nitsa was concerned and engaged on this issue. this was a difficult case for reuse tools and expertise that over the last decade had successfully resulted in 1000 recalls, including 35 recalls on the airbag non-deployment. these tools and expertise have served us well. we continue to rely on and improve them. for example, we have already invested in advance computer tools to spot defects and trends. we are planning to expand that effort. what we know now is that we need to challenge our assumptions. we need to look at how we handle difficult cases like this going forward. we are looking to better understand how manufacturers deal with this. we are also considering ways to improve the use of crash investigations in identifying defects. we are reviewing ways to address what appeared to be remote defect possibilities. we are evaluating our approach. between these efforts and those of our department we will continue to improve our ability and ensure that defects are fixed. our ability to find defects requires automakers to act in good

. >> when was it that gm informed nitsa that a redesign -- did in fact gm inform nitsa that the ignition switch had been redesigned? >> i don't know that. >> i yield back. >> we recognize mr. waxman for five minutes. >> thank you. we heard about how in 2002 gm had faulty ignition switches in cobalts and other cars that caused many of the problems that led to the recall from model years 2003 to 2007. so new ignition switches were designed and approved by general motors. these were switches that were used -- were used in model years 2008 to 2010. does that all sound right to you? am i correct in what i'm saying? >> there is a couple of statements you made at the beginning that i don't know to be true. >> in 2002, gm approved the use of what turned out to be faulty ignition switches -- >> they were actually -- they were parts that went into a 2003 was the earliest model. >> the tests were done in 2003 about the the cars were 2003 to 2007. so there was a recall of those cars and new ignition switch designed and approved by gm and these new switches were in use in the model year 2008 to 2010

to show there was any kind of co lucien between gm and nitsa.itsa concluded in 2007 and 2010 there was not enough evidence to launch investigations even though there had been a huge spike about the chevy air bags and key systems. from where you stand, shouldn't nitsa pursued investigations back then? >> in hindsight t would have been good if they did. i would say this, though, that the agency was looking at airbag non-employee at deployments. the agency wasn't looking at ignition switches, per se. and general motor was not forthcoming. general motor did not disclose to gm that it had a problem with the ignition switches even though general motor knew about that and should have conducted a recall 10 years ago. >> because those switches would move to an off position as the car drove and there would be no deployment of an airbag when there was a crash. one of reason that was given for the fact that nitsa did not follow through with investigations is that its under-funded and under-staffed. congress is responsible for the funding and they gave the a

. >> when was it that gm informed nitsa that a redesign -- did in fact gm inform nitsa that the ignition switch had been redesigned? >> i don't know that. >> i yield back. >> we recognize mr. waxman for five minutes. >> thank you. we heard about how in 2002 gm had faulty ignition switches in cobalts and other cars that caused many of the problems that led to the recall from model years 2003 to 2007. so new ignition switches were designed and approved by general motors. these were switches that were used -- were used in model years 2008 to 2010. does that all sound right to you? am i correct in what i'm saying? >> there is a couple of statements you made at the beginning that i don't know to be true. >> in 2002, gm approved the use of what turned out to be faulty ignition switches -- >> they were actually -- they were parts that went into a 2003 was the earliest model. >> the tests were done in 2003 about the the cars were 2003 to 2007. so there was a recall of those cars and new ignition switch designed and approved by gm and these new switches were in use in the model year 2008 to 2010

that information request came from nitsa last month. general motors did not answer about a third of the questions of those 170 questions. they are fining them $28,000 but it's a fine that will increase $7,000 every day and they say in this letter a complete response is a complete response and you have not given us a complete response to the questions regard this recall. back to you. >> so $28,000 right now and $7,000 for each additional day, correct? >> yeah. for a company the size of general motors. is this going to kill them, no. but it's symbolic of how they feel about the lack of information coming from general motors. >> thanks for that. >> isn't it symbolic of nitsa doing nothing? it's like you getting find two cents a day. >> or guy getting fined one cent. >> client point by anthony. >> it's like an nba find. it's a joke. listen, it's news, i get it. with that said, it keeps bouncing off this. it keeps holding this 34 level, the stock. the longer it stays here, the more nervous i get. as long as it holds 34, you got to trade it f

