehicles to detect when they were undergoing emissions testing and turn full emissions controls on only during the test.

This results in vehicles that meet emissions standards in the laboratory or testing station, but during normal operation, emit nitrogen oxides at up to 40 times the standard.