technocratic leadership but hamas is a part of that government, that man is going to end up going to hamas in one way or the other, given that money's fungible. and guess who that aligns us with? that aligns us with iran because they send money, they fund hamas. i'm going to be working with some of my colleagues to stop that money while hamas is a part of that government. i think that's very important. professor george, i appreciated what you said. i think you described kind of our history with religious liberty and establishments very ably. but i wonder, in terms of viewing iran, and i think you said, look, they're going to have their own system, maybe they have an established church or whatnot. but it's more than just that. these ayatollahs, their version, how they want to have a sharia society, it's much more than just religion, it's a whoa socio, political, totalitarian ideology. you could look in like the united states, even after the

constitution, we had states like connecticut that had established churches still. but they were not active in that way. so i guess this idea of sharia being so broad seems to me to be more than just about whatever religion you believe in, because there are millions and millions of people who are muslims who do not subscribe to the overall political ideology that comes with that. >> yes, that's -- that's absolutely right. you can have an established religion. in the united states we prefer not to have that. we disestablished our churches in the states, i think the last ones died out in the 1830s. but britain has the anglican church, it has an established religion, but it is respectful of the rights of religious minorities. i lived in britain myself for five years lives a graduate student and as a visiting scholar. i was not a member of the established church but i was entirely free to practice my own religion. we wouldn't want to say to the british, you have an obligation under human rights to

disestablish the anglican church. they might for their own reasons -- >> that when when you lived there the anglican church did not permeate society to the detriment of other people, correct? >> that's exactly right -- >> although they do discriminate against our catholic people on who can be on the throne. >> yes, i think that's still true. yeah, i believe that is still true. but you put your finger on the real problem. it's not that there is an official religion as such. it's that in the name of this though accuratic rule, a kind of totalitarianism is imposed. all dimensions of life are under control of the theocratic rulers. no one else's rights are respected. no one who is not a member of the faith. and even those who have dissenting opinions about politics within the shia faith are persecuted. i mentioned one of the ayatollahs showed a picture of -- i'll do it again here. this ayatollah, who himself is a

shia, but is nevertheless persecuted because he speaks out on behalf of the rights of nonshia muslims and nonmuslims. >> and so just to kind of flesh that out, and maybe mr. edamahi, you can speak. in iran if you convert away from islam, that's a crime? >> yes. >> what type of punishment could you get? you could potentially be put to death for that? >> yes, exactly. >> i have been following this i think during the easter season, the government raided christian churches. that would be something that would be par for the course there? >> yes. >> you can be convicted for a crime if you insalt islamic sensibilities, is that correct? >> yes, yes. >> inran still imposes severe punishments such as stonings and mule lation under their law, correction? >> yes. >> is that something that is called for by sharia law? or where do they come from these

punishments? how are those developed? >> it comes from sharia, yeah. >> and it was interesting because i was -- i read that the ayatollah khomenei was speaking about freedom. he says, iran, we have freedom unlike any other country in the world. then he pointed to europe and he says, they talk about freedom of speech, but go ask them about the holocaust, they're not free to deny the holocaust. he said, we don't know whether it existed or not. in his mind he thinks that because we don't have these grand debates about something that's obvious, if you study history, that somehow we don't have freedom of speech. i think what his freedom, and this is somehow -- we talk past folks in the middle east when we say, why wouldn't they want freedom? some people such as these ayatollahs, they believe, for them freedom is freedom to live under shoo rhea, correct? >> yes. >> and so when we say freedom, they view the freedom differently than we do. but i think that what you guys

have testified about's very important. i'm 100% behind the people in iran who are struggling for freedom. i think the tragedy of this islamic revolution is that it's really served to snuff out a lot of the vitality that you had seen historically throughout persian society. and i know that there are a lot of people in iran who are suffering under the yoke of this dictatorship who would be like-minded with folks. not just in the united states but throughout the west. so i commend you guys for speaking out and i commend the chairman for holding this committee. and with that my time is expired and i will recognize the gentleman from rhode island for a period of five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you to our witnesses for this testimony and i hope it will cause this committee and this congress to focus more energy on the issue of international human rights.

i'd like to begin with you, mr. azabati, did i pronounce that correctly? you didn't know i was talking about you, it was so badly pronounced. i want to ask you first, i know that the journalist who responded to former president ahmadinejad who made the claim there were no gay or lesbian people in iran, was imprisoned. i wondered what is the status of that individual today? is he still in prison? >> yes. there were a couple of cases that happened since then. so there was a journalist who used to work for the iranian news agency. and he had the personal blog. and basically on his blag he started to talk about issues including about the existence of homosexuality in iran. and that was later listed as one of the charges against him by the revolutionary court. and he ended up in jail. there was as late as last month, there was another case, a

newspaper published an article. this is a pro -- basically a reformist newspaper that is running on a daily basis in tehran. published an editorial about homosexuality. and the next day was shut down by the court because they were promoting, basically, homosexuality in the country. so any conversation about this issue is considered to be propaganda against islam, and so it's just banned, basically. >> and the laws, the discriminatory laws that criminalize homosexuality in iran, they were renewed as recently as 2013, right before rouhani became president. so what is the likelihood that we will see any progress or any movement on this issue if, as you say, the supreme leader is the one who sets policy and -- is there any robe f-- reason fo us to be hopeful and what can we do as a country to increase the

likelihood that there will basic human rights accorded to all individuals regardless of sexual orientation in iran and other places in the world? do we have any ability to impact what is clearly a horrific, discriminatory, unsafe environment for people who are gay and lesbian? >> congressman, i really think that the issue here is not the government. the government is hopeless. they are not really going to change. what i'm really hoping to happen, both for lgbt people and also for religious minorities and about political activists, is to promote tolerance within the society. and the united states can play a very critical role in this game. i just mentioned one example. we started a program about two years ago to basically talk to journalists about the language that they use to talk about lgbt issues. that this is not a sexual issue, this is a human rights issue.

in two years we can see that society's approach has changed. even though the outside media are banned inside iran, people are hungry for information. they want new content. they want to understand what's going on. because nobody believes the government pron band de. and this is a good thing. so we have a lot of resources at our disposal. we have the biggest basically broadcast corporation on the planet, voh, a few miles from here. we can really do a lot with our resources in order to communicate with iranian people, to teach them the values of tolerance in sift society and coexistence. i think that's the kind of long-term investment we can see in iran. i'm hoping the new generation would not buy those stereotypes and narrow mindedness that the government is defending as part of their ideology on a daily basis. >> and hopefully our continuing to raise this issue in hearings like this and in other settings will help to advance that as

well. miss bahari, thank you for being here today. it was -- i'm from a state that prides itself in having been founded by roger williams on the principle of religious freedom. and so the idea that people would be not only denied the ability to practice their own religious traditions but that they would face imprisonment and execution is such anathema i think to all americans and to all civilized people in the world. i'm sorry that you've had the experience that you did and there are thousands and thousands of others who have had the same pearns all over the world. my question is what can we do as a country, what can we do as a congress that would have some positive impact on the ability of religious minorities in places like iran to exercise their religious freedoms and do

so without facing harassment, discrimination? i ask any of the panelists, what can we do? we hear this testimony which i think most americans were find horrifying and disturbing and recognize that there has to be some action we can take, some steps we should take to respond to this to have some impact. so i'd start with you. >> well, as a country, i think we can definitely make sure that iran is on notice that it's being watched. so anything the state department has done and continuing hopefully to do would definitely be appreciated and hopeful. on all counts of human rights, for baha'is and all people of iran. also there is a house resolution 109 that is in front of this

committee. so if -- i believe 130 congressmen have passed it so far. so if anyone has not, they're encouraged to do so. and that would be, again, a stance that iran is being watched and it would definitely be more than helpful. >> dr. george? >> yes. one concrete thing to do, congressman, is at the moment the lautenberg amendment has to be readopted every year. why not go ahead and adopt it for a period of several years? it's a tremendous tool. it enables people who are persecuted to have the protection of refugee status. it enables them to transit through other countries to get to the united states when they are being persecuted. it would be not only substantively very valuable in terms of assisting people who are under severe persecution or threat of persecution. symbolically i think it would also be sending an important message.

a very concrete thing congress can do. >> thank you. >> congressman, i just want to reiterate, in my opinion people like rouhani and ahmadinejad, common goal, the problem is the darkness this regime has been promoting for three decades. we have to counter it with knowledge and education and information. i think the congress can play a very key role by funding resources and allow basically the societies to talk to each other and people inside iran have access to information. the government's actually tried -- the government in iran denies their access to free information. i think by allowing them to learn about themselves, their existence, how the international community and the west functions, i think we can inspire them to create a better society for themselves. >> what you can do for human rights issues in iran, in iran, persia, if persia worked on the

current issue it will work on human rights issue. and maybe you remember iranian people during president obama, obama, obama, be with us or with the government. unfortunately president obama ignored that. iranian people has a positive view about united states. if you want to change this view, so ignore the human rights. >> thank you. i thank the chairman for the indulgence. >> thank you. no, thank you very much mr. sister leni. thank you to the witnesses for sharing their personal stories with us. miss baheri losing family members. mr. etemadi being in jail. thank you, for alizadeh, for

bringing so much awareness to us. dr. george, for holding up the photographs of real victims of the persecution that is going on daily in iran. thank you for the brave work of your commission. we look forward to adopting their recommendations very soon. and to our audience, thanks for being here today with us. and with that, the subcommittee is adjourned. thank you, madam chairman. >> thank you. the thesis of the book is that there's a whole group of people in america, in fact a big swath of america, that is being ignored, left behind, not included in the discussion i think for either party. particularly, though, i would argue the republican party. and that's -- i call them blue collar conservatives. you know, the folks out there that are working people, most of

whom don't have college degrees. folks that really still understand the value of work and the importance of work and responsibility. people who understand the importance of family and faith. believe in freedom and limited government. so you would say, wow, those are conservative republican voters. and in many cases they're not. in fact, a lot of them aren't voting at all because they don't really see either party talking to them about the concerns they have in trying to create an opportunity for them to live the american dream. >> former pennsylvania senator and presidential candidate rick santorum argues working americans have been abandoned by both political parties and offers conservative answers to their problems. saturday night at 10:00 eastern on "after words," part of book tv this weekend on c-span2, and this month on our online book club we're discussing "the forgotten man: a new history of the great depression." booktv.org.

