tv House Session CSPAN June 23, 2015 10:00am-12:01pm EDT
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mast. caller: that was going to be my next point. it is in a fixed position. why can't they put it a position to where can be a bird and lowered. host: anita is our last caller. caller: good morning. i have always been under the impression that this was supportive of slavery, which meant that one human race was considered 3/5 human. that is part of the history that i do not want displayed. it means that someone else is not a whole human being. as far as the american flag and things that have happened under the current fight, as far as violence, the american public has to participate in the government more so they can watch what the government is doing and so they will not have to suffer so much for our
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government or corporations which are making bad decisions for us. host: that was our last caller in today show. one must headline to show you. many flock to washington for high court stances on same-sex marriage and obamacare. those decisions did not come out yesterday from the decision day at the supreme court, but there will be more decision days to come. we will take you to be senate commerce and science committee on defective airbags. that is beginning momentarily. we will see right back here tomorrow morning on "the washington journal." [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org]
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>> again we are live on capitol hill on this tuesday morning for another in a series of hearings on defective air bags. national highway traffic safety administration administrator. mr. rose kind, and kevin kennedy will be testifying once again here before the senate commerce committee. defective air bags in cars are responsible for at least eight defendants in this country. officials with honda and fiat chrysler also expected to offer testimony this morning. back in may, takata expanded its recall the u.s. to more than 30 million vehicles. it impacts 10 auto makers, including honda, toyota, ford, and g.m., and customers. researchers found defective air bags at times have deployed too force fully spraying metal fragments in the vehicles. john thune is the chair of the committee. senator bill nelson ranking member we expect this to start
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mr. senator thune: good morning welcome everyone. we have called this hearing nor a somber lean. defective airbags are hurting rather than helping people. we still haven't figured out exactly why. we need to figure out how to prevent these issues from occurring in the future. this is a pivotal time in vehicle safety. it's welcomed news that cars are generally safer than they ever have been. advances in vehicle technologies and safety innovations as well as robust safety initiatives have reduced the number of deaths on the road. still, tragically, more than 30,000 people die every year due to motor vehicle accidents. airbags are one of the most important vehicle safety innovations, that's why it's alarming that tens of millions of cars have potentially defective airbags. today we'll be asking witness force an update on recall and remedy efforts for takata airbag inflaters, which have been linked to eight deaths and over 100 injuries. the large number of vehicles recalled covers 11 manufacturers. the lack of an identified root cause to date. and the age of the vehicles
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affected have made remedying this problem exceedingly difficult. these challenges do not excuse the responsibilities of auto manufacturers, suppliers and the national highway safety -- traffic safety administration, nhtsa, from their shared obligation to ensure vehicles are safe. the first priority should be fixing the recalled vehicles as soon as possible. nhtsa's also taken an unprecedented role in inserting itself in overseeing this process. takata and other suppliers have ramped up production of replacement parts to increase supply and the autos are seeking to contact defective vehicle owners and work on repairs. nevertheless questions exist about whether the currently available replacements are truly safe. takata is phasing out certain types of inflaters and testing is ongoing to determine the root cause or causes of the inflater defects. this testing will help to assess the scope of the recall and safety of replacement parts. these alarming recalls
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underscore the importance of clear and accurate information for consumers. nhtsa's dedicated takata recall website is an important step. recall fatigue and confusion are growing. the large number of vehicles involved has resulted in delays for some consumer notice. and the number of times the same vehicle may be subject to recall may further perplex consirmse. as we know completing a recall is not easy. with an all time record last year of nearly 64 million automobiles subject to recall i appreciate nhtsa and the auto industry are looking for ways to improve the process. identifying safety problems early is another key issue for both the industry and nhtsa. i look forward to hearing more about the inspector general's report which raises serious questions in this area. it identifies many instances in which the agency repeatedly dropped the ball in handling issues related to general motor's ignition defect.
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this calls into can question whether the agency can identify and investigate potential safety problems and carry out a safety mission. these findings are disconcerting given the takata defects. i'm pleased to know that administrator rose kind -- rosekind is committed to implement them. there have been far too many recalls you throughout the existence. that's why i worked with senator nelson to pass the whistleblower act which encourages employees to report safety concerns before they become larger problems to prevent loss of life and serious injuries. despite a long vacancy with a senate confirmed leader under administrator rosekind's leadership nhtsa is looking for ways to improve. there have been assessments of nhtsa and plan for a path forward. now is the time for accountability. the agency, automakers, suppliers, dealers, and congress must work together to reduce deaths and injuries on our nation's roadways. this committee will continue to
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conduct oversight of the takata recalls and nhtsa safety vehicle safety efforts. i appreciate takata's general cooperation with the committee's requested date. in fact, we just received another large production of documents from the company a few days ago. some automakers are producing documents to the committee. i'm sure we'll have more questions for nhtsa. it's also important for consumers to check and see if their vehicle is subject to this or any recall. nhtsa has -- nhtsa has a vehicle identification number or v.i.n. look up to an online at safercar.gov. if you determine your vehicle is subject to a recall, please schedule an appointment to get it fixed with your closest dealership as soon as possible. now i'm pleased to welcome administrator rosekind whose first appearance before the committee since his confirmation last december. i also want to welcome inspector general coble back to the committee and witnesses for this our second full committee hearing on this issue. i want to thank all our witnesses for being here today.
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look forward to your testimony. we'll start with mr. rosekind followed by mr. skovel. my mis-- mistake. senator from florida. distinguished ranking member, please, make your opening statement. senator nelson: thank you, mr. chairman. if i may, we have had an investigation done danger behind the wheel the takata airbag crisis and how to fix our broken auto recall process done by our minority committee staff. if i may have that entered. senator thune: without objection. senator nelson: thank you for your cooperation on this. you will recall, mr. chairman, last year we actually started the hearings on these airbag defects. and the news was not good.
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at that point, last november, we had five deaths and dozens of injuries that were tied to the defective takata airbags. and we had testimony from an air force lieutenant lieutenant stephanie urdman, she suffered severe facial injuries and almost lost one of her eyes when her airbag exploded after a relatively minor accident in the florida panhandle near eglin air force base. since then, the recalls have ramped up, appropriately, but unfortunately the tragedies have continued.
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houston, a man killed by a takata airbag that exploded in his vehicle after a minor accident. and then april, a 22-year-old was involved in an accident in fayette, louisiana the wreck was serious. but as you can see look at this airbag and i want you -- do we have the pictures of the lady? that's the one from florida isn't it? you can see -- this is a normal airbag demoid. this is the front -- deployed.
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this is the front of what would be facing the driver and the steering wheel. it deploys. if it deploys normally, it's supposed to look like that. ok. this is what happened in this case that i just referenced in louisiana that's blood, but look at the tear in the airbag. you can see that it obviously has been punctured. and instead of it become like that the shrapnel in the inflate r, which is this device, which is in the steering wheel underneath the steering wheel and this explodes sending hot gas out and inflating the
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airbag. well, when it's defective, it explodes with such force that it actually breaks open the metal, and the metal goes out, and then of course instead of the airbag saving lives, it's killing people. let me show you. that is a piece of metal that actually came out on this lady, and this lady is in miami last july. look how big that is. now, that hit her and thank goodness it hit her there in a relatively superficial wound
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that is a permanent scar. but what if it had hit her there? or what if it had hit her there? that's the piece that hit her. this is deadly serious business. just last friday we learned of the eighth death, southern california, conclusively tied to a defective takata airbag. and some of these victims' families got recall notices, got recall notices after their loved ones were killed. and in addition to the eight deaths this committee has learned of allegations of well
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over 100 serious injuries. now, i got into this thing because there was a woman killed in orlando. this is a year ago. that's how i got into it. when the police got to the car, they thought it was a homicide. they thought somebody had slashed her throat. and only afterwards did they find out that, in fact this is what it was. and then i got into it because of a firefighter that lives in the orlando area, he won't be a firefighter again because he lost his eye now. and so i could go on and on about these incidents just in florida alone, but the bottom line is we need to get these cars fixed. and we have been talking about this since last year.
