TOYOTA GAS PEDALS: IS THE PUBLIC AT RISK?

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AND GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

FEBRUARY 24, 2010

Serial No. 111–75

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TOYOTA GAS PEDALS: IS THE PUBLIC AT RISK?

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TOYOTA GAS PEDALS: IS THE PUBLIC AT RISK?

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT

AND GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

FEBRUARY 24, 2010

Serial No. 111–75

Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/index.html

http://www.house.gov/reform

(II)

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York, Chairman

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

DIANE E. WATSON, California

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

JIM COOPER, Tennessee

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia

MIKE QUIGLEY, Illinois

MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

PATRICK J. KENNEDY, Rhode Island

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland

HENRY CUELLAR, Texas

PAUL W. HODES, New Hampshire

CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut

PETER WELCH, Vermont

BILL FOSTER, Illinois

JACKIE SPEIER, California

STEVE DRIEHAUS, Ohio

JUDY CHU, California

DARRELL E. ISSA, California

DAN BURTON, Indiana

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina

BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California

JIM JORDAN, Ohio

JEFF FLAKE, Arizona

JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska

JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah

AARON SCHOCK, Illinois

BLAINE LUETKEMEYER, Missouri

ANH ‘‘JOSPEH’’ CAO, Loiuisiana

RON STROMAN, Staff Director

MICHAEL MCCARTHY, Deputy Staff Director

CARLA HULTBERG, Chief Clerk

LARRY BRADY, Minority Staff Director

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on February 24, 2010 ....................................................................... 1

Statement of:

LaHood, Raymond H., Secretary, U.S. Department of Transportation ........ 11

Lastrella, Fe Niosco, lost family members in a car accident involving

a Toyota vehicle; Kevin Haggerty, experienced sudden unintended acceleration in a Toyota vehicle; Joan Claybrook, president emeritus of

Public Citizen and former Administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration; and Clarence M. Ditlow, executive director,

Center for Auto Safety .................................................................................. 126

Claybrook, Joan ......................................................................................... 135

Ditlow, Clarence M. ................................................................................... 145

Haggerty, Kevin ........................................................................................ 131

Lastrella, Fe Niosco ................................................................................... 126

Toyoda, Akio, president and CEO, Toyota Motor Corp.; and Yoshimi

Inaba, president and CEO, Toyota Motor North America, Inc. ................ 73

Inaba, Yoshimi ........................................................................................... 79

Toyoda, Akio .............................................................................................. 73

Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:

Claybrook, Joan, president emeritus of Public Citizen and former Administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, prepared statement of ........................................................................................ 138

Connolly, Hon. Gerald E., a Representative in Congress from the State

of Virginia, prepared statement of .............................................................. 174

Ditlow, Clarence M., executive director, Center for Auto Safety, prepared

statement of ................................................................................................... 147

Haggerty, Kevin, experienced sudden unintended acceleration in a Toyota

vehicle, prepared statement of ..................................................................... 133

Hodes, Hon. Paul W., a Representative in Congress from the State of

New Hampshire, prepared statement of ..................................................... 166

Inaba, Yoshimi, president and CEO, Toyota Motor North America, Inc.,

prepared statement of ................................................................................... 81

Issa, Hon. Darrell E., a Representative in Congress from the State of

California:

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 9

Prepared statement of Mr. Saylor ........................................................... 153

Kaptur, Hon. Marcy, a Representative in Congress from the State of

Ohio, various materials ................................................................................ 121

LaHood, Raymond H., Secretary, U.S. Department of Transportation,

prepared statement of ................................................................................... 14

Lastrella, Fe Niosco, lost family members in a car accident involving

a Toyota vehicle, prepared statement of ..................................................... 129

Mica, Hon. John L., a Representative in Congress from the State of

Florida:

Memo dated March 17, 2008 .................................................................... 33

Number of FTE vacancies in NHTSA ...................................................... 31

Quigley, Hon. Mike, a Representative in Congress from the State of

Illinois, prepared statement of ..................................................................... 172

Towns, Hon. Edolphus, a Representative in Congress from the State

of New York, prepared statement of ........................................................... 4

Toyoda, Akio, president and CEO, Toyota Motor Corp., prepared statement of ........................................................................................................... 76

(1)

TOYOTA GAS PEDALS: IS THE PUBLIC AT

RISK?

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2010

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM, Washington, DC.

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 11 a.m., in room 2154

Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Edolphus Towns (chairman of

the committee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Towns, Kanjorski, Maloney, Cummings,

Kucinich, Tierney, Clay, Watson, Lynch, Cooper, Connolly, Quigley,

Kaptur, Norton, Davis, Van Hollen, Cuellar, Hodes, Murphy,

Welch, Foster, Speier, Driehaus, Chu, Issa, Burton, Mica, Souder,

Duncan, Turner, McHenry, Bilbray, Jordan, Flake, Fortenberry,

Chaffetz, Schock, Luetkemeyer, and Cao.

Also present: Representative Davis of Kentucky.

Staff present: John Arlington, chief counsel, investigations; Kevin

Barstow, investigative counsel; Peter Fise, staff assistant; Linda

Good, deputy chief clerk; Jean Gosa, clerk; Velginy Hernandez,

press assistant; Adam Hodge, deputy press secretary; Carla

Hultberg, chief clerk; Marc Johnson and Ophelia Rivas, assistant

clerks; Chris Knauer, senior investigator/professional staff member;

Phyllis Love and Christopher Sanders, professional staff members;

Mike McCarthy, deputy staff director; Steven Rangel, senior counsel; Jenny Rosenberg, director of communications; Leneal Scott, IT

specialist; Shrita Sterlin, deputy director of communications; Ron

Stroman, staff director; Gerri Willis, special assistant; Lawrence

Brady, minority staff director; John Cuaderes, minority deputy

staff director; Rob Borden, minority general counsel; Jennifer

Safavian, minority chief counsel for oversight and investigations;

Frederick Hill, minority director of communications; Adam Fromm,

minority chief clerk and Member liaison; Kurt Bardella, minority

press secretary; Seamus Kraft and Benjamin Cole, minority deputy

press secretaries; Tom Alexander and Kristina Moore, minority

senior counsels; Marvin Kaplan, minority counsel; and Jonathan

Skladany, minority chief counsel.

Chairman TOWNS. Good morning. And thank you all for being

here.

It is hard to imagine the horror of the event that took the lives

of an entire family near San Diego, CA on August 28, 2009. California’s Highway Patrolman Mark Saylor, his wife, their 13-year-old

daughter, and Mrs. Saylor’s brother, Chris, were driving in a Toyota Lexus, a loaner car that the Toyota dealer provided while their

car was being repaired.

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As they drove along the highway, suddenly the car accelerated

rapidly. He stood on the brakes, but nothing happened. No matter

what he did, he could not stop the car from flying down the road

faster and faster. As this car reached top speed in just a few seconds, it was all he could do to keep it under control.

In a frantic call to 911, his brother-in-law, Chris, reported the

gas pedal was stuck, the brakes did not work, and they were barreling down on an intersection. He yelled over the phone, ‘‘Hold on.

Hold on. Hold on. Hold on, and pray. Pray.’’ And those were his

last words.

We now know that the terrifying death of this family was not

caused by a freak accident. It turns out that people from all over

the country had been complaining about sudden acceleration in

Toyota vehicles. And what people are wondering is, ‘‘Will I be

next?’’

Our investigation found that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration [NHTSA] has received nearly 2,500 driver complaints about sudden acceleration in Toyota vehicles. We have discovered that since 2000, one insurance company, State Farm, has

reported to NHTSA over 900 cases of sudden acceleration in Toyotas. We have also learned that NHTSA did very little about it;

and, when it did do something, its actions were very limited.

Similarly, Toyota either ignored or minimized reports of sudden

acceleration. Toyota first blamed the problem on improper installation of floor mats, never mind that many reports of sudden acceleration involved vehicles that did not even have a floor mat. Now

they blame it on sticky gas pedals. While I remain skeptical that

these are the sole causes, the way that these complaints were handled indicates problems at both NHTSA and Toyota.

Since 2003, NHTSA has undertaken a multitude of investigations into sudden unintended acceleration. But there is a serious

question of whether NHTSA used all of its regulatory tools to thoroughly investigate this issue.

When I read press accounts about how former NHTSA officials

were hired by Toyota and then helped to negotiate the scope of regulatory increase, I have my own doubts.

In the case of Toyota, there is striking evidence that the company

was at times more concerned with profit than customer safety. Toyota’s own internal documents indicate that a premium was placed

on delaying or closing NHTSA investigations, delaying new safety

rules, and blocking the discovery of safety defects. In fact, Toyota

officials bragged about saving $100 million by preventing NHTSA

from finding a defect related to sudden acceleration.

The recent Prius recall represents yet another troubling pattern

of delay when it comes to revealing safety information. A few

weeks ago, Toyota announced it would recall certain Prius models

because of a software problem related to the braking system. Drivers began complaining to NHTSA about Prius brake problems last

year. Toyota knew about this problem and was already addressing

it for new cars on the assembly line. But at the same time, Toyota

withheld that information from both NHTSA and current Prius

drivers until months later.

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If the spotlight had not already been shining brightly on Toyota,

would the public have ever been told? That is a question that needs

to be answered.

NHTSA failed the taxpayers. Toyota failed their customers.

Thousands of complaints, multiple investigations, and serial recalls

are bad enough, but we now have 39 deaths attributed to sudden

acceleration in Toyotas.

To give that horrifying number some perspective, there were 27

deaths attributed to the famous Pinto exploding gas tank of the

1970’s. In short, if the Camry and the Prius were airplanes, they

would be grounded.

These facts raise several important questions. Is it safe to drive

these cars? Is Toyota now serious about solving the problem? Can

NHTSA say the cause of the problem has been identified and fixed?

What can we do to prevent this kind of thing from happening

again? Can the American people trust NHTSA to ensure vehicle

safety? Hopefully, we will find some answers to these and many

other questions today.

On that note, I yield to the gentleman, the ranking member from

California, Congressman Darrell Issa, for his opening statement.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Edolphus Towns follows:]

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Mr. ISSA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. A little housekeeping. Mr.

Chairman, I would ask unanimous consent Mr. Jeff Davis of the

Commonwealth of Kentucky be allowed to participate in the hearing as a dais member, recognizing that it will be unlikely that

there will be any time for him to ask questions.

Chairman TOWNS. Without objection, he will be accepted.

Mr. ISSA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, it is the obligation of yourself primarily, and then

myself, to set the tone for hearings, to tee up, if you will, through

our opening statements how we view what we are going to accomplish here today. And I would like to commend you for the work

you have done in your opening statement and add just a little bit

more to it.

I would first like to put up a slide of the recalls, From Recall to

Recovery.

This slide shows a little of the history that the chairman alluded

to. The 1978 recall of Ford Pintos. The 1981 GM recalls for steering

problems, 5.8 million vehicles. The very sad but great loss of life,

1982 Tylenol recalls of 31 million bottles of Tylenol pills, which of

course led to the tamper-proof bottles we all take for granted today.

The 1996 Ford recalls of 8 million vehicles for fires. And, of course,

the well-publicized GM recall after their pickup trucks would spontaneously explode if hit from the rear.

Mr. Chairman, this is an example of companies, both auto and

non-auto, who over the years have faced clear challenges. In the

case of the auto companies, we expect to see them again. We judge

them not by whether or not they from time to time have unseen

and developed problems in their vehicles; but, how quickly they respond and how they in fact react after scrutiny, from either within

their own company or from without, brings these to their attention.

I will not call any of these five a success except for Tylenol. Tylenol was a victim of other people, in all likelihood, poisoning their

product; and yet, they took a step that has changed safety of the

medicines we take for granted today.

Recently, Mr. Toyoda’s company, Toyota Motor Cars, began airing a television commercial, and I will take the liberty of using his

words today. In it, they said that, ‘‘In fact, good companies fix the

mistakes they have made, but great companies learn from them.’’

Today, we will be asking Mr. Toyoda and Mr. Inaba those very

questions as to whether or not they are a good company or a great

company.

My second slide, I think, depicts one of the challenges of why,

prior to today, we cannot say that Toyoda was a great company,

perhaps not even a good company, when in 2007 what we know for

a fact is that floor mat problems or gas pedal entrapment problems

were discovered in similar vehicles in both the United States and

Japan.

In the United States, working with NHTSA, a negotiated fix related to the carpets occurred. In Japan, the gas pedal, like the one

seen here today, was shortened. In 2009, nearly 2 years later, we

had the sad and fatal loss of life in what in all likelihood, and has

been at least documented, reported, and not formally contested, to

be a carpet entrapment problem of an automobile loaned by Bob

Baker, a local dealer in my city, that led to this loss of life.

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Today, in 2010, gas pedals are being shortened at dealers around

the country. It is very clear that at least at Toyota, a possible solution, now seen as superior, was available, contemplated, and executed, but not for the very car that ultimately—the S350 that led

to this loss of life.

So today we will be asking two questions: How could NHTSA, in

this modern age in which I can Google Secretary LaHood’s name,

get pictures from all over the world of the Secretary to get information and bio and almost anything from data bases around the

globe—how is it that NHTSA does not formally have a system to

know about every report, whether it is a sticky accelerator in Great

Britain, whether it is a troubled system in Canada, whether it is

a different but similar vehicle in Japan, NHTSA is not prepared to

proactively act.

Some would say that we should in fact add to our body of laws.

I believe that both NHTSA and Secretary LaHood will tell us that

our body of law is sufficient and yet modernization is required.

I am delighted to have my friend and former colleague, Secretary

LaHood, here today, because it will be on his watch that either the

Department of Transportation will be a good organization dealing

with these specific problems, or a great organization learning from

the mistakes of the past.

Mr. Chairman, I thank you for holding this hearing. I look forward to our witnesses, and I yield back.

Chairman TOWNS. I thank the ranking member for his statement.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Darrell E. Issa follows:]

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Chairman TOWNS. At this time, we would like to introduce our

first witness, the Honorable Raymond H. LaHood, Secretary of the

U.S. Department of Transportation.

Mr. Secretary, it is a longstanding tradition that we swear all of

our witnesses in. If you would stand and raise your right hand.

[Witness sworn.]

Secretary LAHOOD. It gives them a chance to take more pictures,

also.

Chairman TOWNS. Let the record reflect that the witness answered in the affirmative. You may be seated. And you may begin.

STATEMENT OF RAYMOND H. LaHOOD, SECRETARY, U.S.

DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION

Secretary LAHOOD. Thank you Chairman Towns and Ranking

Member Issa, and the members of the committee, for the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss the important issue of

Toyota’s recent safety recalls.

Ever since I was sworn in as Secretary of Transportation 13

months ago, I said that safety is the Department’s No. 1 priority.

I would like to think that we have demonstrated that commitment

time and time and time again. When the terrible crash of the

Washington Metro system claimed nine lives and injured dozens of

others last summer, we quickly introduced legislation, which I

would encourage all of you to cosponsor, to give us Federal safety

oversight over transit, something we currently don’t have. As a

matter of fact, we are prohibited from having that kind of responsibility.

When Colgan Air Flight 3407 crashed in Buffalo, we learned

right away what many of the problems were and we did not wait

1 year for the NTSB to conclude its investigation. We began working with the aviation industry immediately to enhance airline safety and pilot training, holding 12 safety summits around the country. This spring, the FAA will issue a new rule to combat pilot fatigue, and it has already begun to overhaul pilot certification qualifications.

One of the hallmarks of my time as Transportation Secretary has

been our work on distracted driving. For all of you with cell phones

and BlackBerries and other electronic devices, I want you to know

that I am on a rampage about people talking and texting while

driving a bus, plane, or train, and an automobile. It is a menace

to society, and we recently exercised our authority to ban truck

drivers from texting while driving.

Now, for Toyota. The Toyota recall situation is extremely serious

and we are treating it extremely seriously. The three recalls involving Toyota are among the largest in automobile history, affecting

more than 6 million people in the country.

And I would like to say a word to consumers. If you notice your

gas pedal or your brake is not responding as it normally would,

contact your Toyota dealer now. The recent recalls involve three

issues:

One, accelerator, pedal entrapment by floor mats, which can lead

to uncontrolled acceleration at very high speeds. It is important to

take your floor mats out of the driver’s side of the vehicle until

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your car has been repaired for this problem by an authentic Toyota

dealer.

Second, accelerator pedals sticking or returning slowly after

being depressed. If the pedal is harder to depress or slower to return after releasing it, this could be the precursor to what is known

as a sticky pedal. If your pedal has these symptoms, contact your

Toyota dealer immediately. If your gas pedal becomes stuck for any

reason, steadily apply the brake, put the car in neutral, bring it to

a stop in a safe place, and call your dealer.

Finally, with the Toyota Prius for model year 2010 and the Lexus

HS250, if you experience a change in your car’s braking performance, contact your Toyota dealer.

Now, I want everyone to know that the National Highway Traffic

Safety Administration has the most effective defect investigation

program in the world. Known as NHTSA, its job is to investigate

complaints and to look for defects.

NHTSA receives more than 30,000 complaints from consumers

every year, and we take every one seriously. We look at every one,

we don’t set any of them aside, and we review them quickly to

make sure that if there is a serious issue, we will look at it and

ultimately investigate it.

Over just the last 3 years, NHTSA’s defect and compliance investigation have resulted in 524 recalls involving 23 million vehicles.

We haven’t been sitting around on our hands. When people complain, we investigate. When there needs to be a recall, we do it.

Of the 100 investigations NHTSA opens in an average year,

there are currently 44 open defect investigations, 5 of which involved Toyota. Every step of the way, NHTSA officials have pushed

Toyota to take corrective action so that consumers would be safe.

Unhappy with Toyota’s responsiveness to our safety concerns, the

Acting Administrator of NHTSA, Ron Medford, and two associates

flew to Japan in December 2009 to clarify for Toyota management

what the company’s legal obligations are to find and remedy safety

defects in vehicles sold here in America. In January, our new Administrator of NHTSA, David Strickland, and Ron Medford, now

our Deputy Administrator, told the president of Toyota North

America in no uncertain terms that we expect prompt action following the disclosure of the sticky pedal problem. Toyota publicly announced that recall 2 days later.

I have been on the phone with Mr. Toyoda from here to Japan,

and I am so pleased that he accepted the invitation to appear before this committee.

With potential fatal defects on the road, NHTSA has pressed

hard to expedite these safety fixes. If NHTSA had opened a formal

investigation and Toyota had resisted a recall, that would have

consumed an enormous amount of time and resources, in effect extending the period in which owners of affected vehicles are at risk.

By engaging Toyota directly and persuading the company to take

action, the agency avoided a lengthy investigation that would have

delayed fixes for a year or more.

Last week, I announced that we are investigating whether Toyota acted quickly enough in reporting these safety defects to

NHTSA as well as whether they took all appropriate action to protect consumers. We have asked Toyota to turn over a wide range

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of the documents that will show us when and how they learned

about these safety problems. NHTSA will continue to make sure

Toyota is doing all it promised to make its vehicles safe, and we

will continue to investigate all possible causes of unintended acceleration.

While the recalls are important steps in that direction, we don’t

maintain that they answer every question. Some people believe

that electromagnetic interference has a dangerous effect on these

vehicles. Although we are not aware of any incidents proven to

cause such interference, NHTSA is doing a thorough review. We

will get in the weeds on this. We will do everything we can to find

out if electronics are a part of the problem. And if we find the problem, we will make sure it is resolved.

I have been assured by Mr. Toyoda that he takes U.S. safety concerns very seriously, and its safety is the company’s top priority.

And we will hold him to that.

Finally, I want to remind everyone that there is a reason that

we investigate safety defects and there is a reason that we push

automakers to do the right thing. I listened to the 911 tape of the

Saylor family’s harrowing last moments.

Mark Saylor, a California Highway Patrolman, died last year,

along with his wife and daughter and brother-in-law, when the accelerator got stuck and the Lexus they were driving crashed at

more than 120 miles per hour. Last evening, after I finished my

testimony before the Energy and Commerce Committee, I met with

the Saylor family to offer our sympathy and to offer any assistance

we could give to them. It was a horrible tragedy and I hope that

no other family has to endure that.

Mr. Chairman, let me conclude by saying this. I was sworn in on

January 23, 2009. I have traveled to 36 States and 80 cities. Everywhere that I have gone, I have talked about safety. That has to be

our No. 1 priority, whether it is in trains, planes, or automobiles.

You look at any statement I have ever made, any speech I have

ever given, there is always something about safety in it.

We will not sleep at DOT and we will work 24/7 at NHTSA to

make sure that every Toyota is safe to drive, and we will continue

to make safety our No. 1 priority at DOT and at NHTSA.

I look forward to your questions.

Chairman TOWNS. Thank you very much, Mr. Secretary. I really

appreciate your commitment to safety. I think that is so important.

[The prepared statement of Secretary LaHood follows:]

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Chairman TOWNS. Let me just raise a couple of questions with

you very quickly.

The committee has reviewed thousands of complaints sent to

NHTSA regarding the sudden acceleration of Toyota vehicles. Before the crash that killed members of the Saylor family in August

2009, there were almost 2,000 complaints at the time of Toyota’s

floor mat recall in 2007. The agency had already received more

than 1,300 complaints. My question is: Why did it take NHTSA so

long to act?

Secretary LAHOOD. Well, Mr. Chairman, I would say this. I have

been in this job a little more than a year; and prior to my time,

which would have been prior to January 23, 2009, if there are

issues that I can’t answer, I will get back to you for the record. But

I am going to tell you this: 40,000 complaints come to NHTSA

every year, and we look at every one of them. We think every one

is important. Some come from people who are driving cars, some

come from the industry. We look at what is going on from stakeholders, people who are in the automobile business. Sometimes

they file complaints with us. And then, when we see a pattern, we

will do an investigation or we will look at it. And if our investigation shows there needs to be a recall, it will be done. That has been

the work of NHTSA.

With respect to your specific question during that time period,

what I would like to do, Mr. Chairman, is put it on the record after

I really can get the facts for you.

Chairman TOWNS. Thank you very much, Mr. Secretary.

Again, I know you, as all of us, recognize how important safety

is. So let me ask you this: Do you think it is safe to drive a Toyota

today?

Secretary LAHOOD. Pardon me?

Chairman TOWNS. Do you think it is safe to drive a Toyota

today?

Secretary LAHOOD. I will say this. I will say that if people check

our Web site, DOT.gov, we have listed every Toyota that is up for

recall. I want anybody that has one of those cars to take it to their

dealer and to make sure that it gets fixed. And, again, we are going

to work 24/7, and we are going to continue until every Toyota is

safe for their customers to drive.

Chairman TOWNS. Thank you for your commitment and your

dedication in this regard.

I now yield to the ranking member, Mr. Issa.

Secretary LAHOOD. This mic is on, Mr. Issa. But——

Mr. ISSA. It just dropped off all of a sudden. It has nothing to

do with you, I am sure.

Chairman TOWNS. Switch to the other mic. In fact, you can use

two.

Secretary LAHOOD. This one works. OK, I will use two.

Mr. ISSA. It is very Presidential.

Mr. Secretary, I will pick up where the chairman left off. Some

companies, including Toyota, I am told, you can go to their Web

site and you punch in a VIN, which is the one piece of information

that anyone who is in possession of the car can see. At your Web

site, you have to put in make and model. So you kind of have to

know your trim level, etc.

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Can you commit to us that in the foreseeable future the Department of Transportation could and, if you agree, should have for

every automobile sold in America a VIN number on file, so if somebody punches in the VIN number they can see every recall and

every piece of safety information that you know of that needs to be

applied to that vehicle?

Secretary LAHOOD. Given the right amount of time, I will commit to you that—we should make that information available in the

simplest possible way, for even people who maybe don’t have access

to a computer or whatever, we should make it available to people.

Mr. ISSA. I appreciate that. And a lot of my questions from my

opening remarks are about what do we do proactively for the future. And I appreciate that we will all have questions both for you

and for NHTSA and followup questions about the past. But let me

go on to another one.

Currently, NHTSA, as I understand it, has 41, 42—49 in the

high year—thousand inquiries or complaints. And, of course, the

auto companies also have theirs. If an auto company reaches a certain threshold, they have a requirement to send that in, in the

United States. If an auto company has a recall in another country,

they have an obligation to inform NHTSA, I understand, through

that system.

Now, you and I served in our past lives on the Select Intelligence

Committee, so you are very familiar what our open-source system

is. Can you tell me today that there is any technological reason or

commonsense reason that in fact we should not—we, the U.S. Government and NHTSA, should not be able to transparently see all

claims from all of our First World partners—obviously to be arranged—and all the collateral material from all the people who

want to sell vehicles in this country? Meaning, is there any reason

you have to wait until there has been a recall to get information?

As you know, Great Britain, they didn’t actually have a recall

but they had a similar sticky pedal that they didn’t see as significant because they thought it only happened there on right-hand

drive cars. And yet, when we were getting a relatively small

amount of sticky pedals, had we had that information, like any

open-source bringing together of information, an agency of the government would have fairly easily been able to have an alert that

could have been sent to the auto company for their attention and

response.

Do you see any reason that is not something that should be part

of a great organization rather than a good one?

Secretary LAHOOD. I agree that it should be part of it. We believe in transparency. I personally think information can be very

powerful. And the more, the better.

Mr. ISSA. Now, I know that you can’t answer everything about

NHTSA, but I think you are familiar with the Toyota Blade sold

in Japan, the one that had a pedal similar to this, even though it

was not an automobile sold in the United States, in which they

shortened the pedal because of entrapment. Are you familiar with

that?

Secretary LAHOOD. I am not intimately familiar with that, Mr.

Issa.

24

Mr. ISSA. Well, I would appreciate it if you would respond for the

record of how, in the future, a similar automobile in another country that does have a change can have a change consistent in the

United States. As I said in my opening remarks, we took a shortcut, with NHTSA’s acquiescence and awareness, we took a shortcut

on the mats in 2007 here, while in Japan they reduced—they increased the clearance on the pedal. The difference is the difference

in San Diego of that family still being alive.

So that is probably the most important question I have for you,

is between open-source information and consistency of similar or

even sometimes dissimilar parts around the world, can you commit

to me that it is within your vision and authority with existing law

to bring about a real change so that this will not happen again?

Secretary LAHOOD. I take your point on this. It is a good point,

and you have my commitment.

Mr. ISSA. I appreciate that. And if you would do us one favor,

and that is if at some time in the future you do see a potential

need for more authority or more specific legislation, that you would

also come back to us.

Secretary LAHOOD. Absolutely.

Mr. ISSA. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, thank you again. I yield back.

Chairman TOWNS. I thank the gentleman from California.

I now yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania, Congressman Kanjorski.

Mr. KANJORSKI. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Welcome, Mr. Secretary.

Secretary LAHOOD. Thank you.

Mr. KANJORSKI. From arriving at this meeting today, I assume

this is one of the more uplifting sessions that you have had since

in office. I think this is probably the greatest attendance I have

seen in the hallways of the press.

Secretary LAHOOD. I would agree.

Mr. KANJORSKI. Obviously, we have struck a nerve, this committee and the occurrence that happened in California. I wanted to

take a moment, Mr. Secretary, to congratulate you. I think—I have

been observing you for the last week or two, and I think you courageously exercised the authorizations of your office, exactly what

this committee and the Congress expect you to do.

Earlier today, I was watching the ranking member, Mr. Issa, on

CNBC, and he made an interesting proposal, partially what he has

discussed with you today. And maybe if that proposal could be encapsulated into legislation with greater authority, but even above

and beyond the auto industry, that we find a way, since we are in

a global marketplace, to find this information, readily assembled

for deposit, and then for availability to not only citizens of the

United States but citizens of the world. And it is something we

should have.

I commented to my staff after I saw Mr. Issa, I love Portuguese

sardines. But I have to be honest with you. If somebody died from

botulism as a result of eating sardines, I would have no way in the

world of knowing where to go, where to find out, or who to inform.

And it is time now that we think about the fact that we are not

in a city market, a State market, or regional market, or just a naVerDate 11-MAY-2000 16:12 Oct 13, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00032 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 U:\DOCS\58346.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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tional market; we are in a world market. And if anything productive could come out of this hearing, and highlight it is the fact that

we take this positive action.

So I make an open offer to the ranking member. I will join you

in the sponsorship of authorization of not only the auto industry,

but all international industries, to get this type of repository information made available, and utilize the intelligence networking and

information of this country to commercialize it, if you will.

And to you, Mr. Secretary, I want to make the offer that this has

been a tragic experience, I think, for Toyota. I am sure that if I

were a stockholder of that company, or if I were Japanese, with the

pride they have with that company and their 50 years of experience, this is something no one wanted to see happen. And what we

have to do is handle this situation with a form of class, if you will.

I hope we don’t utilize this as some effort to beat up either on a

foreign manufacturer or to overemphasize or exacerbate the feelings that may occur between the two nations.

Secretary LAHOOD. We certainly haven’t done that. And I know

that all of you feel this way. We have done it under the umbrella

of safety for people who own Toyotas.

Mr. KANJORSKI. That is a good message, if we can put that message out there. What we want to derive from this hearing and from

this fact is the best purposes in the world, to accomplish things in

the future so this can’t happen or won’t happen again. But on the

other hand, we don’t want to excoriate our friends and exaggerate

situations that go beyond reasonableness.

So I thank you for your testimony. I thank you for your attendance to this. And I pledge to you, together with the ranking member, that we will take such action as possible to see a positive result.

Secretary LAHOOD. We will work with you on that.

Mr. KANJORSKI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman TOWNS. Thank you very much. I now recognize the

gentleman from Indiana, Mr. Burton, former chair of this committee.

Mr. BURTON. Let me preface my remarks by welcoming you, Mr.

Secretary. We have been friends for a long, long time, and I know

you to be a very honorable man. So the questions I am going to ask

have nothing to do with questioning your integrity; I want you to

know that.

There was an invitation made to Mr. Strickland to testify, and

there was an article in the Los Angeles Times today that indicated

that, because of your request, Mr. Strickland was asked not to testify today. Is there some reason for that?

Secretary LAHOOD. Well, look, Mr. Burton; Mr. Strickland has

been on the job 40 days. I have been on the job about 13 months.

I am not going to have our NHTSA administrator, who has been

on the job 40 days, appear. And, look it, I am taking responsibility

for this. As I said in my testimony, safety is No. 1. And I am going

to be accountable. If somebody wants to criticize NHTSA or the Department, I will be responsible for that, not somebody else. That is

my job. I am not going to duck it. And I am not going to give it

to somebody who has only been on the job 40 days.

26

And when I talked to Mr. Towns and Mr. Issa, it was always

clear to me they wanted me to come and I wanted to come, when

we originally talked. So I don’t know how that confusion occurred,

but that is the reason for it.