what nitsa stands for. on traffic safety, you ought to know what they're all about. you get these questions because a lot of the members are new to the issue. we'll see at 10:00 whether gm adjusts its strategy. yesterday she was on able to provide a lot of information about an internal investigation at gm. i have two sound bites that give you a sense of what she was saying, starting with what gm has done and what she's pledging it will do in the future on this whole issue of these ignition switches that potentially shut down the cars while they're driving. take a listen to mary barra yesterday. >> when we have answers, we will be fully transparent with you, with our regulators, and with our customers. while i cannot turn back the clock, as soon as i learned about the problem, we acted without hesitation. we told the world we had a problem that needed to be fixed. we did so because whatever mistakes were made in the past, we will not shirk from our responsibilities now or in the future. >> and then of course

why it took a decade to issue a recall with at least 13 known deaths, critics are asking where was nitsa ultimately this falls squarely on gm's shoulders, but any national highway safety administration, their enforcement division played an important role here. >> that is under scrutiny for not opening a defects investigation sooner. similar complaints were voiced after toyota recalled a million vehicles back in 2009 and 2010. resources. >> sometimes it's like whack-a-mole. different problems keep springing up, and as soon as you try to address one, another one springs up. >> another problem, alan cam says their hands are somewhat tied. manufacturers face a fine of 2 -- $35 million for not issuing a recall. that's small price compared to what a recall can cost. >> if you frequently rely on the industry to tell them if there is in fact a problem, and of course on the other end of it, it is the former colleagues coming in representing the manufacturers assuring them in many cases that they don't have a problem. >> there is a call for more transparency about meetings. mary snow, al jazeera.

. >> nitsa said gm did not share key information. >> if we had any of pieces of information,ability it would have changed the way we approached this. >> it angers me we had a situation that took over a decade to correct. >> i worked there, i was in a high position, but i didn't know what was going on. >> barra now she's hired ken feinberg who helped the 9/11, gulf oil, and boston marathon bombing families to compensate gm victims. today we hear more about money. >> a piece that cost pennies. >> reporter: a 57 cent part that could have cost gm $100 million to fix in 2007 now costing the company and families so much more. >> reporter: so far this year gm has recalled 6 million vehicles. a couple of different recalls there. it looks like the company is saying, francis, it's going take until fall or maybe even later now to get the vehicles fixed. >>> a strong declaration from president obama. the health care slaw here to stay. the public victory lap after a confirmation that 7.1 million people signed up. it surpasses the white house's initial goal. the late surge is an unexpected comeback

. >> compare mary barra's comments to what's coming out of' nitsa. they messed up, too on two separate occasions. they had on their website up to a couple days ago if you only take off your extra car keys from the key fob maybe you will be safe. that's not an acceptable position. martha: what if any role does the bailout of gm play in this story? obviously this was a company that was known tongue and cheek as government motors because of a government bailout. is that a story in your mind? >> some people are talk about what impact it had on the bankruptcy. but were think play layoffs in their safety division? was there continuity? we know there wasn't among the ceos. but what about the people looking at the switches. did they have enough people on board? it's important know if those were in place or they were a cr- or they were sacrificed when they were in financial trouble. they will be looking at a number of things. people who made decisions. did they accept what shouldn't a convenient accepted, did they meet their even standards. and nitsa needs to

now, nitsa has 51 people investigating potential defects can is less than 10% of the overall staff. they look into more than 45,000 complaint as year, submits through it's website or telephone hotline. now since 2004 the agency has issues recalls for 95 million vehicles equipment, tires, as well as child restraints. bottom line, the agency relies on the car companies themselves who report a faulty cars. lauren joins me from rochester new york, she is an odd motive journalist. thank you for joining us. >> thank you for having me. >> how exactly does the nhtsa monitor for defective cars. >> well, they look for what they call spikes in data, so they are getting information, information from customers so if you do have a problem with your vehicle, first thing i tell people, contact the dealer, maybe there isn't a recall or a technical service, and you go to nhtf.gov, call and enter your information, that information has been monitors. again, insurance companies also report if there is deaths or faulty problem, all that information is collective. so this call on top of each other, in 201