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dr. rosekind has been a breath of fresh air, and you have taken numerous actions to speed up the takata recall process but nhtsa still faces deep challenges. for one thing, as no doubt you will point out, it's underfunded. it lacks the necessary funding to make sure that automakers and the sticks as well as the carrots it lacks to get the automakers to be forthcoming about the recalls. by the way this isn't the only thing. we are not just picking on takata. look how many deaths occurred from the g.m. defective steering
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ignition switches. g.m. hid a defect for over a decade and at least 114 people died. this is awful. and for that nhtsa could only find g.m. a -- fine g.m. a measly $35 million. and that's less than 100th of a percent of what g.m. makes in a quarter. and nhtsa also appears to have serious internal and managerial issues. these challenges were detailed in this department of transportation office infector general report released yesterday -- inspector general report released yesterday that reveals serious problems in nhtsa's office of defects investigation, especially related to the handling of the
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g.m. crisis last year. and so i can tell you this senator's going to fight for additional funding for nhtsa. but there also has to be accountability. and the i.g. report found severe deficiencies in nhtsa's ability to effectively collect and analyze safety data as well as conduct investigations. the agency lacks proper protocols and procedures and staff apparently are inadequately trained to do their job. we need accountability. and i look forward, doctor, to hearing how you intend to respond to this report that's now been put in the record and how you continue to modernize the agentcy. finally, i look forward to hearing from the representatives takata. yesterday, the staff issued a report detailing its initial
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findings in a month's long investigation of takata. for years it's obvious that takata did not put safety first. it appears that takata knew or should have known as early as 2001, that's 14 years ago that there were serious safety and quality lapses in its airbag production process. and you'd think that they would have stepped up their safety efforts at these plants after discovering those issues. no, and by the way there are eight people dead. instead internal emails suggest they actually suspended global safety audits from 2009 to 2011 for cost cutting reasons. and now the same company responsible for this disaster is
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the one making nearly all of the replacement airbags for most of the recalled vehicles. that doesn't sit well with a lot of americans. and i think takata has some serious explaining to do. so, for everyone involved nhtsa, to automakers, to the suppliers we need to improve as fast as possible. and we get -- need to get the recall completed but also make sure that the safety issues are spotted sooner so that dangerous vehicles are identified and fixed faster. in order to do what we are supposed to do, which is help keep consumers safe. mr. chairman, if i sound that i'm invested in this issue, when i saw the pictures of that woman
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in orlando with her neck lacerated, i am invested. when i talked to that firefighter with his little boy with him that will never be a firefighter again, because he doesn't have an eye i'm invested. so thank you for calling this hearing. senator thune: thank you, senator nelson. now proceed to our panel. start with administrator rosekind. please proceed, thanks. mr. rosekind: chairman thune, ranking member nelson, members of the committee. thank you for the opportunity to provide an update on nhtsa's efforts to address vehicle safety defects, including defective takata airbags. the recall defective takata airbags may represent the largest recall in history and certainly one of the most complicated. all of nhtsa's actions are targeted at achieving one goal, the only acceptable goal, a safe airbag in every american vehicle. on may 19, secretary nhtsa took
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a significant step toward this goal and announced takata at the agency's insistence had filed four defect reports launching national recalls of an estimated 33.8 million defective airbag inflaters. 11 affected automanufacturers have now made available individual vehicle identification numbers so vehicle owners can go to safercar.gov and use the v.i.n. look up tool to determine if their vehicle is under recall. contact your dealers to replace the airbag as soon as possible. consumers may also request a precloner or rental vehicle while they wait for the repair. our current estimate is that there are about 34 million defective airbags in 32 million affected vehicles. nhtsa has issued a consent order to takata that among other things gives us the ability to ensure the adequacy of the remedy. for the first time ever nhtsa is using authority provided by the tread act and other authorities
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for coordinated remedy program to prioritize and organize recall and remedy efforts. late last week, nhtsa said information request to all the affected automakers of replacement parts seeking information as part of our program. in addition, we have had initial discussions with the affected companies on a protective order that would allow these companies to share confidential business information with nhtsa and one another so that confidentiality concerns do not interfere with our safety efforts. in a separate action, nhtsa's in the process of determining whether fiat, chrysler automobiles is in violation of the safety act requirements to remedy safety defects adequately and within a reasonable time. nhtsa has scheduled a july 2 hearing to examine 22 recalls that affect more than 11 million vehicles. and nhtsa, we are determined to use every tool available to protect the traveling public. and one critical tool is self-evaluation. at the urging of secretary fox with the full support of nhtsa's staff and leadership and before i arrived nhtsa was involved in
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tough self-examination after one of the most challenging years in the agency's history. on june 5, nhtsa released two reports essential in our efforts to improve our effectiveness. the first report provides the results of a year-long due diligence review of our defect investigation process. our review found weaknesses in processes for identifying and addressing defects. we are addressing those weaknesses with improvements already under way and within existing resources. the second report is a work force assessment that details how the president's f.y. 16 budget request specifically reflects nhtsa's mission needs. in addition, the report examination's nhtsa's work force given the 265 million vehicles we monitor compared to the safety investigation work force's and other modes of transportation. it provides one possible path toward mching nhtsa's work force to those challenges. as second fox request the
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department of transportation inspector general performed an audit of nhtsa's investigation of the g.m. ignition defect. their report is a helpful contribution to our efforts and we have concurred with all 17 of the report's recommendations. to give you a sense of nhtsa's commitment to improving efforts to identify and address safety defects to tate we have implemented or initiated 44 separate changes to improve our effectiveness. that includes efforts to address 10 of the 17 recommendations from the i.g.'s audit that were under way before the audit's release. two factors outside the scope of the i.g. audit are essential will nhtsa achieving its mission. the first is g.m.'s concealment of critical safety administration from nhtsa. if i could sum up, it would be question assumptions. question the information nhtsa gets from industry. and question our own assumptions. the second factor also outside the scope of the intextor general's audit is available resources. the same 51 people managing the takata recall include eight that analyze 80,000 consumers
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complaints, eight others that oversee more than 1,200 recall campaigns, and 16 others continue to investigate scores of potential defects. the agency must accomplish this task with the defects investigation budget when adjusted for inflation is 23% lower than 10 years ago. the president's f.y. 2016 budget request would provide the people and technology needed to keep americans safe. secretary fox has proposed the grow america act which would provide stable increased funding and important safety authorities to help nhtsa in our mission. it is clear that gaps in available personal and authority represent known safety risks. the members of this committee and colleagues in congress can help nhtsa address those risks and keep the traveling public safety. thank you for this opportunity to testify. i look forward to your questions. senator thune: thank you. mr. skovel. mr. skovel: members of the committee. thank for inviting me to discuss nhtsa's vehicle safety oversight. as you know, strong oversight is
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critical for taking timely action against vehicle defects such as g.m.'s faulty ignition switch. as of this month, this defect has been linked to more than 110 fatalities and 220 injuries. airbag nondeployments prompted this office of defeggets investigation to look at certain g.m. vehicles as early as 2007. but ultimately it was determined that an investigation was not warranted. we now know that the faulty ignition switch can unexpectedly disability the vehicle's power steering, brakes, and airbags. today i will discuss the weaknesses we identified relating to o.d.i.'s procedure for collecting and analyze vehicle safety data and for determining which issues warrant further investigation. i will also show how the weaknesses we identified affected o.d.i.'s handling of the g.m. ignition switch defect. wed three areas of weakness in nhtsa's vehicle safety procedures that undermine its efforts to identify and
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investigation vehicle safety concerns. first, o.d.i. lacks the procedures needed to collect complete and accurate vehicle safety data. the use of o.d.i.s early warning aggregate data is limited to due to the inconsistencies in how manufacturers categorize safety incidents. o.d.i. guidance specifies 24 categories for reporting potential defects related to an average of over 15,000 vehicle components. leaving manufacturers to use broad discretion when reporting this data. consumer complaints o.d.i.'s primary source for identifying safety concerns, similarly lack information to correctly identify the vehicle systems involved. due in large part to the lack of guidance to consumers. further, o.d.i. does not adequately verify manufacturers data or take timely action to enforce manufacturers' compliance with reporting requirements.