Mr. BURTON. Now, don’t get mad at me, Ray. That was the Los

Angeles Times.

Secretary LAHOOD. Well, just because I raised a little decible in

my voice doesn’t mean I am mad, Mr. Burton.

Mr. BURTON. Mr. Secretary, I have known you for 20 years. Don’t

give me that stuff.

You know, there is a question about whether or not there might

be some kind of a sweetheart arrangement with some of the people

that preceded you working at NHTSA; and there are a number of

people, I think at least two NHTSA employees, who now work for

Toyota. They are on the Toyota payroll, and I have their names

here. Are you familiar with that at all, sir?

Secretary LAHOOD. I have read the reports of that and we have

looked into it. And what the law requires is that if you have been

an employee at DOT and you go to work for a company that does

work with DOT, you cannot communicate or participate in the

work that you did with this company. So if you go to work for a

company, if you go to work for Toyota, you cannot communicate on

issues that you dealt with at DOT.

So, for example, if those employees worked at NHTSA, which

they did, they can’t come back and be talking about these things.

They could talk about a highway project or something like that, I

suppose. But—and here’s my pledge to all of you. If anybody here

knows that there’s violations, let me know, and I will refer it to the

IG and there will be an investigation.

There has been no more higher standard set for ethics than this

administration. At the first Cabinet meeting, the President made

it clear: I don’t want any ethical problems with anybody.

Mr. BURTON. This preceded you anyhow, Mr. Secretary.

Secretary LAHOOD. Right.

Mr. BURTON. But this Mr. Christopher Santucci, now Toyota’s assistant manager of technical and regulatory affairs, did work for

the agency. And according to General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler,

they don’t have anybody that’s formerly worked for NHTSA that’s

working for them in those capacities. But you’re saying that these

gentlemen, that——

Secretary LAHOOD. They can work for Toyota. But they cannot

come back and talk about issues that they worked on. They can’t

do that. They could talk to people in other modes, FAA or some

other mode, but they cannot come back and talk to our folks about

issues that they——

Mr. BURTON. The one thing that I would suggest is that the appearance is one of the things that right now I think the public is

very concerned about. And a couple of people that worked at

NHTSA that go to work and they’re in a public relations position,

they could talk to people at NHTSA, and the appearance may be

that they are influencing some decisionmaking that is going on.

Secretary LAHOOD. Look, I agree with you on this, Mr. Burton,

and I think this law probably should be tightened up, I really do.

27

Because I agree with you, perception is reality. Anybody that’s

been in politics knows that. And I take your point on this.

Mr. BURTON. Well, thank you very much. And I still love you,

Ray.

Chairman TOWNS. Does the gentleman yield back?

I now recognize the gentleman from Maryland, Representative

Cummings.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And to

Mr. LaHood, Secretary LaHood, it is good to have you here.

One of the things that—we find ourselves in quite a dilemma

here. On the one hand, as Mr. Kanjorski has said, we want to be

very careful about what we are doing here, because we do have a

No. 1—one of our main trading partners, Japan, involved. On the

other hand, though, we have the safety of citizens, many of our

constituents who spend thousands upon thousands of dollars to buy

an automobile, and they have a right to expect to be safe.

And to that end, yesterday there was some very telling testimony

before the Commerce Committee, and I know you were there and

heard about it, where the president of Toyota Sales USA, when

asked about the mat issue, whether it was a sticky pedal or the

mat problem, whether recalls in regard to those issues would solve

the problem, he was not sure. Are you familiar?

Secretary LAHOOD. Yes, sir. I was there, and I heard his testimony.

Mr. CUMMINGS. And as I sat here and I listened to you when you

talked about—you said go to the Web site. And you said if people

were having certain problems, they should go to the dealership.

And then I heard you—in answer to the chairman’s question, I

don’t think you ever really answered the question, because he

asked you whether or not you considered a Toyota to be safe. You

are our safety guy, just as you just said. You said it, I didn’t. And

I believe that. I believe you are concerned about safety.

The question still becomes, for our constituents, you as our safety

guy.

Secretary LAHOOD. Well, let me answer you very directly, Mr.

Cummings.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you.

Secretary LAHOOD. For those cars that are listed on our Web

site, DOT.gov, for recall to go back, those are not safe. We have determined they are not safe.

Mr. CUMMINGS. All right.

Secretary LAHOOD. We believe that we need to look at the electronics in these cars, because people have told us they believe

there’s an issue. And we are going to do that. We are going to have

a complete review on the electronics. But for now, any car that is

on the Web site needs to go back to the dealer to be fixed.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Now.

Secretary LAHOOD. We have determined that those are not safe

because of a floor mat problem, because of a sticky pedal. And——

Mr. CUMMINGS. It’s the ‘‘and’’ that I am wondering about right

there. In other words, you just said you didn’t consider those safe.

But, again, we had Lentz saying yesterday—and I am not trying

to attack you, I just want to make sure we are clear.

28

Secretary LAHOOD. Look, I am not offended by any this of this.

Come on. I am not.

Mr. CUMMINGS. But we need to be clear. We have people driving

these cars every day. And I am just wondering, do you believe

that—and it sounds like you do—that there’s something beyond

just those two things, as Mr. Lentz of Toyota USA testified to yesterday?

And one more question. If those automobiles—if there are automobiles that are not on the recall list, because that is what I am

beginning to wonder about, what are they supposed to do?

Secretary LAHOOD. There are people who believe that there are

electronics problems with Toyota, and that is the reason we are

going to do a review.

Mr. CUMMINGS. OK.

Secretary LAHOOD. And for now, we don’t have evidence right

now to say conclusively that there are these electronics problems.

We are going to get into it, we are going to get in the weeds. There

were people at that committee yesterday that had some studies

that showed that there were electronics problems on at least one

that was tested. We want that information.

For now, the only thing I will say to Toyota drivers: If your car

is listed, take it to the dealer and get it fixed. And please know

that we are going to look at some other issues because we’ve had

complaints about the electronics.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Now, do we have enough personnel to do that?

Secretary LAHOOD. Yes, sir. And I will tell you this. The President in his budget proposed 66 new employees for NHTSA. We

have 125 engineers, and we do have electrical engineers also.

The answer is the President has proposed in our budget 66 new

employees for NHTSA.

Mr. CUMMINGS. And when you look at NHTSA and you talk

about looking at problems, and you said when you see a pattern,

can you tell us what a pattern is? In other words, you say if you

see a pattern, then you take the next step.

Secretary LAHOOD. I would say, you know, if we get—I don’t

know; say we get 50 complaints on an automobile, say we get 10

complaints, we look at those seriously. And if those 10 complaints

appear to be serious, we will begin to look into it.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you. I see my time has expired. Thank

you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman TOWNS. I thank the gentleman from Maryland.

I now recognize the gentleman from Florida, Congressman Mica.

Mr. MICA. Mr. Chairman, when I received the notice for today’s

hearing—in fact this, I guess, is from the committee—it says the

panel of witnesses would include David Strickland, the administrator of NHTSA. I know he has only been on the job for a limited

number of days, but I think it is important that he testify.

I would ask unanimous consent that he be allowed to testify and

be sworn in as a witness.

Chairman TOWNS. As it was explained earlier, that the Secretary

indicated the fact that the decision was made that he had been on

the job 40 days, and that is the reason that he is not here. But the

Secretary also assured us that the decision, in terms of the final

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sibility. So once he said that, I became very comfortable with it. Because if he is going to assume the responsibility, then of course

when we discussed it with the ranking member we accepted that.

And, of course, I think that we should just move on.

Mr. MICA. Well, I do understand that he is here and he is available. I’ve never met him before, but I read his resume. And it

said—this is from the Department Web site. It said that his work

included the—he was with the Senate committee, I guess, and advising the Commerce Committee members led to his inclusion of

several significant vehicle safety measures, including the electronic

stability control mandate for every passenger vehicle. So he does

have a certain amount of expertise.

If we are going to look at the safety of equipment, I think it appears he not only is knowledgeable but has also had experience in

passing legislation or influencing regulations in that regard.

So I can withdraw my request. But, again, I am disappointed

that he is not a witness, and I was led to believe, again, that he

was on the witness list.

Mr. ISSA. Would the gentleman yield?

Mr. MICA. Well, I will yield.

Mr. ISSA. Just very briefly on this point.

Mr. Chairman, we are anticipating having another panel in a

week or two. Would you agree to work with us on the possible inclusion of Mr. Strickland? Because, of course, we are going to be

calling probably Bush administration people, and we can see the

potential of that at the end of this hearing.

Chairman TOWNS. I don’t have a problem with that at all, because, let’s face it, what we are talking about happened on the

other watch. And of course we need to recognize that. So the point

is that I think that is where our emphasis should be in terms of

trying to make certain we talk to them.

But I don’t have a problem in terms of at some point asking Mr.

Strickland to come forward. But the point is I think we should just

move forward today. We have the Secretary with us. And I

think——

Mr. MICA. I will withdraw my motion if it’s acceptable, and will

work with you. But then, if I am now recognized.

Chairman TOWNS. I now recognize the gentleman for 5 minutes.

Mr. MICA. NHTSA is the primary national safety transportation,

surface safety transportation agency of the United States and the

Department of Commerce; right, Mr. LaHood?

Secretary LAHOOD. That is correct.

Mr. MICA. Every account I have heard to date says that NHTSA

failed and Toyota failed. The chairman said it in his opening statements yesterday. We heard that. I am sorry I can’t talk to the

NHTSA administrator today, but we will get an opportunity to

hear from him.

You opened your commentary, rightfully so, with safety being the

primary responsibility of the Department of Transportation. Correct?

Secretary LAHOOD. That is correct.

Mr. MICA. And you now set the policy, and you have been there

for a number of months. So I am somewhat baffled by the budget

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quest that came out a few days ago, with the smallest request for

increase in budget for our primary safety agency. It was only $5

million. And yesterday I said in the Transportation Committee that

my dad used to say, It is not how much you spend but how you

spend it, if you spend it wisely.

But I think you know the concern Mr. Oberstar and I have had

about safety and making that a priority, particularly in transportation and in NHTSA in particular. But it is a relatively modest

amount. In fact, it is one of the lowest increases requested. Any

reason for that?

Secretary LAHOOD. We think that adding 66 new people at

NHTSA probably gets us where we need to be in terms of really

staying on top of our safety issues.

Mr. MICA. You have 632 current positions. How many vacancies

do you currently have?

Secretary LAHOOD. I’ll have to get back to you on the record for

that.

Mr. MICA. Does Mr. Strickland know? Maybe if Mr. Strickland or

staff happen to know.

Secretary LAHOOD. I will be happy to get back to you for the

record.

Mr. MICA. OK. And I would like, Mr. Chairman, to ask unanimous consent that, the number of FTE vacancies in NHTSA, be included in the record.

Chairman TOWNS. Without objection.

[The information referred to follows:]

31

32

Mr. MICA. The issue of the revolving door of people going from

NHTSA to the industry, it was stated that there’s no communications that what you stated allowed between them. I have a copy of

an e-mail in 2008 between Scott Yon of the U.S. Department of

Transportation and the former NHTSA employee who works for

Toyota. Are you aware that these types of communications went

back and forth?

Secretary LAHOOD. I saw that e-mail.

Mr. MICA. Well, you did admit that we should tighten things up.

I think that was your term.

Secretary LAHOOD. Absolutely.

Mr. MICA. Is there now a 2-year ban or a 1-year ban? Are you

familiar with the restrictions on the revolving door?

Secretary LAHOOD. Two-year ban.

Mr. MICA. So I would be glad to hear your recommendation and

support your recommendation to tighten this.

Secretary LAHOOD. I will be happy to work with you on it.

Mr. MICA. In fact, Mr. Chairman, I would like to submit this document to the record to show that in fact there has been communications, and that we do need to close the revolving door. If it’s

just limited to Toyota——

Chairman TOWNS. Without objection.

[The information referred to follows:]

33

34

35

Mr. MICA [continuing]. It doesn’t matter.

I do have disappointment. Again, I don’t want to get into all the

specifics of where those bodies are directed or requested. It’s not

my intention to try to embarrass the Department. It’s my intention

to make certain that you have the resources to do the job that you

need to do to ensure safety.

Is there anything else you could recommend to either our Transportation Committee or Government Reform in the way of additional authority, personnel, or resources that would allow——

Secretary LAHOOD. Regarding safety?

Mr. MICA. Yes.

Secretary LAHOOD. I would love for every member of this committee to cosponsor the transit safety bill that Mr. Oberstar introduced. That’s a good way to give us the opportunity to have oversight over transit systems, including WMATA, which had a terrible

crash that sparked our interest in really getting into the safety

business. And I would encourage every member of this committee

to look at that bill. It is a good bill, and it gives us the authority,

which we are prohibited from doing, to get into the safety business

with respect to transit organizations.

Mr. MICA. Well, and transit is one thing. Again, the Federal

agency has say over Amtrak and freight rails, which have probably

the worst safety record. But if you took all the fatalities in public

transit over the years and compared it to the incidents that have

been cited today in this one automobile part, I think we have a

problem.

Secretary LAHOOD. Mr. Mica, I don’t minimize any fatality. I

think one fatality is too many fatalities. And when eight people are

killed here in Washington, DC, on America’s Metro system, somebody needs to be looking out for safety. We want to do that. And

I hope we can have your support to do it.

Mr. MICA. Finally, I would venture to say, and there’s an article

in today’s Post that if we had—we do have equipment that could

provide that safety. Rather than spending on a bunch of people

wandering around the tracks, our money would best be

expended——

Secretary LAHOOD. You will be happy to know the President has proposed $150 million in the 2011 budget for WMATA for equipment.

Chairman TOWNS. The gentleman’s time has expired.

Mr. MICA. And $5 million for the NHTSA budget, the lowest

amount that I have in recent history. Thank you.

Chairman TOWNS. The gentleman’s time has expired.

I now yield to the gentleman from Ohio. But let me just say, before we do that, we have three votes; and, of course, we are going

to continue through the votes, I just want to assure you of that. So

as soon as you vote, you need to come right back, because we are

going to continue.

The gentleman from Ohio is recognized.

Mr. KUCINICH. I thank the chairman.

Welcome, Secretary LaHood.

Secretary LAHOOD. Thank you.

Mr. KUCINICH. CBS had an exclusive where they were able to

gain some internal documents that showed that Toyota redesigned

36

software in 2005 in response to complaints that cars were accelerating unexpectedly. Are you familiar with those documents?

Secretary LAHOOD. No, sir, I’m not.

Mr. KUCINICH. Is this the kind of issue that NHTSA has the ability to be able to get into?

Secretary LAHOOD. Yes, sir.

Mr. KUCINICH. So are you interested in that kind of report?

Secretary LAHOOD. Yes, sir.

Mr. KUCINICH. One of the suggestions made in that report is that

the—by an electrical engineer—is that there may be a problem

with systems design with respect to Toyota and, I would assume

by reference, to their electronic throttle control.

Does your Department have the technical ability to be able to

analyze systems, design, engineering, mechanical, software, hardware, and all the elements that would be necessary to be able to

come to a conclusion as to what the nature of unintended acceleration would be?

Secretary LAHOOD. Yes, sir, we do. And we take our responsibility seriously. We have 125 engineers. We have electrical engineers.

We are going to get into the weeds in a very thorough, comprehensive review on the electronics, because that issue has been raised

enough that we need to do that. It’s been raised by people who

drive Toyotas, it’s been raised by Members of Congress, and we are

going to do it.

Mr. KUCINICH. The distance between Washington and Japan is

well established. But the question is: What kind of ability do you

have to send those who have the technical skills to analyze documents to Japan to get Toyota’s cooperation in being able to review

records of research from, let’s say, 2004, 2005, on these models, internal documents that would tend to show whether or not Toyota

was aware of any of these problems?

Have you sent people specifically to do that? And if you haven’t,

do you intend to as part of your findings and your investigations?

Secretary LAHOOD. We have asked for a voluminous amount of

information from Toyota which we will review. If we need to go to

Japan and meet with their engineers and get more information,

that will be a part of our review.

Mr. KUCINICH. But you no doubt are aware that as an established and respected automobile manufacturer, that Toyota would

have research documents within their control that would show the

function of various components of their system.

Secretary LAHOOD. Yes. Of course.

Mr. KUCINICH. And I think this is important, Madam Chair, that

we hear from the Secretary on this, because his Department does

have the ability to be able to get into this. And while we, as Members, get these documents, we can analyze them, we have help in

being able to understand.

Now, in the time that I have remaining, for the instruction of the

membership and the public, could you walk us through how complaints are investigated? You know, who does the investigation?

Can you enable us to learn, is this all in-house? Do you outsource

any of your investigations?

Secretary LAHOOD. Almost all of our investigations are done inhouse by our experts. People file complaints with us, and we take

37

them seriously. We look into them. When we decide that this is serious enough, we interview people; we look at all the possible written material from the automobile manufacturer, from people themselves, from—we gather the most comprehensive amount of information through interviews and research, and then make a judgment if a car needs to be recalled.

Mr. KUCINICH. Well, thank you, Mr. LaHood. I just want to make

sure that you put on your agenda the issue of the redesign of software by Toyota engineers in 2005, because we want to see if Toyota’s claim that electronics were not to blame—we want to see how

that squares with the software redesign that occurred apparently

in response to some kind of electronic problem.

Secretary LAHOOD. It’s on our radar.

Mr. KUCINICH. Thank you, very much, Mr. Secretary, and thank

you for your service to our country.

Secretary LAHOOD. Thank you.

Ms. NORTON. The time of the gentleman has expired.

Mr. Secretary, I want you to know that the chairman has not

morphed into a lady in red. He has gone to vote, and I am here

pending the vote of the Congress to give the residents of the District of Columbia the same vote that your constituents had when

you were here making trouble and doing good.

Secretary LAHOOD. As a former Member, I supported your opportunity to do that, Ms. Norton.

Ms. NORTON. And we certainly will miss your vote when the bill

comes up. We thank you. The Members will reappear.

I call on, next, the gentleman from Indiana, Mr. Souder, for 5

minutes.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you very much.

Mr. Secretary, I want to say I always appreciated your your intelligence and your feistiness. It is how we arrive at truth, and it

is the only way we get at truth. I appreciate that.

First, let me say, so nothing is misunderstood, I don’t represent

a Toyota district. I represent a GM district. Fort Wayne is the

proud manufacturer of the Silverado and the Sierra. My manufacturers supply all auto companies, but mostly the Big Three. But

this whole ruckus about Toyota has bothered me personally in

watching this process—100 percent risk free is your goal—because

it is not really achievable. It is not achievable in bicycles or ice

skating or horseback riding or anything. You try to get that. But

we have kind of held them up to an artificial standard here.

I am concerned that by dragging Mr. Toyoda through this, or

asking questions like, ‘‘Are you completely, 100 percent safe in a

Toyota?’’ What are you supposed to say?

It leads me to ask a couple of questions, and you may not be able

to answer all of these today, but I would really appreciate you looking at this because this needs a thorough looking at and a fair looking at, and not acting like it is just one car company. One thing

is no vehicle is 100 percent safe; isn’t that true?

Secretary LAHOOD. Our goal is to make sure that vehicles are

100 percent safe, Mr. Souder.

Mr. SOUDER. But no vehicle is 100 percent safe?

Secretary LAHOOD. Our goal will continue to be to make sure

that cars are 100 percent safe.

38

Mr. SOUDER. Second, you said that all Toyotas that are on a safety recall, and you are even less confident of their safety if they are

on a recall. Wouldn’t you encourage people, if they have a safety

recall on any of the car companies, of which you said this is one

of the largest, but not the largest, any car company that has a

safety——

Secretary LAHOOD. Of course. Absolutely. In the last 3 years, 23

million cars have been recalled and the vast majority of them have

not been Toyotas. So anytime there is a recall, people should take

their car in and get it fixed. Of course.

Mr. SOUDER. Yes, and that is very logical. Right now, the whole

world media is focused on one of the companies. I just want to

make sure that——

Secretary LAHOOD. I can give you a whole list of cars that are

on recall, Mr. Souder, and I would be happy to do that for the

record.

Mr. SOUDER. I would appreciate that.

One of the challenges here is, and I know from my district, almost every supplier supplies all of the Big Three. We don’t have

enough suppliers anymore to be unique in the United States, and

most of them supply some of Honda and Toyota.

And one of the things that strikes me here is that you should

find out, not just looking at Toyota, but where is a common supplier, and if that supplier was supplying just to Toyota, as opposed

to other suppliers, if it is supplying other companies and it isn’t occurring there, what would be the unique thing that is happening

in Toyota? And I don’t have confidence right now that is occurring,

but I would think it is kind of a basic research question right now.

You did represent an industrial district, too, that had companies,

and I think that is a fair thing.

Now, we also have a question of the difference between—first, let

me ask you, you agree with this, right, that some is sudden acceleration and some is slow return?

Secretary LAHOOD. Yes.

Mr. SOUDER. And that the deaths—which have dramatically increased since all the publicity, the allegations, but the proven number was 14, then it went up to 39 that are now in question, and

more coming—were all related to the sudden acceleration and not

the slow return? The slow return, I think you correctly said, is a

potential danger, but the sudden acceleration, every single one of

the deaths related to that?

Secretary LAHOOD. That’s correct.

Mr. SOUDER. CTS is one of the suppliers. They are not in my district, they are in Joe Donnelly’s, but a lot of the people work in my

district. And in visiting them, they had the slow return and they

were first fingered by Toyota. But in fact, none of the parts on the

sudden acceleration were actually made in the United States, they

were all Japanese suppliers.

I think we need to look comprehensively by model and start to

look at this unique supplier question because, for example, CTS

supplies several different companies, whether those Japanese suppliers in fact supply other companies as well in this supply system.

Another thing I would appreciate more detail on is one of the

things that I am worried about happening in the regulation is, as

39

was just stated a number of times, was that Toyota was looking at

this and they were researching this and Europe had different

standards so they started to do that.

One of the dangers here with the lawsuits, and particularly

watching what is happening with Toyota sales right now, is around

the world they are getting basically, in my opinion, smeared. Possibly justly. I don’t know all of the details yet. But they are getting

attacked before all of the evidence is in, as I just suggested, with

the suppliers.

Part of the question here is, will we in fact have a discouraging

impact on companies doing—checking out every concern if it is

going to be drug into the public eye, that documents are going to

be released—and I am not accusing you, but this committee may

be responsible for that—before all of the evidence is in?

One of the challenges here, we ran into this with the trailer controversy in FEMA, which clearly now has not been established, but

had this big bubble. We said zero toxins, and then we find out that

this room had more toxins in it than the trailers. We are finding

this in orthopedic devices. We are finding this in all kinds of things

that we kind of react, and then the companies are afraid even to

do the research. The bureaucrats and the organizations require

more and more paperwork. We drive prices up because all vehicles

and all parts are a combination of what is convenience, what is

price, what is the tolerance when you go to 99.9 versus 99.7.

There’s cost to the consumers. If we all drove 20 miles an hour, we

would have fewer deaths. In this process, are you at all concerned

that we are going to silence research by the manufacturers and increase risks or increase costs or other types of things?

Secretary LAHOOD. Not at all. I think what we will do is sensitize manufacturers to the idea that safety has to be their No. 1

priority, and until they get to that point, they should manufacture

cars where they can tell the driving public they are going to be

safe.

Mr. SOUDER. Won’t lowering the speed limit to 30 save a lot more

lives?

Secretary LAHOOD. Well, the research doesn’t show that. Look it,

on an interstate highway, we have minimum speed limits. Look,

Mr. Souder, that is not a very good illustration. Lowering the speed

limit on an interstate highway to 30 would make it very dangerous.

Mr. SOUDER. The reason you have a minimum is because you

have a maximum. If you lowered the maximum to 30, you wouldn’t

need a minimum. The point being you can save lives with other

types of things.

Secretary LAHOOD. I don’t buy your argument, Mr. Souder.

Mr. SOUDER. The question is: What is the tradeoff of lives, convenience, and so on. We have seen this in horseback riding and we

have seen it in skateboarding.

You have a difficult job. Your goal is 100 percent. But we have

to have some balance here between risk, cost, and benefit.

Secretary LAHOOD. Madam Chair, our job is not for people who

ride horses or skateboards. Our job is for people who ride cars. And

our goal is that when people get in a car, they want to make sure

that it is 100 percent safe. We are not going to sleep until that happens with Toyota.

40

Ms. NORTON. Thank you. The time of the gentleman has expired.

Mr. Secretary, I recognize that this problem started perhaps as

early as 2000. You’ve only been in office less than a year. My question really goes to going forward. You’ve I think been a stand-up

Secretary. You haven’t cast blame to those who came before you.

I’m interested in the capacity of the agency, and I use the word ‘‘capacity.’’ We have talked about 66 new people. That sounds good to

all of us, particularly in this climate. It sounds responsive.

More troubling to me was news that Toyota’s engineers and technology experts were simply not there, that NHTSA didn’t even

have people capable of doing the technical work that would have

been necessary to look closely at what Toyota was doing. So when

you look at these 66 people going forward, are we going to have experts in the agency that can go toe to toe with Toyota and anybody

else? How are you dividing up these new people so we know we

have people with the technical capacity to do the job, as apparently

was not the case, because you have engineers from Toyota saying

to the press, ‘‘I didn’t know how to do the work that was necessary

in electronics?’’

Secretary LAHOOD. We will find—the climate we are in today

with the economy, I have no doubt we are going to find the very

best experts that we can to fill these positions. And we will resource them in areas where we need them, as quickly as the Congress passes our budget.

Ms. NORTON. And in division of labor, as experts versus other

kinds of people, there were missing experts, were there not, at

NHTSA during the last few years?

Secretary LAHOOD. Yes. Yes.

Ms. NORTON. So in filling the gaps, are you focusing on these

technological experts, these engineers?

Secretary LAHOOD. Yes. We will fill the positions with people

when we see the direction where our investigations are going and

what we see as the way forward for looking at complaints.

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Secretary, I have to ask you about the notorious culture of secrecy that even is admitted in Japan and whether

or not issues of competence and candor came together encapsulated

in a culture which apparently was not as open as some would have

it. Have you had difficulty penetrating the Toyota culture which

teaches that these are things that should not be aired in public?

Secretary LAHOOD. Yes.

Ms. NORTON. How are you penetrating that?

Secretary LAHOOD. Well, we have had some issues, and that’s

the reason when the acting administrator, Ron Medford, came to

me and said, ‘‘I need to go to Japan and talk to these people directly,’’ I said, ‘‘Get on a plane tonight.’’ And he went and he talked

directly to the people in Japan.

And I picked up the phone and I talked personally to Mr.

Toyoda, and I told him these are serious matters and they need to

be taken seriously. As I said earlier, I am pleased that he accepted

the invitation of this committee to appear here. I think that begins

to build the kind of communication and opportunity for people to

really talk to one another about how we solve these problems in

the future.

41

Ms. NORTON. Well, let’s take the sticky pedal issue. We now

know that Toyota—because Toyota said that it knew of this issue

as early as 2008, but it didn’t decide to make those changes in the

United States until over a year later, is it accurate that they knew

about it and, over a year, delayed in making the necessary

changes, and how do they justify that to your agency?

Secretary LAHOOD. Madam Chair, I would rather just give you

the details for the record, if I could, rather than getting into the

specifics.

Ms. NORTON. Say that again.

Secretary LAHOOD. I would like to put that on the record so I can

be very specific about the chronology of it and how it took place.

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Secretary, that really is going to be necessary.

It is that lag that makes everybody driving a Toyota today wonder

whether or not a few months from now they will hear about another recall that they should have heard about prior to that. It is

very important to get that on the record as soon as you can. I understand the necessity to do so in the spirit of accuracy.

Secretary LAHOOD. We will do it very quickly.

Ms. NORTON. In meeting with the committee staff, officials from

your agency said Toyota had been dragging its feet—that’s in

quotes, that’s from the staff—when it comes to working with your

agency to solve the issues.

Do you believe that Toyota has been slow to respond to safety

concerns raised by the Department and by NHTSA?

Secretary LAHOOD. Yes, I do. That’s the reason we went to

Japan. That’s the reason I talked to Mr. Toyoda directly. That’s the

reason we’ve had these discussions.

Ms. NORTON. Do you believe now that the candor and the rapid

response that you are demanding you are receiving? In other

words, this notion that if you take your time, that was apparently

a part of the culture of Toyota, these things will work out? When

it comes to these cars, that will not be tolerated? That somehow

what they say to you, you now can trust?

Secretary LAHOOD. I said yesterday at the other hearing, Madam

Chair, that I think the business model for Toyota where they have

some very, very good people in North America, very good people—

their issues may not have always been communicated or heard in

Japan. But I do think that the fact that Mr. Toyoda is here, that

he is testifying, that he is willing to answer questions, things have

changed. His visit here has been a game changer.

Ms. NORTON. It is very important for Toyota owners to hear that

the game is really different now, Mr. Secretary. However, I am

looking at a big ream of paper, and I must congratulate your new

administrator because it was sent apparently on February 16th. He

has not been in office very long, as you indicated. They contain

over 100 questions as of now, seeking information about this crisis.

It would lead us to believe that even now you are somewhat skeptical about what you are hearing from Toyota because you have

had to send a whole ream of entirely new questions to Toyota about

what appears to be this whole set of issues, even though you have

penetrated very deeply already and gotten countless recalls and

countless information anew from Toyota.

42

What is the meaning of having to send so big a pile? These are

three separate letters from different parts of NHTSA. How are we

to interpret at this date the necessity to get this much new information from Toyota? Or is it new information?

Secretary LAHOOD. Some of it will be new information. I made

a judgment and a decision that we would do the most comprehensive review, going back as far as we possibly could, to get information so we can make a judgment about whether they were forthright, whether we had the information, whether we were making

judgment calls based on everything we had. We need to see all of

that so we can determine if Toyota was forthright, because we have

the ability to issue penalties if they weren’t. But before we decide

that, we want to make sure that they give it all to us, and did we

get it all to begin with.

Ms. NORTON. Now, how common is it to have to send such a big

pile of letters so late in a controversy to get the information that

is necessary? You’ve had recalls. What’s new about this is recurrent, almost rolling recalls.

Secretary LAHOOD. We felt it was necessary to do—really do the

total comprehensive review of this to make sure we got it right.

Ms. NORTON. Let me ask you about what you believe happened

to a company that stole the thunder from other companies—and

most especially companies in the United States—based, it would

seem initially, almost primarily on the safety and quality of its

product, built a reputation of products that were so thoroughly, and

done with such high quality, were so trustworthy on the road. That

rising star was Toyota. And we have automobile companies in the

United States in receivership essentially, owned by the United

States.

One of the things that is very hard for Toyota owners to understand is how that stellar reputation so quickly—or was it quickly—

got lost so that you would now perhaps rank Toyotas among the

worst of automobile companies in terms of safety and reliability?

