ditlow. i will ask the first question and then senator wicker from mississippi who said he'll be back in time is acting today as the ranking member. and he will ask the second question, we will go on from there. mr. saski, last week, mr. lentz, the president of toyota motor sales usa testified that he had no authority so recall toyota vehicles sold in the united states when those vehicles have safety problems. now i believe either mr. inaba or uchiyamada were going to probe that. is that an rack rate -- an accurate statement as of now? >> if you take a look at the process and the energy on the members. >> let me answer. it is true that north american member was not officially included in our recall decision-making process. : we realize as you pointed out our old system may have caused some concern for suspicion on the part of the united states or the north american marketplace and therefore in order to improve as we have decided to include someone who is very well familiar with the north amer

our last hour, we will get the auto industry perspective with dave mccurdy, and end with clarence ditlow. starting as off is dave shepardson of "detroit news." many people saw the headline -- regulators seeking a fine of $16.40 million against toyota. the statement said "if upheld." why does it say that? >> toyota gets to formally denied decide whether it wants to appeal the fine. this is by far the largest ever find that nhtsa has sought to impose. the previous was $1 million against general motors in 2004. the amounts are symbolic, given that these are companies with hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue. $16 million is a rounding error for them. >> what happens next? have you heard from toyota? if it goes to court, how long would the process take? >> toyota has two weeks to respond and say they will pay the fine or challenge it. nhtsa has to decide if it is going to uphold the fine. if toyota continues to challenge it, they will go to the district court to get a job to uphold it. that process could take several months if toyota decides to fight it. >> the transportation secretary

ditlow i went earlier with secretary lahood for how we can fix this going forward. i want to throw them out there again. what i'm talking about is fixing the relationship between the government regulators where our public and my two customers and many more in minnesota that had the acceleration event. one was so bad for six miles that burned her hub caps. the victims survived. the procedure tools for the n.h.t.s.a. so that they maybe can move things quicker, the fines in this case that maybe as much as -- it maybe something like $16 million compared to the $100 million saved that's right up here on the charts seems to be not a good balance. the fourth thing i raise was doing something differently with the rules so that people won't be negotiating that used to work at n.h.t.s.a.? could you talk about what's your favorite of those choices and if you think they all would be helpful? >> we have -- in terms of my favorite, could you -- >> i'm just asking what should be our highest priority as we go bard to try to change the situation in >> well, in the near term, the hig