book tv, television for serious readers. general motors ceo mary barra said she was saddened and disturbed by the findings in a new internal report about why it took the automaker a long time to issue a recall on the defective ignition switch found in certain vehicles. barra testified before the house energy and commerce subcommittee on oversight and investigations on wednesday. along with the attorney hired by gm to conduct the internal investigation. the faulty switch is believed to be responsible for at least 12 deaths across the nation. this is just under three hours.

i now convene this hearing of the oversight and >> investigation subcommittee entitled the gm ignition switch recall investigation update.

i thank my colleagues and representatives for being here.t ms. barra, when you were beforeh this committee almost three ng r months ago, you could not answeb many of this subcommittee's questions about why it took general motors years to figure b out why the air bags in cobalts, ions, hhrs were not deploying when they should have.lts, it took gm years before finally issuing a safety recall.s now mr. valukas has made public his report on the gm fee yas coin which he concludes, there doesn't appear to be a case of a cov cover-up or conspiracy.racyccori instead, according to mr. ng valukas' report, gm's failure was a case of incompetence and t neglect. perhaps this report should have been subtitled "don't assume peh malfeasance when incompetence will do." i still have questions about whether gm employees knowingly withheld information during previous lawsuits. information that could have lede to an earlier recall and prevented some of these

tragedies from occurring. in many ways the facts traged surrounding what finally resulted in the gm recall are far more troubling than a in m cover-up. gm engineers and attorneys who were given the facts, including reports on stalls and air bag l malfunctions, and who were talked with figuring out who mat were tasked with figuring out what went wrong, did not connect the dots. that's because they were either incompetent or intentionally co indifferent.mpeto know today i want to know from both ms. barra and mr. valukas not just how it happened but why did this happen? even when a good law like the is tread act of 2000 is in place, it requires people to use common sense, value a moral code, and have a motivation driven by compassion for it to be he effective.re see here the key people at gm seem to lack all of these in a way tt that underscores that we cannot legislate common sense, mandatem morality, nor litigate compassion. at some point it's up to thepoit culture of the company that has to go beyond paperwork and has rules. the failures at general motors

were ones of accountability and culture.y an if employees do not have the if moral fiber to do the right thi thing and do not have the recog awareness to recognize when mistakes are being made, then c the answer must be to change the people or change the culture.les that's a lesson another large organization under congressional scrutiny should have also takent heart. i hope officials in the veterane affairs department are watching. what is particularly frustrating about gm is the company appeared in no great hurry to figure outs the problems with its vehicles.l despite customer complaints, con reports from gm's own engineerss that they were able to turn off the ignition switch with their knees during test drives and y e finally reports of deaths was i not until 2009 that gm figured out the air bags had any connection to the power mode s status of the car.us of th then it took another four years to link that finding to one of the components that determines o the power mode.f pow the ignition switch. and that discovery was not a do result of gm's own investigative work but raised in the course oa a lawsuit brought by the family of a young woman who died behine

the wheel of a cobalt. how was this discovered? an investigator for the families took two ignition switches apar and compared them. something gm failed to do over seven years of investigations into the mystery of cobalt air bag nondeployment. ms. barra, you sought this sou internal investigation and you a have publicly acknowledged how c troubling its findings are. your company has cooperated with this committee investigation and i thank you for that.and you have taken corrective action by changing procedures and trying to remove road blocks to make sure safety concerns come to light. based on this report, though, there are no easy fixes for th kind of systemic cultural d breakdowns and fundamental misunderstandings that permitted gm engineers not to suspect a safety problem when cobalts werg stalling due to a faulty ignition switch.igniti the possibility these problems are pervasive and cultural deeply concerns me. concerns us all. h we learned monday that gm has

announced yet another recall. its 39th since january. this one is hauntingly similar to the cobalt ignition switch i recall. the ignition switch in certain i buicks, chevys and cadillacs on inadvertently moves out to the run position -- moves out of tho run position if the key has too much weight on it, causing the car to lose power and stall. the model years for the recalled vehicles goes back to the year 0 2000. mr. mr. valukas, your report te us about the engineering and legal findings of gm. but what it doesn'tndingm, divulge is weather gm attorneys made conscious decisions during discoveryot in other product f liability lawsuits that mi prevented the truth from coming out sooner and potentially saving lives.po that kind of malfeasance should be the crux of a cover-up. i want to delve deeper into that issue today and find out if that occurred.uta a harder question to answer for you, miss barra, to solve, is to why this happened. we know engineers approved a ow part that did not meet gm specifications. not why?specif was it a cost concern? co was it a rush to get a car off the road?ush off was it just sloppy? just when complaints were raised when about cobalt's ignition switch i

almost as soon as the car was on the road why did the engineers s not diagnose stalling as a s on safety problem? again, was this a lack of basicp education about how the car so worked or is it something less r specific but more difficult to address? a culture that does not respect accountability and that does noe take responsibility for lity a problems?nd when investigations drifted for years, there seems to be little or no evidence to suggest that l this troubled anyone.d some of this is undoubtedly poor information sharing and silos and a failure to document changa orders. change why didn't anyone at gm ask, we have known for years, we have a air bag system that isn't haven working when it should.tem th when are we going to do something about it? ms. barra and mr. valukas, thank you for being here today.val i look forward to your testimony. >> thank you, mr. chairman.o yor mr. chairman, we're still trying to unravel the facts that led to one of the worst automotive tragedies of the last decade. tg and that's the installation ofin these faulty ignition switches in gm vehicles that we now have

caused -- know has caused over a dozen deaths. over a these switches were bad from the start. they should have never been installed. and once they were installed, i became quickly clear to gm officials that something was very, very wrong with them. disturbingly, the company left these unsafe vehicles on the road for over a decade. mr. valukas, you've done . important work describing how ae defect known to gm employees fol over a decade went unaddressed for so long. this report paints a troubling picture of gm's culture and ure of commitment to safety that allowed this tragedy to take place. it describes engineering and investigative failures, a lack of urgency in addressing issues, poor communication within the he company, and numerous other systemic problems. and in the end, the company andn failed to inform customers and t federal regulators of the deadly problem. of t but the report unfortunately does not answer all of the key questions.

it does not fully explain how the ignition switch is approved without meeting thspecification then how it was redesigned in 2006. it does not fully explain why stalling was not considered a safety issue within gm.an and most troubling, as the chairman alluded to, the report does not fully explain how this dysfunctional company culture took root and persisted. the report singles out many individuals at gm who made poor decisions or failed to act.s at but it doesn't identify one individual in a position of hign leadership who was responsible for these systemic failures.mic the report absolves previous ceos, the legal department, ms.e barra, and the gm board from knowing about the tragedy beforehand. be this is nothing to be proud of, that the most senior gm executives may not have known about a defect that caused more than a dozen deaths is frankly alarming and does not absolve

them of responsibility for this tragedy. ms. barra, while you are a new ceo, you have a decades-long ouv history with gm.e from 2011, you were executive 2, vice president of global producp development and the gm staff responsible for vehicle safety f reported either directly or r through a chain of command to di you.reecutiv at least one high-level e executive who was working on solutions to the ignition switc problem reported directly to you. you m so while you may not have known about this defect, many people e who worked for you did. the culture of a company is shaped by its senior leaderships they set the tone and shape the attitudes of the employees. they are also responsible for putting in place systems to foster transparency and ensure o that safety issues are taken seriously. those systems failed at gm. today, what i want to know are w specific answers to how the culture of secrecy at gm can bet changed to encourage reporting r

of problems, not just structural management changes. i appreciate ms. barra the gemec changes you've made at gm so far, but i think the jury is still out on whether we can have success in changing the culture. last week as the chairman a mentioned, gm announced the recall of over 500,000 late model chevy camaros, including i 2014 model year vehicles because of ignition switch problems. igo and monday evening, just a couple days ago, another 3.3 million cars with ignition with switch and engine shutoff issue were recalled. including chevy impalas that arn currently in production.in produ this means that this year alones gm has announced 44 recalls affecting more than 20 million vehicles worldwide. ms. barra, this record reinforces the notion that the safety problems with the cobalt and ion were not unique at gm gm

and that the senior executives at the company, including you, c should have acted sooner to nero resolve the company's culture.sn so now we need to see -- we neee to show the american public that the changes that have been announced will really address the longstanding problems at gm. mr. chairman, ms. barra is not a the only one with work to do. this committee should get to work on legislation to address n the findings of our investigation. and in these last few minutes, i also want to acknowledge the alw families who are here in the hearing room today and their rer beloved loved ones with the pictures on the back wall there. i know it's not easy for you to learn about so many things that went wrong at gm.nt wro you have my word that we'll do our best to make sure that thiso kind of tragedy will never, never happen again. and mr. chairman, i know that we can work together in a bipartisan way to do that.partin thank you.that. >> thank you. gentle lady's time has expired.

i recognize the chairman of the full committee mr. upton for y five minutes. >> thank you, mr.ba chairman. ra, we all thank you for returning toas the committe today as you said you would.m three months ago we held our first hearing on the gm ignitiot switch recall.ou we asked a lot of tough questions but got only a few answers. i expect things to go differently today. we have the valukas report in e hand and words seared in our minds.stigatio our investigation tracks with the findings of the report.rt of a maddening and deadly breakdown plagued by missed opportunities and disconnects. engineers didn't comprehend how their cars operated or how vehicle systems were linked op together. the company believed the car we that stalled while driving ther. wasn't necessarily a safety at concern.nece investigators let investigations drift for years, despite havingi proof right before their eyes that an air bag system wasn't a deploying when it should have. and all of this existed in a of bureaucratic culture where employees avoided taking responsibility with a nod of thi head.head.