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second o.d.i. does not follow standard stickal practices in analyze early warning reporting data. consequently, it cannot identify stickley significant trends or outliers that may indicate a safety issue should be pursued. in addition, despite the volume of consumer complaints, which averaged roughly 330 a day in 2014 o.d.i. relies on one initial screener in the first phase of its two-tiered screening process. this process leaves the office vulnerable to a single point of failure and it runs the risk that complaints with potential safety significance may not be selected for further review. inadequate training and supervision of screeners further increase this risk. third, o.d.i. emphasizes investigating issues that are most likely to result in recalls. which has blurred the line
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between preinvestigative and investigative duties. investigative duties such as research and engineering analysis work are being performed during the preinvestigative phase, often by screeners who are not trained to carry out these responsibilities. in addition, stakeholders within o.d.i. have not reached consensus on the amount and type of information needed to open investigations. and o.d.i. does not always document the justifications for its decisions not to investigate potential safety issues. this lack of transparency and accountability in o.d.i.'s investigation decisions further undermines nhtsa's efforts to identify needed recalls and other corrective actions. these three procedure weaknesses impeded o.d.i.'s handling of the g.m. ignition switch defect. from 2003 to 2013, g.m. submitted over 15,000 nondealer field reports and about 2,000
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death and injury reports on vehicles that would ultimately be subject to the ignition switch recall. however, inconsistently miscategorized reports may have masked potential safety defect trends. for example, g.m. did not assign a component code to a death and injury report. not airbags not electrical, not ignition. even though a state trooper's report indicated that the nation switch was involved in the accident and a possible cause of airbag nondeployment. in addition, at least 12 g.m. nondealer field reports at gorized by g.m. under airbags and that may have been related to the ignition switch defect were not reviewed before the recall because nhtsa's anta litical tools could not read the report format used by g.m. a fact o.d.i. staff did not note until after the recall. o.d.i. staff also missed opportunities to connect the g.m. ignition switch defect to airbag nondeployments. for example, o.d.i. employees
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overlooked documentation on a fatal accident involving a 2005 cobalt that linked the ignition switch detect to the airbag nondeployment including an investigation report in a nhtsa special crash investigation report. calls for investigation were similarly overlooked. for example in 2007, nhtsa's associated administrator for en formente noted that an investigation proposal, quote, looks like one we want to jump on and learn as much as we can quickly. while a screener was assigned to monitor the issue, the defects assessment chief did not assign responsibility after the screener left nhtsa in 2008. in 2010 an o.d.i. screener suggested revisilitying the 2007 investigation proposal on airbag nondeployments because of new consumer complaints. however, the airbag investigator identified a downward rate of consumer complaints for the vehicles so the screener decided
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that the issue did not present enough of a safety trend to warrant proposing another investigation. according to o.d.i. staff, there were no discussions of the ignition switch defect that in fact, caused airbag nondeployment prior to g.m.'s february 2014 recall. in hindsight o.d.i. officials told us they did not understand the safety consequences of the ignition switch defect and have flawed understanding of airbag technology. nhtsa has committed to taking aggressive action to implement the 17 recommendations we made to strengthen vehicle safety oversight. according to the administrator, extensive changes to the agency's processes have been implemented and more are under way. o.d.i.'s awed ditz and investigations support nhtsa's vehicle safety oversight mandate our agents played a critical role in the multiagency criminal probe of toyota and continued to actively pursue allegations of criminal conduct related to vehicle safety. our auditors are currently
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assessing nhtsa's actions to implement recommendations we made in 2011 and blan to report our findings later this year. -- plan to report our findings later this year. mr. chairman, with your permission i would like to address those hoe have been injured and families of those who been wlost in crashes involving g.m.'s defective nish switches. when testifying last year, i promised you that my staff and i would work relentlessly to determine what nhtsa knew of the defect when, it knew t. and what actions nhtsa took to address it. our audit report issued last week and my testimony today fully that promise. i offer you again my deepens sympathy. this concludes my prepared statement. i would be happy to answer any questions that you, mr. chairman, and other committee members may have. mr. senator thune: thank you mr. scovel. mr. rosekind, i know you have been working to improve nhtsa's handling of vehicle defects. and i would say you have your
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work cut out for you. the inspector general's report reaches some serious conclusions regarding nhtsa's ability to detect vehicle defects highlighting things like failure to renew information provided by both industry and consumers, botched data analysis, inadequate training and supervision is major problems for the agency. all of these have to concern you. while we have to ensure that automakers properly report safety violations, it doesn't help when nhtsa staff are not even reviewing the information or if when they do they aren't employing proper statistical analyses to detect defects. nhtsa isn't following basic best practices and these are process issues that can't be solved just by throwing additional resources at the problem. so, my question is how do you propose to address these issues.
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mr. rosekind: we have concurred with all 17 of the recommendations. they validate and consistent with our two reports as well. i would like to provide to the committee a list of 44 actions we already have under way. 10 of the 17 are addressed in those. and exactly detailed action on each of these elements from communication to case management to statistical test to make sure every one of those --i'm just highlighting there. were 17 in their report. our total actions are up to 44. we'll continue to look for every place possible we can make changes. i think we lao -- we will look for the external changes. the report, outside the report, to talk about the resources, so many people have lettered me discuss 80,000 complaints. we are literally looking at an individual screener having to have five reports analyzed every hour. each of those reports actually takes an hour. so when the i.g. report says it's inadequate, i agree.
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and we have to change those. senator thune: you identified three general areas of concern in your audit. the preinvestigation practices of nhtsa's official of defect investigations. in your opinion, what does nhtsa need most? more information? more expertise? better practices for reviewing and analyzing data they already receive? mr. scovel: the knownous is on nhtsa to press forward with the process changes we have outlined in our i audit report and testimony today. very pleased to understand that the administrator has concurred in all 17 of our recommendations and in fact in his response to our audit report last week, indicated very aggressive schedule. signaling his intent to press forward as quickly as possible. i understand the administrator's request for resources. that ultimately represents a policy decision between the
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administration and the congress. i'm fully cognizant of that and respect my role, however i would have to say that allocating more resources to an effort to an agency whose processes are not in line in the first place does not seem like a good idea. we would urge the administrator to press forward with his aggressive timeline to address our recommendations as well as his own process improvements that he's identified in order to best position himself for success no matter what the policy decision may be regarding additional resources. senator thune: mr. rosekind, you have resently taken unprecedented steps with regard to nhtsa's handling of the defective takata inflaters and announcing efforts to facilitate a coordinated remedy program. how does the agency plan to implement this program? mr. rosekind: thank you for acknowledging the effort there. it was this committee that
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helped focus for the entire country this issue and the needed access. that changed on may 19. we went from denying a defect to having acknowledged not only a defect but national recalls, the consent order which helps us evaluate the remedy. as well as the coordinated remedy program which is not just acceleration but even more advanced prioritization. right now we have actually been in touch with all 11 manufacturers. seven potential supply folks. and have sent them a letter that outlines all the information we need to determine how this has to proceed. so, first meeting's already scheduled for july 1 with each of those individual groups. that will be both individual and group meetings through july with our hope that august will be we'll take all that information, put it together. planning for a public hearing in september that would allow us to lay out the program. which is very complicated. senator thune: very quickly, mr. scovel, could you discuss some of the difficulties that nhtsa has encountered or experienced
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in receiving consumer complaints and how would clear guidelines benefit the public? mr. scovel: in receiving complaints, mr. chairman, we would highlight a couple of things for the committee's attention. first in the way that nhtsa collects its data. data quality has to be an ultimate concern for itsa to identify vehicle safety defects. if that data is not of the highest quality essentially defects will be missed and resources may be squandered. the accuracy and completeness and timeliness of those data submissions is essential. and that data comes from a number of different sources. the early warning reporting data from manufacturer, that process needs to be improved. as we have shown and nhtsa has acknowledged, the product discretion allows manufacturers in categorizing potential problems or defects means that the data quality is deluded. its diffuse.