What did they do wrong that got them to this low point in what

had been a very lofty and well-regarded history of operation?

Secretary LAHOOD. Madam Chair, some of what I would say

would be conjecture. But certainly on the safety side, I think Toyota became a little bit safety deaf.

Ms. NORTON. Was it because they were so big?

Secretary LAHOOD. Well, look, I don’t want to conjecture on these

things because it would just be my opinion. But on the safety part

of it, which I think is something we know about at DOT, I do believe that they were safety deaf. I also believe their business model

for communicating between North America and Japan needs some

change.

Ms. NORTON. Meaning that Japan calls the shots even in North

America?

Secretary LAHOOD. Just that they need to listen to one another

and hear what one another are saying.

Ms. NORTON. Let’s take the override systems. When we talk

about quality and the type of quality that one would expect from

Toyota, even if one didn’t expect it from other companies, apparently when it came to brakes, other companies did have override

systems in their vehicles that would have allowed them to be easily

43

stopped. Why, and I am sure you have asked Toyota, wasn’t override, which apparently was common enough to be in other makes

of cars, why did they not do override in the Toyota?

Secretary LAHOOD. Mr. Lentz, the CEO of Toyota, announced

yesterday that they are putting this override capability in a number of cars.

Ms. NORTON. You betcha, after loss of life. But this was not

something they had to discover. What would have led a company

of such reputation not to include that override when it was already

included in other makes of cars?

Secretary LAHOOD. Well, I would just be conjecturing on that. I

think Mr. Toyoda may be able to answer that.

Ms. NORTON. Maybe we need to ask him. But Mr. Secretary, unless we can discover why Toyota decided to throw overboard the

kinds of safeguards we understand would have been in early Toyotas, we won’t be able to make sure that they are not doing it. In

other words, ultimately brake overrides, we will have to say whether everybody should have brake overrides. And we will have to

know whether those kinds of things get left out of cars because people are trying to save money or because people are trying to keep

up with the competition. We have to know why. That is not a small

thing, and it is a matter of some genuine, I think, skepticism and

curiosity on the part of all of us.

Now, one auto consultant said in a recent report, ‘‘Regardless of

the causes of sudden acceleration in Toyota and Lexus vehicles, it

is apparent that the automaker’s first step should be measures

aimed at protecting the public. The implementation of a brake to

idle override feature across all model lines and years may be a significant step in that direction.’’

Do you think that such features should now be in all automobiles, Mr. Secretary?

Secretary LAHOOD. You know, I would rather base that kind of

a judgment on good research and a number of things. I’m not going

to—we need to really look at that, Madam Chair. I can’t render a

judgment on that at the moment.

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Secretary, I wish you would take a look at it,

because I think now everybody is going to want to know what is

the minimum safety equipment that should be in every automobile

sold in the United States.

Let me go on to another series of questions.

The committee has an e-mail between NHTSA investigators and

Toyota from January of this year. There is a reference to an accident that occurred in Texas and NHTSA’s request to download

data from the event recorder in that vehicle.

From reading this e-mail, it would appear that NHTSA is unable

to download this data on its own without Toyota’s presence. Is that

correct?

Secretary LAHOOD. We have over 7,600 EDR files in our crash

data. The commercial available tool only reads GM, Ford, Chrysler.

Toyota has a proprietary EDR which is the system that only they

can read.

Ms. NORTON. Why is it proprietary? Why can they only read it?

It is not proprietary for the others. This is what I mean by the culture of secrecy. It is ours, even though these kinds of things are

44

made known by other automakers, we’re not going to do it. Would

your agency allow that kind of secrecy on that kind of important

matter to continue?

Secretary LAHOOD. No.

Ms. NORTON. I’m pleased to hear that. Should there be a Federal

standard there, do you think?

Secretary LAHOOD. Let me get back to you on that.

Ms. NORTON. It is very important. We need to know what the

standards are.

Secretary LAHOOD. Right.

Ms. NORTON. What the new standards are. And you recognize,

Mr. Secretary, all of these questions are, yes, based on what has

happened, but based on going forward, because that was on their

watch, now you’re on your watch?

Secretary LAHOOD. Right.

Ms. NORTON. Do you believe that Toyota should make the black

box data more easily available to law enforcement and NHTSA?

Secretary LAHOOD. Yes.

Ms. NORTON. Thank you.

According to testimony that we are going to get later, I understand NHTSA has a standard that allows companies to choose

whether to install black boxes in cars, and requires that any installed recorder track certain types of information. Some experts

have suggested that we need a Federal safety standard, and I

would like to know your opinion on this matter.

Secretary LAHOOD. That’s something we are looking at.

Ms. NORTON. Could I ask you, Mr. Secretary, how long you think

it will take to come up with a basic safety standard for all automobiles? We are asking you some questions which you certainly

cannot answer until the Toyota investigation at the very least is

over. I am now, I think, speaking for people who are driving

Lexuses and Toyotas, about whether they can expect that the agency, doing its due diligence, will come up with something that means

I’ve been driving an unsafe automobile. That’s why the time factor

turns out to be important on this. How long do you think that it

will take us to know, or NHTSA to know?

Secretary LAHOOD. Rather than giving you a time, Madam

Chair, I would rather get back to you so we can figure this out.

Ms. NORTON. I wish you would give us an understanding just

how difficult that is. When I look at this ream of new material, I’m

not asking you not to go through it, but I am thinking about how

many nervous folks are out there wondering if they would be next.

Secretary LAHOOD. Would you mind if we take a brief recess?

Maybe the only advantage of you not having a vote is you can continue asking me questions, but I wouldn’t mind taking a break, if

you don’t mind.

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Secretary, in light of your great patience in

being here while I sat alone asking you questions, I could hardly

refuse you. Ten minute break.

[Recess.]

Ms. NORTON. We will reconvene with Mr. Duncan of Tennessee

recognized for 5 minutes.

Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you, Madam Chair.

45

Mr. Secretary, I don’t see how anybody could have done a better

job during this first year.

Secretary LAHOOD. Thank you.

Mr. DUNCAN. Rampage, as you describe it, about texting and

other electronic devices while driving. I hope you will keep pushing

that just as much as you can.

Let me ask you, is there anything that Toyota should be doing

now, that the Department feels that Toyota should be doing now,

that they are not doing? Are you satisfied with their response?

Secretary LAHOOD. Well, we have sent them a request for a lot

of information. I believe they will comply. We want to look back

and look at a lot of documents to determine what went wrong earlier on, if anything went wrong earlier on. So that request is pending. We know they will be doing their—gathering the information

that we have asked for. We want their cooperation as we look in

depth at this electronics issue because we are going into the weeds

on this. People have asked us to do this. We think that it is important to do it.

Some people believe that electronics are a part of the problem

and it is our responsibility to really check that out. So we are going

to do that. We need their cooperation on that. I don’t know that

they won’t cooperate. There have been some studies done by some

people that they hired, but also by a fellow at Southern Illinois

University in Carbondale. We want to look at that information. We

want to know if they have any information independent of the people that they have hired. We will continue to look into that aspect

of their automobiles.

Mr. DUNCAN. Let me ask you a couple of other things. I seem to

recall that I read that NHTSA has approximately 700 employees;

is that correct?

Secretary LAHOOD. Round numbers, that is pretty accurate.

Mr. DUNCAN. There was some mention of this occurring, some of

the bad things happening on somebody else’s watch, but most of

those employees are civil service employees, I assume. And most of

those employees are still there today that were there.

Secretary LAHOOD. Some of them are, and they are all career

people.

Mr. DUNCAN. Right. Judging from your earlier testimony, you are

pretty satisfied with the response that they made at the time, or

the investigations that were made at the time, and what has been

done since you came on board?

Secretary LAHOOD. One of the reasons that we made this huge

request to Toyota, we want to make sure when our people put eyes

on paperwork prior to this, that we had everything. But I tell you

this, we have some of the most professional career people. They

take their jobs very seriously when it comes to safety because they

know the work they do could save lives and save inuries. But we

want to make sure that they had all of the information.

Mr. DUNCAN. All right. I have heard on the news, and I don’t

know what the details are, but there apparently was some braggadocio, or at least happiness, by some Toyota engineers or Toyota

employees for getting NHTSA to reduce an earlier recall or hold it

down to a very small number, and they have claimed that they

46

saved Toyota $100 million or some huge amount of money. Do you

know about that?

Secretary LAHOOD. No, I saw the press reports where Toyota was

talking about that. But I will tell you this, Mr. Dunning: We are

not going to compromise when it comes to safety, not on my watch.

We are going to hold Toyota’s feet to the fire. We are going to get

all of this information. We are going to make sure that what we

looked at before was correct. If there is new information, then we

will put it out there.

So Toyota made some statements about saving some money but

from my point of view it will not be at the expense of safety.

Mr. DUNCAN. These earlier reports about NHTSA not having

electrical engineers or software engineers, you said that was untrue

and you have plenty of electrical and software engineers.

Secretary LAHOOD. We have electrical engineers. We have over

200 engineers, total about 230, and we have electrical engineers.

Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you very much.

Chairman TOWNS. The time of the gentleman has expired.

I now yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois, Congressman Quigley.

Mr. QUIGLEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Good afternoon. My colleague, Ms. Norton, raised the issues and,

again, discussing the black box issue at some point. Is it true that

NHTSA issued a voluntary standard as it relates to black boxes,

asking that they be included, that they be used in cars?

Secretary LAHOOD. Voluntary to have it, mandatory if you do

have it. For reporting.

Mr. QUIGLEY. In light of what we have learned so far, and perhaps in light of what we don’t know because you mentioned yourself, we are not sure it’s the electronics, or someone is not sure it’s

electronics, does it make sense now, given the fact that this information lag is dangerous, that we require it?

Secretary LAHOOD. That is something that we are looking into.

Mr. QUIGLEY. Is it because of cost?

Secretary LAHOOD. The answer, Mr. Quigley, is that we will find

out if they should be mandatory or not. We are looking into it.

Mr. QUIGLEY. Back to the issue of electronics, then, and whether

or not that is an issue, do you or do the folks who work with you,

are they aware that the electronics that are used in Toyotas are

being—it is the same type of software that is being used in all

makes of relatively new cars? And if that’s the case, to act

proactively, shouldn’t we be looking at the sum and substance of

that software to see if it can’t be an issue with all makes as well?

Secretary LAHOOD. Of course, and that’s what we are going to

do. I said earlier in my testimony and in response to other questions, we are going to do a comprehensive, complete review on the

electronics because people think that it has caused some of these

accidents. Members of Congress think that. It is our obligation to

check it out, whether it is in Toyota or any other car.

Mr. QUIGLEY. Well, have we started talking to other automakers

about their electronics and the issues they may or may not have

had?

Secretary LAHOOD. We are going to do a comprehensive review.

47

Mr. QUIGLEY. I know what you’re going to do, so I’m just asking,

have we done that——

Secretary LAHOOD. We’re starting it. Have we done it before? Is

that what you’re asking me?

Mr. QUIGLEY. Yes.

Secretary LAHOOD. We are just starting, because of all of the

complaints we have heard.

Mr. QUIGLEY. We have heard these complaints for how long?

Secretary LAHOOD. On the electronics, since really the issue of

the floor mat. We really started hearing about the electronics when

we identified what we thought the problem was and then we issued

the three recalls. So we have made a decision to look at the electronics now.

Mr. QUIGLEY. What would you suggest your timeframe would be

either to get back to us or to the public in terms of your recommendations on the electronics, dealing with other makers and

the issue of whether or not to make the black boxes mandatory?

Secretary LAHOOD. I will get back to you. I don’t know how long

this is going to take. It’s going to be a complete review. And as

you’ve indicated, it should be on other makes of automobiles that

use the same kind of electronics. It’s going to be a comprehensive

study. I’ll get back to you for the record when our results will be

available.

Mr. QUIGLEY. Given your answers, I will close with the following.

It seems like we are flying blind. The makers and yourself seem

to be saying that we don’t know enough. So that information lag

would seem to at first beg the question that we have the black

boxes in all these new cars so we don’t have to go back and say

what happened. We know as it happens, immediately.

So I know you want to review it and think about it, but it seems

the key missing ingredient here is what happened and why. If we

had the black boxes, perhaps we would have a better answer already and we would be acting quicker to solve these problems. So

it just makes sense to me to start moving quickly. You made it

mandatory, why not make it mandatory now so we go forward with

more information?

Secretary LAHOOD. I take your point.

Mr. QUIGLEY. I yield back the balance of my time.

Chairman TOWNS. I thank the gentleman from Illinois. Thank

you very much for your comments.

The gentleman from Utah, Mr. Chaffetz.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Thank you.

Mr. Secretary, does the government treat Toyota the same as it

does all of the other automakers?

Secretary LAHOOD. In the last 3 years, we have had 23 million

recalls. The vast majority have not been Toyota. The answer is absolutely correct. Yes.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. My understanding is the GM Cobalt, which I happen to own—I was surprised after learning this information. In

February NHTSA opened an investigation into the steering mechanism in the GM Cobalt based on 1,157 complaints. My understanding is that based on 84 complaints, the model year 2009 Corollas

were also opened up.

48

Two questions: Why did it take NHTSA so long, when we are

talking about model year 2005 and 2006 Cobalts, to jump into this

fray? And why is there such an apparent discrepancy between the

number of Cobalts versus the number of Corollas?

Secretary LAHOOD. You mean the number of complaints?

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Yes.

Secretary LAHOOD. There are 30,000 complaints a year. Every

one is taken seriously. We look at every one. We review every one,

and we make a judgment call about when to start an investigation.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Why did it take so long? A thousand complaints.

Secretary LAHOOD. I will have to get back to you. I don’t know

the specifics on that. But I want you to know this——

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Well, 1 out of every 30 complaints is about this

Cobalt, according to your stats. Why did it take so long?

Secretary LAHOOD. I will get back to you for the record.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. And what is the current status of this?

Secretary LAHOOD. It is under investigation.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Do you honestly believe that Toyota is being held

to exactly the same standard as General Motors and everybody

else?

Secretary LAHOOD. Absolutely, 100 percent.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Is there any sort of interaction with the United

Auto Workers on any part of this whatsoever?

Secretary LAHOOD. Absolutely not.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. What is the so-called negotiation? I don’t understand why a regulatory body involved in safety and security has to

enter into a negotiation with a company. I’m not understanding

that term and what that really means.

Secretary LAHOOD. Well, we want to talk to them. We need to

get information from them. We need to talk to them about what

our investigation is about and what we are looking at, what kinds

of information we need in order to do the good investigation that

needs to be done.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. My understanding is there is a February 5, 2010,

report entitled, ‘‘Toyota’s Sudden Unintendend Acceleration’’ which

claimed that NHTSA’s incomplete investigative findings are ‘‘certainly the result of insufficient resources.’’ Do you believe it is common for NHTSA to not be able to go as fully into these problems

and challenges because of insufficient resources? Or is it some

other reason?

Secretary LAHOOD. We have resources. As I said, we have about

125 engineers. We have electrical engineers. I believe we have the

resources in the President’s budget proposed for 2011; 66 additional

slots would come to NHTSA if that budget were approved by Congress.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. My understanding is that it is common, standard

language for NHTSA to say, if a defect petition is denied by

NHTSA, to use the language, ‘‘In view of the need to allocate and

prioritize NHTSA’s limited resources to best accomplish the agency’s safety mission, the petition is denied.’’ Is there a reason that

language is routinely used? If you are saying that you do have sufficient resources and you are using the statement on a regular

basis, they seem to contradict each other.

49

Secretary LAHOOD. You know, I will have to get back to you on

that. I don’t know the reference that you are making on that.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. There have been some anecdotal allegations—I

don’t know if they are true, that is why I am asking the question—

that there seems to be an increase in the number of attorneys that

are going into NHTSA and a decrease in the number of engineers.

Can you give me a sense of what is really happening in terms of

the balance of the employees?

Secretary LAHOOD. I will put it on the record, how many attorneys versus how many engineers.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. I’m sorry, you don’t know?

Secretary LAHOOD. I want to be accurate because I am under

oath. If you want to know the exact number of lawyers versus the

exact number of engineers, I will put it on the record for you.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. That would be great.

Are there any other failures that we see within the system, or

complaints or concerns by citizens, that have been given to

NHTSA, that are above and beyond the number that we saw with

Toyota, that have not gone into this category of being recalled or

gone into some other——

Secretary LAHOOD. I would say the one thing that I have already

talked about is the electronics, and that is something, as I said, we

are going to review because people have come to us, both Toyota

drivers and owners and Members of Congress, who believe that the

electronics are a problem. And we are going to look into that.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Do you believe there is too cozy of a relationship

between NHTSA and the industry? And the second part of that

question——

Secretary LAHOOD. No, absolutely not.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Why would Toyota not hire former NHTSA employees if not to just engender a more cozy relationship?

Secretary LAHOOD. You’ll have to ask the employees. There is

not a ‘‘cozy relationship.’’ In the last 3 years, we have recalled 23

million cars.

Chairman TOWNS [presiding]. The gentleman’s time has expired.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman TOWNS. I now yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from

Tennessee, Mr. Cooper.

Mr. COOPER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Welcome, Mr. Secretary. You have been on both sides of these

congressional hearings, so you know what it is like.

Way back in 2007, an enterprising TV journalist in Nashville,

TN, for the NBC affiliate, Jeremy Finley, reported on a story about

the Toyota Tacoma, an unfortunate accident in our area, unexplained circumstances. But unlike most reporters, he dug deeper.

He found 20 cases all over America. He went from Phoenix to Boston. He interviewed former NHTSA head, Joan Claybrook, who

said, ‘‘I think what you’ve encountered here is a safety defect of significant proportions.’’ He interviewed other experts.

In 2008, apparently NHTSA took a quick look but rapidly closed

its investigation, telling folks that ‘‘In view of the need to allocate

and prioritize NHTSA’s limited resources to best accomplish the

agency’s safety mission, the petition is denied.’’ NHTSA didn’t say

50

there wasn’t a problem. They basically said they had other, more

important things to look at.

Now, we all know that we want to get to the truth here. I would

urge you and NHTSA to make sure that you are asking Congress

for whatever resources you need, that you are prioritizing appropriately, and if you could give us assurances that you are looking

into all models. I know that you are a good person. You inherited

a lot of responsibilities, but the public is demanding answers.

Secretary LAHOOD. May I just read something here, Mr. Cooper:

The Tacoma 2005 through 2010 is subject to the pedal entrapment

recall announced in October 2009. The Tacoma is not subject to the

sticky pedal recall because it applies only to vehicles that have a

certain pedal manufactured by CTS. And the Tacoma was not subject to the floor mat recall in 2007 because the evidence available

did not indicate the floor mat was a problem.

We have identified 33 relevant complaints and, as I indicated,

those model years are under a recall.

Mr. COOPER. You know as well as I do that families who own a

vehicle may not be expert as to whether it is a pedal entrapment

problem or a floor mat problem or a sticky pedal problem. They

just want a safe ride for themselves and their families. So we need

to be getting about the business of offering safe rides to folks.

Secretary LAHOOD. I agree with that.

Mr. COOPER. My concern is this. We need a strong safety agency

so that they can catch safety problems promptly and save lives. We

also need a safety agency that is not captured or beholdened to industry, so it has the credibility that once safety problems have

been resolved, that people feel comfortable riding in the vehicles

again, because there are a lot of innocent victims at the front-end

when lives are lost and at the back-end when livelihoods are lost.

So I am hopeful we can restore Toyota’s credibility, get to the bottom of this rapidly, and start encouraging commerce again and safe

rides all over this country.

I appreciate your service not only in this body but also in the executive branch, and just make sure that you ask us for whatever

you need to get the job done.

Secretary LAHOOD. Thank you.

Mr. COOPER. I yield back.

Chairman TOWNS. Thank you. The gentleman from Arizona, Mr.

Flake.

Mr. FLAKE. I thank the chairman. Welcome back, Mr. Secretary.

It is good to see you.

Secretary LAHOOD. Thank you.

Mr. FLAKE. I just want to follow along the lines Mr. Chaffetz did,

talking about whether all car companies, domestic and foreign, will

be treated equally. And I know you emphatically stated, yes, they

are and will be. But he seemed to present some statistics that show

that at least—and I know a body like this shouldn’t just accept an

emphatic statement, ‘‘yes, we will,’’ you ought to look at the complaints and statistics and wonder if that is the case or will be the

case. This recall is likely to cost Toyota untold billions of dollars.

A similar recall of a GM product, for example, would be similar.

That cost, because of our investment of taxpayer dollars into this

bailout, would reflect on the taxpayers as well. So I don’t think it

51

is out of line to question and at least caution that the Department

of Transportation and NHTSA be extremely careful in how they accept and deal with complaints that come in, to ensure that government isn’t taking sides in an area where we have a big investment.

I was just a little bit disturbed by the emphatic statement, ‘‘Believe me when I say yes,’’ rather than ‘‘Well, if there are statistics

that may appear to reflect some kind of favoritism, we will look

into that.’’

Do we have a commitment that is the case and not just saying,

yes, they will be treated fairly and you should trust us, but we will

look into the statistics on complaints and how they are dealt with

by NHTSA?

Secretary LAHOOD. Well, Mr. Flake, let me stipulate, when it

comes to safety, there will be no compromises. There will be no

cozy relationships. There will be no sweetheart deals. You have my

commitment on that. Not under my watch.

And as I said earlier, if you look at any speech I gave last year,

it was on safety. Whether it was on planes, trains, or automobiles,

it was on safety. That is our obligation to the public. I don’t buy

this argument that because the government owns 60 percent of GM

that we are going to turn a blind eye to that. That is nonsense. We

would never do that. It will never happen under my watch. I guarantee you that.

Look, Mr. Flake, you and I have worked on a lot of issues together.

Mr. FLAKE. We have. And I understand your commitment. A lot

of this was prior to your entrance there. But I guess what I’m looking for is a recognition that hey, on the outside, one could question

whether or not government, the Federal Government, with a substantial investment of taxpayer dollars into a couple of domestic

automakers might be under a pretty high standard here, and we

ought to look at complaints and make sure that we are treating

them fairly rather than just saying yes, we will treat them fairly,

trust me. I trust you. I may not trust everybody that I don’t know,

that I haven’t seen. It goes a lot further, I think, with a lot of us

to hear yes, that is something that we need to guard against. That

is something that we need to be absolutely sure of.

I can tell you in other areas government does favor areas, individuals, and others with whom investments are made. That’s just

the bottom line, that is how governments work, and that is human

nature. I am asking for a little recognition that that is something

we ought to be concerned about, and we are.

Secretary LAHOOD. I recognize that.

Mr. FLAKE. Thank you.

Mr. ISSA. Would the gentleman yield?

Mr. FLAKE. I would yield.

Mr. ISSA. Thank you.

Mr. Secretary, you earlier noted the investigation of the Cobalt,

that it has been open. In your opening remarks, first set of remarks, you talked about the members of NHTSA who went to

Japan and shortcutted an investigation by saving time and money

and getting a voluntary cooperation early on, based on the end of

a 2009 trip to Tokyo; is that right?

Secretary LAHOOD. Yes.

52

Mr. ISSA. So we own 60 percent of General Motors. The Cobalt

has had far more complaints on a reminiscently similar problem to

where you have a recall on the Corolla. Are we doing this investigation in the slow road because General Motors is not willing to

do what Toyota was willing to do when your people went to them

last year?

Secretary LAHOOD. Repeat the question.

Mr. ISSA. Wouldn’t it save us money if General Motors would do

what Toyota did and not make you go through the long investigation process on a car that has had far greater complaints and

should be under the same scrutiny?

Secretary LAHOOD. Our job is to do an investigation. If we can

get cooperation, we get it. If we can’t, we use every tool in our tool

box to get to the bottom line, which is the safety of these cars.

Mr. ISSA. How about our majority interest in General Motors?

We own 60 percent of them.

Secretary LAHOOD. Ask me a question about it.

Mr. ISSA. Are you willing to ask General Motors to cooperate as

fully as Toyota did with the Corolla on a car which has had more

complaints for a longer period of time?

Secretary LAHOOD. Yes.

Mr. ISSA. Thank you.

Chairman TOWNS. The gentleman’s time has expired.

I now yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois, Congressman Davis.

Mr. DAVIS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Secretary, it is good to see you and it is good to see you in

this role. I want to commend you on the stellar job you have been

doing since having been appointed and confirmed.

Let me ask you, some believe that the uncontrollable sudden acceleration problems are not being caused by pedal entrapment or

sticky pedals but by an electrical malfunction, either a software

problem or electrical interference with some component of Toyota’s

computer systems. It is my understanding that the Department of

Transportation has now launched an investigation into possible

electrical interference as a possible cause; is that correct?

Secretary LAHOOD. I would call it more of a very comprehensive

review, and at some point we may get into an investigation. But

we are going to do a thorough review and look at everything. And

by that, I mean we know now as a result of testimony given yesterday, there is a fellow at Southern Illinois University who did a

study, and we want to look at that and we want to look at what

Toyota has done and look at all of the facts and then determine if,

in fact, there is a problem.

Mr. DAVIS. Can I ask you what precipitated or caused you to look

at this particular area?

Secretary LAHOOD. Complaints by people who own these cars

and also Members of Congress who believe there is an electronics

problem.

Mr. DAVIS. It is my understanding that both Toyota and NHTSA

have examined this issue before. What would be different now

about the examination?

Secretary LAHOOD. I think testimony that was given yesterday

before the Commerce Committee, where a gentleman from SIU has

53

done a study and he found that there were some problems. If there

is fresh information, new information, we know Toyota hired some

people to do a study, we want to look at that. We want our own

engineers to look back. Look it, if people think there is a problem,

we should look at that. That is our job to look at it.

Mr. DAVIS. So you are not relying on past examinations and past

experiences. You are really starting now?

Secretary LAHOOD. Yes. We want to put eyes on the fresh information, the new information.

Mr. DAVIS. Thank you very much. That gives me some assurance

that we are going to do a thorough investigation. I commend you

again for the work that you have done. Thank you.

Secretary LAHOOD. Thank you, sir.

Chairman TOWNS. I thank the gentleman from Illinois.

I now yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Missouri, Mr.

Luetkemeyer.

Mr. LUETKEMEYER. Mr. Secretary, thank you for the frankness of

your answers today. Compared to some of the recent witnesses we

have had, it is very refreshing. Thank you.

I am kind of curious. To me the question here is the protocol or

process that you have in place with regard to reviewing 30,000

complaints a year and what raises it to a level that you would start

to investigate the floor mat problem, for instance.

Can you give me a little overview of your process or protocol that

you have in place with regard to how many complaints do you have

to have, how serious they have to be, before they are raised to the

level of requesting a recall from the manufacturer, and kind of

walk us through the process?

Secretary LAHOOD. I can’t give you a number where you say, you

know, once you get 25 complaints, that’s it. That’s the benchmark.

It depends. The gentleman from Utah was questioning why it took

1,300 one place and a lesser number in another place. It is the seriousness of the complaint. It is our people who are experts really

looking at these, driving, looking at the research, talking to the

people who owned the automobile, talking to the car manufacturer,

and really trying to discover if there is a serious flaw or defect or

something wrong. It’s a judgment call.

Mr. LUETKEMEYER. It is more individualized based on the particular incident that you are investigating.

Secretary LAHOOD. That’s right. And if there is a commonality.

If there are 100 complaints and they are all about the same thing,

obviously that is probably an issue that we need to look at.

Mr. LUETKEMEYER. I know a couple of Members were talking

about trying to bring into the investigation information from other

parts of the world. Have you done that at all with any recent investigation?

Secretary LAHOOD. We do that. We try and get information from

the foreign car manufacturers and other places in the world. We

get, try to get, we look at it and see what it says.

Mr. LUETKEMEYER. I know that you mentioned that you are looking to try and get some more engineers on your watch here. And

one of the things that the folks at Toyota have made a comment

about is that they believe and the comment was ‘‘the new team has

54

less understanding of engineering issues and are more focused on

primary legal issues.’’

Do you think that is a fair statement? Is that the necessity for

more engineers?

Secretary LAHOOD. Is the statement that engineers are working

on legal issues? Is that what that said?

Mr. LUETKEMEYER. What they are trying to say is that your focus

is more on the legal part of it versus the actual engineering part

where the problem really is.

Secretary LAHOOD. I don’t buy that argument. But, you know, if

you want me to get you some statistics on it, I can do that for the

record.

Mr. LUETKEMEYER. They are actually making the argument for

more engineers for you.

Secretary LAHOOD. Well, the President put in our budget 66 new

positions, and we think that will be a good resource for us.

Mr. LUETKEMEYER. I think, quite frankly, a point needs to be

made as well that, a lot of the problems we are dealing with today

is their engineering versus the quality of the vehicle itself. I think

that the manufacturing and the quality of the parts on the vehicle

are not in question here; it is the engineering of these parts that

cause some of the problems to happen.

So I guess one more question I have with regards to all of this

when you are starting to investigate, do you bring in outside experts as well to try and work on these issues? In other words, if

you have an issue you are not—your engineers are not capable of

doing, or actuarially you are not sure?

Secretary LAHOOD. Absolutely.

Mr. LUETKEMEYER. Where do you go to get that information?

What experts do you go to?

Secretary LAHOOD. We go to people on the outside who are expert, electrical engineers, or mechanical engineers. We find—look

at, there are a lot of good people around America who can provide

expertise. And we are not bashful about doing that if we don’t

think we have it in-house.

Mr. LUETKEMEYER. Do you make recommendations to manufacturers on how to rectify a situation? Or do you leave it up to them?

Secretary LAHOOD. We leave it up to them and we don’t sign off

on it. They come to us and say: We think this is the fix. But we

don’t put our stamp on it, but we make sure that they really believe this is the fix.

Mr. LUETKEMEYER. Mr. Secretary, I appreciate your comments

today. I yield back the balance of my time.

Secretary LAHOOD. Thank you.

Chairman TOWNS. I now yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from

Virginia, Congressman Connolly.

Mr. CONNOLLY. With the consent of the chairman and the committee, I would like to yield my time to Mr. Lynch who has a pressing engagement, and reclaim my time at the appropriate point.

Chairman TOWNS. Without objection.

Mr. LYNCH. I thank Congressman Connolly. I appreciate the

courtesy.

Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Good to see you. We have the advantage in Congress of being able to look at things forensically after

55

they happen, and you have the unfortunate disability that you

have to make decisions as they occur. And I understand that difficulty. But I do want to say that, looking at this forensically, first,

we had Toyota come out with the recall regarding the floor mats.

All right. So I just think that is a red herring, and I am not sure

that all of these problems are from somebody’s floor mat. I think

it is easily understood; it is somewhat user controlled.