ms. barr ra, you have said you found the report deeply troubling as well.well. i find it very disturbing and downright devastating to you, to gm, to folks in michigan who live and breathe pride in the fe auto industry, but most of all to the families of the victims.n the recall announced on monday this week makes it painfully r t clear that this is not just a cobalt problem. a new set of vehicles includingf multiple chevrolet, cadillac, ch buick models are facing an ignition switch recall for the very same kind of torque problef that lurked for over a decade ir the cobalt and similar small vehicles with fatal consequences for unsuspecting drivers, including two teens from my own community. ms. aware barra, mr. valukas, many questions today will focus did on how and why this happened.barra, mr. valukas, ma questions today will focus did on how and why this happened.ma i intend to focus on how we cant make sure it never happens again.or a culture that allowed safety wb

problems to fester for years will be hard to change. i but if gm is going to recover s and regain the public's trust it has to learn from this report ht and break the patterns that ledn to this unimaginable systematicc breakdown. i want specifics on whether the changes you've already put in place really have made a eady pt difference. with the valukas report, gm has provided an assessment of what went wrong. i want to be clear today that our investigation does continue. this committee has reviewed oved 1 million pages of documents and interviewed key personnel from v gm and ntsa.rom while we're addressing gm's nts. actions in response today, we will address ntsa's part of the story in the near future .adpart we don't yet have all the uture. answers about what changes in ae our laws, the regulators' practices or the company's culture would have prevented fo this safety defect from lingering so long or harming soe many, but we're going to find s, out. peo yes, we will. the system failed and people died and it could have been pree prevented. i yield the balance of my time to dr. burgess.

>> i thank the chairman of the . we n committee for yielding. we now know this is not an this evidence problem. the evidence is simply lem. overwhelming. it's an analysis problem. general motors still needs to answer the fundamental question of how it missed all of these glaring signs. indeed, failure to recognize the problems in a timely fashion mai well have cost 13 people their l lives. this report is deeply troublingo maybe the most concerning aspece of the report is the simple recn recognition that while everyonee at general motors had responsibility to fix the problem, no one took responsibility. one that's unacceptable for one of america's flagship companies anf one that millions of us rely upon every day. now according to the report by mr. valukas, he offers 90 recommendations as to the problems and theirre failures tt led to the ignition recall. i'm certain all 90 are crucial, but, really, only one acco

accountability and accountability that is not accon transferrable, is crucial.ta if personal accountability is nn missing, as the report here lyr, suggests, then disastrous the consequences will not only occur, they will reoccur and reoccur.ms. ms. barra, mr. valukas, thank fr you for being here in our committee today. the valukas report is a start. it's the first step to solving a problem, by identifying it. i hope also there are some answers for many of us as to the effect of now the understandingw of the problem and when the understanding occurred.stanes will this affect those cases that have already been litigated? how how does general motors' bankruptcy affect its position i on those cases that were pr previously litigated and perhapu we can even touch on mr. feinberg's employment.is is he an employee of gm or is he working for the crash victims? h all of these questions need to be answered today.

and i look forward to your testimony and thank you. >> gentleman yields back.nd i'll recommend -- now recognizey miss chef cow ski for five minutes. fmi >> i thank you, mr. chairman, for holding this hearing, the second on the failure to recall defective gm vehicles in a timely manner.timely i thank our witnesses for being here. mr t as i said at our first hearing, the families of the victims of gm's defective vehicles deserved better. gm failed you.he we're looking at those pictures in the back of the room, and an they need more than an apology. on june 5th, mr. valukas, who ic wellhi known in chicago where i come from and well respected there, reviewed gm's ignition switch failures.fai and his report was released on june 5th. the report characterized gm as a company with a convoluted structure and very little accountability. a place where there was an bili. institutional failure to

communicate and coordinate bothn within and between different h apart -- departments. there's a story today in "bloom berg business week" about a whistleblower who apparently tried to bring these problems to the attention of the company and lost his job as a result. r during her previous appearance before the subcommittee, ms. imo barra repeatedly pointed to the importance of the valukas report in addressing the many questions she was not able to answer.er. i look forward to getting answers to those questions answr today. a question i raised in our lasti hearing has yet to be answered to my satisfaction. that's how gm will compensate a those who were injured or who in lost loved ones in crashes prior to gm's bankruptcy in 2009.009. ms. barra said it would take heb and kenneth feinberg, who was er selected to advise gm on optionh of how to establish a victims' compensation fund, up to 60 days.to time from 30 to 60 days from the time of the first hearing to t

determine how to proceed with ei those claims. that first hearing was april 1st and it's now been 79 daze.1st so i hope we'll get the answers today.'s as ms. barra said when the valukas report became public, "we failed these customers and u we must face up to it and we must learn from it."wh while 15 gm employees have beenr dismissed, it's not clear to men that any senior-level manager has been held responsible for the gm corporate culture that t allowed the ignition switch allo defect to go unaddressed for de years after it was first dressed discovered in 2001. the question now is how far accountability extends at gm.ecv as executive vice president of global product development, purchasing and supply from 2011 until taking over last year as ceo, ms. barra, my understanding is was responsible for safety es issues at the company.. the valukas report suggests the senior management at gm was unaware until 2013 the serious questions should have been asket about the ignition switch ould v

defect. however, two newspapers, sed the including "the new york times,"h addressed the ignition switch defect in 2005. if i were a senior-level se executive that read about those problems in the newspaper, i i would want answers and action. it seems gm executives demandede neither. thee valukas report does make a several suggestions onl changi the corporate climate at gm to respond faster and better to safety issues, and that includeg improving communications with the national highway traffic safety administration, ntsa. and i look forward to hearing from ms. barra about the change the company has already made and its plans for future improvements in the future.dimpm gm paid the maximum penalty foru failing to inform ntsa about the ignition switch defect.t that was $35 million. to me, it sounds like a lot of money, but that's not enough of a deterrent for a company with over $150 billion in revenue. i sounds to me more like a slap on the wrist.en i'm an original co-sponsor of

ranking member henry waxman's motor vehicle safety act, act, hr-4364, which would increase the maximum penalties for the mi failing to inform ntsa and the public of potentially deadly auto defects.as t as the ranking member of the me commerce manufacturing and trade subcommittee, i'm working on legislation that would do the same while also addressing several other issues raised by t the gm ignition switch defect, g including requiring the public disclosure of technical service bulletins. those are the bulletins which provide information to dealerships about how to repair vehicles that are experiencing e widespread problem it kept from the publicpu. in gm's case, tcbs were issued for the faulty ignition switch. in 2005. almost ten years before a recal. was issued.ed, those tsbs instructed dealerships to replace the tsinu defective part.ctefectiv i hope today's hearing will days allow us to consider additionalr actions that might be needed in improving auto recalls, and i look forward to hearing from oua witnesses.o

i yield back. >> thank you.the witn i would now like to introduce the witnesses on the panel for today's hearing. mary barra is the chief executive officer of general motors and has been in this roli since january 15th, 2014 when h she became a member of its board of directors. she's been with the company over 30 years and has held a number of positions, including vice onn president of global of manufacturing engineering from l 2008 to 2009.ob and executive director of 09. vehicle manufacturing engineering from 2005 to 2008. mr. anton valukas is a litigator and a former u.s. attorney and fellow of the american college of trial lawyers. he was hired by the general te motors corporation to conduct the internal investigation into the faulty ignition switch and l

he's the author of the report on the findings released two weeks ago. i'll now swear in the witness. you are both aware the committee is holding an investigative hearing and when doing so has the practice of taking testimony under oathe in do you have any objections to d testifying under oath?ions to both witnesses say they do not.s the chair then advises you thatt under the rules of the house and the rules of the committee, yout are entitled to be advised by counsel. do either of you wish to be advised by down during the hearing today?d by both declined. thank you.raise in that case if you'll please rise, raise your right hand i'll swear you in. the w do you swear the testimony you o are about to give is the truth, the whole truth and nothing buth the truth? thank you. both witnesses answered in the affirmative.es answe you are now under oath and ativ. subject to the penalties set forth in title 18, section 1001 of the united states code. you may now each give a 001 five-minute summary of your code written statement.. ms. barra, would you like to fim open? y thank you.o please pull the microphone close to you.

thank you. you have to turn it on as well.i thank you. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i appreciate the chance to man. appear before you again today on the ignition switch issue. before i proceed with my brief d remarks, i want to again express my sympathies to the families that lost loved ones and those who suffered physical injury. s i am ever mindful that we have a special responsibility to them and to those families and the e best way to fulfill that responsibility is to fix the problem by putting in place the needed changes to prevent this from ever happening again. when i was here 11 weeks ago, i told you how we intended to ha proceed with this matter. w i promised we would conduct a sd comprehensive and transparent investigation into the causes ot the ignition switch problem.