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and the best analysts at nhtsa or anywhere in the world will not be able to reach a proper conclusion based on data that is unsupportable. we also would note that, and i commend the administrator for his attention to that in his remarks this morning, too, they intend to follow up with manufacturers more often. in our interviews of every single employee in the office of defects investigation and representative of each of the contractors that works in that effort, we learned from the highest sources in that office that they generally employ what he called an honor system in order to determine whether manufacturers are meeting their requirements to submit this early warning reporting data. for safety regulators to take that approach, sir, we think that it is not keeping the best interest of the -- safety interest of the public in mind. consumer complaints, mr. chairman, which historically has
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been the primary source for nhtsa to identify safety concerns are also diffuse. have also been watered-down in effect because of a lack of guidance from the agency to consirmse who are seeking to report accidents and defects to the agency but find themselves at a loss when confronting on the website 18 different category codes in a vehicle that has 15,000 components and they themselves are not automotive experts. certainly some consirmse are going to get it wrong, but many others, the most well-meaning and those who have themselves or their families have been impacted by vehicle safety defects, will read the data, will read the guidance and attempt to follow it as best they are able. the agency performance will improve as a result. senator thune: thank you. senator nelson. senator nelson: you know, there's a pattern here among these regulatory agencies that
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are supposed to be looking out for the consumer. we saw this about 10 years ago with the consumer product safety commission when we had all of that chinese dry wall problem. the defective chinese toys and so forth. they had a card table was their research department. so too, we are now hearing stuff about the agency that you're trying to straighten out mr. rosekind. tell me, you-all came up with 33ings 8 million vehicles to be recalled. on this takata matter. how did you come up with that number? mr. rosekind: our estimate is that there are about 34 million inflaters that are defective. and they are in about 32 million vehicles. so that's acknowledgement that some vehicles have both driver
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and passenger airbags that need to be replaced. it also includes that some cars have interim remedies, they need to come back again. 34 million inflaters in 32 million vehicles. senator nelson: do you have the vehicle identification number for all of those? mr. rosekind: those who have been provided by all of the 11 automanufacturers at this point. senator nelson: you heard what the inspector general said about this office of defect investigations. what do you think you need to do to ensure that o.d.i. does not miss the next g.m. ignition defect or the next takata airbag crisis? mr. rosekind: this is why we have fully concurred with all 17 recommendations. they all need to be addressed. that's why i'm going to submit to you our list of 44 total action that is are going on that really get to all of these
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problems we are discussing. it's also an ongoing eggs evaluation. that's part of the issue here. we can't stop looking. i'm going to give you 44 different areas. i can give you plenty examples if you want. i would rather give you the list. part of it also has to be not just that list but an ongoing evaluation to make sure that on a continual basis we are looking for ways we can improve the processes and do it faster and bert. senator nelson: i want to suggest to you one area. in this o.d.i., as the inspector general has talked about get about 80,000 complaints each year. yet there's one person who conducts review of these complaints. and this particular person has other duties. so spending 50% of that person's time doing other things. so if you do the math, that person who spends four hours a
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day on this would have to review process, and follow on, and flag over 80 complaints an hour. that's less than one complaint a minute. so how in the world can you get it done? mr. rosekind: you can't. and that's why i agree with the i.g.'s report. it specifically called out the scanning of those reports as being inadequate. it is. and you just pointed out that that's a resource issue. you have too many complaints and not enough people. that original person is a triage point to try to get it somewhere else. it's just overwhelming. senator nelson: i'm going to yield the rest of my time because i want our members to go on and get a chance to get questions. senator thune: senator mccaskill is up next. senator mccaskill: thank you mr. chairman. and thank you, senator nelson, for your focus on this issue. as the chairman and ranking
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know, we obviously did a lot of hearings around the g.m. recall and a lot of hearings around nhtsa. i want to first begin with rental car safety. honda confirmed on friday that the eighth death linked to a faulty airbag occurred last september in california. this was a rental car from the sunset car rental in san diego that never made the repairs after the recall. i along with senator schumer and others have legislation pending that would prohibit the rental car from being -- car from being rented at a rental car agency until open safety recalls are remedied. we've got the support of the rental car industry, consumer and safety advocates, insurance companies, and general motors. but unfortunately many automanufacturers are blocking this legislation right now through the alliance of automobile manufacturers has
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opposed this legislation. and they are saying they should only be grounded if there is a do not drive recall. let me ask you dr. rosekind, has any of the 11 manufacturers issued a do not drive recall related to the faulty airbags? mr. rosekind: not that i'm aware of. and annually that number is very small. senator mccaskill: what about nhtsa? do you support the efforts we have ongoing to ground rental cars that have not been repaired? mr. rosekind: absolutely. miss mccass -- mr. senator mccaskill: i would like to put into the record a written statement for the record if i might -- i now want to go to this audit. my colleagues are patient with me because i'm an audit weirdo. used to be an auditor so i read this stuff. mr. scovel knows i'm somebody who consumes these things. this audit report is one of the
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worst i have ever seen. in terms of a government agency. and the reason it's so bad, i agree, mr. scovel, this isn't about resources. this is about blatant incompetent mismanagement, mr. rosekind. let's just go through one of many shortcomings. this is one that jumped out to me. when to open an investigation. now, if nhtsa isn't clear about when an investigation is to be opened, we might as well shut it down. the inspector general found -- there are three factors to be considered about an investigation. rate of consumer complaints, severity of potential safety issues, and identification of root cause. now, here's the scary part. based on the interviews, the inspector general did, there's disagreement within your agency over when an investigation can even be opened. the general counsel said,
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severity must be established for all cases along with frequency and root causes. the o.d.i. assessment division chief says all three should be met. the o.d.i. director does not think a root cause is necessary. and prefers a focus on safety consequences. and the o.d.i.'s two investigative chiefs agree that a root cause is not necessary. so you've got key personnel within your agency that aren't even on the same page about when an investigation should occur. i assume that you're getting busy on this as a baby step before you get at all the other problems that are in this audit. mr. rosekind: there are actually 44 distinct actions we are taking. that's one of them. those people are in the same room determining what the threshold and criteria should be. senator mccaskill: do you
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believe that everyone that works there knows what their authorities are? do you believe that there is a clear understanding about what the investigative authorities are at nhtsa? mr. rosekind: i think the people that have the specific authorities assigned to them are aware of those, but you just highlighted where those lines have been blurred and clarifications are needed. senator mccaskill: on average, only four times a year over the past four years has o.d.i. even requested underlying documentation for death and injury reports. four times a year. that to me is stunning. although you have the authority to inspect manufacturers' records for compliance with early warning requirements, nhtsa officials told the i.g. the agency has never used this authority. never used the authority to inspect manufacturers' records for compliance with early warning requirements. i think you're doing your best.
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i think you understand the severity of the situation before you. but i was shocked when i read this i.g. report how bad it was. i knew it was bad when the acting director before you didn't even know you had subpoena power. we discovered that the previous hearing. we are going to be watching very carefully, mr. rosekind, the kind of work you do immediately. i disagree with my kwleeg, i'm not about to give you more money until i see meaningful progress on reforming the internal processes in this organization. you can't start throwing money until you have a system in place that's going to make this agency function like it's supposed to. thank you, mr. scovel, for your work. it's very illuminating. thank you for working so hard since you have been there. not fair to blame you for all this. you're trying as hard as you can to get the place shaped up. we have a long way to go. i would hope, mr. chairman, we would do a follow-up every four
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to six months to see how they are doing on the i.g.'s list. i think the driving public deserves so much better from the cop on the beat. thank you. senator thune: thank you. senator klobuchar. senator klobuchar: thank you for holding this hearing. i think it's important to hold hearings like this after something major a like we saw with takata and g.m. after last november. after takata airbags were susceptible to ruptures in regions. i called on takata to expand the recall nationally last month. they finally complied and expanded the recall nationwide for certain types of driver and passenger side airbags. one of the individuals affected by tata can -- takata airbags is a woman from minnesota of the she's permanently blind. she was simply a passenger in a car that wasn't going very fast that was in what we would consider a minor fender-bender. is now permanently blind.
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mr. rosekind, what tools does nhtsa need to compel companies to act sooner? mr. rosekind: part of what we are looking at besides resources related to personnel are three. other agencies within d.o.t. have a hazard, if a harsard would have been identified we would have been able to take those airbags off the street sooner. there are a variety of authorities. senator klobuchar: would that be established by law? mr. rosekind: yes, those are authorities you congress, have to provide. senator klobuchar: was it helpful in getting them to act? mr. rosekind: yes, i think what you're pointing out is we were able to go to $14,000 a day, which was the maximum. on our list of authorities that we are looking for in grow america, that's another one. maximum penalty, $35 million. we are looking for $300 million. senator klobuchar: last month, nhtsa filed a notice of intent
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to open a coordinated remedy program for airbag inflaters to consider how nhtsa will exercise its authority to organize and prioritize the recall and remedy program. how is nhtsa approaching the replacement of these airbags to ensure vehicles that are most at risk are replaced first? mr. rosekind: that's why we sent out information letters to all of the 11 manufacturers. the suppliers. and collecting information so we could put a plan together to do just that. we have have talked about an accelerated recommenddy. this is more than making it go faster. it means coordinating and prioritizing to make sure people in the areas that have been identified for risk which has to do with age, certain geography those people need to make sure they are replaced as soon as possible. senator klobuchar: switching to the g.m. issue. we had a case of a woman riding with her two friends in a 2005 chiff yes could he butt on a
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wisconsin country road. without warning the electronics wept out. natasha and another passenger were killed when it ran into a tree. the report found that wisconsin state trooper keith young conducted an investigation into the crash that clearly made that link. this is a state trooper in wisconsin between the defective ignition switch anti-failure of the airbag to deploy. it cracked the code that evated -- evaded g.m. for years. this is what he wrote, the two front seat airbags failed to deploy. we know this is all troubling and in december i asked you what concrete changes you would implement at nhtsa to improve the consumer complaint process. i would like to know what systems nhtsa has put in place to ensure that the office of defect investigation investigators are in possession
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of critical information like trooper young's report. i would like some assurance that they are now acting. mr. rosekind: i'm going to start by acknowledging this committee, whether it's your opening statement mentioning safercar.gov or the fact each of you talked about one of the tragedies, you put a face with the tragedies going on, it is so critical for people to know these are real people being affected. so thank you for doing that. i would say specifically we did talk about this in my confirmation hearing and we have new systems already in place such as a case management system that allows our crash investigators as well as the screeners and the panels to look at this information from multiple sources all in one place. it's an attempt to basically connect those dots so people working on this have all available information. senator klobuchar: there were about 260 complaints over an 11 year period from consirmse that the g.m. vehicle had turned off while they were driving. somehow over those 11 years those dots weren't connected. as you said, there's been a
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change. how does that change work in effect? mr. rosekind: we are talking about panels and screeners that now have access to the information previously. there could be an update or piece of information and the person responsible for that case didn't even get an alert there had been an up date. now you have more data and making sure every time there is new data, that individual who is responsible gets the information in one place. senator klobuchar: thank you very much. i'll probably have more questions for the record. thank you again. . >> somebody who like senator nelson has been involved on these issues so i'd like to recognize senator blumenthal. senator nelson: i want to appreciate you having this hearing today which i know reflects your own interest and caring about this subject and to my distinguished colleague from florida thank you for your eloquent and powerful statement.