The second excuse was this very simplistic sounding ‘‘sticky gas

pedal,’’ trying to make it sound very innocent. And now we have

electronic interference, somewhat external, I guess, as the nature

of the problem. And it just sounds like the problems are getting—

or at least the solutions are getting more complicated as we go forward, more expensive, more pernicious. And I happened to read

something by Steve Wozniak, the co-founder of Apple and he has

a bunch of Priuses, but his most recent one is not one of the ones

that was subject to any of the recalls.

And he says, ‘‘I have many models of the Prius that got recalled,

but I have a new model that didn’t get recalled.’’ And this is a fellow who says a lot of things don’t bother him in life except for computers that don’t work and don’t work right.

And he says, ‘‘This new model has an accelerator that goes wild,

but only under certain conditions of cruise control. And I can repeat this over and over again safely.’’ He said, ‘‘This is software.

It is not a bad accelerator pedal. It is very scary, but luckily for

me’’ he says, ‘‘I can hit the brakes.’’

Now, here is my problem, Mr. Secretary. My dealers are working

night and day right now, my Toyota dealers, to fix the mats, the

floor mats, the sticky pedal. They are going through these fixes.

One of my dealers I talked to yesterday doing 175 fixes per day.

He has all of his people working. And I appreciate that there is a

real effort. But I am one of these Members of Congress who thinks

that this is a software problem. And if we are bringing people in

and fixing their sticky pedal, or fixing their floor mat and sending

them back out on the road with the assurance that their car is

fixed, we are sort of creating a moral hazard here, a situation that

we are telling people that they have the reassurance now, because

we have ‘‘fixed it.’’

But if this is still a problem that you are investigating and beginning to investigate, then we are making the problem more dangerous. And I am just concerned that is the phenomenon we have

here, that this is at root, a software problem, something much more

complex, something much more pernicious, something much tougher to get rid of. And we are playing with this by telling people,

well, we are going to change your floor mat or we are going to oil

your sticky pedal here and you will be OK. So how do we get at

that?

Secretary LAHOOD. Well, as you can imagine, Mr. Lynch, I mean,

we have to base our judgments on research and on good data and

making sure we know what we are talking about. When we say

something, people listen to us.

Mr. LYNCH. Hopefully.

Secretary LAHOOD. And until we do the complete review, the

comprehensive review, look at all these things, we are not about to

56

say something where it is just not accurate, you know, just for the

point of——

Mr. LYNCH. Well, you might be doing that already, is what I am

getting at. If you are telling people there’s a problem with the floor

mat and it is not, or if you are telling people it’s a sticky pedal and

it’s not.

Secretary LAHOOD. Look, I don’t agree with you. I mean, we

wouldn’t have told people to change out these floor mats if we

didn’t think our research showed that was a problem. We can prove

that. We can prove the sticky pedal was a problem. We can prove

it. Now, so, to say that is not accurate belies all the facts that we

have. And we wouldn’t be saying these things if it weren’t true.

Mr. LYNCH. Well, I just think that we have to consider the fact

that there very well could be a serious software problem here. And,

again, I think we are in a very awkward position if we are telling

people that changing out your floor mat is going to fix this or the

sticky pedal solution is going to fix this, and yet we are sending

people out in dangerous automobiles. I am just saying you have to

weigh that in with the course of your investigation and the urgency

with which you’re investigating these more complicated or complex

problems.

Secretary LAHOOD. I take your point.

Chairman TOWNS. The gentleman’s time has expired. I now recognize the gentleman from Nebraska, Mr. Fortenberry.

Mr. FORTENBERRY. Mr. Secretary, welcome. It is always my hope

that congressional hearings have some sort of constructive outcome. And in that regard, it was discussed earlier, I believe, by Mr.

Issa that a more transparent international marketplace for safety

data sharing would be appropriate.

In that regard as well, given that today’s hearing is about Toyota’s safety problems, and particularly this unintended acceleration

problem which you have committed to continuing to research and

work through, this has happened, though, across other car manufacturers, two other car manufacturers, from the data that I see.

Has there been any discussion about developing some type of

consortium and perhaps in partnership with NHTSA that would

actually work toward a comprehensive evaluation of this so that

there could be even broader safety outcomes for the public?

Secretary LAHOOD. Well, we try and do these things based on the

complaints that we hear from people. We do conduct these investigations.

Mr. FORTENBERRY. This is out of our box, though. This is a policy

consideration.

Secretary LAHOOD. Pardon me?

Mr. FORTENBERRY. This is a policy consideration. A potential

change in policy.

Secretary LAHOOD. I will be willing to look at it. But, I mean,

it doesn’t fit into what we are doing now.

Mr. FORTENBERRY. Should it?

Secretary LAHOOD. I think it is something we can look at. Look,

I get lots of good ideas from coming to these hearings, and it is

something that I would be happy to visit with you about and see.

I mean, I am not going to sit here and tell you that it is something

57

we are going to do because I don’t know enough about what you

are trying to purport here. But I’m willing to talk to you about it.

Mr. FORTENBERRY. Again, what I said in the beginning, looking

for constructive outcomes. That is the purity of my intention is to

maybe think creatively about this, because right now, our attention

has shifted to Toyota, and appropriately, trying to get to the bottom of these safety issues. But, again, given that this has happened

across the industry, is there an opportunity to think more creatively policywise about a common fix using resources that we have

or creating some type of consortium, again, that could look at this

in partnership with the government to again improve or make the

safety outcomes of this hearing and what you are doing even broader applicably.

Secretary LAHOOD. Sure. I got you.

Mr. FORTENBERRY. That is just a policy idea I put out to you.

Secretary LAHOOD. Got you.

Mr. FORTENBERRY. I yield the additional time that I have to Mr.

Issa.

Mr. ISSA. I will be quick, and then Mr. Burton would like to ask

a quick question.

Mr. Secretary, you said that it depends on when you evaluate

something how significant it is. But under the current system, the

manufacturer doesn’t give you every single complaint that occurs;

so you are evaluating some and missing others. If there’s a sticky

pedal like this one in Great Britain and there’s some reports, unless there is a recall you don’t see it at all. Do you think that

should change?

Secretary LAHOOD. Look, when we go to the manufacturer and

we ask them for information about complaints they have had about

their vehicles, we hope they are going to be forthright with this.

I mean, part of the process——

Mr. ISSA. I appreciate that, Mr. Secretary. But the current law,

they only have to tell you if there is a recall.

Do you believe that it should change to where all information on

like models worldwide be available?

Secretary LAHOOD. I think the more information, the better.

Mr. ISSA. Do you have the authority to ask for that and receive

it from the manufacturers, or do you need authority from Congress?

Secretary LAHOOD. We ask the manufacturers when we get complaints about certain aspects, mechanical aspects, and we assume

they are being forthright with us.

Mr. ISSA. Thank you.

Mr. FORTENBERRY. Mr. Chairman, I will yield the remaining

time to Mr. Burton.

Mr. BURTON. Let me just—Mr. Secretary, this floor mechanism

was made in Japan and there hasn’t been any problem with it. And

this one was made in the United States. They both work on the

same car. And this one is the one that they have had all the problems with, and they had to put a shim in so that there was proper

clearance so it wouldn’t stick. And my question is, why is it in the

same car you have two different mechanisms, and one is causing

the problem and one isn’t? It seems to me that Toyota evidently

knew that there was a problem maybe with one and not the other.

58

And this one was used in Japan and Europe and this one was used

in the United States, and this is the one that has caused the problem?

Now, he just asked you a question about whether you have the

authority. It seems, if there is a problem any place in the world,

your agency ought to be able to get that information or demand

that information so that you can look at a recall here in the United

States even if it happened over in Europe someplace. And I would

like for you maybe to ask—and I’m going to ask the president of

Toyota about this today—why they have this difference.

Mr. SOUDER. Would the gentleman yield?

Chairman TOWNS. Mr. Fortenberry controls the time.

Mr. SOUDER. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. FORTENBERRY. I yield the remaining time to Mr. Souder.

Chairman TOWNS. Actually, the gentleman’s time has expired.

Mr. SOUDER. Point of order. The gentleman made a somewhat

factual misstatement about a manufacturer in Indiana, and I think

it is important to clarify the record because we went through this

once earlier.

The sticky pedal, which you said correctly, the one that had a

slow return. But the Secretary testified that the slow return didn’t

have any of the deaths with it. It was the Japanese part that had

the deaths. They did have to put that thing in. But there are two

distinct things that happen with that pedal, and it’s important that

the record show that the American part, as we already established,

did not cause the deaths.

Chairman TOWNS. Let the gentleman know that Mr. Toyoda will

be testifying later on. So I think that is an appropriate question

that can be raised with him.

Now I recognize the gentleman from Texas, Congressman

Cuellar.

Mr. CUELLAR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

And, Mr. Secretary, it is good seeing you again. I think the last

time we saw each other was in San Antonio. It is a pleasure.

I have an overhead that I would ask the staff to put on and I

am going to ask your thoughts on this particular. It has to do with

the percentage of vehicles affected by safety recalls from 2001 to

2010. I would ask you to take a look at that, Mr. Secretary, and

just give me your thoughts on that, once they make it big enough

so you can go ahead and look at that.

Mr. Secretary—and I guess what I am looking at, I do have

around my area, I do have the San Antonio plant there where

2,600 employees depend on the work that you do with the enforcement and regulator, and of course, what Toyota is going to do. That

doesn’t even include the onsite hires where you add another

amount and it adds about 5,500 local jobs in our area. It doesn’t

include the dealer, it doesn’t include that. So there’s a lot of folks

there depending on what we’re doing, what you all are doing, and

of course, jobs and of course, making sure that the drivers are safe.

And if you can look at that, I think you see Toyota—if you can

read that, Mr. Secretary, about 11 percent. And my question is,

and I know you just got in a little over a year ago. But from the

understanding over the past decade, what are we doing to respond

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to the recalls of other car makers in this particular graph? I mean,

anything different than we are doing now?

Secretary LAHOOD. When we believe that there needs to be a recall, we notify the manufacturer and then the recall takes place.

And, as I said, over the last 3 years, 23 million cars have been recalled and the vast majority of them have not been Toyota. I can’t

read that chart, Mr. Cuellar, but if you want to——

Mr. CUELLAR. Well, there is a company at 32 percent. This is

from percentage of vehicles affected by safety recalls from 2001 to

2010, the last 10 years.

Secretary LAHOOD. OK.

Mr. CUELLAR. You have one company at 32 percent, another company at 17 percent, another company at 15 percent, and then you

have others, a combination of other companies. And then you have

Toyota at 11 percent.

Secretary LAHOOD. OK.

Mr. CUELLAR. This is, again, using NHTSA’s recall data base

from you all.

Secretary LAHOOD. Right.

Mr. CUELLAR. I say that, Members, just so we can look at the

overall picture of what we are looking at, No. 1.

No. 2, I’m looking at your budget, Mr. Secretary, the fiscal year

2011. And you have been a legislator, and I guess I am asking your

thoughts. Anything you think we ought to do in the budget to improve—I know it’s your budget. I think I know what your answer

is going to be. And, of course, any legislative responses that we

ought to look at? And if you say budgets should stay that amount,

no legislative changes, then what should we do differently to make

sure that we protect our drivers and make sure we provide that

safety and to make sure that car companies, in this case, Toyota,

make sure that they respond as quickly as possible?

Secretary LAHOOD. Well, I think some of the things that Mr. Issa

mentioned as far as information, we may want to work with all of

you on our ability to get information worldwide. And, you know, we

may have some thoughts on that.

With respect to our budget, we are grateful to the President for

including 66 new positions. We can use those human resources and

experts to help us do our work.

Mr. CUELLAR. Now, let me ask you this, Mr. Secretary. I understand that NHTSA took a trip to Japan to meet with top officials

to press the seriousness of the safety issues. You noted that it was

because of that trip that the actions were made because of the recalls. And I guess I have two questions.

What measures did you take before NHTSA made the trip to

Japan to discuss the seriousness of these issues? No. 1. And then

I have a followup question.

Secretary LAHOOD. We had several meetings with North America

Toyota. And I want to stipulate that these are very professional,

good people who take their jobs very seriously. And we met with

them and talked with them several times about the issues that we

felt were causing their vehicles to malfunction.

Mr. CUELLAR. Mr. Secretary, why travel to Japan? I mean, I

know that there’s a different hierarchy in the company, I understand that. But talking to Toyota USA, wouldn’t that be sufficient?

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Or was there a necessity? Apparently it looked like there was a necessity to travel to Japan.

Secretary LAHOOD. Mr. Lentz, the CEO of Toyota North America, stipulated yesterday at the hearing that he testified at that a

lot of decisions are made in Japan. And when we determined that

we needed to go to the people who were making the decisions so

they understood that these are serious safety concerns and that we

were going to take some pretty significant action, we wanted to go

to the people that were making the decisions.

Mr. CUELLAR. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman TOWNS. Thank you very much. The gentleman yields

back. Mr. Jordan of Ohio.

Mr. JORDAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Secretary, thank

you for joining us today. I think there’s three quick questions. Let

me go first to this concern, I think, was raised earlier by my colleagues from Utah and Arizona about this idea that government

majority owner in General Motors and Chrysler and yet also the

regulator, the competitors of those two companies, are there or

have you or has NHTSA put any specific safeguards, any specific

protocols in place, again, just to ensure impartial treatment when

you are evaluating recalls and complaints you receive from any car

manufacturer? Do you know of, like, specific things you have done,

specific protocols, specific safeguards that have been enacted?

Secretary LAHOOD. Have we put any safeguards in our relationship with companies other than Toyota? Is that what you are asking me?

Mr. JORDAN. I am just saying, just this perception that here we

have the taxpayers, the majority owner of General Motors and—the

government, the majority owner.

Secretary LAHOOD. So you are asking me just about those two

companies then, any safeguards, GM or Chrysler. Right?

Mr. JORDAN. Exactly.

Secretary LAHOOD. We put no safeguards in. We don’t have to.

Safety is our No. 1 priority. When safety is our No. 1 priority, it’s

not going to be compromised by any kind of relationship we have

with anybody. Never has been, never will be.

Mr. JORDAN. OK. Let me ask you along those same lines. In regarding specifically the Toyota recall situation, has anyone from

General Motors contacted you about the Toyota recall situation?

Secretary LAHOOD. You know, I will have to check, but not that

I know of. But, you know, since I am—I want to be accurate on

these things and I know this information is important to you, and

I will personally let you know. But I don’t think so.

Mr. JORDAN. How about anyone from Chrysler?

Secretary LAHOOD. Not that I know of.

Mr. JORDAN. Anyone from the United Auto Workers?

Secretary LAHOOD. No, sir.

Mr. JORDAN. Has anyone, specifically Ron Bloom or anyone else

from the Auto Task Force, contacted you regarding the Toyota recall situation?

Secretary LAHOOD. No, sir.

Mr. JORDAN. Last question then, Mr. Chairman. Earlier you said,

Mr. Secretary, every Toyota car listed on the NHTSA recall Web

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site is unsafe. Is that just—is that statement accurate only about

Toyota? Or does that mean any car listed from any company on a

recall Web site list?

Secretary LAHOOD. Any car, any company on our Web site that

is listed for recall should be taken to the dealer so it can be made

safe.

Mr. JORDAN. OK. Let me go back, if I could, Mr. Chairman. Back

to any contact. Do you know of anyone—I asked you if you have

been contacted. Do you know if anyone from NHTSA has been contacted by General Motors, Chrysler?

Secretary LAHOOD. You know what, I’ll have to get back to you

for the record. We have lots of employees at NHTSA. There’s no

way I’d know that, but I will check it out and I will let you know.

Mr. JORDAN. I yield the remaining time to Mr. Issa.

Mr. ISSA. Mr. Secretary, this is within your scope even though

it clearly is not something that anyone is going to say you could

have taken care of immediately. But are you aware of any studies

that show us, out of these 23 million recalls during that decade,

how many cars got fixed? How many cars——

Secretary LAHOOD. I’ll have to put that on the record for you.

The 23 million is the last 3 years, not the decade.

Mr. ISSA. Of these 23 million, if you have or can get or can have

a study done to let this committee know, out of 23 million cars that

are unsafe—as Ralph Nader said, unsafe at any speed. But unsafe

on the highway, there are 23 million cars. If, let’s say, only 20 percent of them had their recalls applied—I don’t think that’s going

to happen with Toyota, but it may happen with other less publicized recalls—then we have 90 percent of those 23 million unsafe

and on the highway.

Would you commit to us to find out how effective recalls are,

what percentage actually get applied, and, as a result, how many

cars are unsafe, in your opinion, my opinion, I suspect the chairman’s opinion, so that we can evaluate whether or not better advertising or better compliance needs to occur?

Secretary LAHOOD. Of course we will get you the information,

Mr. Issa. But we are a little bit busy right now, too, so I hope you

are not going to stipulate we do it within the next 24 or 48 hours.

Mr. ISSA. Of course not, Mr. Secretary. Although, if you need

more resources, just ask.

Secretary LAHOOD. Our people are very busy. But of course, we

will provide you the information.

Mr. ISSA. And, Mr. Chairman, just one piece of patience. I am

presuming that all it takes to get this information would be to contact the top 11 manufacturers and ask them to provide it, since

they have it and you said they give you what you ask for.

With that, I yield back to the gentleman.

Chairman TOWNS. The gentleman’s time has expired. I now recognize the gentlewoman from California, Congresswoman Chu.

Ms. CHU. Secretary LaHood, congratulations on being confirmed

as Secretary——

Secretary LAHOOD. Thank you.

Ms. CHU [continuing]. Of Transportation. I have a question about

the pattern of behavior at NHTSA that may have occurred before

you got there, and it leads one to wonder, NHTSA is supposed to

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be a watchdog, but has it instead become a lap dog. And, in fact,

some people believe that NHTSA has become too dependent on the

manufacturers that it regulates to cooperate with the agency and

volunteer information about what might be going wrong with a

particular vehicle. While NHTSA sends letters asking for this information, it rarely uses a subpoena, which would be far superior in

that it would require a full and complete response under threat of

criminal penalties.

Do you believe that NHTSA is aggressive enough in seeking information that it needs to keep the public safe?

Secretary LAHOOD. I believe that we have been very aggressive.

And if we need to use subpoena, we will use it, but we have lots

of enforcement mechanisms. And I would also stipulate that on my

watch, we have been a lapdog for nobody. We have been a lapdog

for the people who drive cars and want to do them safely. That’s

who we have been a lapdog for. Safety is our No. 1 priority.

I have been in this job since January 23, 2009. I am not a lapdog

for anybody and none of our employees are, either. But we have

good enforcement mechanisms, and we use them. And if we can’t

get the information, we have the opportunity to subpoena.

Ms. CHU. If I could followup. According to the testimony that is

going to be provided later by former NHTSA administrator, the

Agency imposed no penalties from 2004 to 2008, and the largest

penalty that the agency has ever imposed is $1 million. The

TREAD Act of 2000 now authorizes much higher penalties.

What would explain the lack of penalties that NHTSA has imposed in the last several years?

Secretary LAHOOD. I will have to get back to you for the record

on that. That was prior to my stewardship of this agency. But I

will put that on the record for you.

Ms. CHU. Thank you.

Secretary LAHOOD. Thank you.

Chairman TOWNS. Does the gentlewoman yield back?

Ms. CHU. Yes. I yield back.

Chairman TOWNS. I now recognize the gentleman from California

for 5 minutes, Congressman Bilbray.

Mr. BILBRAY. Thank you. Mr. Secretary, first of all, congratulations. I am glad to see a fellow classmate serving the Nation in a

different set. But I can’t think of a better choice that the President

could have made, and so I am glad to see you there.

Secretary LAHOOD. Thank you.

Mr. BILBRAY. I happen to drive one of these vehicles, hopefully,

safely, and will correct whatever we need to. But in San Diego, we

ended up having this incident where a Highway Patrolman driving

his wife, his child, and his brother-in-law ended up basically dying

because of the mat issue. When I look down those lists, I am wondering, though, from an observation from a distance, that could

have the reputation of Toyota actually been a contributing factor

in how this process was handled? Some may not know, but Toyota

is ranked absolute top, second only maybe to Mercedes and

Porsche, for satisfaction for reputation.

And I guess if you drive a Porsche you had darned well be happy

for the vehicle if you paid for it. But is it possible that in this process the great reputation of dependability and safety that Toyota

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has created over the last 30 years created an inadvertent prejudice

against more strict review because everybody always assumed in

the last 20 years—and let me just stop and say 10 years from

now—10 years ago, if you and I would have said we would be here

talking about Toyota, most of us would have said you are crazy.

Yugo maybe. You might have been talking about General Motors.

But never would have thought talking about Toyota. Couldn’t that

inherent institutional prejudice—and I am not saying to the agency

but to society as a whole. Could have we created a situation where

maybe there wasn’t as critical review up front on Toyota that

might have been done if it was a Yugo or if it was General Motors?

Secretary LAHOOD. Well, not in my opinion, Mr. Bilbray. I have

been in this job 13 months. I have worked with the people at

NHTSA. They are a lot, almost all of them are career people. They

take their jobs very seriously because it does involve safety. And

I don’t think that is the case.

Mr. BILBRAY. I appreciate that. In 2007, there was an investigation conducted about the mats. It appeared that investigation or

the outcome of that investigation didn’t reflect what we now believe

should have been the proper observation. It wasn’t until the deaths

in my county and Darrell Issa’s county that it really raised it, the

concern last year when we had the crash, again, with the all—with

the mats again showing up.

How do we have this investigation in 2007, review all of these

models, pull back on a lot of models, and then still end up with a

situation where, by 2009, people are dying on the streets of San

Diego County?

Secretary LAHOOD. Well, it’s obvious to us that, when that crash

occurred, that highlighted again the floor mat problem that was determined to be what caused the accident and that was the issue.

And we also looking back realize that people really weren’t taking

their cars in that had floor mat problems, and so we reengaged

Toyota to ask for another mailing to their customers so that they

could bring them in and have the floor mats replaced. And then

that led to the investigation of the sticky pedal and the result of

the determination that needed to be fixed also.

Mr. BILBRAY. In all fairness, Mr. Secretary, when we talk about

the format issue, we’re talking about the all-weather mat and we

are talking about in this case, in San Diego’s deaths, it was not an

owner who didn’t bring it in. This was actually a dealership vehicle

that still had the mats in place. And so there seems to be a big

disconnect between what we said we wanted done and what was

actually done in the field.

And I think, in all fairness, this one shows that it wasn’t just the

fact that those of us who drive Toyotas didn’t take the recall notice

seriously. Frankly, it wasn’t even—I wasn’t even aware as a consumer that the all-weather was specifically targeted here until I as

a member of this committee know that. Doesn’t that tell you that

we have a major gap between the way the system ought to work

and the way it is actually working?

Secretary LAHOOD. I would admit that there is a disconnect

sometimes between whether people get the information and whether they take it seriously and how it’s disseminated. I think that is

an issue. I agree with that.

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Chairman TOWNS. The gentleman’s time has expired. I now recognize the gentlewoman from California, Congresswoman Watson.

Ms. WATSON. Secretary LaHood, congratulations. I have enjoyed

your straightforward responses.

Secretary LAHOOD. Thank you.

Ms. WATSON. And that’s a serious commendation.

Secretary LAHOOD. Thank you.

Ms. WATSON. In response to consumer complaints that have come

in as early as 2003, NHTSA launched the first of eight separate investigations into sudden unintended acceleration, and three of

these investigations concluded that it was the floor mat. And I had

the people from Toyota in my office yesterday and they showed me

the floor mats and so on and so forth. Easy to fix, just shorten the

floor mat and so on. What I am hearing through the media, it’s

really in the computer system.

Can you tell me what you have learned that might be helpful to

us that we can relate to our constituents who have Toyotas?

Secretary LAHOOD. We are going to do a complete review of the

electronics to determine if that is part of the reason that some of

these vehicles accelerated or decelerated. We have heard from

enough Members of Congress about this and we have heard from

enough drivers of these vehicles that they think it’s an issue, and

we are going to look into it. And we are going to look at information that was provided yesterday to the Energy and Commerce

Committee by people who have done some studies. We are going to

look at some studies that Toyota has done and we are going to talk

to experts about this.

Ms. WATSON. Thank you so much for that response, because I do

think it bears looking into and I shared that with the Toyota people when they came. I said, you have to clarify this particular flaw

that seems to be very prevalent. I have read that, in Mrs.

Claybrook’s prepared testimony, she stated that NHTSA statute

should be changed to add criminal penalties for complaints—for

companies who knowingly and willfully refuse to initiate a recall

to correct safety defects. Do you agree with that?

Secretary LAHOOD. Ms. Watson, I really haven’t thought enough

about that to render an opinion. I have seen what Joan Claybrook

has said about that and I’d rather not really venture a guess on

that at the moment—or an opinion. Excuse me.

Ms. WATSON. So if we find it’s necessary, would you work on a

provision to——

Secretary LAHOOD. The information that we have requested from

Toyota, which is voluminous, is a part of what we are trying to determine whether there should be some civil penalties.

Ms. WATSON. Thank you. And in your testimony, you described

a lengthy process that must be undertaken for your agency to order

recalls. As a result, consumers are offered protection and the fastest when manufacturers voluntarily initiate recalls. While some of

the experiences with Toyota have fortunately been voluntary recalls because of the pressure applied by NHTSA, do you think the

process for NHTSA to order recalls could be made more efficient?

And I heard you say that if you had the employees, the money was

there. So do you want to elaborate on that?

65

Secretary LAHOOD. I think we should always look at efficiencies.

I think if there’s a better way to do these things, I’m not opposed

to doing that. And if people around here think that there’s a better

way to do it, we are willing to listen to them. But the system as

it exists now I think has worked pretty well, but I am not opposed

to doing something more efficiently.

Ms. WATSON. It’s been reported that there has been some negotiations between Toyota and, I guess, NHTSA on whether or not

the recall, the numbers of recalls should be capped and so on. Can

you give us more information?

Secretary LAHOOD. Not on my watch, Ms. Watson. We have

taken this work very seriously, and we do what we think is the

best interest of the people that own these automobiles, particularly

as it relates to safety.

Ms. WATSON. Well, I wish you well.

Secretary LAHOOD. Thank you.

Ms. WATSON. This is a turbulent time for your agency. I understand that.

I yield back my time, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman TOWNS. Thank you very much. I now recognize the

gentleman from Virginia, Congressman Connolly.

Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I know it’s been

a long day, Mr. Secretary. And I didn’t have the privilege of serving

with you here in the House, but I am so glad you are where you

are. And I want to thank you for one of the first things you did

as our new Secretary of Transportation was sign the full funding

grant agreement for rail to Dulles. A very important project. Thank

you so much for your leadership and your support on that.

I am going to ask you a series of questions that are in the category of what do we know and when did we know it. And I understand that most of those answers are probably going to precede

your tenure, so I am asking you to the best of your knowledge,

given your current position, what do we know and when did we

know it.

To the best of your knowledge, Mr. Secretary, when did we first

learn—we, the Federal Government, your agency NHTSA—first

learn there was a problem that merited further examination with

respect to the acceleration of those Toyota vehicles?

Secretary LAHOOD. Well, I will get you the exact year but it was

a few years ago. For the record, I am going to—I want to be accurate about these things. You know, I just don’t want to speculate.

I could pour over my papers here and get you the answer, but I

don’t want to waste your time. It’s better for me to just do it for

the record.

Mr. CONNOLLY. That’s fine. Mr. Secretary, do you know how

many lawsuits have been filed with respect to the accelerator problem?

Secretary LAHOOD. I do not. But I will find out.

Mr. CONNOLLY. And when they were first filed. That would be

very helpful.

Secretary LAHOOD. OK.

Mr. CONNOLLY. In the predecessor administration, NHTSA officials flew to Tokyo to meet with Toyota about this problem. Is that

not correct?

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Secretary LAHOOD. That was under my watch.

Mr. CONNOLLY. It was under your watch?

Secretary LAHOOD. Yes, it was. That occurred last year.

Mr. CONNOLLY. And can you describe for us the nature of those

conversations?

Secretary LAHOOD. It was a very, very frank conversation about

safety matters that we felt they needed to address, and they began

to address them after that meeting occurred. I also had a telephone

conversation personally with Mr. Toyoda and talked to him about

the seriousness of the matter that we were addressing.

Mr. CONNOLLY. And could you characterize a little bit Toyoda’s

reaction to the seriousness?

Secretary LAHOOD. I think they realized that it was a serious situation, and that we were not going to countenance any kind of

delay in really addressing it.

Mr. CONNOLLY. And do you feel that the company, from your

perch, has, in fact, responded in a timely and effective——

Secretary LAHOOD. After our visit to Japan and after my phone

call with Mr. Toyoda, yes.

Mr. CONNOLLY. One of the criticisms one has heard from consumers was that they were, in fact, lodging complaints with the company and were kind of being dismissed. And, in retrospect, do you

believe Toyota could have or should have maybe taken those early

warning consumer complaints more seriously? And, part two, might

it have made a difference in terms of where we are today?

Secretary LAHOOD. I would really only be speculating on that. I

just—I can only tell you about our involvement. And I think that

maybe that is a better question for Mr. Toyoda.

Mr. CONNOLLY. NHTSA falls in your domain?

Secretary LAHOOD. Yes.

Mr. CONNOLLY. And as you have said multiple times in this hearing, safety is our No. 1 priority?

Secretary LAHOOD. Yes.

Mr. CONNOLLY. Presumably, the SOPs, the standard operating

procedures, for NHTSA are that alarm bells go off when we learn

about, even anecdotally, the acceleration—the involuntary acceleration of a vehicle, let alone anecdotal information that would suggest people have actually lost their lives because of it. We have to

certainly, at least, look into it.

Secretary LAHOOD. Absolutely.

Mr. CONNOLLY. What grades would you give NHTSA in the past

in responding with alacrity to those anecdotal reports, and what

have we learned moving forward in the future to improve our performance?

Secretary LAHOOD. Under my watch, we have taken all of these

things very seriously. We really have. This is no nonsense.

Mr. CONNOLLY. And the previous watch?

Secretary LAHOOD. Pardon me?

Mr. CONNOLLY. And the previous watch.

Secretary LAHOOD. Well, I mean, I will get back to you on the

record on that. I mean, look, some things have taken place that

maybe should have been done more expeditiously.

Chairman TOWNS. The gentleman’s time has expired.

Mr. CONNOLLY. I thank the Chair and I thank the Secretary.

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Chairman TOWNS. I now yield to the gentleman from Louisiana,

Mr. Cao.

Mr. CAO. Mr. Secretary, actually I don’t have any questions; I

just have a statement.

Secretary LAHOOD. OK.

Mr. CAO. And just to sincerely thank you for everything that you

have done for Louisiana, especially for the Second District. I know

that you have worked very hard in your capacity as the Secretary

to address all of the transportation issues of the country. But on

behalf of my constituents, I just want to thank you for your visit

and thank you for everything that you have done for us.