i promised we would share the findings of mr. valukas' report with congress, our regulators, ntsa, and the courts. i promised we would hold people accountable and make substantiar and rapid changes in our approach to recalls. finally, i promised we would roe engage ken feinberg to develop a just and timely program for and compensating families who lost g loved ones and those who suffered serious physical thos injury. we have done all of these things and more.s and i welcome the opportunity to discuss them with you further. the valukas report as you know s is extremely thorough, brutally tough, and deeply troubling. roi it paints a picture of an ng pit organization that failed to urzt handle a complex safety issue ia a responsible way. i was deeply saddened and disturbed as i read the report. for those of us who have dedicated our lives to this company, it is enormously painful to have our shortcomings laid out so vividly. there's no way to minimize thes

seriousness of what mr. valukasf and his investigators uncovered. on june 2nd, mr. valukas presented the findings of his rr investigation to the board of directors of general motors.movl i will leave it to mr. valukas to comment on his report. but for my part, i want you to know my reaction to the report and some of the actions i have taken since reviewing it.it. first, we have made a number of, personnel decisions.l 15 individuals identified in the report are no longer with the company. we have restructured our safetyu decision-making process to raise it to the highest levels of thep company. addressing a key point in the valukas report that critical information was kept from senior management. under the new system, this new should never happen again. h we are currently conducting, and i believe -- what i believe is the most exhaustive, comprehensive safety review in e the history of our company.one we are leaving no stone unturned in devoting whatever resources s it takes to identify potential r safety issues in all of our current vehicles and on vehicles

no longer in production. our responsibility is to set a . new norm and a new industry m standard on safety and quality.y i have told our employees it's m not enough to simply fix this problem. we need to create a new standarn and we will create a new norm. we've announced the creation of and have implemented a new oo global product integrity za organization that is alreadyti g enhancing the overall safety and quality of our products. a and we are taking a very aggr aggressive approach on recalls and we're bringing greater rigor and discipline to our analysis and decision-making process oung regarding these recalls and other potential safety related matters. p it's difficult to announce so many recalls, but it's absolutely the right thing to do. as we discussed last time, we'vs engaged kenneth feinberg to t fe review options forreview establishing a compensation d t program and the process is inbeg moving h rapidly.author mr.it feinberg has full authorid to establish eligibility criteria for victims and

determine the compensation levels. he has indicated he'll share hi final criteria with us by the end of this month and we expect to begin processing claims by august 1st. 1 we created a new position of vice president of global vehicle safety and appointed jeff boyerj who's a highly respected expert in the field to this position. i have personally told jeff thae he will have whatever resourcesr he needs to do the job, and he has many already. in fact, we've also named a senior attorney to support him and to facilitate rapid rap information-sharing across the organization.g in addition, we've added 35 tio. safety investigators that are already allowing us to identify and address safety issues much y more quickly. and finally, we've instituted a speak up for safety program, spa encouraging employees to report potential safety issues quicklyy and we are recognizing them whe, they do so.reco this is more than a campaign or a program. i it's the start of changing the way we think and act at general motors. two weeks ago, i addressed the entire global workforce about i the report.

i told our team as bluntly as it knew how that the series of questionable actions and inactions uncovered in the investigation were inexcusable.x i also told them that while i tw want to solve the problems as ha quickly as possible, i never want anyone associated with gm to forget what happened.to i want this terrible experience permanently etched in our le collective memories. this is not another business challenge.r bu this is a tragic problem that a. should never have happened and must never happen again. the report makes a series of recommendations in eight major areas.tions in i have committed the company to. act on all of the com recommendations and many of f te which we had started before and are already implementing.ady finally, mr. chairman and members of the committee, i knon some of you are wondering about my commitment to solve deep won underlying cultural problems to that were uncovered in the report. were the answer is simple. i will not rest until these problems are resolved. o

as i told our employees, i'm not afraid of the truth, and i'm no going to accept business as not usual at gm. it's time, in fact, it's past time, to insist on total accountability and to make sure vital information is shared across all functions of the s company. so we can unleash the full powed of our 200,000 employees, 21,00m dealers, and 23,000 suppliers. we are a good company, but we u can and must be much, much st better.better this is my focus and this is my promise to you, our employees, o our customers, our shareholders and the american people. th thank you again for having me here today.r i'm pleased to take your me questions. >> thank you, ms. barra.>> mr. valukas, you're recognized for five minutes. you have to bring that very tha close to your mouth and lift itm up. >> all right. thank you, mr. chairman.th >> even closer, if you would, c sir. >> even closer? >> yes.

>> okay. thank you.>>no now i got it? okay, thank you. thank you, mr. chairman.w in march of this year, general f motors asked me to determine whd it took so long to recall the o cobalt and other vehicles that contained this faulty and ntain defective switch which hasth resulted in such disaster for general motors and for the families who were involved in this matter.er. my explicit mandate from the general motors board of motors directors was to promote and provide an unvarnished report a to how and why this occurred. to pursue the facts wherever s they took us.they and to report those facts in a report. general motors board also directed me to make recommendations based on those e factual findings to help them g ensure that this did not happen again. appen jenner and block, my firm, was given unfettered access to general motors witnesses and documents. in point of fact, we interviewei

in the 70 days or so, 230 the 7 witnesses, some of them multipll times, so we had approximately e 350 interviews. some of them lasting six to ely5 eight hours.ting six we reviewed over 41 million 41 documents coming from the files of everybody from the top executives down to the individuals who were involved at the most technical level.the mo that number of documents involved tens of millions of materials that were personally reviewed by individual reviewers. and all of this was an effort to find out the facts as to why s.n this cobalt recall took over a decade and how -- why that defective switch remained why unaccounted for during that period of time. i provided a copy of the gh report -- i'm sorry, a copy of the report was provided to the committee. i am not going to go through the details. but the story of the cobalt is a story of individual and organizational failures that ndd have led to devastating onal consequences.have led throughout the decade it took general motors to recall the cobalt there was, as has already

been described here this morning by one of the members, lack of c accountability, a lack of urgency, and extraordinarily a failure of the company personnel charged with safety issues to i understand how this car was manufactured and the interplay s between the switch and other on aspects of the automobile. in our report, we review these . failures and identify cultural issues that may have contribute to this problem.ve con as general motors board tr requested, we have provided pro recommendations to help ensure e that this problem does not take place in the future.co but as we note in my written noe statement to you, that is an is issue which gm must deal. the report does not answer all questions. r

thank you. >> thank you very much.do now i recognize myself for fiveo minutes of questions. your report references such no terms as the gm nod and the gm salute where people nod in agreement and do nothing or loou to others to do something. mr. but no one accepts responsibility. ms. barra do you agree that the culture is the problem at gm, that the culture at gm failed to recognize significant issues ize which included the ignition switch recalls?rt >> i agree there are people involved that did not act specif appropriately.ic >> you've been with the company for 30 years, right? >> yes, i have. >> how does someone who has , spent an entire career within the culture of gm change a culture of gm? i believe there's 210,000 employees or so. you mentioned 15 were fired. that's 99.999%, if my math is right, of the people are the same. if you haven't changed the people, how do you change the culture?pe >> again, the 15 people that art no longer with the company are the people that either didn't to take action they should or didn't work urgently enough to rectify this matter.enough and they are no longer part of this company. that was a strong signal to send within the company.

but again, what's much more important is that we create the right environment where every engineer is able -- everyone inr the company is able to come to work every day and do their besp work, be supported.he and that is the culture that g we're working to create.rams that's the programs we've put in place like speak up for safety. and the structural changes we've made. >> the previously referenced p article by bloomberg notes thatd cortlin kelly, who worked on the cavali cavalier, predecessor to the e. cobalt, raised questions about a defective fuel line. he had to continue to do that, even threatening in moving forward with whistleblower this actions.referenc this was referenced on page 93 a of your report where it says , o "oakley also noted however he was reluctant to push hard on n safety issues because of his pr perception that his predecessorr had been pushed out of the job for doing just that." i guess this speaks to the question, what is a cover-up? mr. valukas, you concluded thera

was no conspiracy and no cover-up.nd do does an employee acting alone es who hides or doesn't share information a cover-up? >> i'm sorry. latt the latter part -- the last part --e who >> does an employee who acts alone or hides or doesn't share information a cover-up?atio >> if the individual knows thatn the information is a safety information, and understands that and deliberately decides to conceal that, that's a cover-up. yes, it is.coverup >> and a corporate culture of i carelessness where life-saving information sits in file boxes n collecting dust, as you referrey to, is that a cover-up? >> what we found in connection with this, mr. chairman, was the following. we found that a large number of individuals had information that they -- in the first instance tt they didn't believe was safety related information. clearly up to about 2009.ated if they looked at this as a convenience matter. a they dealt with it that way.. we did not find evidence that any individual had a piece of ii evidence in connection with thin cobalt recall which they considered to be safety afety

information which they deliberately withheld from somebody else. >> you put in your report that mr. oakley specifically says he's reluctant to push hard on safety issues. >> i'm sorry.h >> you put in your report where mr. oakley specifically says on page 93, he was reluctant to push hard on safety issues because of his perception his predecessors pushed out of a ad job. bout that implies he withheld safety information. first of all, ms. bare ras, is s he still working for you? >> yes, he is.iand, act and actually, he's raised issues and we are actively investigating. it's part of our speak up for >> safety program. >> it sounds like he decided not to speak up.yse >> he is now and we're taking it very seriously. >> i just find it hard to s, not believe that of 210,000 o employees, not a single one in that company had the integrity c to say, i think we're making a mistake here.om not a single one. that's puzzling to me. even out of the va hospital we v have lots of whistleblowers.

i don't see here in gm there's s whistleblowers.to ano not a single person you i wa interviewed in this?nt let me jump to another question. i want to get back to this.s alo there was also a lot of issues about lawsuits. awsuits. you referenced some of those. what i don't see is questions if you examine if gm responded appropriately to victims' d discovery requests in the lawsuits, including what gm vict understood about the air bag deployment. did you find -- i don't know if you spoke with plaintiffs' attorneys in this case, but did you find in every case that information requested of gm wass responded to in a timely manners the plaintiff attorneys' request, and the information they presented to gn was responded to? >> mr. chairman, what we did was we -- at the very beginning of this investigation, i sent invi letters and e-mails to the key s plaintiffs' lawyers who were involved, and where there would be -- in the most sensitive of these cases. wthes i don't want to mention family names.wantly including the case that resulted in the disclosure of the two . inches

inviting them to contact me so that we could talk in the investigation, determine that very issue, deal with that issue. not one of those attorneys n, dt responded to me. i also interviewed the attorneys who were outside counsel in connection with the gm matters,c the particular piece of ou pie litigation, determining whether i had any evidence there of something which would indicate e that gm had particular facts which they were withholding in order to accomplish something. and i did not find evidence of that in my discussions with e outside counsel. i reviewed all of the e-mails relating to the legal department in connection with all of these cases. i say i. jenner and block did, i didn't do them personally. was to determine whether there was any evidence if there was had ng information they had that they were making a decision to settle a case because they wanted to st conceal the safety defect and prevent a recall. i did not find information such as that. >> i appreciate it.reciate i'm out of time. but i want to say, there's a a difference between not getting e response and not having the facts. and my assumption is when you tasked mr. valukas with getting