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i want to pursue some of the lines that have been raised already, lines of question that reflect the real-life consequences that you said mr. rosekind. just to show you first one of the air bags that actually bears the marks of the -- in effect exploding shreds of metal that so injured eight people that they were killed and many others but the real fault is not with the air bag. there's no blood on the air bag. some may say there is blood on the hands of takata who covered up the exposure of these explosions. the fault, really is with this
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device. the inflator. because it contained a substance that caused this explosion. ammonium nitrate when moistened became explosive and the question for takata today is whether these devices are any safer than they were when they killed eight people. and the evidence may well show that these inflators are as dangerous today as they were when takata first learned that they were potential killers. as early as 2004, 2006, that they are as dangerous today and should be completely revamped and revised in their basic design and structure which takata has not yet done. the number of deaths reported
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so far is eight. i feel that that number is a lot like the number 13 that was first acknowledged by g.m. as caused by its defective ignition switch. we now know that that number is at least 117 because of the findings of the compensation fund, that g.m. established only after i and others on this committee called for them to do it. that number of eight may well blow. it may be only the tiny fractional tip of the iceberg of death that was caused by these exploding air bags. and so i believe as has been stated, that this report is a
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devastating indictment. but let's not forget the responsibility of corporate executives who could have and should have fully disclosed and then protected their customers from these devastatingly deadly devices. i think that that covered of cover-up and concealment is one of the low points in corporate conduct and it represents the need to strengthen not only the agency that you had, mr. rosekind we need to strengthen that agency, not strangle it. we need to provide more resources and funds, not cut but a cop is only as good as the legal tools that he has.
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a cop is only as good as the laws that are enforced. and so i have proposed, along with my colleagues, senator markey, senator nelson, a collection of new laws that will strengthen your legal tools because ultimately we can use all the rhetoric we want in this room, in press conferences, in public forums but the rhetoric is no good without real action and institutional change and new laws that give you the tools you need. so for example eliminating the caps on penalties, not just raising them, but eliminating the caps on penalties for nondisclosure. the early warning reporting act that will give you the mandate to establish a database that's useful to consumers so they can take action and protect themselves. the automaker accountability act that i proposed.
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as well as criminal penalties imposed, not just on the companies, but on the corporate executives when they cover up or conceal defects. and as my colleague, senator mccaskill, already said, rental car companies need to be held accountable but also used car dealers. at least one of these takata deaths occurred as a result of a used car and the manufacturers and dealers can't find the present owner of the car because he or she has bought it as a used car. automobile manufacturers and new car dealers are required to repair safety recalls before selling recalled vehicles under current law but there's no requirement that used car dealers fix any outstanding safety defects before selling a used car and this gap in
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consumer protection puts people at risk. so i think there are a number of preventive acts that can be taken and not the least of them is that any settlement such as happened with the g.m. ignition defect be disclosed fully secret. settlements ought to be banned. that's why i proposed the sunshine in litigation act, with my colleague, senator graham, and i hope to revive it again. so i want to know from you whether you will join me, mr. rosekind, in seeking these basic fundamental reforms that will be important going forward -- we can allot and blame as much as we wish for the failures of the past and there
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have been deadly failures but repairing this system and reforming it going forward ought to be our concern and it is not just oversight. it's addressing these problems with new legislation and successors so there's real institutional change. mr. rosekind: i just wanted to start by saying thank you. yes, what you've seen over the last months is nhtsa's willingness to use all the authorities and tools available to us to get action. if we don't have those authorities or even the maximum is even ineffective we can't do our job so we'll support and provide other technical and other assistance to help with those new authorities. mr. blumenthal: and you need more re-- senator blumenthal: and you need more resources, do you not? mr. rosekind: yes. senator blumenthal: 6,000 employees compared to your 90, is that not a glaring
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deficiency, does not reflect a lack of investment in your agency and in the safety of our roads and drivers? mr. rosekind: and you're citing a chart that's in our work force assessment that makes that comparison. so with under 500 deaths in aviation accidents they have 6,000 safety professionals working at that number. in the rail industry they have under 10. and they've got close to 700 professionals working on that. and we have in 2013, 3 ,719 lives lost on our roadways and at nhtsa we have 90 people dealing with those. blumeblume if our airplanes -- senator blumenthal: if our airplanes and airspace were as dangerous as our cars and our roads, corporate officials would be indicted and there would be sweeping changes in the airline industry. the lack of dramatic crashes is perhaps what enables the drip by drip, crash-by-crash
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tragedies that have been detailed here. and this nation has to make the kind of investment in your agency that lawedably has made in the safety of our -- laudablely has made in our safety of our airspace. mr. thune: we have a vote going -- senator thune: we have a vote going on. i'll go over and vote and if we get to the end of people that want to -- gavel it, pick up as soon as we get to the vote. senator markey. senator markey: senator blumenthal and i have a bill the early warning reporting snarns improvement act that would require automakers to automatically provide more documents about potentially defective cars to nhtsa and requires nhtsa to then make
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more of that information available to the public so that it can protect itself. and we can't get back the 117 people whose lives were lost to the g.m. ignition switch defect. we can't get back the eight people whose lives were taken by exploding takata air bags. but dr. rosekind, you do have right now the authority to implement many of the changes that the markey-blumenthal early reporting bill requires. you can take permanent measures, even without a new law to put information about fatal defects into the hands of the public in case nhtsa's analysts fail to spot the next ignition switch or exploding air bag defects. you can look at the families who lost their parents children spouses or siblings because of these defects and you can tell them that you did everything. you could to make sure that their lives were lost in vain. dr. rosekind, will you call for
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a nhtsa rulemaking to require automakers to provide the early warning documents that alert them to potentially fatal defects to nhtsa and to have nhtsa then make this information public? mr. rosekind: the agency and i will do everything we can with the transparency fert agency to try and make that information available. numerous examples already raised. if the information had been available that could have helped us save lives. our interest would be to look at that and make sure our current legal requirements wouldn't actually impede that objective. senator markey: will you do a rulemaking, mr. rosekind, to make sure there is a formalized process to make sure the information goes to the agency and the agency discloses it to the public so they can protect themselves? mr. rosekind: and i will commit to looking at what shape that could look like knowing what our current legal obligations are versus confidentialally.
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just very simply, the manufacturers have that data. they don't have the federal restrictions we do related to confidentiality and privacy. senator markey: will you do a rulemaking doctor, consistent with the privacy act and confidential proprietary information to ensure through the rulemaking that any information which you can make public will be made public? and that the auto industry will be forced to give you that information, will you conduct a rulemaking to achieve that goal? mr. rosekind: i will determine whether -- whatever we can do for transparency i'll determine whether or not a rulemaking is even needed. senator markey: well -- so you will do everything then, that is allowed by law to ensure that the auto industry will provide you with the information about defects and that nhtsa will then release that information? you will do everything that is
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allowed by existing law? mr. rosekind: that's what we'll look into and make sure we provide that transparency, yes. senator markey: you're saying you don't need a rulemaking in order to accomplish that goal? mr. rosekind: that's what i will senator markey: will you do a rulemaking if one is required after are you determine the scope of your authority under the existing rules? will you do a rulemaking if it's necessary? mr. rosekind: if the rulemaking would be used for transparency, yes. senator markey: i think that's important. i think that will really give the information to the public which they need. if people can go online to buy a car, they should be able to go online in order to determine if that car has a defect which could harm a family member. so the sooner you put it online, the sooner you put that information up, the sooner that you get that information out there is the more accountable the industry's going to be. they'll know then that the consumers will be king.
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the consumers will be protecting their families. the consumers will be able to ensure that any successor nhtsa will be accountable in ensuring that information is made public. now, senator blumenthal and i have another bill and that bill is one that says that a used car that's now purchased by someone may have a recall that actually ensures that there is a three replacement part but -- free replacement part but the person that purchased the new car really doesn't know about it. so our bill would require that when that new owner registers their cars that they're made aware of the safety defects. and that those repairs are made. would you support that kind of legislation, dr. rosekind?
