Washington in 5 minutes

AUTO SHOW

Cabinet officials look at green cars

Displaying “green” cars, automakers told the Obama administration Tuesday that they have the technology to help the country reduce its dependence on imported oil and help the struggling industry enter a new era.

Members of President Obama’s Cabinet and lawmakers visited the Washington Auto Show, viewing fuel-efficient cars, plug-in hybrids and battery-electric vehicles under development. The cars are part of a shift away from conventional gasoline engines.

“Our industry has been part of the problem,” said Stefan Jacoby, Volkswagen AG’s top executive in North America. “Now we are determined to be part of the solution.”

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson and Carol Browner, Mr. Obama’s coordinator of energy and climate-related issues, reviewed the latest from General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co., Toyota Motor Corp. and others. The audience included former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell.

“The stimulus is going to make all of this even more possible,” Ms. Browner told a representative with lithium-ion battery manufacturer A123Systems while inspecting a retrofitted plug-in Toyota Prius.

VETERANS

Obama nominates Duckworth for VA

Tammy Duckworth, the Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs director, was nominated by President Obama on Tuesday to serve as an assistant secretary at the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Miss Duckworth was a helicopter pilot in Iraq who lost both legs and partial use of one arm in a rocket-propelled grenade attack in 2004. She ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 2006.

As assistant secretary of public and intergovernmental affairs, her duties would include directing VA’s public affairs operations, as well as programs for homeless veterans.

Miss Duckworth was a major in the Illinois National Guard. She was appointed director of the Illinois veterans’ agency in 2006.

BAILOUT

Wells Fargo bank reconsiders junket

Bailed-out bank Wells Fargo says it’s reconsidering whether to hold a corporate junket in Las Vegas amid criticism from Capitol Hill.

The company had planned a posh outing for its top mortgage writers to kick off this week at the Wynn Las Vegas. The conference is a Wells Fargo tradition. Previous years have included all-expense-paid helicopter rides, wine tasting, horseback riding in Puerto Rico and a private Jimmy Buffett concert in the Bahamas for more than 1,000 employees and guests.

After the Associated Press reported that this year’s event was about to kick off despite the company’s $25 billion bailout, the company defended its decision. But after swift outcry from Capitol Hill, a company spokesman says it’s reconsidering its plan.

CIVIL RIGHTS

NAACP chief to watch Obama

The NAACP’s new leader intends to hold President Obama accountable for his promises about civil rights, regardless of President Obama’s status as the first black occupant of the White House.

“The president being black gives us no advantage,” NAACP President and CEO Benjamin Todd Jealous said Tuesday in an interview with the Associated Press, adding that Mr. Obama’s background as a community organizer and civil rights lawyer may make him more receptive to the agenda of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

Mr. Jealous said he expects “the traditional relationship” that presidents have had with the NAACP: “We will be the people at the end of the day who help make him do what he knows he should do. We will help create the room for [Mr. Obama] to fulfill, I think, his own aspirations for his presidency.”

“If he aspires to be the next Abraham Lincoln, I aspire to be his Frederick Douglass,” said Mr. Jealous, referring to the slave-turned-abolitionist who pressed a cautious Lincoln to issue the Emancipation Proclamation.

Mr. Jealous outlined several issues for Mr. Obama to address during his first year in office: ensuring fair distribution of federal bailout funds, programs and contracts; double-digit black unemployment; lenders pushing minorities with good credit into subprime mortgages; reducing the disparity between unsolved homicides in minority and white areas; and ensuring that minority children have access to good schools.

The NAACP also has prepared a list of judges that it wants considered when vacancies are filled.

FINANCIAL SERVICES

Madoff accuser feared for family

Harry Markopolos, a former financial executive who tried to blow the whistle on accused swindler Bernard Madoff, will tell lawmakers he feared for the safety of his family when U.S. securities regulators ignored evidence in the case, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.

Mr. Markopolos is scheduled to testify Wednesday at a House Financial Services subcommittee hearing that is examining how to reform U.S. financial-services regulation and better police the markets.

“There was an abject failure by the regulatory agencies we entrust as our watchdog,” according to a copy of Mr. Markopolos’ testimony, which was posted on the Journal’s Web site. Mr. Markopolos said he gave evidence to the Securities and Exchange Commission office in Boston beginning in 2000 and resubmitted the evidence several times over a period of nine years.

“Because nothing was done, I became fearful for the safety of my family until the SEC finally acknowledged, after Madoff had been arrested, that it had received credible evidence of Madoff’s Ponzi scheme several years earlier,” Mr. Markopolos said.

From wire dispatches and staff reports