the information if you don't have this information, did you still want it?lukin the information with regard g to to -- if information was not passed on, did plaintiffs' to attorneys who had a request, yoy still want that information? th that's what i want to know.ion? i'm out of time. i'll go to ms. degette. >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. valukas, the chairman just asked ms. barra about this gm nod and gm salute that you e t talked about in your report on page 255 and 256 where you said, one witness described the gm phenomenon of avoiding on responsibility as the gm salutem a crossing of the arms and pointing outward towards others, indicating the responsibility belongs to someone else, not mei and then you said similarly, mary barra described a known a phenomenon known as the gm nod. the gm nod barra described is d when everyone nods in agreement a proposed plan of action, but

then leaves the room with no th intention to follow through and the nod is an empty gesture.the when the chairman just asked ms. barra about this she said, quote, there were specific people involved that did not ac appropriately.ropriate do you think this company culture, the gm nod and the gm k salute, was just limited to those 15 people who have been it terminated from gm?edth yes or no? >> i can't answer that question. >> do you think it was only 15 people who did this gm nod and salute?nd >> no, i think there were a number of people who were on thw committees -- >> thank you. >> -- who were on the an committees -- prob >> thank you. and you learned that although problem with the ignition switch was known to the company, senior leadership, including merchandise barra, was unaware c of these issues for year. is that correct? >> these leaders included gm ceos, including rick wagner, mike millican who was then gm's senior council and ms. barra, in correct? >> that is correct.

>> ms. barra you testified you didn't know about it until h th december 2013.. is that correct? dying. >> i testified i knew there wasn a problem with the cobalt in swh december. that they were studying. i knew there was an ignition ats switch issue on january 31st. w that's what's i testified.decein an issue. >> thanks. gay kent, director of vehicle safety in your department, she made decisions in 2004 about the stalling being a safety risk. did she ever share those findings with you? yes or no? >> no. >> and jim fred rhee coe, a senior gm executive brought in to find solutions to the airbag situation in 2012, he knew about the problems, and he reported directly to you. did he ever share his knowledge with you? >> he -- >> yes or no? >> well, he reported directly to me at a portion of this time. then he no longer reported -- >> but did he ever tell you about these problems?

>> no. >> no, he didn't. now, you've made a number of structural changes at gm, and i appreciate this, and i know you're committed to doing it. but the company culture is what concerns me as well as the chairman. and the problems that i've identified today are not problems about who reports to whom, but rather a culture that encourages people not to stick their necks out and report things. in fact, just yesterday i learned from a source very close to gm who has intimate knowledge of the culture there that the results of mr. valukas's investigation and the terminations of these 15 employees have only created more paranoia within the company that people are going to lose their jobs. and so i want to ask you, ms. barra, what are you doing not just to change the structure and put these safety programs together and so on, but to change the culture of the company so that the company rewards people reporting problems, not -- not sweeping it under the rug.

>> we are doing a lot. and it's -- to your point, it's not done by words. it's not done by slogans. it's done by actions. >> so what is it that you're doing? >> so we have put the speak up for safety program. and we are getting -- i'm getting personally information from employees. i'm acting on it. we have a regular program, we're going to be recognizing those individuals. i have spoken to all of our employees globally, encouraging them. i think most important the work that we're doing and the actions we're taking with the additional recalls demonstrate how sincere we are to put the customer in the center of everything we do. and we want to make sure we are doing the right thing as it relates to safety, as it relates for quality, and our employees are seeing that. >> okay. i would like to see, if you may supplement your answer, what the specifics of how you're rewarding this. >> happy to do that. >> i want to talk to you briefly about this compensation fund. i'm pleased now that you're telling us that mr. feinberg is setting up a compensation fund, but we still don't have very many details of it. has the company or mr. feinberg

determined the criteria about who will be eligible for payment? yes or no? >> he is developing that. but i think the important -- >> so we don't have that criteria yet, correct? >> he's got a draft protocol that he's getting input. he is an independent -- >> would you please provide that to this committee. the draft protocol? >> yes, we can. >> thank you very much. >> can i make a point? >> no. let me ask you this. will mr. feinberg have discretion to make eligible for payment victims beyond those identified by gm today? because we're hearing there may be up to 100 deaths from this. >> we want to capture every single person who suffered serious physical injury or lost a loved one. every single person as a result of the -- >> so your answer is yes? >> yes. >> okay. and will those people who received payment through this program be required to release their legal claims? >> i'm sorry. the voluntary program? >> no. if they get compensated from mr.

feinberg's program, will they have to release their legal claims to go to court? do you know? >> this program is in lieu of taking this to court. >> so your answer is yes? >> i can't say exhaustively, but as it relates to -- >> will you submit your answer, please, and let me know that? thank you very much. >> gentle lady's time has expired. recognize mr. upton for five minutes. >> thank you, again. you know, i'm a firm bebeliever that you cannot solve a problem that you don't acknowledge or fully understand. so while i'm going to try to be very interested in forward looking solutions, i want to begin by walking through and defining some key problems that we identified from this report. first, a simple yes or no. is it true that gm engineers did not believe the ignition switch moving from run to accessory and causing a stall constituted a safety problem? first, ms. barra? >> yes. >> mr. valukas? >> yes. >> can you confirm that a gm engineer test driving the cobalt in '05 experienced a shutoff

after hitting the key with his knee and that his report on the incident was categorized as an annoyance rather than a safety issue? >> yes. >> let's continue talking about how gm employee warnings and experiences were handled. i read with a lot of concern this morning's news coverage alleging that employee safety concerns went unheeded. i won't ask you to respond to a particular newspaper article, but i do want to get your reaction to a case uncovered in our investigation about a specific employee concern. i want to know how it was handled at the time and how it would be handled if it was raised today. you've got a tab on page 83 in your binder. but in '05, a gm employee drove an '06 chevy impala home from work. when she hit a bump in the road, the ignition switch fell out of the run position and stalled the car. let me read you from her e-mail, which is up on the screen, sent

in october of '05 after she took the vehicle for repair. quote, i think this is a serious safety problem, especially if the switch is on multiple programs. i'm thinking big recall. i was driving 45 miles per hour when i hit the pothole and the car shut off. and i had a car driving behind me, swerving around me. i don't like to imagine a customer driving with their kids in the backseat on backseat on hitting a pothole in rush hour traffic. i think you should seriously consider changes this part to a switch with a stronger detent. end quote. so to reiterate, nearly nine years ago, a gm employee suggested the stalling of the '06 impala was a serious safety problem. and speculated that a big recall was coming. so when was the recall for the '06 impala announced? do you know? >> i believe that was part of --

>> two days ago. monday. nine years ago. so, looking at that case, and looking as if it happened today, can you tell us specifically how a concern like this would be handled if it was raised today? >> yes. we -- as i testified when i was here the last time, we consider a stall to be a safety issue. and so when a stall is brought forward, if we then learn and understand it's because of a defect in the way the vehicle, some part or a system in the vehicle is working, we are going to address it. we do have to understand stalls also happen when you run out of gas or pop the clutch. but if we are aware of the stall, and we then learn that it's because some part of the vehicle or our system is not operately properly, we'll immediately take action and that is what was represented on what we did monday. >> mr. valukas, in going through

the report, there was some comments made as to the consumer friendliness of the tread act requirements, in terms of complaints that were received. what suggestions might you have relating to that? in terms of how we proceed in the future. >> i don't have a specific legislative suggestion for you. i did include in the recommendations, something which i think is very important for general motors which is they need to look at nhtsa as a partner in this issue and not somebody they held at bay. so the transmission of the information is a free-flow of information and problems are elevated at the earliest possible point. it is clear to me from the earlier parts of this investigation there were times it was almost an adversarial situation than a passing of legislation. but i don't have a suggestion for. you. >> miss barra, do you have a comment as it relates to the

compiles for the tread act for the complaints? >> i think it's very important that we have a productive relationship with the agency with nhtsa. and i do think there's things that can be done to the national vindicate da base and also improving the valuable information that's in the tread database. >> i yield back. >> i have a clarifying question based on something miss degette and mr. upton said. given that gm has now recalled i think it's 40 million cars. do you have a revised number of deaths from crashes that may have been associated with the faulty ignition switch? do you have a number yet? >> the recall we did on monday, there's no known. >> overall. >> the information that we have as it relates to the cobalt and the population of those vehicles the known number that we have is still 13. >> thank you. recognize mr. dingle now for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. welcome, miss barra and

mr. valukas. we appreciate you being here today. you mr. valukas and your team have compiled a report about serious internal shortcomin kuc that general motors has contributed to the company's failure to report a safety defect in the chevrolet cobalt. i know that mrs. barra serves with grave concern about the report finding, and i look to her and the gm leadership for establishing more responsible and communicated clufs in gm. we all recognize your report is not an end to the investigation. it does include a number of comments on recommendations which i feel gm should commit to implementing in full. my questions to mrs. barra today will require simple yes or no answers. now, to mrs. barra. we have learned that cobalt's

ignition switch was redesigned, but it was not given a new part number. this obfuscated the company's certainly investigation. and contributed to a delay in defects and subsequent recalls. mr. valukas suggests in his report that gm adopt procedures that include a specific protocol for reviewing authorizations of added specification parts. tracking on specification parts, identifying who should be notified. and identifying and elevating any particular safety issues that might be associated with the use of a specification part. the report goes on to suggest that high-level review should be required before approval of use of added specification part.

now, does gm commit to implementing these particular suggestions in full? yes or no. >> yes. >> now, mrs. barra, subsequently, mr. valukas represents or suggests in his report that gm make improvements in its problem resolution tracking system. prts. more specifically, his report suggests that the standard for closing prts without action is clearly defined and sufficiently rigorous. he goes on to suggest that prts should not be closed without action. absent clear signoff by named individuals, and appropriate levels of review. furthermore, his report suggests that gm reaffirm that the lack

of an acceptable business case is not an acceptable reason for closing out a prts. if that involves a safety issue, does gm commit to implementing all of these suggestions, moving forward? yes or no. >> yes. >> now, again, mrs. barra, likewise, i think we all agree with mr. valukas that gm should implement more robust policies in training. with respect to component and vehicle safety matters. at the most basic level, does gm commit to training its employees about the lessons learned from the cobalt investigation? yes or no. >> yes.