That is all I have. I appreciate that you have been under hours

of questioning already.

Secretary LAHOOD. Thank you very much.

Chairman TOWNS. Mr. Secretary, you don’t get that too much

around here.

Secretary LAHOOD. I appreciate it.

Chairman TOWNS. Want you to know.

Secretary LAHOOD. I appreciate it when I hear it, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman TOWNS. I now yield to the gentlewoman from New

York, Congresswoman Maloney.

Mrs. MALONEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I first would like to

welcome my colleague and very good friend, and thank him for his

public service in the House of Representatives and now.

Secretary LAHOOD. Thank you.

Mrs. MALONEY. Now at Transportation.

I would like to ask a broad question: How did we get to this

place? Toyota had a good reputation. Your department has a good

reputation. Yet, the field technical reports from the company in Europe show that they knew about this problem and were reporting

that there were problems a year ago. Why didn’t they bring this

to your attention? I am just saying I am reading from the field report. This is an internal document from Toyota.

This brings the number of reported cases in the FTR to 38. The

customer has stated about this sticky deal and the problem with

the acceleration. And so they knew about it in Europe, and yet why

is it the communication did not work to get to you that this was

a problem, to get to American dealers that this was a problem? Can

you give an overall assessment of what went wrong and, therefore,

give us a guide to what we need to do in the future for the safety

of American citizens and all citizens?

Secretary LAHOOD. My assessment of this, Mrs. Maloney, is this:

Two things, really.

I think the business model that Toyota has used where they have

some really, really good professional, capable people in North

America running the company without the kind of opportunity for

decisionmaking, so then decisions are made in Japan. And I think

the second part of it is—well, first of all, I don’t know if that business model—I think it’s failed them in this instance. And I think

the other part of it is some people in Toyota—and I have said this

before, this is not anything new—became a little safety deaf.

Mrs. MALONEY. And specifically how did the business model fail?

They weren’t communicating?

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Secretary LAHOOD. No, it’s not that they—the information was

being passed, but then the decisions that I think and the outcomes

that people wanted in North America weren’t always complied

with.

Mrs. MALONEY. Well, getting back to the sudden acceleration

events. You testified that consumers, if they feel they have a problem, they go to their dealer and they correct it. And how do you

know that it’s been corrected? And how do you know that was the

problem? Did you do any independent analysis or did anyone do

any independent analysis of the problem and how to fix it? And

how does a consumer know, once it has gone back to the company

to be corrected, that it is, in fact, corrected?

Secretary LAHOOD. Well, we, as a part of our investigations, we

asked the companies to fix the problem and present that information to us. And, again, we don’t sign on the dotted line and say we

agree or disagree. But if they believe, based on all the information

we have presented them that they think this is the fix, then that

process gets carried over to the customer. And in, I think, many instances, the fix has worked.

Mrs. MALONEY. Well, later on there will be a witness who was

a former employee of your department or of Transportation, and

she testifies that—from reading her testimony—that the NHTSA

administrators did not accurately investigate the many problems.

Now, this was before you took the helm. So the staff has literally

shown us in preparing for this hearing that there were literally

thousands of complaints of sudden unintended acceleration. Yet, it

doesn’t appear that any meaningful action was taken until the

Saylor family crashed. And my question is, why did it take so long?

Again, we are talking about complaints that, by some reports,

started coming in in 2004.

Secretary LAHOOD. Well, we did work with Toyota on a fix on the

floor mat and they put out a recall so that those floor mats could

be removed. There’s a recall on the sticky pedal, and those are up

on the Web site. And if people take their cars in, Toyota will fix

those. And so, you know, people have to be made aware of it either

by notice or looking on the Web site or by concern or media reports

or whatever. And not everyone has taken their car back, but we encourage people, if you are having a problem with your car, take it

to your Toyota dealer.

Mrs. MALONEY. And since safety is our No. 1 concern, as you so

properly stated, from your agency, have you considered asking your

inspector general to audit or examine the prior investigations to determine if they were sufficiently robust? The staff reported to us

that many of the investigations were very short, they weren’t detailed, it wasn’t a thorough investigation.

Secretary LAHOOD. I have not asked the inspector general to do

that. He has been asked by Members of Congress to do some investigations, but not specifically on that issue.

Mrs. MALONEY. Well, my time has expired. Thank you very much

for your testimony and your service.

Secretary LAHOOD. Thank you.

Chairman TOWNS. Thank the gentlewoman from New York. I

now yield 5 minutes to the gentlewoman from Ohio, Ms. Kaptur.

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Ms. KAPTUR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Welcome, Mr. Secretary.

You certainly have gotten into a lot of issues in your 1-year tenure

thus far.

Let me ask you, can you speak to the level of cooperation between Japan’s counterpart of NHTSA and NHTSA? Is their safety

agency open and forthcoming, in your opinion, or does it suffer

from the same kind of cloaked and opaque character of that country’s ministry of trade? Are they working with you and sharing

data on this recall issue?

Secretary LAHOOD. I think, in some instances, yes.

Ms. KAPTUR. So you are saying they have been cooperative, in

your tenure?

Secretary LAHOOD. Oh, during my tenure they have been cooperative. In some instances they have.

Ms. KAPTUR. But information regarding this acceleration pattern

obviously wasn’t shared by their ministry if they knew about it in

Japan versus our country. Our country, according to the data we

have gotten from the Energy and Commerce Committee, first got

a time line in March 2004 that on the Camry, Solara, and Lexus

300 models, that NHTSA found no pattern. And then there seems

to be a gap between 2004 and 2007 in our country, but in March

2007, NHTSA opened an investigation on the Lexus ES350 in

which NHTSA then found entrapment of the accelerator pedal by

floor mat as the sole cause of what happened. And then through

2007, 2008, there were more and more Toyota vehicles, until the

point in January when Toyota suspended sales of eight different

models.

And my question is, when all this was occurring in our country,

was Japan’s ministry sharing information with you about recalls

prior to your tenure?

Secretary LAHOOD. I will have to check, Ms. Kaptur, and put it

on the record and get back to you on that. I don’t know the answer

to that.

Ms. KAPTUR. One of the pieces of data I would like to place up

on the boards here is the trade deficit the United States has

amassed with Japan over the last 24 years in the area of automotive manufacturing, autos and auto parts. And one of the reasons that Toyota and some of the other companies have been able

to gain a beachhead in global auto markets is that it operates from

a very tightly protected home market even while it is the second

largest marketplace in the world.

There’s a chart that shows the trade deficits our country has

amassed with Japan, totaling over $1 trillion, which translates into

lost jobs in this country. Less than 3 percent of Japan’s marketplace is open to cars from anywhere else in the world. They didn’t

even take Yugos and they certainly don’t take our auto parts in

any appreciable numbers. Yet, we have welcomed their cars here.

Our dealers sell their cars, and that doesn’t occur in that country.

Imagine, the second largest marketplace in the world having less

than 3 percent of their cars from anyplace else other than Japan,

while our market over half the cars come from elsewhere or from

transplants here.

And one of my questions of Mr. Toyoda, and I have a hunch he

is listening, is, does this sort of predicament that the company now

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faces result from a rather attitude of market superiority resulting

from the false confidence of a closed home market? In other words,

you can afford to ignore some of what has happening because of

this false confidence that comes from that kind of a very imbalanced situation? And I am quite concerned about this. I have been

for a long, long time.

And my question to you, and I would appreciate for the record

going back and seeing what kind of cooperation Japan’s counterpart agency actually had with NHTSA? Were there sudden acceleration difficulties inside of Japan, to your knowledge, during this

period?

Secretary LAHOOD. I will get you that for the record.

Ms. KAPTUR. Because I think that’s really important, whether it’s

Canada, United States, what is happening inside Japan’s market

versus what is happening inside our marketplace, the European

marketplace. This is a very, very unlevel playing field, and I am

quite concerned about the fact—oh, and I wanted to ask you for one

other piece of information for the record.

Inside of NHTSA, how many people from March 2004, which appears to be the first year in which some of these complaints started

to come to NHTSA, how many people actually were involved in the

assessment of what was happening inside of NHTSA? A staff of 10,

20, 50? What were their backgrounds? How long had they worked

for NHTSA? And whom had they worked for before coming to

NHTSA? Are you able to provide that information for the record?

Secretary LAHOOD. We will do the best we can.

Ms. KAPTUR. From your sense, how many people? Is there anybody from NHTSA there now that can tell us how large was the

unit that assessed these recalls? How many people are we talking

about?

Secretary LAHOOD. We want to be accurate about our information. We will get it for the record.

Chairman TOWNS. We will hold the record open for that information. The gentlewoman’s time has expired.

Ms. KAPTUR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman TOWNS. I now recognize the gentleman from Missouri,

Congressman Clay.

Mr. CLAY. Mr. Chairman, my staff has advised me that all of the

questions that I wanted to ask have been asked, we have exhausted this issue with this witness, and I have no questions.

Chairman TOWNS. Thank you very much. According to the

record, I think that everyone—has everyone had an opportunity?

Mr. TIERNEY. I would just yield to Mr. Cummings for one question.

Chairman TOWNS. Sure.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Just one thing. You said something that really—

I am so glad I had a chance to ask this. Who was safety deaf? You

said somebody was ‘‘safety deaf.’’

Secretary LAHOOD. Toyota.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Toyota was safety deaf. And then you said there

was some kind of disconnect.

Secretary LAHOOD. Let me go back and tell you what I said.

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Mr. CUMMINGS. Yeah, because I want to be clear about that; because when Mr. Toyoda—I’m going to ask him about what you are

saying.

Secretary LAHOOD. Mrs. Maloney asked me to assess what I

think went wrong here. And, two things: Toyota has an organization called North America Toyota. They have some great people

there. They are very professional. They are good people. We work

with them. They make recommendations to Japan. The decisions

are made in Japan.

The reason that our acting administrator went to Japan was because he didn’t think his message was getting to Japan, so he flew

over there and met with the Toyota people and said, ‘‘look at, this

is serious.’’ ‘‘Lives are being lost.’’

Mr. CUMMINGS. And when was that?

Secretary LAHOOD. November, December last year.

Mr. CUMMINGS. OK.

Secretary LAHOOD. And right after that, they started taking action. So then I get on the phone with Mr. Toyoda and I said, this

is a serious matter. This involves safety, it involves lives.

So my point is this: Their business model is they have a lot of

good people in North America Toyota, but the decisions are made

in Japan.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Got you. All right. Thank you.

Secretary LAHOOD. Is that it, Mr. Chairman? I was going to say

what a joy. No. The gentlelady from California. Of course.

Chairman TOWNS. The gentlewoman from California, Congresswoman Speier.

Ms. SPEIER. Thank you, Mr. Secretary, for being here these many

hours. I am going to try and be quick and to the point. I want to

talk about the black boxes. If 80 percent of the cars already have

black boxes and they help piece together what happens during the

last 5 seconds of an accident, why not make them mandatory in all

cars?

Secretary LAHOOD. It’s a good point and it has been raised here

earlier, and we are going to look at that. We really are. It’s a good

point. And if it is a way for us to really measure what happens,

it’s something we are going to look at.

Ms. SPEIER. Now, as I understand it, you can read the black

boxes from some of our domestic manufacturers.

Secretary LAHOOD. That is correct.

Ms. SPEIER. But you cannot read the black boxes from Toyota because they are encrypted.

Secretary LAHOOD. That is correct.

Ms. SPEIER. So shouldn’t we require that all black boxes be readable by NHTSA?

Secretary LAHOOD. Yes.

Ms. SPEIER. In order to—so you would support that?

Secretary LAHOOD. Yes.

Ms. SPEIER. All right. Have you had a chance to look at Joan

Claybrook’s EDL recommendations? And, if so, would you provide

written responses?

Secretary LAHOOD. You mean her testimony here?

Ms. SPEIER. Yes.

Secretary LAHOOD. I have not read her testimony.

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Ms. SPEIER. She also suggested your office needs about $100 million more in terms of support. Would you support that recommendation?

Secretary LAHOOD. We are very grateful that the President included 66 new positions in our budget for 2011.

Ms. SPEIER. How many software engineers do you have working

within the Department?

Secretary LAHOOD. Software engineers? I would have to get—we

have like—we have between 125, 130 engineers. I will get you the

figure on the software.

Ms. SPEIER. And you will provide it to the committee?

Secretary LAHOOD. Of course.

Ms. SPEIER. Because what I have been told is while you do have

many engineers, you don’t have software engineers.

Secretary LAHOOD. We have electrical engineers. I know that

was a point that people were a little confused about.

Ms. SPEIER. And if this has already been asked, I apologize. But

it appears that the chip you need in the computer system in these

vehicles to have a brake override is really the solution. Do you concur?

Secretary LAHOOD. Mr. Lentz said yesterday at the Energy and

Commerce Committee that they were installing brake override in

many of their vehicles.

Ms. SPEIER. I guess my question to you is, irrespective of what

Toyota is doing, would you look at it to determine whether or not

the requirement that the brake override be actually implemented

and installed in more vehicles than Toyota?

Secretary LAHOOD. We will be happy to look at it.

Ms. SPEIER. And you will let the committee know as well?

Secretary LAHOOD. Yes.

Ms. SPEIER. Thank you. And I will yield back.

Chairman TOWNS. Thank you. And let me thank the Secretary

for his time.

Secretary LAHOOD. What a joy, Mr. Chairman. Great to be back.

Chairman TOWNS. Thank you.

We are now going to have a 10-minute recess, and then come

back for the second panel.

[Recess.]

Chairman TOWNS. I would like to introduce our second panel.

Testifying on this panel is Mr. Akio Toyoda, president and CEO of

Toyota Motor Corp.; and Mr. Yoshimi Inaba, president and CEO of

Toyota Motor North America.

Gentlemen, it is the committee’s longstanding policy that all witnesses are sworn in. Please stand and raise your right hands as I

administer the oath.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Chairman TOWNS. Let the record reflect that the witnesses answered in the affirmative.

You may be seated.

Let me begin by first welcoming you. And I really appreciate the

fact that you have come to testify and that, Mr. Toyoda, you actually volunteered to come and to testify. I want you to know we are

very impressed by that. That shows your commitment, and of

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course to safety, as well. And we want you to know we appreciate

the fact that you volunteered to come.

Mr. Inaba, we welcome you here, as well. And we have had conversations with you, you know, over the past few weeks and

months.

So, at this time, we would ask you to—actually, we will give you

additional time. We generally give 5 minutes, but, you know, being

he is all the way from Japan, we will give him more time.

So, Mr. Toyoda, you may begin.

STATEMENTS OF AKIO TOYODA, PRESIDENT AND CEO, TOYOTA MOTOR CORP.; AND YOSHIMI INABA, PRESIDENT AND

CEO, TOYOTA MOTOR NORTH AMERICA, INC.

STATEMENT OF AKIO TOYODA

Mr. TOYODA. Thank you, Chairman Towns. I am Akio Toyoda of

Toyota Motor Corp.

I would first like to state that I love cars as much as anyone, and

I love Toyota as much as anyone. I am here with my Toyota family

of dealers, proud team members, and friends. I take the utmost

pleasure in offering vehicles that our customers love, and I know

that Toyota’s 200,000 team members, dealers, and suppliers across

America feel the same way.

However, in the past few months, our customers have started to

feel uncertain about the safety of Toyota’s vehicles, and I take full

responsibility for that.

Today, I would like to explain to the American people, as well as

our customers in the United States and around the world, how seriously Toyota takes the quality and safety of its vehicles. I would

like to express my appreciation to Chairman Towns and Ranking

Member Issa, as well as the members of the House Oversight and

Government Reform Committee, for giving me this opportunity to

express my thoughts today.

I would like to focus my comments on three topics: Toyota’s basic

philosophy regarding quality control, the cause of the recalls, and

how we will manage quality control going forward.

First, I want to discuss the philosophy of Toyota’s quality control.

I, myself, as well as Toyota, am not perfect. At times, we do find

defects. But in such situations, we always stop, strive to understand the problem, and make changes to improve further.

In the name of the company, its longstanding tradition and pride,

we never run away from our problems or pretend we don’t notice

them. By making continuous improvements, we aim to continue offering even better products for society. That is the core value we

have kept closest to our hearts since the founding days of the company.

At Toyota, we believe the key to making quality products is to

develop quality people. Each employee thinks about what he or she

should do, continuously making improvements, and by doing so,

makes even better cars. We have been actively engaged in developing people who share and can execute on this core value.

It has been over 50 years since we began selling in this great

country and over 25 years since we started production here. And

in the process, we have been able to share this core value with the

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200,000 people at Toyota operations, dealers, and suppliers in this

country. That is what I am most proud of.

Second, I would like to discuss what caused the recall issues we

are facing now. Toyota has, for the past few years, been expanding

its business rapidly. Quite frankly, I fear the pace at which we

have grown may have been too quick.

I would like to point out here that Toyota’s priorities have traditionally been the following: first, safety; second, quality; third, volume. These priorities became confused. And we were not able to

stop, think, and make improvements as much as we were able to

before, and our basic stance to listen to our customers’ voices to

make better products has weakened somewhat.

We pursued growth over the speed at which we were able to develop our people and our organization, and we should sincerely be

mindful of that. I regret that this has resulted in the safety issues

described in the recalls we face today, and I am deeply sorry for

any accidents that Toyota drivers have experienced.

Especially, I would like to extend my condolences to the members

of the Saylor family for the accident in San Diego. I would like to

send my prayers again, and I will do everything in my power to

ensure that such a tragedy never happens again.

Since last June, when I first took office, I have personally placed

the highest priority on improving quality over quantity, and I have

shared that direction with our stakeholders. As you well know, I

am the grandson of the founder, and all the Toyota vehicles bear

my name. For me, when the cars are damaged, it is as though I

am, as well.

I, more than anyone, wish for Toyota’s cars to be safe and for our

customers to feel safe when they use our vehicles. Under my leadership, I would like to reaffirm our values of placing safety and

quality the highest on our list of priorities, which we have held to

firmly from the time we were founded. I will also strive to devise

a system in which we can surely execute what we value.

Third, I would like to discuss how we plan to manage quality

control as we go forward. Up to now, any decisions on conducting

recalls have been made by the Customer Quality Engineering Division at Toyota Motor Corp. in Japan. This division confirms whether there are technical problems and makes a decision on the necessity of a recall. However, reflecting on the issues today, what we

lacked was the customer perspective.

To make improvements on this, we will make the following

changes to the recall decisionmaking process. When recall decisions

are made, a step will be added in the process to ensure that management will make a responsible decision from the perspective of

‘‘customer safety first.’’ To do that, we will devise a system in

which customers’ voices around the world will reach our management in a timely manner and also a system in which each region

will be able to make a decision as necessary.

Further, we will form a quality advisory group composed of respected outside experts from North America and around the world

to ensure that we do not make a misguided decision. Finally, we

will invest heavily in quality in the United States through the establishment of an automotive center of quality excellence; the introduction of a new position, product safety executive; and the sharing

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of more information and responsibility within the company for

product quality decisions, including defects and recalls.

Even more importantly, I will ensure that members of the management team actually drive the cars and that they check for themselves where the problem lies, as well as its severity. I, myself, am

a trained test driver. As a professional, I am able to check a problem in a car and can then understand how severe the safety concern is in a car.

I drove the vehicles in the accelerator pedal recall as well as the

Prius, comparing the vehicles before and after the remedy in various environmental settings. I believe that only by examining the

problems onsite can one make decisions from the customer perspective. One cannot rely on reports or data in a meeting room.

Through the measures I have just discussed and with whatever

results we obtain from the investigation we are conducting in cooperation with NHTSA, I intend to further improve on the quality

of Toyota vehicles and fulfill our principle of putting the customer

first.

My name is on every car. You have my personal commitment

that Toyota will work vigorously and unceasingly to restore the

trust of our customers.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Toyoda follows:]

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Chairman TOWNS. Thank you very much, Mr. Toyoda.

Mr. Inaba.

STATEMENT OF YOSHIMI INABA

Mr. INABA. Chairman Towns, Ranking Member Issa, members of

the committee, thank you for inviting me to testify today. My name

is Yoshimi Inaba, and I am the president and COO of Toyota Motor

North America and chairman and CEO of Toyota Motor Sales USA.

As you heard today from the Toyota president, Akio Toyoda, and

as the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations heard yesterday from Jim Lentz, president and chief operating officer of Toyota

Motor Sales USA, Toyota is taking decisive steps to restore the

trust of the tens of millions of Americans who purchase and drive

our vehicles.

Our 172,000 team members and dealers across America are making extraordinary efforts to complete our current recalls as quickly

and conveniently as possible. We have rigorously tested our solutions and are confident that, with these repairs, Toyota vehicles

will remain among the safest on the road today.

We are also going further, by installing advanced brake override

systems in all of our new North American vehicles before the end

of 2010 and in an expanded range of existing models as a customer

confidence measure, and taking comprehensive steps to ensure

strict quality control and increased responsiveness to our customers

and regulators in the future.

As you have heard, Mr. Toyoda is leading a top-to-bottom review

of our global quality control processes and will seek input from

independent safety experts to ensure that our processes meet or exceed industry standards.

As head of Toyota’s North American operations, I will be closely

involved in this review. Working with our new chief quality officer

for North America, I also will take responsibility for ensuring that

we improve our dialog with U.S. safety regulators and that we take

prompt action on any issues we identify to ensure the safety of

American drivers.

In inviting me to testify today, the committee asked me to address several issues with regard to our recent recalls. Let me summarize my answers here: Our recent recalls address five separate

issues that we have identified with certain Toyota vehicles. In

total, some 5.3 million vehicles across 14 models are affected by one

or more of these recalls in the United States.

The biggest recalls are for solutions our engineers have developed with regard to two specific mechanical causes of unintended

acceleration. One involves all-weather or inappropriate accessory

floor mats that, when loose or improperly fitted, can entrap the accelerator pedal. The other concerns accelerator pedals that can,

over time, grow sticky with wear in rare instances. The solutions

we have developed for both of these issues are effective and durable.

With respect to possible accelerator pedal entrapment by the

floor mats, Toyota recently designed a vehicle-based change that directly addresses the problem and announced the solution to the

public in November 2009 as part of the safety campaign announced

on September 29, 2009. Owners of affected vehicles can, in the

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meantime, drive safely by ensuring that they use only properly secured, appropriate floor mats.

With respect to sticking accelerator pedals, Toyota announced a

safety recall in the United States in January to address this issue.

The sticking condition does not occur suddenly, and if it does, the

vehicle can be controlled with firm and steady application of the

brakes.

We are confident that vehicles whose drivers are not experiencing any issues with their accelerator pedal are safe to drive, and

Toyota dealers are rapidly completing the repairs on our customers’

vehicles.

In both these cases, Toyota thoroughly and carefully evaluated

the technical aspect of these issues. However, we now understand

that we must think more from a customer-first perspective rather

than a technical perspective in investigating complaints and that

we must communicate faster, better, and more effectively with our

customers and our regulators.

Our recent, smaller, voluntary recalls of certain 2010 Prius and

Lexus HS hybrids for a software update to the braking system, certain 2010 Camry cars to inspect a power-steering hose, and certain

2010 Tacoma trucks to inspect the front drive shaft all illustrate

this new approach.

Chairman Towns, Ranking Member Issa, and members of the

committee, I assure you that nothing matters more to Toyota than

the safety and reliability of the vehicles our customers drive. We

are committed not only to fixing vehicles on the road and ensuring

they are safe, but to making our new vehicles better and even more

reliable through a redoubled focus on putting our customers first.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Inaba follows:]

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Chairman TOWNS. Thank you very much.

And let me thank both of you for your testimony.

Let me begin by saying, have you told NHTSA everything you

know about sudden acceleration problems? Have you told NHTSA?

[NOTE.—Mr. Toyoda’s replies were delivered through an interpreter.]

Mr. TOYODA. According to my understanding, we fully shared the

information we have with the authorities.

Mr. INABA. Our Washington office has been always in touch with

NHTSA, and we are fully cooperating with NHTSA in any information they require.

Chairman TOWNS. Has Toyota disclosed all information about

other potential safety defects with your vehicles to the regulators?

Have you done that?

Mr. TOYODA. I do not know the specifics. However, as I mentioned earlier, I do understand that all the information we have are

shared with the authorities.

Chairman TOWNS. Let me ask this question. Today, Attorney

General Andrew Cuomo of New York announced an agreement

with Toyota, and this agreement provides that if a customer might

be afraid to drive his or her car subject to a recall, the dealer will

pick up their cars, fix them, and return them to the customers.

Now, the customer will then be reimbursed for any taxi or rental

car expenses that they might incur.

Will you commit to doing this for customers nationwide?

If you want me to repeat it, I would be delighted to do so.

Mr. INABA. Mr. Chairman, let me address that question because

I am local here.

Chairman TOWNS. I would be delighted.

Mr. INABA. Yes. I heard a number of instances that when this recall news came out, I think a number of customers were very

afraid. And our dealers are fully behind it, and dealers took care

of customers very well. In many instances, dealers went to pick up

their cars and then also gave them a Toyota rental car for the time

they were out.

And this recall process is rigorously going on. I think there is a

good understanding now on the part of the customers that the cars

are being fixed well, and they are confident about that.

Chairman TOWNS. But I guess my question is, are you just doing

this in New York, or is this something that you are going to do nationwide?

Mr. INABA. No, this is happening all over the world—I mean, all

over the Nation, nationwide, yes.

Chairman TOWNS. OK. So I just wanted to make certain, you

know, we have that understanding, because I understand it is

going on in New York.

And the last question that I have for you is, Mr. Toyoda, you

have offered a brake override feature for some recalled vehicles.

Why haven’t you offered that feature for all Toyota vehicles?

Mr. TOYODA. Allow me to explain the situation a little bit.

The factors contributing to the unexpected acceleration I believe

can be roughly classified into four categories: first, problem with

electronic throttle system; second, the way in which a car is used

or misusage of the car; third, the structural aspect of the vehicle;

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and fourth, the structural aspect of the parts used in the vehicle.

So these, I understand, are four major factors contributing to unexpected acceleration.

And of that, the electronic throttle control system is designed

based upon the concept of safety first. And, therefore, whenever

there is any abnormality or anomaly there in the system, the fuel

supply to the system is cutoff. And even under very rigorous testing conducted internally or by NHTSA, no problem and malfunction was identified. And, therefore, I am absolutely confident that

there is no problem with the design of the ETC system.

However, placing emphasis upon the fact that customers do have

concern as to the possibility of unexpected acceleration which may

result from the remaining three reasons, in order to offer extra

measure of confidence, as the chairman has just mentioned, we decided to add the brake override system.

Chairman TOWNS. Is that a yes or no? I mean, that is what I am

trying to get to. Is it a yes or a no? Because I am on Congressman

Issa’s time.

I yield to Congressman Issa, but I am trying to find out, is that

a yes or a no?

Mr. INABA. Let me address in a different perspective.

Just for the record, we are putting a brake override system on

all the models for North America coming off the line by the end of

this year.

And now probably your question is retroactively, what about the

existing models? We have already announced Camry, Avalon, and

then ES 300, and then IS; those are already included as an additional measure when we do recalls.

And now we have recently announced Tacoma, which has a very

high complaint rate, and then added to Venza and Sequoia. This

covers probably, if my recollection is correct, 72 percent of the recall population. And any older one, technically it is not possible.

And, therefore, we think we have covered.

But we do not, you know, stop it there. We carefully monitor the

situation. By the next year, with this new model, with BOS coming

in, with these retroactive actions, I think we will be quite sure that

it will be very much lower than the industry average.

Chairman TOWNS. I yield to the gentleman from California.

Mr. ISSA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

And the chairman has proven that he can ask a question so complex as to even be difficult for people of your great knowledge, and

it doesn’t surprise me.

Let me ask in a different way the same question, so that we all

on the dais have clarity. And, Mr. Inaba, I will put this one to you.

Isn’t it true, in order to use an advanced brake override system

like this, your cars depend on electronic systems? They depend on

microprocessors, and they depend on engine control modules that

can actually simultaneously reduce fuel when sensing through the

data bus that the brake has been pushed. Isn’t that correct?

Mr. INABA. You are much better technically savvy than I am. I

believe so.

Mr. ISSA. So I think, for all of us here who are concerned, of

course, about fail safe and acceleration caused by electronics, I

think—I am asking you, isn’t it fair to say that, although elecVerDate 11-MAY-2000 16:12 Oct 13, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00093 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 U:\DOCS\58346.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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tronics could at times be a problem—and your people have not

eliminated that—the solution is, in fact, electronics, in this case,

and that is what is going to give the higher level of safety?

Mr. INABA. Well, I can only say that this is an added measure

to customer confidence. And, of course, I do not mean to say it

solves all the problems.

Mr. ISSA. Yes. And I understand that in the earlier testimony

there were some discrepancies, perhaps, between how Secretary

LaHood would explain certain technical occurrences and how you

would. Is that correct, that you would like to be able to correct the

record on some areas of Secretary LaHood’s testimony?

Mr. INABA. I am not quite understanding what specific comments

you are referring to.

Mr. ISSA. Well, I guess I would welcome that, if you would like

to, we would offer you the opportunity to submit for the record any

technical corrections in what Secretary LaHood’s questions and answers were during the earlier testimony.

Mr. INABA. Well, we would be glad to for the record.

Mr. ISSA. Thank you.

And then I would ask that we put up the unintended acceleration

exhibit that I showed earlier.

And I put this up for both of you because, in your current advertisement on TV, you said something which I thought was extremely

profound and a high goal. You said that good companies fix their

mistakes and great companies learn from them.

In the case of the unintended acceleration, in 2007 there was a

problem in the United States for which the floor mats were

changed. There was a problem in Japan with a different model but

similar in floor pedal in which the Toyota pedal itself was shortened. And now, in the case of all of these models, there is an electronic upgrade, additionally, to prevent an accident like we had in

2009.

Would that be the outcome today, the outcome of the recall, including the electronics upgrade to advanced brake override, is that

the type of ‘‘learn from your mistake’’ that we can expect in the future on any problem that develops?

Mr. TOYODA. I do not know this situation you refer to about

2007. But, generally speaking, whenever a problem occurs, Toyota

addresses those problems in the most sincere manner and attitude.

Mr. INABA. May I make a comment?

Mr. ISSA. Yes, please.

Mr. INABA. I came to know Japan’s problem, to be shameful, only

in the previous hearing you mentioned. And that was the very first

time I ever heard. And, therefore, let me look into that, if it is correct or not.

But at the same time, I think we are the company that we learn

great lessons, for me, from this instance, and we try to do more.