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mr. rosekind: it is important to get those people informed. grow america talks about that. there is no sense of the technology to do that, the cost, the procedures, etc. and making sure that the consumers basically don't have any negative affects from a defect created by a manufacture. so absolutely this could be a touch point. and grow america, we're suggesting pilot programs to work that technology, the cost procedures out to figure how it can go national. marcus behling thank you. -- senator markey: thank you. >> i'm doing the heavy lifting with the gavel. senator peters. senator peters: i appreciate both the panelists and your testimony. mr. rosekind, i hear you when you say that this helps and if the agency will be able to deliver effective oversight for vehicle safety we in congress here need to consider increasing your funding as well as having stable funding so you can modernize your crash data collection systems hiring
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additional experts and hire investigation. before that happens i am sure you know very well you must prove that your agency can actually do this effectively. and in place the procedures that ensure the work is done in a timely manner and you know as well as anybody time is of the essence. the more time that lapses oftentimes means more deaths as a result of problems. now, i personally see all the time in michigan the incredible progress that the auto industry is making to develop new technologies focused on collision avoidance and mitigation. these new developments, without question will make traveling on our nation's roads much safer, smarter, more energy efficient and at the same time less congested and congress i believe, needs to do its part to promote these policies that will help us usher in this new age and era of safety and mobility and the first step should be to ensure that nhtsa has the resources to not only address the major issues that
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it's facing today. and one in particular with air bags, but also encourage the development of these new technologies that have the potential to save thousands of lives in the future. but it will be difficult to secure these -- this funding and the ability to move this incredible technology forward if folks like myself and fellow members of congress are not confident nat resources will be deployed in an effective manner. as the i.g. report has made clear, there is considerable amount of work to do. administrator rosekind, this recall you are involved in now is an unprecedented scale. you introduced a number of problems and initiatives in order to do this. you told our committee about the 17 recommendations of the i.g. which reiterate many of the findings of your own internal report and about how you anticipate the agency being able to implement these recommendations before the end of the year. sir, can you say that nhtsa can adequately coordinate nate this recall that you're in the --
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coordinate this recall that you're in the middle of right now without these reforms without more funding from congress? mr. rosekind: we already have that plan in place. we have to affect this recall with current resources, that's the plan. senator peters: that will be an opportunity for us to see the effective of your agency to be able to use these resources, to be able to do this in an exat the died dithed way? mr. rosekind: correct. senator peters: you identified certainly an alarming lack of transparency and accountability. a severely deficient work force both in volume and technical expertise and as i mentioned earlier, and you have mentioned here you delivered 17 recommendations. and mittsa has concurred. you provided detailed actions steps needed to take changes. you have intimate knowledge of this agency as a result of your work. do you believe that this agency is capable of making these changes and how long do you think it will take?
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mr. scovel: thank you, senator peters. i'd hold the administrator to his word. when he responded to our audit report he indicated not only concurrence but a very aggressive intent to make good on all of those in a relatively short time period in dealing with other modes of the department of transportation. clearly the burden is on the agency at this point to make good on its promises, to reform its processes so that it may then come to congress and back to the american people and say we're prepared to handle what we have and by the way we may able to do a better job as a policy matter we be accorded more resources. right now sir the burden is on the administrator. senator peters: and you have set a very aggressive time line of one year. based on your independent mate knowledge, and you have a lot of experience with a lot of different agencies is that
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really a realistic time line? mr. scovel: i would. i would say that's the administrator's own time line which we endorse, we are hopeful. we will bird dog these recommendations and the implementation of them as carefully as we have anything else in our long history of providing oversight for the department safety regulatory agencies. senator peters: i'll will be with you working closely. that's my frustration when you get recommendations from the i.g. there is lip service and never follow-through and one year turns into two years and three years. in the case of the work of this agency, these are people's lives at stake. and we need to have a robust regulator that's able to also help us in the industry, in the auto industry in this country to move to even more dramatic safety improvements with some of the v-2-v and v-2-i technologies moving forward. thank you so much.
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>> senator peters, thank you. mr. rosekind, looks like you and i will have a one-on-one conversation and mr. scovel, it's not because i don't appreciate your work and i appreciate both witnesses being here and i don't think i will complete the questioning. it's my understanding we will have more members back after they get back from the floor. hopefully if not we'll go to recess until they do. i want to talk a little bit about this gap in consumer protection that others were talking about. last saturday i dropped my daughter's car off at the dealership. i usually do most of the work myself. my father owned an automotive business. it was an independent auto repair service. and so the question becomes, if you are the second owner, fourth owner of a particular vehicle, when i went into that dealership does that dealership have an obligation to tell me if or not there's a
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recall on that particular make and model? mr. rosekind: they do not. that's part of our grow america authority request is to get that kind of independent -- if you go to a new car dealer they should do that for you automatically. senator heller: are they obligated to do that? if you go to a new car dealership today are they obligated on a service maintenance contract you have with them to tell if you there's a recall? mr. rosekind: yes, they should be doing that for you. senator heller: are they obligated, are they required? mr. rosekind: yes. senator heller: i asked and they gave me the answer. i have no reason to question it. i don't know if i've ever been to a dealership that i dropped a car off that they told me and maybe they don't have to unless you have a recall so i'm not putting that into question. so you're saying if i took that vehicle instead to a jiffy lube they wouldn't be obligated to tell me if there was a recall? mr. rosekind: correct. senator heller: gas station, none of them are responsible?
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is that correct? mr. rosekind: that's correct. senator heller: how's that going to change? mr. rosekind: in grow america we asked to change that so that everybody, not just the new car manufacturers but all those independents would also be required to run that check. and inform you. senator heller: if your tendency is to bring your car to an independent station, what is your alternative then to know about a recall? what is the alternative? mr. rosekind: what we're recommending is that everybody on a regular basis, even weekly, go to safercar.gov and look up your vin number. senator heller: so you're an 18-year-old girl, would you go to safetycar.gov? mr. rosekind: no way. senator heller: i'm a parent. i know you're a parent too. and hope you had a good father's day. how do you protect that child as a parent, as a parent that represents everybody here in
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this room, how do you protect that child knowing that they won't go to safer.gov. i will and i will check for her. i guess a better question is what percentage of america even has heard of safercar.gov? mr. rosekind: that's a good question. i'm going to fuelly find that out to know about safercar.gov and know about the visibility is. i think last year there was so much discussion about recall if a teak teague, do people know where to go, it's a huge problem. one of the things we have on our list of actions already under way is creating a national campaign. nhtsa is the one who runs click it or ticket. driver over pulled over. we want to use that same effect in this to go after this issue. because i'm with you. it's great to come here and for us to announce safercar.gov. there are too many people like our kids that won't do that. we have to figure out how to fill those gaps. senator heller: i'm going to stop my questioning here.
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thank you so much for your hard work. i'm going to go down on the senator. i'll turn it over to senator daines at this point. thank you very much. senator daines: thank you so much, senator heller. i'm truly am grateful this committee is highlighting the safety challenges of takata's air bags that have killed eight people. however, there are other recalls that i believe need attention and further underscores nhtsa's lack of efficacy. last summer there was a fire truck, a 2002 model, an international model 4800 that front axle by the bone socket seized and it caused -- caused a shaft to break, seized up the left wheel, front wheel. it was coming down highway 12 just outside of helen, montana. i drive this all the tifmente it was during daylight hours.
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weather conditions were fine. and this fire truck veered in incoming traffic and the volunteer fire chief in the truck was killed in a very violent head-on collision. and there was a family of five, mom and dad and three small children in the back in a pickup that were also killed. when i drive back and forth -- in fact, i went by that accident site just days after it happened you can see the marks coming in the tire marks in a straightaway where this horrible collision occurred. there are six white crosses now standing by the side of the highway where that occurred. this particular front drive shaft has been recalled in approximately 500 vehicles. notification is being mailed this month. now, this accident occurred on june 19 of last year. so the notifications went out just in the last 10 days.
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a year after the accident. and it turns out this exact component of a nhtsa approved solution to a previous recall that occurred in 2003. with that as background, dr. rosekind, the recent o.i.g. report frequently makes references to the defects, the lack of process, the procedures, weak data analysis contained in these reports which i looked over. they've made 17 recommendations to o.d.i. to improve early warning reporting data, improved dare data verification processes to institute external reviews and evaluate staff training amongst other recommendations. unfortunately, this is not the first time many of these recommendations have been made. the o.i.g. highlighted similar issues and made similar recommendations in 2002, in
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2004, in 2011, in 2014 and now here we are in 2015. so my question dr. rosekind, navistar declared a recall two months after the accident. they moved quickly with an interim solution. but 12 months after the accident the solution is being executed. you mention in your testimony it is the automakers' responsibility to dend render defective components. my question is, why is it taking a year for something like this? and what are the nhtsa scientists and engineers doing to expedite these solutions to mitigate these safety risks to all americans? mr. rosekind: i said this earlier. i don't think you can say this enough. this committee, that story about the tragedy of those lives lost can't be told enough so we personalized, add a human face to every one of these tragedies. what you're highlighting is
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something we identified. if they are not remedied you still have the risk and that's what's going on here. and part of the reason that you were citing is basically making sure in a timely manner a correct, long-term permanent solution is in place. so i just learned about this and you can count on me going back to figure out exactly the specifics. even more of what you're telling me happened to see what's going on. senator daines: the fire chief was turning to three forks, montana. it was a nice summer evening. good daylight in a straightaway. you see this young couple and their kids in the back of a pickup. and it's a road i drive all the time and it was just the innocence of the lives lost i think is so shrilling. more importantly, could this have been preventive? you look at the process and procedures, the speed at which the remedies are put in place, i'd greatly appreciate you take a look at that.