>> now, again, mrs. barra, will gm train employees to recognize and elevate safety issues, including the emphasis on the need to identify and address safety issues actively, regardless of whether the vehicles are in the design or production phase. yes or no? >> yes. >> now, again, mrs. barra, when fostering a culture of safety, i think we all recognize it is very important for employees to recognize and report safety problems in components and vehicle feel comfortable in so doing. as such, does gm admit to promote visibility and enforce rigorously the nonretaliation

policy contained in paragraph 19 of the may 16 nhtsa consent order, yes or no? >> yes. >> now, miss barra, it's also imperative that all automakers communicate clearly and thoughtfully with nhtsa. i said all automakers. will gm create a centralized database for all communications with nhtsa and train its employees who communicate with nhtsa to file their communications in this database? yes or no? >> yes. >> now, do you think that that is good for other companies? >> yes, i do. >> gentleman's time has expired. >> mr. chairman, i thank you for your courtesy. >> thank you very much. now recognize the vice chair of

the full committee. >> miss barra, thank you for coming back. i've got a few questions for you, and i have to tell you many of my questions that i asked and couldn't get answers for in april when you were with us, you said after mr. valukas finished the report, you hoped to be able to answer these questions. now, since that time, i have been able to be on the floor at the spring hill facility which is near my district. we've got 1,868 employees that certainly do not want the gm brand to be tarnished by all of this. and so it's important to me, on behalf of all of those constituents, that we get some answers, and that we do this very quickly. so we thank you for coming back to us today. i want to go back to something i asked you about in april. you explained that a part that doesn't meet all specifications

can still be acceptable for safety. and the example that you used was with steel. now, we know that the cobalt ignition switch was redesigned in '06, right? and testing documents from that time show that the torque of the redesign switch was still below specifications. and, yet, after this change, the reported incidence of nondeployment in these vehicles dropped dramatically. well, when we look at that, and we read those documents, and the chairman mentioned, we've been through a million pages of documents. and 15,000 pages of documents from nhtsa. so we're not sitting idly on this, we're take something action. so i want to go back through this and elaborate that something could still not meet specifications. and be acceptable for safety.

and i want to hear from you when it is okay to deviate from specifications. and people in the process not be aware of this. >> well, i think when you look, as you start developing something, you have a design specification. but what's most important in the testing that we're doing now is, and had done in the past but are doing in a much more broad fashion now relates to the actual performance of the part and how the part operates in a subsystem. how it operates in a broader system. and how it operates in the vehicle. and so, as we design now, we're validating at the part level, with the new organization we put together, called the product integrity organization. they're actually now looking into a much more validation as it relates to subsystems. because what you really want to know as all the parts come together, that it's going to operate as a system and performly safely. and that's what the new organization is accomplishing. >> so what you're saying then,

if it doesn't affect safety or effectiveness, it's okay not to meet specifications? >> i'm sayings there are times when it has to meet the performance requirements. >> okay. then how shall an engineer evaluate, the performance, the part's performance, against the technical specifications? >> again, you look at performance against requirements. what are the requirements of how that part needs to behave in the system. and that's how an engineer evaluates it. and again, what we're doing now is taking that much more broadly so we're not relying on one person across the whole vehicle. >> okay. then in this product integrity system, how does gm track the deviations that are occurring from the technical specifications? >> that's all captured in, you know, very specific documents. >> how transparent is it? is it transparent to the engineer? >> it's available to the engineers, to the chief engineers in the organization. >> okay. was this done when the switch was approved in '02 and

redesigned in '06? >> no, what i've talking about what we've done this year. >> okay. so this was not done. so we still have -- there was a glitch in the system and people approved a part that was not okay? >> well, the problem with the specific change you're referring to was that change was made and it was not documented. >> okay, then, how does a gm engineer know when there is a deviation from a specification if it is too much, or too little? or if it is acceptable, or if it is going to pose a safety problem? >> again, there's a couple aspects of this that you have to look at. but if you go back to when those changes were made and it wasn't documented, the records were not there to document there was a change. and that was something that was unacceptable. and the individual who doesn't document who is no longer with the company. i'm telling you, as you do good engineering, you are going to make sure you understand the requirements of what you're designing. make sure the part, the

subsystem, meets those requirements and have full documentation. >> okay. all right. i will yield back. >> the gentlelady yields back. now recognize mr. bradley for five minutes. >> thank you mr. chairman. miss barra, welcome back. mr. valukas, welcome to the committee. miss barra, i have a couple of questions i want to ask you about. you mentioned specifically you promise you would conduct a comprehensive and transparent investigation. do you believe that was accomplished? >> i think the valukas report was comprehensive. it was very far-reaching and we have shared that information. >> and you also said that you promised you would share the findings of the report with congress, regulators, nhtsa and the courts. this is a copy of the report that we received. and it states on the very front page of the report, privileged and confidential.

protected by attorney-client privilege and as attorney work product. you indicated that you hired mr. valukas to do this independent investigation. but it's obvious from the report you that considered this to be an attorney-client relationship. and the report itself has sections blacked out so that we on this panel don't know who some of the victims were that were identified in the report. were you aware of that? >> yes. >> you also indicated that you would engage mr. fineberg to develop a just and timely program for compensating the families who lost loved ones and those who have suffered serious physical injuries, including the families who are represented here today. there was a recent news report from the "detroit news" which indicated that mr. fineberg has confirmed that the compensation fund will not in any way address people who weren't killed.

people who weren't seriously injured, whose value of the automobiles they purchased has been diminished because of all of the controversy over these parts that we've been talking about. were you aware of that? >> the comprehension program that mr. feinberg will dentally administer is for those who lost loved ones or those who suffered serious injury. the issue of the vehicle, or the value of the vehicle, is in front of the courts. >> and that will not be addressed by mr. feinberg? >> that is correct. >> now, one of the things we know is that by this year alone gm has issued an astonishes 44 recalls. cover 17.4 vehicles in the u.s. and 24 million worldwide. how many of those recalls, to your knowledge, relate to problems that were known to someone in gm before the bankruptcy sale order of july 2009? >> at the senior level of the

company where the action would have been taken. >> so it's your testimony that none of those are covered? >> i'm not sure what you -- >> you're saying here today, that no one -- that none of the recalls that have been initiated this year, relate to problems known to someone at gm before the bankruptcy sale order in july 2009? >> what i said was, the senior leadership had no knowledge of those issues. >> and that's not my question. you did a very exhaustive investigation into the cultural problems at gm. >> yes, we did. >> my question is, as part of that investigation, did you identify anyone working at gm who had knowledge relating to those product recalls that covered products affected by that bankruptcy discharge order in july of 2009? >> again, if there was a known safety issue, there would have been a recall done. >> did you attempt to determine that? >> i was not involved in that process. so i can't comment. >> isn't it possible that that

discharge order contributed to gm's lax approach to safety defects on cars built by the old gm? >> absolutely not. >> well, we've talked a lot about this culture of irresponsibility at gm. you've testified about it. it's covered in mr. valukas' report. how you can say absolutely not when you haven't even focused on that issue? >> there were many -- evidence of that is there were many recalls that were conducted during that period of time. but i would say now, we've redoubled our efforts, and we've gone back even more exhaustively than looking at data from tread. date from that customer feedback. and we're now even -- with the product integrity organization it's already accomplishing its task going at looking at how the vehicle performs to a higher level to ensure we have the safest levels. >> mr. valukas, you focused on this in your report. you weren't here the first time when i showed miss barra that

was handed out by gm in the '70s that says "safety comes first" on this screwdriver. as part of the history and culture at gm, did you look back at whether the old gm had made safety a priority, the same way that miss barra says the new gm is committed to it here today? and aren't there institutional problems that are much more far-reaching than simply firing 15 employees? >> congressman, good question. we looked back and solicited from everybody that we interviewed, information about whether -- something in the culture caused them to do something differently than they otherwise would have done or whether safety became a secondary issue. almost uniformly people would say to us, safety was the top priority. we identified in this report all of the incidents of which we were aware where people took a different position so it's not there. and i would not ascribe to everybody the conduct of the

people involved here, but i do say that culture had something to do with why this recall took so long. >> my time is up. thank you. >> we now recognize mr. bartlett of texas for five minute. >> thank you mr. chairman. miss barra, we're glad to have you back. and mr. valukas, we're glad to have you before us. our opportunity or responsibility on the committee is to provide for the general welfare, and in doing that, get the facts on the table so that people can have faith that the products that your company produces are safe. and, of course, your requirement is to make sure that you do produce a safe product, that hopefully, results in a profit for the company and the stockholder. but we're both on the same side. we both want products that are safe. and let the public be aware of the capabilities. but also the shortfalls. i'm going to ask most of my

questions to mr. valukas, simply because we didn't have your report at this time but i will have a few questions for miss barra at the end if i have time. i want to focus on the fact that the part number was not changed back in april of 2006. a gm engineer did approve changes to the ignition switch. but did not change the part number. and mr. valukas, in your report, you observed that the decision to not change the part number was not properly vetted or scrutinized. you note that a mr. digiorgio did not explain why he did not change the part number, is that correct? >> mr. digiorgio told us that he did not change the part number

and as we looked back on it, he reflected that he should have changed the part number. >> apparently, obviously, that's very important, because you have a part number changed and that creates a paper trail. there was some sort of a problem that had to be corrected. and if you're doing an investigation, you can compare and from that time forward, see if the problem was fixed. now, i want to direct your attention to the big binder that we got right between you and miss barra, and on tab 35. >> 35? >> yes, sir. 3-5. >> give me a moment. >> there is an april 5th chain of e-mails between this mr. digiorgio and engineers at the switch supplier, delphi, and some other employees. that attached to that is a spreadsheet to the upcoming changes to the delta ignition switch. you can locate that? >> i think i have it, yes.