So, you know, we are committed that we try to remain a great company, not just a good company. So I think we have a full commitment of our president, and then he has just said—and we have

many, many measures already taking place. I don’t want to go——

Mr. ISSA. No, I appreciate that. And I have a copy of the documents that you have provided to us concerning the Toyota Blade,

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which is the Japanese-only vehicle. And we will deliver that to you

for your further update.

My second and only other question: Secretary LaHood talked

about wanting to but not necessarily having the transparency of

worldwide sales and problems. Will you agree, Mr. Toyoda, to be

the company that leads by providing the U.S. NHTSA with full

transparency of your worldwide observations and help set a model

for all the major companies here in the United States?

Mr. TOYODA. To that question, I clearly say yes.

In the past cases of recall or problem solutions, in making decisions we based our decision on two issues: the technical consideration and, also, whether or not the regulations and statutes in different parts of the world are complied with. And, in that sense,

going forward, we intend to exchange and share information more

timely throughout the world. And we are now setting up the system for that purpose.

And for that specific purpose, we are going to establish the special committee on global quality, which I personally will be heading. And the very first meeting of that will be held on March 30th.

And, for that purpose, we are now setting up the structure where

the United States and other parts of the world will be represented

in the meeting on that special committee for global quality. And we

are now introducing this system so that we really face up to this

problem openly and transparently.

Mr. ISSA. Thank you.

And thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your indulgence.

Chairman TOWNS. I recognize the gentleman from Pennsylvania,

Mr. Kanjorski.

Mr. KANJORSKI. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Gentlemen, welcome to the United States.

I have to compliment you, Mr. Toyoda, for deciding to come here

and testify. Actually, it is quite a unique experience, in terms of

you will be able to brag about the fact that you withstood the interrogation of a congressional committee. That is a badge of courage

in the United States.

But if you had heard any of the examiner’s questions of the Secretary, and I think now of yourselves, we are a little disturbed

about some things, and I am too, although I am very sympathetic

to the fact that we want to encourage international business and

we want to certainly open our markets to your manufacturing from

Japan or your ownership of manufacturing facilities in the United

States.

But I thought I heard this morning the Secretary say that you

had a problem in Japan that was detected in 2007, and then subsequently the same problem was detected in Europe, but there was

no communication of that problem or the prospect of that problem

being contained in American-manufactured automobiles or your

products being sold in the American market.

If that impression that I have is true, that is very troubling to

me. I would like you, as best you can—and I understand the difference in language—to explain whether or not you are giving the

American automobile purchaser, your customer, and the American

market the same level of attention that you give to the Japanese

market or the European market. And if you didn’t in the past,

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what are you going to do to make sure that difference doesn’t occur

in the future?

We can’t afford to have a lag of a year or 2 years of finding out

something that is defective in an automobile. I suspect the stock

price is reflecting that to you, that it can be very costly. I hope it

doesn’t destroy a great deal of the equity of your company, and I

hope you can move on and move beyond this question.

But I want to hear in my own mind that there hasn’t been this

difference between the home market and the American market or

the home market and the European market or your experiences in

the home market and the European market and the ignoring of the

American market and the American customer, if I may.

Mr. TOYODA. We provide the same services with the same degree

of care to the customers not only in the United States but customers the world over. However, as the Congressman has just

pointed out, our speed of expansion outpaced our development and

training of our people working for us. And right now I am fully

aware of that.

In July last year I became president, and since then I appointed

executive vice presidents responsible for each region of the world.

And by doing so, we established a system where information on different regions can come into the head office and be captured in a

more timely manner.

And, on top of that, specifically about this quality issue that we

are faced with at the moment, with respect to concerns of the customers or customers’ voices before they are expressed in terms of

a complaint, we are going to capture those, so that information be

conveyed to the head office in a timely manner. And we are putting

in place a system to enable us to do that.

Mr. INABA. Let me address, if I may, specific issues of defect information sharing, which was also Ranking Member Issa’s question.

I think we should have done a better job in sharing those crossregional defect information——

Mr. KANJORSKI. What have you determined was the cause that

you didn’t? Was it a culture? Is it psychology? Was it something

that happened in the communications breakdown? It just seems

absolutely——

Mr. INABA. When you go into a certain data base, you can find

it. But it is not—I must say, I don’t know very well, but positively

shared.

Now, going forward, what we are going to do is, one of the things

I would like to report to you is we are making now one American,

we call, product safety executive. It is a part of recall decisionmaking as part of the global committee headed by one Japanese,

one American, and maybe later added from other regions like Europe and China. And then, in that, all the information is shared

there so we can evaluate and know what is going on in other parts

of the world in more transparent ways. So this is the change that

we are making, you know, now.

Mr. KANJORSKI. Let me ask you just a side question. Does Japan

have a tort system similar to the United States, where a suit can

be brought for damages by these injuries and loss of life?

Mr. TOYODA. I believe we do.

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Mr. KANJORSKI. All right. We have a little bit of a contest, sometimes, going on in the United States; we call it tort reform. And

it is an argument that my friends on the other side very often use

in the medical argument field. If you had tort reform and you just

allowed some people to die or get severely injured without recovery,

that would correct things.

I think you are making the best argument in the world that I

have ever heard of why we should have the present tort system.

And I hope you recognize what kind of payment for the injuries

and the damages suffered by innocent American citizens who, like

myself, have grown up in an atmosphere that we had a great deal

of faith in something that was stamped ‘‘Made in Japan,’’ that it

was of the highest reliability. And you have injured that thought

process in the American public. And you will be called upon, under

our system, to pay compensation for that.

I yield back.

Chairman TOWNS. I now yield to the gentleman from Indiana on

that note.

Mr. BURTON. Let me just preface my remarks by saying we really

need tort reform.

Mr. KANJORSKI. We should just forgive these companies and let

them kill our people, right?

Mr. BURTON. Never mind. We just have a difference of opinion.

First of all, let me thank you both for being here. I think it is

very good that you came. It shows real concern on the part of Toyota.

And I also want to compliment Toyota dealers around the country. I went to a couple of Toyota dealers this last week to take a

look at what is going on. And they are working day and night to

correct these mistakes. And so, to your Toyota dealers, I want to

say thank you for working so hard to correct these problems.

Now, having said that, first of all, I have a case here that took

place in 1997. I don’t want to go into all the details on it, but a

woman was injured in an automobile accident involving a Toyota.

She lost both legs. And I would like for you to review that, and if

you wouldn’t mind giving me a response. Would you do that for

me?

Mr. INABA. Yes, sir.

Mr. BURTON. OK. I will have my staff give this to you so that

we can talk about that.

The second thing I want to do is—I don’t understand this. I went

to the Toyota dealer, and this is the floor pedal mechanism that is

used in Japan and in some cars here in America. This is one that

is manufactured by CTS here in the United States, and they have

done a good job on this. This pedal here has been involved in the

accidents, I believe, that have caused the fatalities. This one here,

there has been sticking and they have been putting a shim in

there, a little metal piece in, to correct that.

And my question is, why the difference? These are going in the

same model car, and why do they have different specifications? Because this one here has caused the problems that has created the

deaths, and this one here has some sticking problems which have

been corrected, but it is different.

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And so, when you are manufacturing the same car, why is it that

they don’t meet the same exact specifications? It seems to me that

would be easier to correct than having one that is made one way

and one that is made another way.

Mr. TOYODA. As the Congressman already knows, a car consists

of some 20,000 to 30,000 parts. And I would like you to, first of all,

know that we work together with the suppliers in designing those

parts.

Mr. BURTON. If I might interrupt, I understand that you work

with the suppliers, but the designs are different. This one here has

a different mechanism here on the bottom than this one. And I am

just wondering why, if it is the same model car, there is a difference?

Mr. TOYODA. Some parts are designed by our suppliers, with Toyota approving that. And, in other cases, Toyota’s own engineers design those parts. So there are two approaches used.

In the case of this specific pedal, the suppliers designed the pedal

and Toyota approved that. And, in both cases, we were able to

identify two excellent suppliers whose parts were worthy of us to

use in the United States and Japan. And, therefore, those two

parts designed by our suppliers were used in this pedal.

And, on top of that, it is our philosophy to grow together with

our suppliers. And, in that sense, rather than placing orders with

one single supplier, we source the same parts from multiple suppliers. That is to say, when there are suppliers that can supply parts

that perform the same function, we do that. And this is another

point I would appreciate your understanding.

Mr. BURTON. No, if I might real quickly just say I understand,

but when there is a problem of this magnitude, where people have

been killed because of a part, and there is another part that didn’t

result in fatalities but there was a sticking, it seems to me it would

be easier to correct the problem if there was more consistency in

the two parts.

Chairman TOWNS. Thank you very much. And the gentleman’s

time has expired.

I now recognize the gentleman from Maryland, Congressman

Cummings.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

I want to thank both of you for being with us this afternoon.

And to Mr. Toyoda, I have read your testimony and I have listened to it, and I can appreciate you saying and meaning that you

are sorry.

The problem is that it is one thing to say you are sorry; it is another thing when it seems as if, time after time, there are pronouncements that problems are being addressed and, over and over

again, they seem like they are not being addressed: 2007, a fatal

crash involving a Camry because, allegedly, of floor mats, a person

was killed. And we can’t get away from these facts. September

2007, you then—55,000 cars were recalled. And I know this was before your presidency. August 2009, California fatal crash, four people were killed, the Saylor family. September 2009, 4.2 million cars

recalled. And we can go on and on.

And then just yesterday, Mr. James Lentz III said something

that was very interesting. And basically what he said was that,

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even with the sticky pedal and the floor mat problem, that this

may not account for all of the problems. And he implied that maybe

there were some electronic problems taking place.

The question becomes, at what point do—and I know also you

want to regain the trust of your customer base, but that trust is

hard to establish, or re-establish, when they see over and over

again these kinds of situations, and they say, ‘‘Well, why should we

believe that things are going to get better?’’

And I know that there have been Members on this dais who have

said that they have some good things that Toyota has done, but I

have people in my district who, by the way, are saying that they

call and they have to wait to get their cars repaired, but at the

same time they have to take the children to the babysitter, they

have to go and do their marketing. I mean, these are just practical

things that are happening.

So I am just asking you, how do you say to your customers, the

people who take their hard-earned dollars in a tough economic time

and spend them on a Toyota vehicle, how do you say to them that

we can trust you now, when—and I say this most respectfully—

when it seems as if there is no end to this series of promises, promises that seem to come short of reaching the goal of safety?

Mr. TOYODA. I sincerely regret that some people actually encountered accidents in Toyota vehicles. As I mentioned earlier, with respect to the electronic throttle control system, the system itself has

been designed based upon the philosophy of safety first. And, therefore, whenever any abnormality or anomaly is detected, fuel supply

is instantly cutoff.

That notwithstanding, accidents actually happened. And, therefore, I instructed that every effort be made thoroughly to reproduce

and duplicate the accidents. And up until yesterday, those duplication tests have been repeated and conducted. However, no malfunction or problems were identified based upon the tests conducted internally within Toyota.

And, therefore, based upon such thorough examination and testing conducted within Toyota, I have been saying that I have no

question with respect to the integrity of our ETC system.

And, therefore, in cooperation with the authorities’ consent, we

already announced that we are going to thoroughly examine and

investigate the outcome and data, recording event, data recorder.

And the findings will be made public and disclosed in a prompt and

timely manner, and changes will be made in a very transparent

manner so that be assured going forward.

Chairman TOWNS. Thank you very much.

And I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Florida, Mr. Mica.

Mr. MICA. First of all, Mr. Chairman, I would like to request

unanimous consent to include in the record the specific information

on the administration’s proposed 2011 budget request which cut

National Highway Transportation Safety Administration’s Vehicle

Research Program and also further reduced the amount for vehicle

safety research in the budget. I didn’t have this further. If that

could be inserted also in—the budget information in the record appropriate to my previous questioning of the Secretary. Without objection?

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Chairman TOWNS. I will review it, and we will reserve the right

to reject.

Mr. MICA. Again. OK. I will proceed.

This is indeed a very embarrassing day for the U.S. National

Highway Safety Transportation Administration. It is equally a very

embarrassing day for Toyota, to have the son of the founder of Toyota here as the chief officer to come before the U.S. Congress.

I am embarrassed for you, sir. I am embarrassed for my dealers

that I have talked to. I am embarrassed for thousands of people,

hardworking Americans who work in I guess over 10 plants across

the United States. I thought, actually, I thought we were doing

pretty good because Toyota was taking quite a hit. And I will put

in the record later on your safety record and some of the things you

have done positively, information that I got, until I was shaving

the other day and heard the news of the memo that was prepared

by a gentleman, whom I didn’t even know his name, bring over a

copy of the July 6th Inaba memo. I hadn’t read this actually, the

details of it today.

Mr. Inaba, this is one of the most embarrassing documents I

have ever seen. In your preparation of this, you embarrassed all

the people I represent, those hardworking people across this country.

This is absolutely appalling, sir, that you would identify—and I

know you were on the job only a few days—but key safety issues,

and identify as one of them, on page 14 of the document you prepared, you identified the problem of the safety issue with regard

to these pedals. Then, on page 16, ‘‘Wins for Toyota Safety Group?’’

How could you possibly put in writing this and list as wins for Toyota? Particularly under the defects entry, and negotiated equipment recall on Camry ES, SA saved a hundred million with no defects found? I think you have done a great injustice, sir, in this. I

don’t know if it was—it is not a rookie mistake. Obviously you have

been with the company.

But to prepare this document, to undermine the good working

people and the reputation. Toyota has an outstanding reputation

and actually has had a great safety record. But this discredits everyone.

How would you respond, sir?

Mr. INABA. Yes, sir. First, let me get the facts straight. This is

the only few days after my arrival to the company. And then——

Mr. MICA. Had you been with Toyota before?

Mr. INABA. Yes, sir.

Mr. MICA. How long?

Mr. INABA. Forty years in total, sir.

But this is after 3 years away from Toyota. I also first became

the president of Toyota Motor North America, and then I visited

one of a few days to Washington office. I had no idea what the company was. And that’s why our staff wanted to give me an orientation material.

Mr. MICA. I was stunned to find your name on the front page.

Mr. INABA. Addressed to me.

Mr. MICA. I did not know that until today.

Mr. INABA. And the point is that I was in the middle of orientation tour.

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Yes. I didn’t make it really clear. My name is on it. It is presented to me; not me made it. That is all I want——

Mr. MICA. But you were aware of this. Again, this is information

you had and your company prepared. If, in the future, any company prepared a document like this and presented it to anyone in

the company, to me, it would be one of the most dangerous things

that you could do to anyone’s reputation. I know it says on the side

‘‘confidential’’ and all of that. But do you realize the people that

have been let down, me, the people in my district who go to work

every day in those Toyota operations, the sales? And already, the

reputation has been severely damaged by what has been done here.

Mr. INABA. I honestly, with my honesty, I do not recall the meeting in any depth. But, at the same time, now I see that. I think

I must say to you that it is so inconsistent with the guiding principles of Toyota, and my feeling is and therefore——

Mr. MICA. It is just to me unbelievable.

Mr. INABA. I feel the same.

Mr. MICA. Mr. Toyoda, you are in charge of the company and

have that responsibility. Can you assure the committee that this is

not the approach, this will not be the approach of Toyota now or

in the future?

Mr. INABA. Because now I am getting more familiar. I am the

president of that company. I am going to rectify that.

Chairman TOWNS. The gentleman’s time has expired.

Let me just make an announcement before we move any further.

There is a vote on the floor, actually there are three votes. We plan

to continue with the gentlewoman from Washington, DC, assuming

the Chair. But, I also want to let the gentleman from Florida know

that his time has long expired.

Mr. MICA. Yes, sir.

And if Mr. Toyoda could just answer.

Mr. TOYODA. I do not know about that specific document you referred to, and I do not know the comment.

However, generally speaking, when a new person takes office as

president, it is customarily done in any division to make presentations on various contents or substances going on in the company.

However, generally speaking, the substance and contents of such

documents does not affect the entire company in no way to cause

drifting of the company itself.

Ms. NORTON [presiding]. The gentleman from Ohio, Mr.

Kucinich, has 5 minutes.

Mr. KUCINICH. Madam Speaker, I am going to vote, and I would

like to ask the questions when I come back.

Ms. NORTON. You can. I am calling on people who are left.

Mr. KUCINICH. I will——

Ms. NORTON. I am going to go to Mr. Connolly then.

Mr. KUCINICH. We are coming back?

Ms. NORTON. We are.

Mr. Connolly, you have 5 minutes.

Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Mr. Toyoda, welcome to the committee. When did it first come to

your attention that there was a problem with acceleration of your

vehicles?

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Mr. TOYODA. I was appointed president in July. And there is a

major difference between the sort of information I had received

prior to assuming the position of president and the information I

get to receive after becoming president. And, therefore, there may

be some difference between the information that company may

have had as a company and the information I personally had as

president.

However, I will clearly state whatever I know, and even in those

cases where I do not know or I do not have any notice of, I will

look into the matter and supply the report to you.

So, responding specifically to your question of when, I would say

sometime toward the end of last year.

Mr. CONNOLLY. Toward the end of 2009?

Mr. TOYODA. That is correct.

Mr. CONNOLLY. OK. Were you aware of the fact that there had

been complaints by consumers long prior to that time?

Mr. TOYODA. Right now, I am aware of that. However, did I have

that sort of information before I became president? I didn’t have

that sort of information with the same degree of accuracy that I do

now.

Mr. CONNOLLY. But you had some awareness. We just heard

from Secretary LaHood prior to your testimony, and he talked

about the fact that NHTSA sent a team to Tokyo to meet with the

top leadership of Toyota to bring to their attention as forcefully as

they could the fact that there was a problem and that it needed to

be attended to. That meeting was prior to your testimony just now

that you only learned about this problem in December of last year.

Were you not aware of the fact that NHTSA had sent a team to

Tokyo headquarters?

Mr. TOYODA. On that specific point, that was a matter handled

by the division in charge of quality assurance. And certain person

in that division I understand received the visit from NHTSA representatives and had discussions with them. I know that. However,

I do not know the specific content of the discussion nor the timing

of that meeting.

Mr. CONNOLLY. Well, there seems to be some discrepancy. Again,

we are trying to get at what did we know and when did we know

it to sort of gauge the company’s—the quality of the company’s response to the serious problem on behalf of its customers. And obviously, we have an interest as American Congressmen and women

to protect our constituents who are your customers. And we know

that the company certainly was made aware by U.S. officials

through NHTSA who flew to Tokyo for this express purpose, and

you are telling us in your testimony you didn’t know about it.

You were aware of that trip and that meeting, but you weren’t

aware of the fact that there was a serious acceleration problem

with your vehicles until just a few months ago, December 2009. Is

that correct? Because if it is correct, given your position in the company and your family’s association with the company, that would

constitute extraordinary compartmentalization.

Mr. TOYODA. I personally know that there was a meeting with

NHTSA representatives, but I do not know the content of that

meeting.

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Mr. CONNOLLY. OK. I am just going to ask one more question,

and that is of Mr. Inaba. I am looking at this confidential document that was made available to this committee that my colleague

was just referring to.

Mr. INABA. Yes.

Mr. CONNOLLY. And on one of the pages, it has just a series of

ticks like this. And the bottom tick in your briefing, if I understand

what you said, it says, ‘‘Secured safety rulemaking favorable to

Toyota.’’ And I am going to run out of time, but could you at least

answer, what was your understanding of what that meant?

Mr. INABA. As I said, I don’t recall the meeting in any depth, and

I had no idea about this recall process back then. Therefore, I have

very little knowledge about it. And funny enough that I only recall

quiet cars in that whole list of that. Of course, now I am made

aware of this, there was an execution of that. But I don’t recall it.

Mr. CONNOLLY. Madam Chair, I know my time is up.

Ms. NORTON. The gentleman’s time has expired.

Mr. CONNOLLY. But I would just note for the record that this document is dated July 6, 2009.

Ms. NORTON. The gentleman’s time has expired.

Mr. Davis.

Mr. DAVIS OF KENTUCKY. Thank you, Madam Chair.

And I would like to thank you and also Ranking Member Issa

and members of the committee for allowing me to join from my position on the Ways and Means Committee on this Oversight hearing on Toyota’s recall.

I have the honor of representing Toyota’s North American headquarters in Erlanger, KY, and wanted to voice some perspective

from our region.

Toyota directly employs more than 172,000 in plants and dealerships in the United States, and Toyota has an integral part in our

economy in Kentucky and investment in the United States of

America. They maintained operations and a world-class level of

quality in the Commonwealth for nearly 25 years. The Georgetown

facility now manufactures engines in addition to automobiles, all

part of a $5.4 billion investment in our State.

Toyota has been an exceptional corporate citizen in Kentucky.

They have given more than $37 million to local charitable groups

with missions ranging from education to social services. And not

only has Toyota supported local charitable needs, but Toyota has

also been one of the Commonwealth’s strongest job creators. Toyota

North American headquarters in Erlanger, KY, in the Hebron’s

Park Center, supplies distributors across the continent in my

hometown of Hebron, KY.

In all, more than 8,000 Kentuckians work for Toyota, and almost

1,500 are in Kentucky’s Fourth Congressional District. Additionally, 90 Toyota suppliers are located in Kentucky, creating more

than 10,000 additional jobs.

Toyota’s decade-long reputation for quality, safety, and service is

based on their high standards of quality and innovation, and based

on their corporate ethic of discipline, honor, and humility. They

have had a positive and transformational effect on virtually every

aspect of American manufacturing, and I can speak to this as one

of the few manufacturing professionals who serves in the Congress.

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Toyota is—as Congress conducts these hearings related to Toyota’s recall, we need to keep in mind Toyota’s willingness to do

something unusual in American business politics in the Congress,

and that is to actually take responsibility and ownership for the

problem and continue their longstanding commitment to quality

and, more importantly, for the well being of their customers.

Careless words and unfounded allegations by those who may

have other agendas can do irreparable harm to job creation in Kentucky and in the United States. At a time when quality jobs are

in short supply and unemployment in Kentucky and the Ohio Valley remains above 10 percent, the jobs created by Toyota are more

important than ever.

Echoing the concerns voiced by Kentucky Governor Steve

Beshear and other Governors across the United States in a recent

letter to Congress, I urge the members of this committee and my

other colleagues to be thorough in their investigations of these

issues and to arrive at conclusions based on evidence that is uncovered, rather than circumstantial speculation or sensationalism.

Let’s focus on the facts, rather than giving way to the temptation

to engage in political theater.

Congress must exercise appropriate oversight in determining its

National Highway Transportation Safety Administration is able to

effectively identify and comprehensively investigate automobile

safety issues facing Americans. And, moreover, America needs

clear and consistent automotive safety standards applied to all

manufacturers in this country, not simply one, to ensure the safety

of the entire American public.

I appreciate your willingness to come and participate in this

today, and the contribution of your business to our country’s economic strength and wealth.

And with that, Madam Chair, I thank you. And I yield back.

Mr. INABA. Thank you for your comment.

Ms. NORTON. The gentleman’s time has expired.

Mrs. Maloney of New York.

Mrs. MALONEY. Thank you.

And thank you for coming to testify today.

Earlier in response to the chairman’s question, you said the dealers in America are responding to any of the problems and making

the customer whole, assuming all costs for repair, and trying to

subsidize for their time and so forth.

My question is, what about the American families or individuals

who died or were injured? Since the company knew about the problem, will you assume their medical costs, their funeral costs?

Mr. TOYODA. Truly speaking, truly I feel very sorry for the members of the Saylor family who ended their life with Toyota vehicle,

and I extend the condolences from the deepest part of my heart.

Working closely together with engineers, Toyota team members,

and suppliers in making maximum efforts so that such a tragedy

be never, ever again repeated.

Mrs. MALONEY. But you did not answer my question of whether

or not you would assume the cost of the hospital, repair of the

body, the expenses of the individuals.

Mr. INABA. Well, many of those cases are pending legal issues,

and so we will leave it to our legal counsel for its information.

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Mrs. MALONEY. Earlier, when this came forward, you had this report examination done. And I would like to know if you think this

report on the problems and the solutions was sufficient.

Earlier, Commissioner LaHood testified he was depending on the

research of Toyota. So I am asking whether you feel that this is

sufficient.

And, second, I would like to go back to a field technical report

that came in from Europe. And in it, the mechanics are really very

clearly stating that there is a problem. And I want to know why

this information was not gotten out to people, to America, to the

dealers, to everyone immediately. And, specifically, how many complaints trigger an investigation? Is there a standard? When someone complains and says there is a problem, what happens? How

many complaints have to come in before you start reaching out?

Mr. INABA. First of all, let me address this cross-regional information sharing.

As I stated before, we could have done a much better job, and

we are now taking steps to improve it, as I said before.

And to the specific question of how many, the number of reports

do you need to initiate that investigation, I think for the UA issues,

unintended acceleration issues, that we are committed to take actions in investigating those issues one by one. In other words, once

we get the complaints of reports of that UA issue going forward,

we will—the goal is to start the investigation within 24 hours of

the information that we receive. And we are creating many, many

SWAT teams to really go into that area.

Mrs. MALONEY. I have been called for a vote, but I would like to

get on the record, if I could, your response, Mr. Toyoda. What have

you learned from this personally, and what lessons has the company taken from the events leading to today’s hearing? And how

will you change Toyota in the future to protect people and to provide an excellent product? And I am going to go vote. If you can

answer.

Ms. NORTON. You may answer, Mr. Inaba or Mr. Toyoda, what

you learned, etc.

Mr. TOYODA. With respect to the recall, thus far, we have been

too much focused on two perspectives: One is technical perspective,

and the other is compliance with laws and regulations.

The most important lesson that I learned from this experience

relates to the following. With respect to customer-first philosophy,

we have been placing the highest priority on the safety thus far,

and we will continue doing so. But on top of that, from the perspective of customer-first, we will place greater emphasis upon the customer’s viewpoint and perspectives. So that is the first lesson that

I would like to mention here.

In addition to that, we will make sure that we get information

from various regions of the world in a more timely manner so that

the time lag be minimized between different parts of the world and

the global head office in Japan. We will make efforts in that direction.

Ms. NORTON. Thank you.

If I may say so, the reason that you have seen such emphasis on

what you call the technical matters and the law is precisely that

customers did in fact apparently over and over again complain

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about these issues, but had no way to know the cause, and expected Toyota to in fact look at the technical details. The technical

details are beyond a family that reports unintended acceleration.

And the family expects that, having reported that, there will be an

immediate remedy.

The matter of law goes to transparency itself. The law requires

automobile operators in this country to—manufacturers in this

country to operate in a certain way. Therefore, the first thing we

do is to look and see if they are operating according to law. And

law here meant of course the regulatory agency.

I don’t know if you want to respond, but I do want to make it

clear, and I was pleased to hear that apparently the route from

customer complaint to those who can do something about it is one

of the reforms you have suggested in your testimony already. Apparently, these went astray because they didn’t get straight up to

the fix-it person. And, as I understand it, one of the most important reforms is not that the customer complaint you listened to—

I suppose you heard them—but the right people in the structure

did not hear these complaints. Is that so? At the right level, the

level to bring an immediate remedy. Those people didn’t hear it

soon enough, and so the customers weren’t heard soon enough. Is

that correct?

Mr. TOYODA. It is not that customers were not heard, in my view.

Whenever complaints were reported, we try very hard to reproduce

and duplicate those complaints to identify what it was that was actually taking place which led to the complaints coming from the

customers. We investigated them very hard. And, at the same time,

whether the similar phenomenon is likely to continue into the future, how much possibility there is for the same phenomenon to

spread to other areas or other cars is another aspect that is investigated. So I will say that I will accelerate that process of following

these three steps further into the future.

But with respect to the reproducing—reproducibility or duplication of those phenomenon, we have been working very hard, being

Toyota, to do exactly that. But even with the best efforts made,

there are cases that cannot be or that have not been reproduced.

So, going forward, we will enhance the transparency of the process

of us working very hard to reproduce and try to identify those

causes, sometimes seeking cooperation from the authorities concerned. And we intend to lead our efforts in this area in a manner

that our efforts itself will lead to the improvement of the vehicles

of the entire industry.

Ms. NORTON. I am going to go on with my questions. I just want

to make sure you are not blaming the victims. The customers reported. The customers reported. Let’s not say they didn’t want to

hear our customers. The fault does not lie with the customers. You

can bet your bottom dollar that the first time there was unintended

acceleration, that is about everybody’s horror. You can bet your bottom dollar that customer reported that.

Your answer, which goes to we will see if this is duplicated, is

in some ways very troublesome, because that is such a serious

problem that once it is reported one time, it seems to me you have

a huge problem on your hands. And you seem to be saying, well,

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if we hear it enough, then we will know we ought to do something

about it. That is very troublesome.

Mr. INABA. Well, what we said in our testimony and have many

other times, customer first is the thing that we have been doing.

But we would have to make more focus on the customer concerns

and complaints. And, for that matter, I think we also work closer

with the NHTSA so that when we receive the customer complaints,

we would like to know more about it. And then, also, some of the

information has been or will be sort of open to us, including VIN

numbers, so that we can trace back each one of the customers. As

I said, this SWAT team could do that. So we are trying very hard

to really put that word, customer first.

Ms. NORTON. First, let me say to you, I am going to ask you a

question that I think every American who has a Toyota would want

me to ask. And I can ask this because it is personal as well as congressional. I drive a Camry Hybrid. I switched to Toyota very reluctantly, because I wanted to buy an American car, and the Americans were not making hybrids almost at all or were so few that

I went straight away to Toyota. Why? I didn’t ask how much it

cost. I was relying on this extraordinary reputation for quality and

safety that had been built over generations.

So I ask you, Mr. Toyoda, is there any chance that the Camry

Hybrid will be recalled for any reason?

Mr. INABA. First of all, let me step in. First of all, Madam Chair,

you are driving an American car. It is produced in America.

Ms. NORTON. It has Mr. Toyoda’s name on it. You don’t want to

claim it anymore? You are disclaiming the car?

Mr. INABA. No, no.

Ms. NORTON. It was the Americans’ fault?

Mr. INABA. No, no. Please. First of all, and also, now Camry Hybrid is not on the recall list.

Ms. NORTON. No, and I just want to find out if you expect it ever

to be on the recall list for any reason.

Mr. INABA. I think you will be very safe driving the car. So that

is all I wanted just before Mr. Toyoda.

Ms. NORTON. You stand behind the Camry Hybrid, Mr. Toyoda?

Mr. TOYODA. Right now, it is completely safe. And every day, as

customers continue to use those vehicles, they may come up with

the new findings, but as I said, it is 100 percent safe at the moment. And for the customers to be able to feel safe in the car and

so that ourselves be able to sincerely receive any voices of the customers anywhere in the world, we are now putting in place the

structure worldwide to capture customers’ voices wherever in the

world. And we will listen to those customers’ voices very humbly

and modestly so that they will continue to be safe in our vehicles.