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you know, part of that is how many times has nhtsa had more than one recall on the same vehicle component? i know you're new to the job. i appreciate your leadership. i know you have a long to-do list. i appreciate you looking at that. we had repeat recalls here so we can prevent these tragedies. since i'm the only senator here, i'm going to keep going until i run out of time. mr. scoval, do the office of general maintain -- mr. scovel: can he don't maintain that kind of database. it's focused on the preinvestigative phase and not the recall phase. senator daines: i might suggest that's something to look at. the systemic challenges that exist today that again with the goal here being preventing these tragedies from ever
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happening again, the pain these families now, the pain never goes away. nhtsa's office of defects and investigation has had over a decade to implement numerous recommendations from your office. what do you see the challenge is why it's taking so long to implement? mr. scovel: senator, some of those recommendations were tailored for the circumstances in the unique programs that we were examining at the time. for instance, the 2002 and 2004 reports that you referenced, we're examining nhtsa's ability to implement requirements of the newly enacted thread act. in 2011 we were looking at the investigative phase primarily of nhtsa's operations. in the current audit we were looking at the preinvestigative phase. i don't want to be -- to sound overly -- like i'm overly parsing this. we're trying to defect each and every phase of nhtsa's safety operation with the idea of
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being able to commend what's going on right, find out what's going on wrong and make effective recommendations to improve. our recommendations in this case all concurred in by the agency, very aggressive time line for their implementation. we believe they can all be implemented, in fact, with current resources. i think that's the agency's intent. most commendable on their part. what dr. rosekind is attempting to do in our estimation is to change the organizational culture of nhtsa at least the defects investigation and resolution part of the operation. senator daines: and i spent 28 years in business before i took this different day job up on the hill. they always say it's what you inspect, not what you expect. and the importance of clear metrics. and i think there should be one looks like on perhaps speed in
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terms of how quickly how we're going from an accident to action in the field here that's going to correct the defect. mr. scovel: right. senator daines: it seemed navistar they were in the field for two months, why did it take a year there is a 10-month gap there. mr. scovel: i think you're talking about safety steps that can be taken by way of corrective action or by way of recall. remember again if you will our current audit focused on the preinvestigative phase. we did get to the timing element of that part of nhtsa's effort. our audit report, not so much our statement for today's hearing, but our audit report released at the end of last week did discuss the length of time it took for an investigative proposal to be evaluated, assessed and decided within the office of defects
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investigation. that's the key step, of course, because you're never going to get to a possible corrective action or recall at least in a position to be influenced by nhtsa unless you get through this investigation, proposal evaluation and decision stage. we found one instance where an investigative proposal language wished five months. this is very recently within the last year. another one had been on the books for more than a year without resolution. there's a securitious pattern for evaluation and discussion within the office of defects investigation of some of these investigative proposals. but again to pick up on dr. rosekind's opening remarks at this point question assumptions. one of the assumptions that desperately must be questioned is how can we speed up the decision loop so we can get to
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the decision to investigate sooner and hopefully get to corrective action sooner. senator daines: i'm sure it was thorough and we properly identified the problem and how to mitigate the risk. it just seems as though we're seeing a pretty big gap there. i appreciate your efforts as well to change the culture, to look at ways we can move faster and the senator and the chairman just returned here. mr. chairman, i'm going to turn it back to you. but thank you for your thoughtful comments. senator thune: thank you to the senator from montana for reside ing -- residing here as we went through the first vote. thank you, mr. rosekind, mr. scovel, i want to thank you for your testimony. i'll call the second panel up and we'll get going with that.
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senator thune: we want to welcome our second panel of witnesses this morning. thank you for being here for your testimony. i will hand it off for opening statements. we have with us with kevin kennedy, executive vice president of north america for takata. mr. scott kunselman who is the senior vice president, vehicle safety and regulatory compliance with chrysler. formerly known as chrysler group. and mr. rick schostek, executive vice president for honda north america. so i'm going to ask if we could on my left and your right, mr. kennedy, if you will proceed with your testimony and we'll go from there. and if you can confine it to close to five minutes as possible. mr. kennedy. [inaudible] mr. kennedy: is it on now? my apologies.
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chairman thune ranking member nelson and distinguished members of the committee i'm honored to be here on behalf of takata and our employees throughout the united states. for takata, safety is the core of what we do and who we are. we're proud that takata air bags have saved thousands of lives and prevented serious injuries in hundreds of thousands of accidents. it is unacceptable to us for even one of our products to fail to perform as intended. we deeply regret each instance in which someone has been injured or killed. we will do everything in our power to address the safety concerns raised by air bag ruptures. our chairman met twice with administrator rosekind and made that commitment personally. that's why after months of testing and extensive analysis we voluntarily agreed with nhtsa to take broad action in conjunction with the automakers to respond to your concerns and
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those of the public. our agreement with nhtsa contemplates dramatically expanded recalls including national recalls going well beyond the scope of the risks suggested by the sciencing and the testing. based on more than 57,000 tests of returned inflators in years of research by leading experts from around the world, our best current judgment is that the rupture issues are related to long-term exposure over many years to persistent conditions of high heat and high humidity. for some inflators these may also involve potential manufacturing and vehicle-specific factors. most field ruptures have involved older inflators in the region of high heat and absolute humidity. the potential for rupture is limited to an extremely small fraction of inflators. that's why takata's filings say
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the say safety related defects may rise in some of the inflators. not all inflators are defective but even one rupture is too many so our remedy program is much broader. most of the injuries and all of the fatalities in the u.s. sbroff driver-side inflator that featured the bat wing shape propellers. we have agreed to replace all of the bat wing driver inflators. from the start of production through the end of production in any vehicle registered anywhere in the united states. these recalls will proceed in stages and the final stage will include the replacement bat wing inflators previously installed as remedy parts. we are ceasing production of the bat wing inflators altogether. there have been far fewer field ruptures involving passenger side air bags. nevertheless our agreement
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with nhtsa also contemplates significantly expanded recalls for passenger air bag inflators. to support these recalls, our total production of replacement kits for north america will soon reach one million per month. we have august jment our capacity to produce replacement kits by including inflators made by other suppliers. we are investing in innovation and working with our automaker customers to develop a range of new inflator products. at the same time takata continues to serve its customers by producing air bag inflators to use ammonium nitrate propelent which has efficiency benefits over alternative propelents. we're using various technologies in response of the recalls. the process of qualifying new products takes time and for certain types of air bags and certain models the best solution today is to use
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existing technologies in placement of the units. we agree with nhtsa it's absolutely the right response to public safety concerns not to wait but to replace an older unit with a new inflator. doing so provides an important safety benefit. we have agreed with nhtsa to do ongoing testing to verify the safety and the service life of these remedy parts. if they need to be replaced in the future we will act before a potential risk of rupture develops. we are also supporting the testing work of the automakers and nhtsa as well as the work of the independent quality assurance panel led by former secretary of transportation sam skinner. and we will work with the automakers to get the word out to consumers to help maximize recall completion rates. we will continue to do all we can to ensure uncompromised safety and we will keep you and the public updated on our progress. thank you, mr. chairman. senator thune: thank you, mr.
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kennedy. mr. kunselman. mr. kunselman: thank you. chairman thune, ranking member nelson, members of the committee. thank you for the opportunity to appear today and provide an update on this important matter. my name is scott kunselman and i'm the senior vice president, head of vehicle safety and regulatory compliance at f.c.a. u.s., l.l.c. formerly known as chrysler. we have a mission re-we emigration with passion. as you know f.c.a.'s involvement with takata air bags is extensive, proactive and ongoing. today's automobiles are among the most sophisticated and complex consumer goods on the market. auto manufacturers are more committed than ever to developing advanced safety technologies to reduce fatalities and injuries resulting from motor vehicle crashes. on a daily basis, we work to design, engineer and manufacture vehicles to withstand a myriad of operating conditions. promoting and ensuring vehicle
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safety is a responsibility shared by automakers suppliers, government and even consumers. f.c.a. looks forward to continuing this collective engagement with takata and nhtsa to help address this critical situation related to air bag inflators. f.c.a. has remained actively engaged with takata since i spoke with this committee last year. much as transpired since that time. through multiple campaign expansions and based on information from both takata and actions by nhtsa, f.c.a. is now in the process of recalling 4.8 million inflators in approximately 4.2 million vehicles across the united states. we are also aggressively taking actions on multiple fronts to assist in determining the root cause of inflator ruptures which remains unknown at this time. f.c.a. is an active participant in the independent testing coalition, a group consisting
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of all 11 affected manufacturers formed in december of 2014 and, again, trying to independently determine the root cause of inflator ruptures. in addition, f.c.a. continues to return recalled inflators to takata to further their research and understanding. but despite the lack of root cause determination to date, f.c.a.'s mission to identify and implement solutions that will improve the safety of our customers has not been delayed. today i'm pleased to share with the committee that as of june 8, 2015, f.c.a.'s replacing all driver side inflators involved in the recall with an alternative and permanent design provided by t.r.w. customers who receive the t.r.w. inflator replacement will require no other action on their vehicles. the takata inflators are no longer needed are being quarantined and returned from our dealers to takata. all of the approximately 50,000 customers who previously received a takata inflator will be notified to return for the t.r.w. update as well. in addition to these driver side efforts, f.c.a. has been
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working with takata to develop improved versions of the passenger inflator designs. these new versions will contain an improved ignitor material as well as a desicant to help protect the propelent from moisture. f.c.a. will start installing those at the beginning of the year flfment is a single incident of a high pressure deployment involving a driver side air bag causing an injury in one of our vehicles. our actions demonstrate the abundance of caution we are employing to protect our customers. in closing, i'd like to reiterate our belief that promoting and ensuring vehicle safety is the responsibility shared by automakers suppliers, government and consumers and f.c.a. will continue to collaborate with takata and nhtsa and others to aggressively address this matter. i once again extend my thanks to the committee for discussing this important issue, and i would be pleased to answer any questions. senator thune: thank you, mr.