>> okay. now, it's interesting to me that these e-mails, the subject is not -- not anything that is safety related. the subject matter is delta ignition switch changes tooling tweaks increased process capability. and then it goes -- in the e-mail, it talks about this is a black box design. and they want to change the part to increase the process capability. this will improve the fallout rate at the delphi condorra plant. first of all, what is a fallout rate? >> i presume it's the rate at which something fails. >> okay. so if you increase, improve the fallout rate that means you're going to decrease the number of failures? is it important in your mind that since they talk about a

black box, apparently, anything within the black box, they don't have to be too worried about it, as long as everything in the black box works as specified? because they're apparently in retrospect is quite a bit of commentary about why we didn't really pay much attention because it was all within the black box. >> well, that's the commentary. but when there is -- you know, the general rules that change formal function, whether in the black box or otherwise, the part number ought to change. and in this situation, it's particular to this aspect of it which is increasing the torque that would fall within one of those three categories. and i think you can find an explanation in the black box, but even mr. digiorgio in his interview with us conceded this was a change in function and would have require a change in the part. and the consequences were devastating over the years. this is not the only time.

that issue came up four times as you properly note where people came back to him and said, did something change, and he said no. and that's one of the reasons why this took a decade. >> well, do you think that this particular e-mail exchange, they knew they had a safety problem, and their coaching their phraseology differently to hide it? because they don't really talk about a torque issue or anything. they're talking about a fallout rate and within the black box. do you think this was intentional or -- >> no, i don't. let me put it this way, we have not been given access to the delphi witnesses. we've not been permitted to interview them. and our receipt of documents has been limited from them. on the gm side of the process, the answer to that question is no. >> okay. and miss barra, in the time that i don't have anymore, my question to you, miss blackburn tries to elucidate an answer from you about a change in

culture. and the fact that even when making the specification changes that they didn't meet the specification as, you know, wasn't that a problem? and shouldn't you make sure that everything meets your specifications? and your answer is, well, if the overall system works, it's okay. now, to me, that doesn't represent a cultural change. and i've talked to the general motors engineers and management team in my district down at arlington. and they are vocally insistent that they're not going to use any part in their plant that doesn't meet the specification and operate just as they're supposed to. >> i totally agree with you that a part is supposed to operate just as it's supposed to. there's been significant change. first off, everything that's done, it's documented. it's gone through a validation process and also a systems integration. so it's much more rigorous knowing that the part is good and the vehicle is going to perform with safety and with quality. so as it relates to making a

part change, absolutely acceptable. i ran an assembly plant, and i totally agree with the people you talked to at the arlington plant, if you do not have a documented part number, shouldn't be changing parts. their answer is absolutely correct. and i appreciate the fact that they're committed to doing that. >> thank you. i recognize mr. butterfield for five minutes. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. you know, mr. chairman, it's an unspeakable tragedy that so many families have suffered as a result of these shortcomings of general motors and some of those families are with us today. as feeble as it may be, i simply want to off my condolences to the families that have been affected. let me start with you, miss barra -- is it barra or barra? >> it's barra. we've had debate about this. the company has hired 40 new

defect investigators. how many of these individuals will be new to the company? >> i can't speak specifically, but i can tell you that most them came from within the company, but they came and knew how the selection process was. and there were some of our very best engineers across the country. so collectively, they knew a broader array of parts and systems in the vehicles. >> well, our information and interacting with your company suggests that all 40 of these new individuals would be promoted from the company. do you dispute that? >> as i said, i need the lion's share. i didn't tell if you one or two came from the outside. i know we does an exhaustive search inside to get some of the best and experienced engineers in this role. >> i think you heard this theme from both sides of the aisle, that we're talking about a new culture within the company. and i would strongly suggest that you think about bringing in fresh blood to run that part of the company.

how many vehicles has general motors recalled since the cobalt recall in february? i've heard 40 million, i know that's over a period of years. but how many have actually been recalled since february of this year? >> i have to add up the count. i don't know if we have that information. >> hundreds. >> it's several million. it's in the tens of millions. >> and let me ask you this, how are vehicle owners informed by gm about these recalls? do you e-mail them, do you mail them, how do you do it? >> first of all, we follow what the regulations are, the nhtsa process, so we send a letter but we've gone above and beyond that. we send additional letters as part of the nhtsa process. also social media. we've also hired 100 people to work in the customer engagement center to reach out to these individuals. and we also know dealers who are great partners in this in many times have contacted people and received calls and explained. >> so you go beyond the address

of record? >> absolutely. >> that's reassuring. when you communicate with vehicle owners, are they informed that the seriousness of the safety hazards posed by the safety switch? >> yes, in fact, very specifically in the letter, it states to operate the vehicle safely, you need to have the key, or just the key in the ring and take everything off your key ring. we've also made to these individuals if they're still uncomfortable, although we have demonstrated and nhtsa said it's safe to operate the vehicles this way, again with the key or the ring, if the individual is still uncomfortable because we're customer-focused, we're putting these individuals into rental vehicles. >> what percentage of those notified actually bring the cars back to the dealer? >> in general, we're in the 80s. i've been told we're one of the highest how we complete recalls. but in this case, we're still working through it. >> and once there, how long does it take to get it fixed?

>> it's a matter of an hour or so. >> just a couple hours. it seems like there's a large volume of recalls, according to your testimony. and i'm more concerned about how safely and timely can these corrections be made. >> well, we -- >> with the large volume that you're talking about, millions of cars. >> right. but if you look at, in some cases, they're replacing a part. in some cases, it's as simple as making sure a connection was made. in other cases, for instance, in some of our crossover vehicles, over time, a crimp of an electrical connection. it's simply go be back and recrimping and soldering that. we have been exhaustive. i know it sounds like a large number of vehicles. it is. but we want to do the right thing for our customers. to my knowledge, this is the host expansive comprehensive review we've done. as we went in and looked at the subsystem performance, we wanted

to make sure we were acting -- >> one dealer can do dozens in a single day? >> i'm sorry? >> one dealer. can do dozens. >> actually, we have dealers who are extending their hours to their customers to get the changes made. >> has gm made any changes to any other product lines which have not been recalled to date? >> we will continue. as i said, we plan to be substantially complete by the end of this month with the additional people we have put in. we're going to continue until we're confident whether there's any thing that we review it. >> mr. valukas, we live by the clock here. i'm sorry. we'll get you next time. >> we recognize dr. berges. >> if we could continue on that line of questioning. how are your dealers holding up

on what must be a massive onslought. >> our dealers -- we've had dealers who had a customer several miles away. there was one they were concerned because their daughter had the vehicle and there wasn't a dealership close by. the dealer went back and forth and got the vehicle and made the repair made and got the owner. i can't be more proud of how our dealers are supporting our customer. >> yet, you've got millions of cars that need to get in and be attended to. pretty hard to provide a loaner car for that population. >> again, the loaner -- well, first of all, most dealers for a simple repair have loaner prevalence. it depends on the vehicle. the cobalt and that population, we are providing rentals, and we've worked with rental

companies to make sure they have enough vehicles to do that. but, again in many of these cases, even though the vehicles were recalled it's a very simple visual inspection to know if the dealer is okay or not. and the dealers are very equipped to do that with service technicianses. >> i just remember being on this committee when we went through this with toyota back in 2009. and the toyota dealership in a district which i represent had extended hour which they opened late at night to accommodate people who were otherwise working and couldn't get in. and do you feel that is the case currently with gm dealers? >> i absolutely do. i've spoken to hundreds of dealers. and i know our north america -- our president, allen beatty has also. >> let me interrupt you because our time is going to run out. how are you doing -- what seems to be the choke point in this? is it getting the part to the dealer? >> actually, we've produced and shipped over 400,000 parts. the challenge is getting the customer to come in and get the

vehicle repaired. that's why we've employed a lot of innovative ways to do that and that's white dealers are reaching out. >> and yet a story in "the new york times" or today, people talked about receiving multiple postcards that you got to come in and get your car fixed. they say, i've tried but they don't have the part available. are we going to start hearing less of those stories? >> i think we should because we start another line within a week so we're continuing to ramp up. but right now, we do have the parts. we try to be incredibly fair. some of the postcards that are sent are because they're required on a frequency by law and we're complying with the law. >> thank you. mr. valukas, let me ask you a couple questions, i think i understand from your introduction, that you are a trial attorney, is that correct? >> i am. >> i mean, i've got to tell you, at some point, were you just pulling your hair out over some of those things as your investigation churned through

this information? let me -- specifically, you've got the binder in front of you. mine is not divided up into tabs but page 119. 119, 119 of the report. >> in your report. >> thank you. >> here's a paragraph, witnesses have inconsistent recollection as to whether the product investigations group became involved in the cobalt air bag nondeployment issues at this stage. everest reports in april 7 the fda transitioned the cobalt matter to the p.i. group where it was taken on by an engineer. document in the file indicate that he was working on the issue and a may 42007 status review planning worksheet states that he was scheduled to present on an issue described as cobalt air bag discussion item. he had no recollection of the involvement. i mean, right up to the point

where they had an answer, and now this guy doesn't even remember working on it. was that pretty frustrating from a trial lawyer's perspective? >> one of the key problems we found is the lack the lack of documentation which led to lack of accountability. and i think a classic example of that is what happened in 2005. when we went back to find out why did they close the investigation into the cobalt issue. and we found ourselves in a position where there were no notes with regard to the matter. everybody at the meeting pointed to somebody else in the meeting as having responsibility for having closed the matter. but we could not ascertain who actually had that responsibility. or what were the circumstances which caused the closure to take place. >> right. and that lack of accountability is reflected in so many of these gray areas. when we went back -- >> i'm going to run out of time. 15 individuals have been terminated by general motors, is that correct? but we can't know -- as we read through this report, we can't

know the names of those 15 individuals because of employee privacy concerns. is that correct? >> it's been submitted to the committee. >> it's been committsubmitted t committee? >> we've asked that it be confidential. >> thank you for that. you can just tell us, what was the basis for termination? as i go through this, it looks like a lot more than 15 people should have been terminated? >> there was a senior group of my leaders that we looked, we read the report. and we were very thorough in looking at those who we believe didn't take the actions they should. and those who simply didn't move with a sense of urgency. the people closest to us over a repeated period of time are those no longer with the company. >> thank you. i recognize mr. green for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman for doing the follow-up hearing. miss barra, you said you had shipped 400,000 parts. was that for the ignition issue?