Ms. NORTON. Thank you.

Mr. INABA. Madam Chair, can I have one more? Because it was,

I am afraid, misunderstanding. The Camry Hybrid is produced

here, and a vast majority of the parts are coming from the United

States. So that is what I meant as an American car.

Ms. NORTON. I just don’t know what difference that makes. You

need to explain that to me. Were the cars that have been recalled

produced elsewhere, and that is the problem? Mine is safer because

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American workers did it and produced it? I don’t understand the

distinction. The cars that have the problem were from Japan?

Mr. INABA. No. The reason why I said why Camry Hybrid is an

American car, because you did—bought an American car. That is

what I meant, which is produced here, supplied here. And then so

that is all I wanted to say.

Ms. NORTON. Many Toyotas are produced here and supplied here.

Aren’t they? We are pleased to have you produced and supplied

here. But the worldwide reputation begins in Japan and stands behind wherever they were produced. Sometimes produced in Europe.

Mr. Toyoda, I was impressed with your opening remarks. In fact,

I am impressed with your being here, and I am impressed with

some of what you have said you intend to do, because we are really

going forward. I am trying in my own questions to get some sense

of where we need to have confidence in Toyota and where there is

still some questions.

But in your testimony, you say, I would like to point out here,

this is page 1 of your testimony—that Toyota’s priority has traditionally been the following: ‘‘First, safety; second, quality; and

third, volume.’’

Now, I am going to ask you a question about what seems to be

a fourth priority that is, for me, the most troubling aspect of this

controversy, and that fourth quality is secrecy.

To get to the heart of my concern about secrecy and the culture

of secrecy, I would go to the data recorder, otherwise known as

black box. Now, people in the United States are very familiar with

airline black boxes because they know that in that black box is critical information. And if you get to it, get to it fast; you can find

the cause. You can put—you cannot only respond to those who

have been hurt, but you can put to rest some of the concerns as

people begin to speculate what indeed caused this and they come

up with sometimes wild conclusions. But that black box is critical.

Now, other manufacturers, understanding just how important it

is to get to the cause of the accident for all concerned, make the

black box data available to download. I have had a hard time understanding, therefore, given the fact that your competitors make

this data downloadable easily, I have had difficulty understanding

Toyota invoking proprietary technology that allows only you, Toyota, on the spot to download. Why should we respect your proprietary technology any more than we respect the proprietary technology of other automakers, particularly given the safety aspects of

this matter and the fact that an accident has already occurred?

Why do you not want to clear the air as quickly as possible? On

what basis do you invoke some proprietary technology interest

when your competitors do not in the downloading area?

Mr. INABA. Let me respond to that question first that, yes, we

know that the three manufacturers have this information, and then

the reader is commercially available. Toyota is also making

this——

Ms. NORTON. Wait a minute. What is commercially available and

when?

Mr. INABA. The three. General Motors, Ford, Chrysler have this

commercially available reader that is what you——

Ms. NORTON. Why don’t you have such a reader?

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Mr. INABA. We are in the process of making it available, commercially available, by probably the middle of next year, which is

ahead of the law requirement, A; B, that this year, by April, in 2

months time, in less than 2 months time, we are going to make

hundreds of units of readers available at any region, any area.

The point is that, with the authority, also in the past request,

we made it always open. Now, this is the information, the ETR information is the owner’s information that, with their consent, we

can make that information available.

Ms. NORTON. It was available if you were on the spot.

Mr. INABA. We did not hide it at the request of authorities, like

police request or NHTSA request, or some other government and

authorities request. We have made it openly.

Ms. NORTON. One, you came as if there was something that was

so secret that even you had to be there in order for law enforcement and regulators to read it. I just don’t understand the difference. Indeed, let me make sure I understand what your testimony is.

Are you saying that the company is redesigning the black box so

that it can be readable by law enforcement, by safety investigators,

and consumers?

Mr. INABA. And owners of that. It is not—it should not be made

available to anybody else unless there is a consent, to my knowledge, of the owners of the vehicle.

Ms. NORTON. You would not have to be—Toyota would not have

to be present in order for the black box to be read. Is that true?

Just like other manufacturers, you don’t have to come to unlock the

black box personally?

Mr. INABA. I don’t know that technical detail to answer.

Ms. NORTON. Well, that is the whole point, sir.

Mr. Chaffetz from Utah, you have 5 minutes.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Thank you.

Mr. Toyoda, Mr. Inaba, thank you for being here. I very much

appreciate it.

Mr. Toyoda, do you believe you are being treated the same as

other manufacturers in the United States of America?

Mr. TOYODA. Yes, I believe so.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Do you have any reason to believe that other

automakers are treated any differently by NHTSA?

Mr. TOYODA. No, I don’t think so.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. If you could hand the document, please, to them.

There is a document dated July 6, 2009. If you could take a look

at this, please. This is an internal Toyota document dated July 6,

2009.

Mr. Inaba, it has your name on it. My apologies if I pronounced

it wrong.

On page 7, which should be the second page, it says under the

first bullet point: Changing political environment. Massive government support for Detroit automakers.

Is that concerning? Why was that brought up?

Mr. INABA. This is one of—I explained already once part of it.

This is one of my orientation, because I was a few days into this

position, and this is prepared by Washington office to give me sort

of a first look of it.

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I do not honestly recall all these notions. The only thing I said,

also, recall, is the quiet car regulation, which struck me with a

very strange feeling. But that was the only thing. But looking at

all these papers, this suddenly does not represent the Toyota’s

overall guiding principle or belief.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. On the second page, it is under key safety issues,

and the first point it says: U.S. DOT NHTSA under Obama administration not industry friendly.

Is that a compliment, or is that a criticism?

Mr. INABA. I can’t comment on that.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. What does it mean to you?

Let me go to the last point, Mr.—perhaps both of you could take

this. ‘‘The new team has less understanding of engineering issues

and are primarily focused on legal issues.’’

Can you explain what Toyota meant by that?

Mr. INABA. I still don’t understand what the big difference between the two, engineer, legal. Both are involved anyhow.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Both what?

Mr. INABA. Both sides have been—will be involved in a discussion anyhow.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. This is an internal Toyota document.

Mr. Toyoda, how would you read this?

Mr. TOYODA. I can’t understand it.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. My understanding is that both Toyota and

NHTSA knew about this problem back as early as 2007, and yet

it took so long to get it taken care of. Is there a regulatory component here that was slowing this down?

Mr. TOYODA. Today I came to understand that this particular

document was prepared as a part of the presentation material addressed to the new president. However, I do not know the background of this writing nor do I know how this document was prepared. And, therefore, I apologize, but I simply do not know the answer to your question.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Do you believe it is true? Do you stand by it, or

do you want to distance yourself from it?

Mr. TOYODA. Well, I need to understand this further. That is to

say, I cannot understand the English written here.

Mr. INABA. Now 8 months into this position, I am beginning to

learn myself and form my own opinion. So that is not consistent,

or I am learning this does not represent my feeling today. And of

course, I will learn more. I would like to build a very good relationship with NHTSA, and so that we can work together very good.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Do you—explain to me the negotiation that happens between an auto manufacturer and NHTSA. Often the word

‘‘negotiation’’ is used. How does that work? What is negotiated in

your——

Mr. INABA. I have met NHTSA officials twice. So I am not able

to explain what the negotiation means. So it is still a little bit too

premature for me to say anything. But, I don’t know. Certainly negotiation doesn’t sound like a good word. There is a discussion, yes.

But also exchange of information, yes. And we oftentimes get the

good guidance from NHTSA, from an official. We listen to it. We

respect him. They ask us information. We provide them. So this is

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sort of like the nature of the relationship, as I understand. Whether it falls into negotiate or not, I can’t—I don’t know.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Do you believe, Mr. Toyoda, that American unions

have an undue influence in this process?

Mr. TOYODA. Since I haven’t understood the content of this, I do

not know how I should answer that question. I apologize for that.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Toyota hired some former NHTSA employees.

Why would it be appealing to hire former NHTSA employees?

Mr. INABA. Well, first of all, those two gentlemen who came from

NHTSA I know personally. So, of course, having——

Mr. CHAFFETZ. How did you know them?

Mr. INABA. I just started meeting him more often because I am

a president of that company and meet them.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Did you know them before they were hired?

Mr. INABA. No, I did not. So I am beginning to know their personality so their professional standard. So I have a very high respect for both gentlemen’s professionalism and also ethical standard. So it doesn’t matter whether they are coming from NHTSA or

not. To me, it does not.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Do you believe that the relationship between

NHTSA and Toyota or other manufacturers is too close, too cozy?

Mr. INABA. I don’t believe so.

Ms. NORTON. The gentleman’s time has expired.

Mr. Kucinich of Ohio, 5 minutes.

Mr. KUCINICH. I thank the gentlelady.

We have heard Mr. Toyoda say that Toyota grew too fast. It is

interesting that is being told to us as we are investigating cars that

are accelerating out of control. It is ironic, but I would submit perhaps a misleading parallel, because the problem is not that you

were moving too fast but that you were moving too slow, too slow

to recognize the material defects that put people’s lives at risk, and

too slow to have some internal questioning about the effectiveness

of your own value innovation program, which in the mid-decade

began slashing production costs so that you could reach a 10 percent operating profit. And then, when China came on into full competition and began dropping their price for parts, you began to cut

your costs even more.

And this committee hasn’t really looked at the economic backdrop of the change—what appears to be a change in Toyota’s culture but which may be, in fact, a kind of a cut-throat, corporate,

competitive environment which caused Toyota to drive its costs

down. And, as we know, everywhere, when costs are driven down,

safety is also put at risk. There are 180 different parts that you

look at where you cut the cost by at least 30 percent, according to

all industry reports.

Now, Mr. Toyoda, to your knowledge, were there ever any discussions at Toyota that certain design or engineering flaws would create system failures that would result in unintended acceleration?

Mr. TOYODA. You pointed out that, before I became president, the

speed of growth may have been too fast. And I was referring to the

fact that the growth may have outpaced our ability to develop and

train human resources.

And you also pointed out that the company may have become a

finance-driven manufacturing company. And——

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Mr. KUCINICH. You know, I understand your answer, but it is not

responsive to the question that I am asking. Now, I want to be polite, but I also hope that you will answer the question that I asked,

which is: Were there ever any discussions at Toyota that certain

design or engineering flaws would create system failures that

would result in unintended acceleration?

That was my question, and I would appreciate the courtesy of a

direct response.

Mr. TOYODA. Whenever those issues of recall came about within

Toyota, we had very serious discussion as to at which stage socalled unintended acceleration takes place.

Mr. KUCINICH. Well, let me ask a followup question, Mr. Toyoda.

Have you ever been advised by your attorneys or business associates not to discuss any defects in the electronic throttle control system because such an admission would create such liability which

would be financially devastating to Toyota?

Mr. TOYODA. That has never happened.

Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Inaba.

Mr. INABA. Never happened.

Mr. KUCINICH. You have had no discussions with your attorneys

about matters of material defect in your products?

Mr. INABA. Nothing costs Toyota more than the loss of a customer’s trust in our vehicles. From that perspective, we are as

eager as anybody else to know if there is any problem on our ETC

system.

Mr. KUCINICH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman TOWNS. The gentlemen from Indiana, Mr. Souder.

Mr. SOUDER. I would like to make a couple of comments at the

very beginning.

First, I want to thank Mr. Inaba for visiting Warsaw, IN, to the

new Toyota dealership there. That was a big thing for a small

town. Dave Illingworth is running that, and that is in my district.

And people were very excited to have you in.

Second, I have some concerns about the way the hearing has

been conducted. To some degree, it seems like we are having a

hanging before the trial. Now, I am not saying that you are not

guilty; I am just saying it seems by hauling you in here and the

way we have handled this and by going through a lot of internal

memos, there is a lot yet to be decided. And I am trying to get to

the truth.

I represent an auto area. We make parts through my whole district. Fort Wayne, IN, is the proud home of the Silverado and Sierra, who is in competition with you every day. So my goal is to

sell GM products and Ford and Chrysler, but also I have suppliers

to you. One in this district is CTS. It is right at the edge of my

district.

These two pedals have distinctly different problems. This longer

one was having a slightly slow release, which means that, when

you take your foot off, it comes up just a fraction of a second too

slow. And it also, because it was longer, was sticking in floor mats.

But nobody was killed from that. That was a standard recall problem where you say, OK, we are going to fix the part.

This one, however, for whatever, whether it is electronic or whatever, the one from Densol, had acceleration. In other words, it

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wasn’t that when you let go it went up; it was actually causing the

car to go faster. And all of the death cases came from the Densol

model, not the CTS.

Because when you go through the models—and this is important

for several things. Like Mr. Kanjorski, one of our concerns as

American Congressmen is that you treat America like the rest of

the world. And we are very concerned about memos that suggest

you were addressing the problem in Europe and Japan before in

the United States.

The other thing is, in part suppliers, what is amazing in this

story is that the American part supplier was actually delivering the

safer model and that your subsidiary—and I don’t know whether

you are aware. A little after 3 o’clock, the FBI raided three Toyota

suppliers, and one is this one that made the pedal that is causing

it. And there is clearly going to be an investigation as to that.

I also want to thank you, if you are going to be an American

company, for working with our parts suppliers. I understand that

you need multiple suppliers. And it is good to have the competition;

that is how we get better things. I understand even why, as a corporation, you need to have legal protection, although you need to

be honest about what is happening here. And partly, when we have

hearings like this, more people file lawsuits, and you have to protect yourself and your stockholders, and I understand that.

But in looking for safety, I encourage you to continue to look at

the American suppliers, because, in this case, I don’t know whether

it was because you were trying to do cost controls internally on

your historic system, but what I see happening—and it is interesting when you match up these two models. What happened is, it

isn’t true that the American company was supplying your American-made vehicles, that you have been transitioning over, and

where the problems were occurring were in the Densol model, and

that you have moved 50 percent over to Camry starting in 2007,

but the problems were pre-2007. You have now been moving Lexus

over. And I am praising you, I am not criticizing you, for moving

over. But it is more or less an acknowledgment that, while you had

problems in this one, they weren’t as great as this one.

And I would encourage you, like others have, to look at whether

there was some interaction in the type of pedal, whether it was the

cruise control that did it or the electronic, or whether there is

something inside here. Because you are addressing the snap-back.

That is just a fraction, unless you catch your mat, which is partly—

we have people sticking carpet under. You know, you can have any

kind of pencil get under that affects that. But that is still different

than this sudden acceleration.

And I encourage you to continue. You have multiple manufacturing plants in the State of Indiana, which aren’t in my area. Like

I say, we are more the big three.

I also want to encourage you, in addition to not treating us differently compared to Europe and Japan in safety questions and

continuing to use American suppliers and doing your standards—

I mean, the companies in my district are saying, when you come

in, you are very aggressive in making sure that they have good

standards, but to continue to do that.

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And I also encourage you—I am very discouraged that, a number

of years ago, you said your goal was to be the No. 1 auto supplier

to Iran. Now, we have rules in the United States about supplying

Iran, and I hope Toyota also reverses that position, because, as

Americans, we are very concerned about that.

I would welcome any comments.

Mr. INABA. Thank you for all of the suggestions and the advice.

I must only say that we do not treat American customers any differently from Europe or Japan. And just a matter of timing, that

there may be a difference in acting and reacting or resolving the

problem. But there is no way that we can differentiate any American drivers from the rest.

Chairman TOWNS. All right. The gentleman’s time has expired.

The gentleman from Illinois, Congressman Quigley.

Mr. QUIGLEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

My colleague from Ohio stressed that he raised a point to get a

more specific answer, and I will briefly try to do the same thing

as it relates to black boxes.

Clearly, other manufacturers make this black box data available

to download. At this point, Toyota has proprietary technology that

allows only Toyota to download this data. Now, beyond adding

more, the specific question is: Will your company redesign the

black box so they can be readable by law enforcement, safety investigators, and consumers?

Mr. INABA. It is true that we have one dealer in the United

States which can read EDR. And we have made a decision that we

will have a hundred units of them made available by the end of

April.

Mr. QUIGLEY. How will they be made available? To whom?

Mr. INABA. This is made by our supplier, so it is a Toyota technology. But let me carry on.

By the middle of 2011, prior to the law requirement, we will

make this reader commercially available in this market. So there

are steps that we have to take, maybe because of technical reasons,

but we are making it. Because for us, also, it is very important to

know the reasons of any accident and, you know, getting into more

technical detail of that. And, of course, we have been always open

with all information to the authority’s requests.

Mr. QUIGLEY. But the other manufacturers don’t make these entities hurdle to get this. It is not proprietary, I mean, so they can

do it themselves. You are still making it difficult, even if you add

more readers.

As you say, information is so important. And, as we talked about

before, one of our big concerns here is we don’t know exactly what

is happening. Mr. Lentz yesterday said he is not certain that a recall would fully solve the safety problem. So, again, we are flying

blind.

And, with respect, I don’t see that what you are talking about

is a dramatic leap forward to improve how much information we

are getting with these incidents as they take place.

Mr. INABA. The other manufacturers you are referring to is, to

my understanding, to the best of my knowledge, it is only General

Motors, Ford, and Chrysler, and no other makes are ready yet, I

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don’t think. So I think we are still among earliest wave of that information available.

Mr. QUIGLEY. With respect, I think that it would behoove you

and everyone who drives your vehicles, including my family, if you

rethought that and advanced the efforts to make this information

available far more quickly than it allows and even in the redress

attempts that you are talking about now.

Mr. INABA. Yes, we are trying to, sir.

Mr. QUIGLEY. Getting to the main point that was made by Mr.

Lentz, that he wasn’t certain that a recall would solve these problems, it came down to the issue of electronics, and there is still a

question there. What is your level of certainty as to whether electronics is a main cause of this problem?

Mr. INABA. Well, let me try my way.

Mr. QUIGLEY. OK.

Mr. INABA. My level of confidence is 100 percent. I think I have

full trust in Toyota’s engineers. Over 50 years, I think they have

done a great job to bring the Toyota name up to here, and I have

no doubt they are still doing it.

So, of course, all the exhaustive testing done at Toyota, it is exhaustive, you know, in their mind. That is why we went outside.

And if that is not enough, we are willing to stand—we are just in

the process, just very close to announce what Mr. Toyoda referred

to as an outside advisory board. This is going to be two very prominent—I can’t name it as of now, maybe in a couple of days—two

prominent safety experts leading the panel to investigate this

ETCS of Toyota, you know, whether it is any problem or it is robust.

And they can choose any outside laboratory to test it. So we are

now hoping that we can answer fully so that you would understand. But we are willing to take that, sort of, test through this advisory. And they can also be an advisory board to our overall quality improvement. So this is what I wanted to say.

Chairman TOWNS. The gentleman’s time has expired.

Mr. QUIGLEY. Thank you.

Chairman TOWNS. Congressman Fortenberry from Nebraska.

Mr. FORTENBERRY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for

coming today.

Frankly, it is refreshing to see corporate executives show remorse

in what is a very serious issue and to try to unpack the way to

move forward to resolve safety concerns with your product.

With that said, I would like to ask one question and then perhaps propose a creative opportunity for you to consider.

Is your corporate culture in America different than your corporate culture in Japan, so that the corporate culture in America

is impeded from responding more quickly to safety concerns?

Mr. INABA. If I understand your question correctly, is corporate

America culture different from Japan at Toyota; is that the question?

Mr. FORTENBERRY. It would be helpful to have an understanding

if your corporate culture in America is fully free and independent

to be able to respond quickly to the safety problems that are presented to them here?

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Mr. INABA. Well, of course, there is a difference because our corporate culture in America is very much composed of so many Americans. The vast majority is of Americans, so there may be a difference. But at the same time, it is amazing that we see a lot of

camaraderie. I personally see a lot of camaraderie because I have

worked in this country for 9 years. So I have seen many of the Toyota associates here, including our leaders, and the corporate culture is very, very similar to my surprise to that of Toyota in Japan.

But there is also a difference in communication, I have to admit.

And there is sometimes a lack of communication because of the

language differences, because of the cultural differences, too.

So here I am being a head of this North American operation. I

am called half American, half Japanese, so I think I can bridge

that gap very easily so our corporate culture of customer first, and

then honest and transparency should be kept intact.

Mr. FORTENBERRY. So there is nothing in the American Toyota

corporate system that is not free or is impeded by the dominant

corporate culture in Japan to quickly address safety issues?

Mr. INABA. It would be fair to say that there are none, but there

are always differences. I think my job is to sort of even it.

Mr. FORTENBERRY. One of the significant issues here is the unintended sudden acceleration. Your executive yesterday suggested

what you are doing may not totally fix the problem. Now, in that

regard, unintended acceleration has affected other car manufacturers, so I would suggest to you that you have a potential opportunity

here as the dominant player in worldwide manufacturing, certainly

one of them, to perhaps lead on a new way of thinking about this

safety problem, working perhaps in a consortium with other manufacturers, your very competitors, working with the U.S. Government, to think more creatively and perhaps do the research and

collaboration that shows that it is this mechanical problem that we

were demonstrating earlier; or is there some electrical issue that

has not been discovered yet that more collective minds working together could actually discover and broaden the impact of the safety

changes for the entire car industry?

Mr. TOYODA. As the Congressman has just pointed out, throughout the world, Toyota has been deploying business and pursuing

business in the world. I believe the corporate culture for things

that we treasure very much are commonly shared anywhere in the

world.

However, different regions do have its own culture, its own customs, and local people of a specific country work for a company,

and we deliver our products to customers in the local markets. In

that sense, I have been thinking since April that we will give greater initiative to different regions of the world, for example, by emphasizing more the culture of the United States or the customs

here.

Chairman TOWNS. The gentleman’s time has expired.

I recognize the gentleman from Illinois, Congressman Davis.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

And I thank you gentlemen for appearing before the committee.

Mr. Toyoda, for years, there have been complaints pouring into

your company about unintended acceleration problems in your vehicles. Your own field technicians in Europe were alerting you that

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something in the accelerator pedal was causing cars to speed up

uncontrollably more than a year ago.

When did Toyota first learn it had a problem with sudden unintended acceleration? And why did it take you almost a year to

bring this to the attention of regulators and even more time to tell

the public about the problem? Is there some policy in your company

that prevents you from alerting regulators as quickly as possible

about a problem or the public so that we all become aware?

Mr. TOYODA. In the name of our company’s tradition and pride,

I can clearly say that whenever a problem arises, Toyota pursues

the facts thoroughly and rigorously and looks into those matters in

great deal. In doing so, our fundamental approach and stance is to

give the highest priority to customers’ safety and convenience. And

in relation to that, once that is accomplished, we provide and create products that also satisfies the mandate of the times, for example, in conserving environment or existing in harmony with nature.

Now, with respect to your specific question of when we learned

of this problem, I do not know when we learned of this problem,

but I do hope that you would understand the basic stance and attitude of the company which I described.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Reports were actually surfacing several

years ago, and yet it appears there was no significant effort to deal

with it until the accident in California. Do you feel that your company acted quickly enough to begin to address the issue in a way

that regulators and the public would know that you were doing so?

Mr. TOYODA. As it turned out in this particular case, the response, according to information, was not quick enough. However,

going forward, we will establish the framework very firmly and

diligently so that we will not betray your expectations in that regard. I will personally take leadership in putting in place the structure that will enable us to capture information from the local areas

concerned in a more timely manner.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Media reports suggest that your company

knew for at least a year about the sticking pedals before you

shared that information or until you communicated that information to the regulators. Do you think that was perhaps a lengthy bit

of time to tell regulators if the company knew?

Mr. INABA. Now I know this sticky pedal situation is in question.

And yes, we knew that probably a year ago in Europe. And I say

that had not been shared enough well on this side. So we did not

hide it, but it was not properly shared. We need to do a much better job in sharing. Whatever is happening in Europe should be

known in the United States so we are all alert. See if there is any

danger to American consumers and drivers.

The other issue is the first information we get to know in Europe

was all right-hand drive cars, and also different models, much

smaller models than those models sold here. That is why initial

judgment, which was wrong, turned out to be wrong, but it was

limited to a right-hand drive and it was much smaller cars. So

there is a lack of you may call it sensitivity, but there is no deliberate sort of delay in the process.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Well, let me just say that I appreciate

your answers, and I thank you for indicating that you expect to do

a better job. I am always reminded of my mother, who told us

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when I was a kid growing up that what you do speaks so loudly

until it is hard for me to hear what you say. So I hope your actions

will be forthcoming, and I thank you for your answers.

Chairman TOWNS. I thank the gentleman from Illinois.

Now I call on the gentleman from California, Congressman

Bilbray.

Mr. BILBRAY. Mr. Inaba, you made a comment that kind of was

startling to me, and I apologize that you have to testify in a second

language and in a setting that may not be as comfortable for you

as you prefer, but you stated that you had 100 percent, you were

100 percent sure that the difficulties with the pedals, with the acceleration, was not electronic, that it was not going to be involved

with the data systems, that it was a physical problem. Do you

stand by that statement?

Mr. INABA. Sir, may I clarify what I meant because the question

I thought was, are you personally, what is my confidence level

about ETCS, the Electronic Throttle Control System. So my feeling

is, since I have a trust in our engineers, even though it has not

been extensively tested by outsiders, which I added, but my personal confidence level is 100 percent. But I am only referring to the

ETC system, sir.

Mr. BILBRAY. Because it does concern me when anybody can say

anything to 100 percent. It is one thing to stand behind their vehicles; it is another thing to ask the American people to stand in

front of them, especially with their children; 100 percent is a very

strong statement. It is fine to say it here in these hearings, but out

in the real world, we have had some terrible tragedies.

I just want to make sure, being a Representative in San Diego,

where the tragedy that finally opened up this book caused not only

Toyota but the American community to be willing to ask the tough

questions that I don’t think have been made.

Mr. Toyoda, your family has spent decades creating a reputation

that is second to none, probably only compatible with the inventor

of the automobile themselves. The big question is, do you think

there is a possibility that reputation being so good might have

made those of us who were regulators not ask the tough questions

that we might have asked from General Motors or some other automaker, or that same reputation and feeling of success and confidence might have left Toyota not to ask the tough questions of

yourself? In other words, your success created the problem or created the atmosphere and the environment that allowed this problem to go on from 2007 until just recently?

Mr. TOYODA. I personally do not believe that we didn’t ask tough

questions because we had very high reputations. Since I became

president in July, I have been saying internally within the company that we need to heed customers, dealers, and we need to become a good listener. But because of the inadequacy on my part

probably, that ability itself may not have spread widely within the

company. But for the past 70 years, we have been supported by

customers and by our partners because Toyota has been a company

that listens to those opinions of outsiders very modestly and sincerely. You have my commitment that we will continue doing so

going forward.

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Mr. BILBRAY. Look, the damage done to the Toyota name will do

more—will impact Toyota more than anything this Congress can

do. The consumer and the market will demand a very high price

from Toyota for these mistakes. The question is, how do we prevent

it in the future for Toyota and everybody else? Do you agree that

the Federal Government of the United States should require all

manufacturers, including Toyota, to report all incidents of malfunctions no matter where in the world those occur, not just here in the

United States?

Mr. TOYODA. I personally believe that realistically there are limitations to the current engineering capability. However, Toyota has

a challenging spirit to make things better or to correct inadequacies or troubles wherever that may happen. In going forward, we

will continue to strive to minimize those troubles as close as possible to zero by examining each individual reported cases, putting

them under scrutiny, and making public any findings in that process. And we would like to work together in this industry.

Mr. BILBRAY. Mr. Chairman, in all fairness, I would just like a

yes or no. Should the Federal Government of the United States require Toyota and every other manufacturer to report total malfunctions, not just those within the jurisdiction of the United States;

yes or no? Should we require all information, or shouldn’t we?

What is the position of Mr. Toyoda?

Mr. TOYODA. We would like to extend full cooperation.

Mr. BILBRAY. So we will take that as a ‘‘yes.’’

Mr. TOYODA. Yes.

Chairman TOWNS. Thank you very much.

I now yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Texas, Congressman Cuellar.

Mr. CUELLAR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I represent the San Antonio area down to the valley where we

have a Toyota plant. Currently, right now, there’s about 2,600

hardworking Americans in the San Antonio area plant where they

are jobs and family livelihood. I see Jay here, which I visited, and

a couple of other folks here. We are asking you to put Toyota back

on track so American jobs are not put in jeopardy. And American

drivers that are at risk we have to address.

It is my hope that you move swiftly and safely to repair the safety problems, rebuild the reputation and restore the Toyota legacy

which employs Americans here at home. American drivers and

American workers are watching and waiting. Toyota has a glowing

legacy in this country for decades. For the sake of safety and for

the sake of jobs, you all need to get that back. In this country we

have American-made Toyotas made by American workers with

American drivers behind the wheel. The responsibility Toyota has

to Americans runs wide and runs deep, and this is about safety,

and this is about jobs.

As I mentioned, in my area, 2,600 local jobs, doesn’t include the

onsite local suppliers, which is about 6,500 when you put everybody. It doesn’t include the Toyota dealers. So millions of Americans also drive your vehicles. As I mentioned, I met with Jay. I met

with a couple of other folks, one of your Toyota forklift operators

in San Antonio, and she said, even in this type of recession, Toyota

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has not laid anybody off. They have spared the employees that are

still working. And we appreciate that.

But without a doubt, your ability to repair your reputation in

this country will affect American workers and drivers who depend

on Toyota. One of the things that I want you to look at, because

in fairness to all, when you look at the NHTSA numbers, you see—

I don’t want to go, but you can see there, you know, one company

was at 32 percent. And I have handed this chart out, Mr. Chairman. Another one was at 17 percent, and another one was 15, and

other, which means combined one, and then Toyota was at 11 percent. In the past, you were doing well, very well. But, again, we

now have to look at, what lessons have we learned? So my question, Mr. Toyoda, what lesson has your company learned as a result of this recall?

Mr. TOYODA. This past data clearly places high evaluation to our

track record. However, currently we are having a series of recalls.

The brake system or accelerator pedal has caused concerns. But we

are examining those matters, pursuing the true cause of those

problems, identifying countermeasures. And going forward, we will

make sure that we get information more swiftly. Therefore, I will

clearly say that, going forward, we will regain the good reputation

as represented here in this track record. That’s exactly what we are

doing at the moment.

Mr. CUELLAR. Mr. Toyoda, in your major editorial that you wrote

recently, you said that Toyota, paraphrasing your words, has not

lived up to the high standards it set for itself. How has your company not lived up to those high standards?

Mr. TOYODA. First, above anything else, we will make double

commitment with new vigor to have safety and customer first permeate through every business and through every process within

Toyota. That I believe would be the best way for us to win back

the trust that we enjoyed in the past.

On top of that, as we deploy business globally, we will make

every effort to enhance the transparency of our business in various

parts of the world.

Chairman TOWNS. The gentleman’s time has expired.