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kunselman. mr. schostek. mr. schosktek: i appreciate the committee. let me begin by acknowledging that in the past two weeks we have confirmed that two more customers lost their lives. one in september, 2014, and the other in april of this year as a result of takata air bag inflator ruptures that have occurred in our older model vehicles. this is heartbreaking. and a painful reminder to us of the reason we continue to urgently accelerate our actions to repair the affected vehicles. but of course the real pain is experienced by the families of the victims. we sincerely apologize to them and extend our deepest sympathies. we are working very hard to solve this problem. over and above the required mailed notification to affected customers, we have pursued new and creative ideas to encourage our customers to check their
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vehicle identification number in order to increase the rate of response to the recalls. we have enhanced our general recalls website and created a new microsite dedicated to this issue to keep our customers informed and make it easy for them to check their vehicles for open recalls. honda also voluntarily initiated a bilingual regional advertising program in march to implore customers to repair their vehicles. this campaign of radio commercials and full-page newspaper ads represented here to my left was designed to grab the attention of customers in the nine high temperature and absolute humidity states and to u.s. territories. we're also using social media channels in a targeted way including via facebook with good success and let me add, mr. chairman, whenever we issue a press release or statement on this matter we specifically request that the news media help us spread the word by directing customers to our
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recall reserve the balance of my time websites so they can look up their vin and get their vehicle repaired. and we have repaired the -- and we have appreciated the news media help with this effort. to increase the supply of air bag inflators, honda proactively began searching for alternative supply solutions to more quickly facilitate the repairs of these older model vehicles. and that effort led to others to help with replacement parts as well as takata. by the actions taken by our dealers, we are averaging more than 50,000 repairs per week. we have also asked our dealers to expand their service hours and never turn away a customer with an affected vehicle. we require dealer to check the vin that comes to their dealer. to support this policy in february we initiated a new system that alerts dealers whenever their staff fails to check a vin of a car brought in
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for service to see if it has an open recall. we've also reinforced with our dealers honda's firm policy to provide affected customers with a loner or rental car free of charge while their vehicle is being repaired or if they're waiting for a replacement part to be delivered. all dealers are authorized to make a vehicle available to a customer without prior approval from honda. we've also been searching salvage yards nationwide to find and secure recalled inflators. we've already identified many thousands of inflators from salvage yards now will never be installed in another vehicle. in some markets we've enlisted a special investigatively firm as part of our effort to get hard to reach owners affected by the takata recalls. mr. chairman it's particular difficult to locate the customers the. we need to find a way to tie
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the annual state vehicle registration process that safety defects be addressed before completion of vehicle registration. subsequently stephanie who was injured by a takata inflator rupture, and who was here last fall joined me in support of the idea of such a registration requirement. we continue to believe there is substantial promise with this approach and we want to thank senators markey and blumenthal for introducing s. 617. i recognize there are some issues about the concept that require further discussion. but i am convinced this is the single most significant step we can take. again, i very much appreciate the opportunity to be here before the committee and be happy to address your questions. thank you. senator thune thank you. mr. kennedy, takata has urged to get -- even if the root cause is not yet been
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identified in those replacements may have to be replaced again some years down the road. we're all concerned that this very serious safety issue has persisted for way too long. we got eight people have died. numerous others have received serious injuries. takata's been looking at this problem for several years. we need to know why this happened and make sure it doesn't happen again. so tell me what takata's doing to find the root cause. mr. kennedy: well, senator. we have been working with a number of -- a number of avenues to get to root cause. as you mentioned, we have been working on this for a number of years. we have been working with an institute from germany who is the leading expert in the world on propelents and pressure vessel designs. we have learned much, especially in the last six to eight months as to what the root cause of this is.
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we understand the mechanism. we understand -- excuse me -- a number of the factors that caused the issues. but as you said, we do not have a definitive root cause that we can turn on and off. but in spite of that we have gone forward with nhtsa and the automakers to replace parts because this is in the best interest of the public safety. senator thune: without a root cause we don't know whether or not the new replacement inflators have the same defect. so why is it a good idea to put new inflators into cars that might have the same defect? mr. kennedy: let me talk about that a little bit. many of the replacement parts are alternative designs. they are not the same design that was originally used. as i mentioned, the -- particularly on the driver side, the bat wing inflators were the ones that had -- have caused all the fatalities in the field as well as most of
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the serious injuries and we are not replacing with bat wings. we will go out and get every bat wing that was ever made including all of the remedy parts. and we're also -- as mr. kunselman and mr. schostek talked about, we're using alternative inflators from many of our competitors in order to speed replacement parts out into the field. and then we are continuing to work to improve the current inflators, as mr. kunselman mentioned as well, in order to make them more robust. and part of the consent order requires us and nhtsa and the automakers to continue to get the parts back and evaluate the remedy parts to make sure that they are safe. senator thune: well, these replacement bags, though, are they going to be safer than the original equipment, than the inflator, the original air bags? mr. kennedy: well, what we do know is that it takes a considerably long time for this condition to manifest itself.
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previously administrator rosekind had said seven to 12 years. we know there is a large increase in public safety and in the margin of safety by just putting a brand new inflator in. and we do know that on some of the passenger side ones there were some manufacturing defects that we've been able to uncover with the testing we've done in the last six months. so we feel very confident in the inflators that we are making today. senator thune: mr. kunselman takata has said that the replacement inflators are safe in the interim but require replacement later at date. nhtsa has supported this approach. you stated that fiat chrysler of america will be replacing all recalled driver side inflators with an alternative design by t.r.w. and described t.r.w.'s design as permanent. the customers who receive the t.r.w. replacement will not need to come back in for another replacement. given that we still don't know
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the root cause for this defect, why are you so confident that the t.r.w. inflators will not have to be replaced in the near future? mr. kunselman: the one that we're replacing has a proven -- it has a track record and we are not aware of any issues in the field. we were fortunate to have an available inflator with the right characteristics to utilize in our vehicle program that has a track record. and i'm unaware of issues in the past. that explains the confidence. senator thune: mr. kunselman and mr. schostek, for our automakers -- i'm sure you recall lieutenant stephanie erman who was seriously injured by shrapnel. she took her vehicle to honda dealership three times without them saying she was subject to an open recall. that's pretty incredible. three times.
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and so the question is, you know, what steps have y'all taken since then to work with your dealers? i know you described some of this, mr. schostek, in your testimony. how are you going to give us an insurance that these important safety recalls have been addressed and ensure that recall information and vehicle safety issues will be shared with customers when they get their cars in and get them serviced? mr. shosktek: we have more than 1200 honda and acura dealers in the united states. we're working with them. we've done a number of things since we were last here in november. we initiated a new report that flags if a dealer neglected to check a v.i.n. when a customer came in. moreover we had face tu face meetings with our dealers -- face-to-face meet wgs our dealers. they have personally visited every dealer and talked to each dealer about the importance of
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checking for open recalls. we have periodic regional meetings of our dealer principals. we have in the last several months reinforced again that obligation. mr. chairman, there is sometimes turnover at a dealership. >> we'll leave this hearing at this point. the u.s. house about to gavel in for brief speeches. legislative work will start this afternoon at 2:00. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] the house communication from the speaker. the clerk: the speaker's rooms washington, d.c. june 23, 201r5. -- 2015. i i hereby appoint the honorable blarke farenthold to serve as the sprothe on this day. signed, john a. boehner, speaker of the house of representatives. pursuant to the order of the house of january 6, 2015, the chair will now recognize members from lists submitted by the majority and
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