. >> nitsa was investigating air bag issues.stimony didn't connect or at least at the time they could not connect to what we now know are faulty ignition switches. at the time they were investigating gm was making a switch and making the cars safer. so they said they started to see the default rates, the injury rates, the crash rates go down and they really didn't have a basis for launching a further investigation. beyond what they had done. there are a lot of questions about really the timeline on both sides. >> tracie potts in washington, thank you. >> rescuers in the sierra search for 25-year-old man who vanished snowboarding yesterday afternoon. officials say the snowboarder may have gotten disoriented in a snowstorm in the back country. a friend he was with made it down the mountain and went to find help. she an experienced rider and has the proper gear with him to handle the conditions. in the sierra foothills is search for a man missing in the rugged mountains. robert root disappeared while out for a training run with a g

nitsa, the government agency tasked with protecting people on the road, many say they fell short, theyid not notice a trend and did not recall these cars in time. general motors has apologized for this over recent weeks. but they do not have answers. we will hear mary barra testifying, saying i cannot tell why it took years for a safety defect to be announced. but i can tell you, we will find out. so the question is, are these family members going to get the answers today. frankly, they're looking for. >> all right. poppy, thank you for that. so another really hard pill for these families to swallow, because gm filed for bankruptcy back in 2009. so effectively, the company says it doesn't have to pay accident victims for any crash that might have happened before the declaration of bankruptcy. want to bring in cnn's legal analyst and defense attorney, danny cevallos on this. you have written extensively about what this means. if you could lay it out in terms of old company, pre2009, prebankruptcy declaration, versus new company, post declaration. how does that change things? >> when it

we will welcome input from outside of gm, from you, from nitsa, from our customers, your dealer, andrent and former employees. the latest round of recalls demonstrates just how serious we are about the way we want to do things at today's gm. we've identified these issues and we've brought them forward and are fixing them. i have asked our team to keep stressing the system at gm and work with one thing in mind, the customer and their safety are at the center of everything we do. our customers who have been affected by this recall are getting our full and undivided attention. we are talking directly to them through a dedicated website with constantly updated information and through social media platforms. we've trained and assigned more people, over 100, to our customer call centers and wait times are down to seconds. and of course we're sending customers written information through the mail. we've empowered our dealers to take extraordinary measures to treat each case specifically. if people do not want to drive a recalled vehicle before it is repaired, dealers can provide them with a

ultimately nitsa can push a company, automaker. but the recall needs to be initiated bit automaker.ey have issued service bulletins instead of a full recall. what's interesting here, guys, this stock is iffy. if it dipped under $32 a share a week, week and a half ago. since then it is up over 7%. 7% is not a huge rally here. but it does bring into question whether or not investigators look and say, yeah, we're going to see more documents, more deadlines. but at the end of the day, we think this is as bad as it's going to get. at least that's the question for investors right now. >> i think you're right. looking for a bottom. 32 is pretty cheap. you know, you got to have a little bit of sympathy. it was finally starting to work. the government was out. overhang is gone. good cars. >> over the weekend in china narcotics they will be having annual production of 5 million vehicles. china alone. china is huge. it continues to grow for them. a lot of people say we're going to get passed this in the united states from g.m.'s perspective. look what they have globally. >> exactly. pretty goo

nitsa knows companies balance safety and money. a systemic problem. let's look at government first. fair krit simple? >> very fair. it has to be a regular lay tomorrow. unfortunately in this case it wasn't. it kept delaying and trying to get more data. it was a design defect and should have acted in 2007 when first recommended by some of the engineers at the agency. >> now is it fair criticism to say the reason nhtsa didn't act is because politicians know about the car companies, they let companies measure safety against what it cost them to fix defects? >> yes. that's why we need changes in the law. fred upton, chairman of the committee worked on changing the law 15 years ago. it needs to be updated and changed again. i hope people take a leadership role in doing that. the agency is grossly underfu underfunded, very secrecy. we need criminal penalties and higher civil penalties so that the auto companies are deterred from refusing to do recalls if a corporate executive might go to jail, they're going to pay more attention to prote