>> yes. >> how many were recalled? because i keep hearing 16 million, but i know there are others. >> okay. specific ignition switch cylinder -- because it's a kit now that we put together. the total number of vehicles produced globally was over 2.6 million. we know not all of those are still in service today. and we have built kilts to service the 2.6 population. we're over 400,000. we'll be complete by october 4th. >> you've been vocal about gm's change of corporate culture which you indicated was a cost culture. mr. valukas, can you zmrieb of the cultural you saw, talk about the gm nod and the gm salute. what do these refer to? >> well, let me be specific on that. the gm -- without using those phrases, you had a situation

where it took a plaintiff's lawyer to do the sim thing of comparing two switches, one from 2006 to 2009 to find out that gm had manufactured two separate switches. no one goes back to revisit previous made decisions. it's a decision we made. we don't go back to revisit it, look to see if there's something else. we had a situation where people within gm had certain levels of individuals at gm had information that was not share so when the other individual found that information, for example, the indiana report, that information was ultimately supplied by 30 parties outside of gm. gm did not know that they had some of that information, at least some information on files and some of it in public records. you had circumstances where among other things you had sensitivity to the use of the word "stalls." which may have created for some

the impression to maybe we stay away from words that tell people to ask hard questions. so we found instances of that which had a significant impact, at least in terms of binding information, impact on how this investigation, how the information of cobalt switch -- >> well, it sounds like the old gm culture was mostly, let's not talk about a problem. is that what it is? without notes, and i understand we're both lawyers, you may say, well, i don't want to take notes because somebody can subpoena them. so gm just put them under the rug and now it's coming home to roost. miss barra, in the last session, you referred to the new gm and culture would change. you testified that gm created a new v.p. of global vehicle safety, filled by jeff bowyer. and i know you've been with gm a number of years. and mr. bowyer has been with gm?

>> yes, he's -- >> so you all both worked for the old gm. can you tell me what is going to be different in the new gm, even though everybody and the 40 inspectors that congressman butterfield are gm. you need a culture change and not just verbiage. >> i completely agree with you so it will be the actions we're taking. but i can also tell you the men and women of general motors, the vast majority come to work and want to do a good job. they heard me talk about this report. they are as deeply troubled as i am. they are taking action. we're creating a culture. i have evidence every day where employees are coming forward. they want to do the right thing. they want to provide high-quality safety. >> i only have a minute. and i agree that needs to continue. i also know how it works on the shop floor, oh, don't talk about that, just do your job. that's what got gm into this

position. your company set up a compensation fund for victims. and recognizing that no amount of money can replace a loved one or can compensate for someone who is injured. how will that fund be and have you announced the total for that? >> we haven't announced the total. again it's being run by ken feinberg who is known as an expert in this area. >> i'm familiar with mr. feinberg. >> well, he will have complete independence but i think it's important to note that general motors wants to reach to a compensation everyone who suffered. >> i'm out of time, and there are a whole lot of gm customers out there who are frustrated because over the decade they've been loyal. but now we're seeing 16 million recalls. there's a problem. and i hope you'll -- you have it fixed. but, mr. chairman, i hope we

continue this to make sure it's fixed. i yield back my time. >> i recognize mr. gingrey for five minutes. >> miss barra, i want to ask you a question about the situation of the cobalt. if one of my two, or twin 16-year-old granddaughters is driving in the cobalt. and inadvertently the ignition turns to the accessory position. if they, who just got their drivers license three months ago, i would think their initial reaction would be to try to turn the car back on. start the car back again, although, it's in drive. and it's not in neutral. would the car start back up? >> well, first of all, if they were driving the vehicle and they had just the key and the ring, this condition shouldn't happen. >> but if it did happen. let's assume it did happen.

>> okay. so then you've got to put the car -- restart the car -- i guess -- >> i think the answer is -- you would have to put it in neutral. >> put it in neutral. >> and that would be pretty hard of a 16-year-old inexperienced driver to even think of with an 18-wheeler bearing down on them. as i listen and at the hearing that you were at several weeks ago, general motors has got to have the best engineers in the wor world. whether they're electrical engineers, mechanical engineers, maybe both. how in the world would they not know when the vehicle, because of the low torque, and it shifts to the accessory position and it stalls that would also deactivate the testing. i would think that kind of

testing is done? how could they not know that? >> i can't speculate why they wouldn't know. i can tell you anytime a vehicle stalls now. we consider it to be a safety issue. and if we find there's a malfunction or defect in a part that causes the car to stall -- >> well, i would say a safety issue indeed if the side air bag would not inflate. if somebody got t-boned in the middle of an interaction when this happened. and a young person, even an experienced driver of 40 years is not going to think that quickly. mr. valukas. and i think you alluded to this a few minutes ago, if not for the brook lawson lawsuit. brook, i can't see the picture it might be up on the wall. she's in my 11th congressional district of georgia. if it not for the brook lawson lawsuit and she was killed. the fact that her lawyers figured out that the ignition

switch part model from 2008 was different from model years '05, '06, and 07, would we even know about this ignition switch problem today? would we even be aware of it? >> the answer is, yes, because there was an open and at that point, significant investigation going on at that particular point. and certainly, there was information and evidence that was accumulating as they were going forward, pointing to the fact that they had nondeployments. pointing to the fact they had fatalities, and pointing to the fact that the switch had something to do with it. >> that smacks of a big cover-up to me. and after gm learned of this change, it took months for gm outside experts to confirm they had a change. why did this take so long? >> i don't have an answer for that. i can tell you it did take that long. from the aim of april 2013 when the deposition took place, they knew at that point they had two

different switches and they gave it to mr. malotti, the expert, and he came back with the information and that took to almost october. >> yeah, it's amazing. and when the decision was presented in december, no recall was. it took a year before gm finally recalled that. what was issued in december that prevented gm from issuing a recall at that time? miss barra, you can tell me? >> i can't talk about the specific information. we do know that not all that information was presented that the meeting. i would say when the right information was in front of that group, they would make the right decision and i've said publicly -- >> let me just say and i conclude in 35 seconds, this whole sequence, this whole sequence, from the time the company learned of a potential difference in the parts during the melton litigation, during the time the recalls were

announced, ten months, miss barra? why the footdrag? is this typical of gm's investigations into a product concerned? and how do you intend to change this? >> well, we already have. the way we're working through recalls today. we've changed that process. expedited, most senior levels of the company are involved in. we're doing what's right for our customers and we're demonstrating that today. >> thank you, i yield back. >> i should ask a clarifying question. with regards to the words "cover-up" can you define what cover-up means, mr. valukas? >> in this instance, what we looked for was any evidence that people took steps and knew that they had a safety issue. that's what we refer to as a cover-up. and we sought to test those facts against the documents we

were reviewing. so if someone knew something on a given day, we identify that and we reveal steps to whether they concealed that. >> does your definition also include if people slow-walked moving on safety issues? is that also a cover-up? >> pardon me, i don't mean to interrupt. >> that's okay. if it was deliberately done, then it would encompass something like that. if it was a matter of someone being in a position, for instance, when one of the investigators was given the assignment, he was given no deadline. he was given no sense of urgency. so he put it in the queue with other investigation. that, i would not call a cover-up, i would call that something other than that. >> thank you. >> thank you, mr. chairman. miss barra, welcome back to the committee. when you were here on april 1st, i told you that a member of my staff had a chevrolet malibu was subject to the recall. she found that out by going

through the website, not through any personal notification. and she inquired of the dealership how she should proceed. and they said there's no fix. i presented you with that dilemma. and you said there say fix whether there's a check or replacement of the product. and it does exist for that specific vehicle. well, i have here the important safety recall that she just received on monday. so that's 2 1/2 months after you appeared here on april 1st notifying her of the recall saying that her vehicle may experience a sudden loss of power steer assist which could result in a complete risk of crash. and also informed that the product doesn't exist yet to fix the product. so when you consider that situation, a different vehicle, a different problem, with the ignition problem that we've focused on. and you've already said that many of these vehicles will not

be fixed, the ignition problem, until october, those parts won't be available. what are consumers supposed to do when they're going a period up to six months or longer, without any way to fix their vehicle? how are they -- can they assess the risk? i mean, i don't know what my staffer should do. there's no real -- i see all the pharmaceutical products, the long list of possible side effects, you have to calculate the risk. but would you advise -- would you let your son or daughter drive these vehicles now with the level of risk that you may know more about than we do? >> well, on the cobalt specifically, we've done extensive testing on using the -- or driving the vehicle with the key or the key in the ring, and it has validated it's safe. we've also reviewed that with the technical experts at nhtsa, and they have concurred. in that case, the vehicles are demonstrated safe to drive.

just in general, people can go to their dealer or the engagement center and walk through specific issues. in many of the recalls that we've done, it's not a part replaced, it's a visual check. and depending on what happens, it would be what needs to be repaired. so each individual recall has a slightly different look and feel to it. >> so, i know you've talked about the possibility of loaner vehicles and rental cars and so forth. and i understand the difficulty with a supplier gearing up to produce a part that they may not have made in four or five years. and they have to, all of a sudden, come up with several million of them. we have a part manufacturer in kentucky, in my district, that services peterbilt trucks and i've been to theirs and i know how much work they have to do. but, again, is there any alternative to reliable alternative, to these consumers