I call on the gentleman from Tennessee, Congressman Duncan.

Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Yesterday a

woman named Rhonda Smith testified at the Energy and Commerce Committee. She is from east Tennessee, from just outside

my district, which is based around Knoxville. She was driving into

Knoxville in her Lexus automobile on October 12, 2006, 31⁄2 years

ago, and she experienced one of these sudden acceleration events

and that her automobile reached 100 miles an hour. And she said

that she thought it was her time to die, and she said she called her

husband and tried to put the car in reverse but the computer apparently didn’t recognize it. She feels that Toyota’s response to her

complaints was a farce because Toyota apparently told her there

was nothing wrong with her car.

Our investigators for the Energy and Commerce Committee and

this committee found that complaints started coming in about these

events in 2001, and NHTSA started an investigation apparently in

2004 aimed at Toyota. Now 2004, you know, I don’t know, that is

6 years ago if the investigation started early in the year; maybe

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51⁄2 years ago if it started late in the year. But Mr. Toyoda has said

several times today that he just became president last summer, as

if that excuses him. Mr. Inaba, though, became head, as I understand it, 9 years ago of the U.S. Toyota operation.

Now one of my sons had a Toyota 4Runner several years ago,

and my wife drove a small Lexus until about 2 years ago, and both

of those were very good automobiles. And I think you have a very

good company and put out almost entirely good automobiles. I have

a good impression of your company.

But having said that, I don’t believe I have heard a good answer

today, and I have been in and out some, but I don’t believe that

I have heard a good answer or a complete answer as to why it took

your company so long to respond to these complaints, because apparently there were many complaints. I have seen it described as

several hundred. I have seen it described as a few thousand. I don’t

know which it is, but there were many, many complaints. And I appreciate the fact that you have expressed remorse and that you say

that you are going to do better. Why was there not a response before now when you had all of these complaints?

Mr. TOYODA. I listened to the testimony by Ms. Smith yesterday,

and I feel very sorry and regret for the fact that, while she was

driving a car, such a huge anxiety was caused to her. And at the

same time, I apologize for the response by the dealer, which is not

really up to our standards.

Now as to why it took us so long, well, in order to accelerate our

response going forward, I have established the Special Committee

for Global Quality, and we are now setting up the framework so

that the first meeting can take place on March 30th. We have deeply reflected on what has happened thus far. We learned a very important lesson from what has happened, and to take actions for improvement as quickly as possible I think is the job that I really

have to attend to at the moment.

Mr. DUNCAN. Well, let me just say this. I understand there are

no Americans in the top leadership of Toyota in Japan. You can say

there are many Americans in the top leadership here, but it might

be a good idea to put a couple of Americans in the top leadership

in Japan.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman TOWNS. The gentleman’s time has expired.

I now recognize Congresswoman Speier from California.

Ms. SPEIER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

My question is to both the president and the CEO in the States.

Have you turned over every document to NHTSA that relates to

the sticky pedal and the sudden unintended acceleration?

Mr. TOYODA. I believe so. That’s my understanding.

Ms. SPEIER. So there is not going to be any suppressed document

or secret document that we are going to hear about a year from

now?

Mr. TOYODA. That won’t happen.

Ms. SPEIER. Now the people of Japan are very hospitable. I know

that for a fact. This is the No. 2 most important market for Toyota

in the world. When a U.S. regulator flies to Japan to meet with

your leadership, I find it hard to believe that, one, you didn’t know

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about the meeting; and, two, you never had a report about the

meeting. Can you respond to that?

Mr. TOYODA. That’s a fact, and I regret that the response in that

matter was not good.

Of course, there are things that we reflect upon, but I believe

that the people in the quality division responded to that very adequately. That is my understanding, and I hope your understanding.

Ms. SPEIER. I would like to ask you to turn over to the committee

any documentation, any memos that arose out of that meeting by

the regulators in the United States coming to Japan.

Mr. TOYODA. I will do that.

Ms. SPEIER. Now, I want to read to you an e-mail that I received

from a constituent who owns a Toyota Tacoma truck that they purchased in 2008: ‘‘Soon after we bought the truck, we began to notice that the engine would surge when we were stopped and had

our foot on the brake. We took the truck into the dealer as soon

as we started to notice these problems. We returned at least three

more times with the same problem. They had a service person test

drive it. They told us they were unable to duplicate the problem.

My wife finally asked to speak to the head of the service department, and he told her that the truck needed to get used to her driving style and to give it a few months to make the adjustment.’’

In exasperation, they went to the Internet. They found similar

complaints.

‘‘We told the service people at the agency about what we found

on the Internet, and they said that they had contacted Toyota, and

Toyota told them that they had never had a complaint of that nature we described. They continued to blame the problem on my

wife.’’

Now, I would like for you to review this particular complaint and

report back to me. But more importantly, I hope that, moving forward, you never again use the excuse that it was driver error.

Mr. TOYODA. I didn’t know about this Tacoma case, but we would

like to give due explanation on that through documents or other

means. And as CEO of the company, I will make sure that we will

never, ever blame the customers going forward.

Ms. SPEIER. Thank you.

One last question. You said, safety first, Mr. Toyoda. We know

that the electronic throttle control may be problematic. You have

already decided to put the override, the brake override chip into

models moving forward. You are going to do it for some models

retroactively. Would you be willing for a customer who came into

your dealership to offer that chip to anyone who had concerns

about the safety of their vehicle?

Mr. TOYODA. I do not know the technical details, but if it is technically and engineeringly possible, or if we can find a good method,

we will do that. But other than that, I do not know a good answer

to that.

Ms. SPEIER. All right, thank you.

Chairman TOWNS. I now call on the gentlewoman from Ohio—I’m

sorry, California—Congressman Watson.

Ms. WATSON. Thank you so much. May I say to you, kunnichiwa

and aligato for your testimony. Mine is more a comment. And, Mr.

Chairman, I’m going to concede my time because we do have anVerDate 11-MAY-2000 16:12 Oct 13, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00122 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 U:\DOCS\58346.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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other panel and there’s another committee waiting for this room.

But currently, about 8 million Toyota vehicles have been recalled

in this country due to the sudden, unintended acceleration events

and braking concerns. I hope that the interest shown here in America will be taken back so that you can fix whatever is causing this.

And we hear it’s computer-driven, these causes. So I would hope—

and there is a saying that Kaiser Permanente uses—I hope we all

thrive. I hope you thrive. But we are concerned about the victims

that are going to be the next panel up. And I was hoping that we

could get both panels together so they can explain what happened

to them and you can comment.

But a word to the wise. And that is, listen closely, make a commitment to go back and make the decisions at the top so that your

particular product will be, again, No. 1.

With that, I will say [speaking in Japanese.]

I will yield back my time.

Chairman TOWNS. I thank the gentlewoman from California for

yielding back her time. I recognize now the gentlewoman from

Ohio.

Ms. KAPTUR. I thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Toyoda and your associates, thank you for coming today. Mr.

Toyoda, I am not satisfied with your testimony. I’m being very

forthcoming. I do not feel it reflects sufficient remorse for those

who have died, and I do not think you have accurately reflected the

large number of complaints that have been filed with Toyota for

nearly a decade. So I, as one member, am disappointed.

I dedicate my testimony in memory of Mrs. Guadalupe Alberto,

age 76, from Flint, MI, who died when her 2005 Toyota Camry

sped out of control and crashed into a tree. Business Week reports:

She blew past an intersection. Witnesses saw her with both hands

on the wheel. She appeared to be standing on the brake while

steering.

Where is the remorse? As far back as 2002, NHTSA—and our

government is at fault, too—records that two Toyota executives,

Christopher Tinto and Christopher Santucci, both of whom were

former NHTSA employees, hired by your company, worked with

their former coworkers, Scott Yon and Jeffrey Quandt, at NHTSA

when it decided it wouldn’t investigate what they termed ‘‘longer

duration incidents’’ involving uncontrollable acceleration, I call it

‘‘sudden death’’ acceleration, where brake pedal applications allegedly had no effect. NHTSA limited its investigation to those situations where it was a second, or under a second. That was a major

decision that affected lives all through the decade. So I am disappointed.

This book, ‘‘The Toyota Way,’’ is used in business schools across

this country. And the author talks about your company’s principles.

Principle No. 5 reads: Build a culture of stopping to fix problems

to get quality right the first time. The first time.

Mr. Toyoda, how did Toyota lose its way? You say in your testimony your company grew too fast. Some smart lawyers gave you

those words. I think what happened was your company went from

emphasizing long-term quality values and corporate responsibilities

to fighting against safety regulations; against insider influence inside this city and your own capital in Japan; and environmental

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regulations; and, indeed, worker rights and car checks inside your

company.

So is it the Toyota way to use insider dealing to change decisions

and is it the Toyota way to push a deregulation agenda that works

against the interest of the people of our country and other countries? Do you know how many people in Japan died because of

what your company did?

Mr. TOYODA. Not just limiting to those individuals you specifically mentioned, I feel deeply sorry for those people who lost their

lives or who were injured by traffic accidents, especially those in

our own cars. And I extend my sincerest condolences to them from

the bottom of my heart.

I came from Japan to appear at this hearing, but at the same

time I have been trying to convey my sincere feelings, my own true

beliefs to the people throughout the world, but the fact that you

said that was not adequate is something that I will seriously reflect

upon.

As we pointed out, the devotement of people, human resources at

Toyota, may not have kept pace with expansion. I will observe that

and look at that fact very sincerely. And going forward to bring

about and effect changes to become a better car maker and to become a more transparent car maker, I think, is a real admission

of myself as president.

However, some customers of Toyota, as a matter of fact, many

customers of Toyota around me say that they are willing to continue buying Toyota vehicles going forward. And as long is there

are such customers, feeling and accepting the gravity of those victims of traffic accidents, I think it is my responsibility to care for

those customers and create cars for those customers, and I believe

that I’m the only person who can display the leadership to transform Toyota in that direction.

Chairman TOWNS. The gentlewoman’s time has expired. I yield

5 minutes to the gentleman from Missouri, Congressman Clay.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman, and I thank the

witnesses for being here.

Mr. Toyoda, yesterday David Gilbert, associate professor of

automative technology at Southern Illinois University, testified

that Toyota has an electronic problem, a conclusion he derived from

testing that only took him 31⁄2 hours. I’d note that his credentials

are significant. He is very qualified to do this testing.

Toyota has announced that to help solve this problem, Toyota

will begin to install brake override systems on your cars. Isn’t it

true that if what Dr. Gilbert testified to, that Toyota has an electronics problem, you cannot be certain that a brake override system

would even kick in and work when your electronics malfunction?

Mr. TOYODA. With respect to this problem of electronic throttle

control system, I gave instruction to conduct thorough duplication

and reproduction tests. We have conducted, actually, numerous reproduction and duplication tests on a 24-hour basis, but thus far

we have not identified any problem with our ETC system.

I know of this testimony given by Professor Gilbert yesterday,

and I personally do not know the details of what sort of testing he

conducted. But just the confrontation between Toyota and Professor

Gilbert will not clarify which side is correct, and this means that

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there are problems that have not been resolved for the entire industry. And therefore in the open forum, to validate the situation,

we are willing to conduct testing together so that our customers

will be able to feel safe in the vehicles as quickly as possible. And

Toyota is ready to extend cooperation in that regard.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you. Yes, sir.

Mr. INABA. Please allow me. I have a little more information

about that. I will be glad to meet with him or have him meet with

our engineers and then explain his method, test method. And if

there’s any input that he may have, we are willing to listen to any

input he has for the UA issue.

But we have some concerns. As far as we know, and our engineers gave us some concerns about it, because he cut into a circuitry and then manipulated the system in a way that is very unrealistic. And, also, in the meantime, with a very short time, we have

conducted if some other manufacturers’ cars would perform the

same. We have done three cars done already with a very low UA

rate. In other words, they are considered to be a very safe car. It

replicated the same way. So in my very amateur term it is not unintended acceleration, it is an intended manipulation.

Mr. CLAY. So you have determined it’s not electronic. But I would

hope you would get with Professor Gilbert.

Mr. INABA. Absolutely.

Mr. CLAY. And compare your notes, compare your testing, to

make a determination on whether it is or isn’t.

Mr. INABA. Yes, sir.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you.

Chairman TOWNS. The gentleman’s time has expired. Now calling on the gentleman from Ohio, Mr. Driehaus.

Mr. DRIEHAUS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I want to thank our witnesses for their time today and for coming in and testifying before the committee.

Mr. Inaba, I’m concerned about some of what you say in your testimony relative to what we have learned about Toyota employees

and former NHTSA employees.

As has been explored by multiple Members here today, there

seems to be a conflict or there certainly seems to be an effort on

the part of former NHTSA employees, now employed by Toyota or

formally employed by Toyota, to put a halt to some of these investigations. And I will just refer to the Business Week article on February 12th. It said: In one example of Toyota aides’ role, Mr.

Santucci testified in a Michigan lawsuit that the company and

NHTSA discussed limiting an examination of unintended acceleration complaints to incidents lasting less than a second.

That is what Representative Kaptur was referring to.

It goes on to say that: All four of the probes the Toyota aides

helped end were into complaints that the unintended acceleration

was caused by flaws in the vehicle’s electronic throttle systems.

Do you believe that had these efforts not been made to limit

these investigations, that Toyota as a company would have reacted

more quickly and NHTSA would have reacted earlier to some of the

problems that we are now addressing today in terms of the number

of accidents and the severity of these accidents?

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Mr. INABA. Well, I don’t know any of the specific incidents or occurrence that you have mentioned. But, as I said, I think I believe

in two of our associates’ very high ethic standard, and also their

integrity. So I have all good reasons to believe in that, rather than

just hinting that they may have some relationship and favor us. I

think they have done—and also the NHTSA part. They are very,

very professional team of people.

Mr. DRIEHAUS. Just to followup. So you’re suggesting that they

didn’t engage in this behavior to try to limit the investigations? Is

that what you’re saying?

Mr. INABA. All I’m saying is that whatever they have done is

within the very good ethical sort of code.

Mr. DRIEHAUS. My question, though, is if the investigations had

not been limited, if the investigations had not been limited, would

we have addressed the situation earlier than we are today?

Mr. INABA. I think it is a very issue that, you know, since I don’t

know the conversation or event, I would not make any more comment on that.

Mr. DRIEHAUS. Also, Mr. Inaba, in your testimony earlier you

suggested that the information in Europe with regard to some of

these challenges wasn’t shared with folks in the United States. I

personally find that hard to believe; that Toyota here in the United

States was unfamiliar with what was going on in terms of recalls

and addressing sudden acceleration problems in Europe.

So I just want to make sure that I have this right. So you are

saying that Toyota America was not aware of the efforts by Toyota

to address the sudden acceleration issues in Europe when that was

going on?

Mr. INABA. Well, I must say that it is, we call in our term, sticky

pedal issues. I think the truth is that Toyota American site was not

aware of that or was not informed of that. That is true. That is all

I know.

Mr. DRIEHAUS. So when that was going on, when those complaints were being addressed, when solutions were being created

and a recall was taking place in Europe, you were unaware of that

here in the United States?

Mr. INABA. I personally got to know that fact in January this

year.

Mr. DRIEHAUS. I will just conclude with a case. And I’m encouraged by the fact that my folks in Cincinnati, when I went to the

Toyota dealership and I went to the service department, said they

hadn’t seen any of these complaints. But then when I went back

and looked at the NHTSA record, it was pretty clear there were

multiple complaints about sudden acceleration.

I will just reflect upon this one that I saw, and it’s a complaint

from 2009. The gentleman says: I bought my 2005 Tacoma about

2 months ago. I’ve experienced this problem three times now, the

last time being tonight after picking up my daughter at work. The

truck was accelerating and I was literally standing on the brake

and the engine was racing and would not stop. I threw it into neutral and it sounded like it was going to explode. I have no rugs in

the vehicle. It did not come with any, and I was going to get all

the weather mats but have not bought them yet. The cruise control

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was not engaged. I do not consider myself to be an inexperienced

driver. I used to race, actually.

And he goes on.

But, clearly, this isn’t a mat problem, this isn’t a sticky pedal

problem. This is a problem with an experienced driver experiencing

sudden acceleration. And this is in a 2005 Tacoma. I think we certainly as a Congress want to know, and I think the American people want to know, if their vehicles are safe, and if you can stand

here today and tell us that they don’t risk—because of a computer

issue or an electronic issue—sudden acceleration in Toyotas that

are on the street today.

Mr. TOYODA. I do not know of the Tacoma case of 2005 or 2009,

and therefore without knowing those specifics, I cannot give you

any specific answer.

But if I might just refer to electronic throttle control system. To

the extent that we have conducted various tests thus far to date,

we have not encountered the same phenomenon as a result of that

test and therefore I believe the vehicle is safe. However, going forward we are willing to work together in an open forum with the

industry partners to validate the situation, introducing opinions of

other people, including Professor Gilbert, for that matter.

Chairman TOWNS. The gentleman’s time has expired.

Let me say that, first of all, I really, really appreciate your coming to testify. We really appreciate that. We look forward to your

followup on the safety issue because, as I indicated to you, this is

what this is all about. It’s about safety, making certain that people

get in their cars, that they are safe. I hope that you continue to

work on that.

Let me say to you, Mr. Toyoda, I want you to know that I’m impressed with the fact that you came voluntarily before the committee to testify. I want you to know that, to me, that indicates your

commitment, indicates your dedication, and that you’re serious

about making certain that these autos are safe. So I want to thank

you for that.

I also want to thank you, Mr. Inaba, for your being in touch and

understanding the fact that this is a serious issue that must be addressed.

Anything else?

Mr. ISSA. Mr. Chairman, if I could just echo your words and say

a great many promises were made here today, commitment for

change. We look forward to seeing that. As somebody who has

worked with the Society of Automotive Engineers for many years,

I look forward to that change being spread throughout the design

industry in QS9000 and other standards, because I believe that

what we have begun here today is going to be critical for all automobile manufacturers, particularly as we put more electronic systems in the car. I, again, thank you for your great distance and

your patience through this long day.

Mr. Chairman, I would ask unanimous consent that both of our

booklets of inclusions be put into the record at this time.

Chairman TOWNS. Without objection.

I recognize the gentlewoman from Ohio.

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Ms. KAPTUR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just ask unanimous

consent to include materials in the record attendant to my questioning.

Chairman TOWNS. Without objection.

[The information referred to follows:]

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Chairman TOWNS. So thank you very, very much for coming.

Now we go to our third panel.

The committee will come to order. I would now like to introduce

our third panel of witnesses. Mrs. Lastrella, welcome to the committee. Mrs. Lastrella lost family members in a car accident involving a Toyota vehicle. I want you to know you have our deepest

sympathy. I know how tough it is when you lose a loved one. So

thank you so much for coming.

Mr. Haggerty experienced a sudden unintended acceleration in a

Toyota vehicle. I can imagine what that’s like. So I want to thank

you, too, for coming today. I imagine that experience of all of a sudden your car takes off. I can imagine.

Mrs. Claybrook, a former Administrator of the National Highway

Traffic Safety Administration and president emeritus of the Public

Citizen. Welcome. We’re so delighted to have you and your experience that you could share with us.

Mr. Ditlow, the executive director of the Center for Auto Safety.

We are delighted to have you with us as well.

So what we will do is just start with you, Mrs. Lastrella, and just

come right down the line. You have 5 minutes. Of course, when you

start out, the light is on green, and then it turns to yellow, and

then of course it becomes red. Red everywhere means stop. So we

will stop with that.

Mrs. Lastrella, you start first.

I have to swear you in, too.

[Witnesses sworn].

Chairman TOWNS. Let the record reflect that all the witnesses

answered in the affirmative.

STATEMENTS OF FE NIOSCO LASTRELLA, LOST FAMILY MEMBERS IN A CAR ACCIDENT INVOLVING A TOYOTA VEHICLE;

KEVIN HAGGERTY, EXPERIENCED SUDDEN UNINTENDED

ACCELERATION IN A TOYOTA VEHICLE; JOAN CLAYBROOK,

PRESIDENT EMERITUS OF PUBLIC CITIZEN AND FORMER

ADMINISTRATOR OF THE NATIONAL HIGHWAY TRAFFIC

SAFETY ADMINISTRATION; AND CLARENCE M. DITLOW, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR AUTO SAFETY

STATEMENT OF FE NIOSCO LASTRELLA

Mrs. LASTRELLA. Mr. Chairman, Congressman Issa, and the

members of the congressional committee, thank you for inviting me

here and giving me the opportunity to speak for my four siblings,

to testify for the Toyota recall as they relate to my beloved family

who were taken prematurely away from us.

I would not discuss or talk about the accident, as we have heard

enough. We have heard so much from the media anywhere

throughout the world. I’m here to speak for my four children and

for the safety of the consumers throughout the world. I braved this

time myself.

I would like to introduce myself. I am Fe Lastrella. I am a school

teacher by profession and I ventured into the real estate business

when we moved to Vallejo. Nobody knows probably where Vallejo

is. That is a suburb of San Francisco, CA. We moved in 1977 to

Vallejo, but we were in Alameda for quite a while before coming

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to California. My husband was stationed in Midway Island. So I

was married to Cleto Lastrella for 46 years. He was a retired Command Master Chief, U.S. Navy, for 30 years, and worked for the

Federal Government for another 10 years. We have five children.

The oldest one was Cleofe Lastrella Saylor. Chris Lastrella, the

middle of the five, who was with them, who called and dared to call

911. As I mentioned earlier, I will not discuss the accident.

So let me start with Cleofe. Cleofe, when she graduated from the

University of California, Davis, she worked for her immediate boss

for a year in the research department. Then she worked for

Calgene, in which she has—and I went through her experiment. I

know I only have 5 minutes, but I’d like to mention this because

she had that experiment in which we didn’t mention the cotton. It

was presented by the president of Calgene on TV. And then she

worked for various pharmaceutical and technological companies,

and the last one was AMBRX in LaJolla, CA, in which she received

an achievement award for significant technological innovations

awarded to her in October 2009.

Mark Wesley Saylor, her husband, was a highway patrol officer,

who loved her dearly. He was respected. A very respectful person

and very caring. He was a person of honor and integrity. He was

a very religious man, a devout father and husband. He gained respect from his colleagues and friends. Mark dedicated his time in

life to his family and to his job. In 1997, he responded to a traffic

collision on Interstate 5. He saved the life of a man who was

strapped in his car, burning car, and he was awarded for that, too,

for his effort and for his superior act. This is ironic; he saved someone, but he was not able to save his family from the crash.

Mahala Manda Saylor, that is my 13-year old granddaughter,

she was a promising athlete. Her love for soccer made her a team

captain. Mahala was blessed for a parent like Mark and Cleofe.

After working hours, her parents would attend to her games, to her

practice, to school, and to church. The week of the tragedy, my

daughter Cleofe took off for a week to prepare her daughter entering ninth grade at Mater Dei Catholic School in Chula Vista.

Mahala missed the invitation and the opportunity to travel, as she

was invited by the Sports Ambassador People to People Soccer Cup

in Vienna, Austria. Knowing Mark and Cleofe, they will make an

investment on their child’s future. That is Mahala.

Chris Lastrella’s passion was basketball. He graduated at St.

Vincent-St. Patrick High School. He worked for the United Parcel

Service as loading supervisor. After his graduation in college at the

University of East Bay—it was University of California, Hayward—he went into the financial mortgage business, also as we encouraged, because it goes hand-in-hand with the real estate business. So he ventured into that. While doing that, he worked for

Wells Fargo Mortgage Co. While doing that, he went to school for

voice acting in San Francisco in Sausalito. Chris’ voice was heard

over because of his practice, and he was so composed when he

said—he was the one that called for 911. And everybody heard it.

I have not heard it. I stayed away from it. I don’t want to hear the

rest of it. And the message was strong. He asked the operator to

hold on and pray, pray, pray. That was very great of him, the courage that he had. I know it was the four of them were on the verge

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of their deathbed and he was able to call 911. And I thank him for

that.

August 28th was the tragic date that triggered this all. But we

didn’t hear about it until the following morning when the law enforcement officer came to our door with a note to contact the coroner’s office. And I said, ‘‘Oh, no.’’ How could you imagine coroner’s

office, and what does that tell you?

So, was it only my daughter? Because I know my daughter always checks her cell, her experiments on weekends to see how they

are doing. That’s how dedicated she was. So when we heard from

the cop that there were three of them, I said, How about another

person? And I was so glad that there’s another person somewhere

that was not with them. But then when we called the coroner’s office, there were four. Could you imagine? It’s unimaginable to lose

four people in your siblings.

So I brave this moment so hopefully, Mr. Chairman, and the

committee, and the different organizations, the Department of

Transportation and NHTSA would do something for the safety of

the world. We don’t want another person, another family, to suffer

like we are suffering.

We have—at the time we have a 7-month old baby. His name is

Connor Toyooka. Toyooka. My Japanese son-in-law. We were talking to him. I know he is bubbly all the time. But he would not even

smile. That is how the impact of the tragedy was felt in my household. It had a big impact on my friends and family and the whole

community in San Francisco area, in the San Diego area.

Thank you so much for listening to me. And I know I didn’t come

here to cry on someone else’s shoulder. But as I mentioned earlier,

it is for the safety of the world. Thank you.

Chairman TOWNS. Thank you very much, Mrs. Lastrella, for your

very moving testimony.

[The prepared statement of Mrs. Lastrella follows:]

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Chairman TOWNS. Mr. Haggerty.

STATEMENT OF KEVIN HAGGERTY

Mr. HAGGERTY. My name is Kevin Haggerty, and I owned a 2007

Toyota Avalon. For the past 6 months I have experienced five

events where my car accelerated on its own. The first few times I

experienced the car accelerating without my foot on the gas pedal,

I was driving through town. The car would go back to its normal

RPMs after driving a few miles or after the car was stopped,

turned off, and restarted. After experiencing the sudden acceleration a third time, I took my vehicle to be checked by my local auto

body shop—or auto shop. They could not find anything wrong with

my vehicle. After two more incidents, I brought my car to a Toyota

dealership on November 11, 2009, to be checked. After keeping my

car for 2 days, they found no unintended acceleration problems and

confirmed that the factory mats were installed properly.

Then on December 28, 2009, I was driving to work on Route 78

in New Jersey. The car began to accelerate without my foot on the

gas pedal. As I pushed on the brake, the car continued to accelerate. I was not able to stop by pressing on the brake pedal. The only

way I was able to slow the car down was to put the car into neutral. I got off at the next exit, which was the exit for the dealership.

Determined to get the car to the dealership, I showed them firsthand that—I wanted to get it to the dealership to show them firsthand that this was happening. I drove approximately five miles by

alternating from neutral to drive and pressing very firmly on the

brakes.

On my way there, I called them and asked for the service manager to meet me outside. As I pulled into the front of the dealership, I put the car into neutral and exited the car. With the brakes

smoking from the excessive braking and the car’s RPMs racing, the

manager entered my car. He confirmed that the gas pedal was not

obstructed, the mats were properly in place, and the RPMs were

very high.

They contacted a Toyota tech to come to the dealership and look

at my car. He arrived within a few hours. The dealership had my

car for 11⁄2 weeks. When I was told the car was ready to picked up,

I asked what problem they had found. I was told by the service

manager that, per Toyota, they replaced the throttle body and accelerator assembly, including one or two of the sensors.

Since they cannot tell me exactly what problem they found with

these parts and why they were replaced, I started doing some research about Toyotas online. I came across Sean Kane’s name in

multiple articles I read, and decided to contact him. When I

reached him, I explained my situation and expressed my fear of

driving this car in light of what just happened. I no longer felt safe

in it, since nobody could explain why the acceleration problem occurred. Sean did not have an answer for the cause and was surprised that the dealership replaced parts and witnessed it firsthand.

I was then contacted by ABC News and they were interested in

doing a followup story on accelerator problems. ABC also confirmed

with Toyota that the parts taken out of my car were sent to Toyota’s corporate offices to be evaluated. I agreed to an interview,

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mainly because I wanted to help people understand how to safely

stop a car by putting it into neutral.

I continued driving my car out of necessity, but refused to put

my children in it. About 3 weeks ago a local dealership owner, after

hearing about my story, made me a generous offer on a new vehicle

as well as offered to pay off the balance of the loan on my Avalon.

For my safety, as well as the safety of my family, I took him up

on this offer.

I just want to confirm one thing on this, my statement. I explained the first couple of times it happened I was able to apply

the brake and slow down the car, but I was going at a slower pace.

I was going 15, 20 miles an hour through town. On December 28th,

when I was driving at a faster rate, 60–65 miles an hour, I was

not able to stop the car just by applying the brakes. The only way

to stop it was by putting it into neutral.

Chairman TOWNS. Thank you very much. Thank you very much

for your testimony.

Mr. HAGGERTY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Haggerty follows:]

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Chairman TOWNS. Ms. Claybrook.

STATEMENT OF JOAN CLAYBROOK

Ms. CLAYBROOK. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate

the opportunity to be here. I’d like my whole statement in the

record because I’m not going to have time to read it.

Chairman TOWNS. Without objection.

Ms. CLAYBROOK. I just want to highlight a few things and try not

to be repetitive of other things that have been said today. The first

thing I’d like to mention is that I do believe that Toyota has

harmed its trust and confidence of the American people, and particularly with the document that has been mentioned at this hearing. One of the things that concerns me enormously is that there

are no criminal penalties in the NHTSA statute. And I’m concerned

about that because the Consumer Product Safety Commission has

them, the Food and Drug Administration has them, the FCC has

them.

In an article in the New York Times recently on foreign bribes and misleading, a company paid $400 million in penalties and has

the threat of going to jail. So the penalties at this agency, which

total $16.4 million maximum at this point, are way understated for

the size of the companies that this agency is regulating. And so I

hope that this will be something that will be taken up by the committee as a recommendation. I know you’re not doing the legislative part.

I’d like to say for the people who have been victims of this—and

Marcy Kaptur was very articulate about it; really, the only remedy

they have, other than getting a new car and trying to forget the

horrible experiences and loss of family and friends, is a lawsuit.

That is really their only remedy. That is the only way that they

can individually punish Toyota. Even that really isn’t a punishment because it’s just a financial penalty. But it’s not really a penalty for the people who made the decisions. That’s the reason that

I’m interested in criminal penalties.

I would like to mention something about NHTSA and the revolving door. There are 28 former top officials of this agency that have

gone to work for the auto companies in one capacity or another in

the last 25 years. A former NHTSA administrator, several of them

former chief counsels, former deputy administers, top engineers,

and lawyers of this agency, have become the face and voice of auto

manufacturers after they have left the agency. And they have left

it way before——

Chairman TOWNS. Not just Toyota, but different companies.

Ms. CLAYBROOK. Not Toyota, but all these companies. Toyota has

had several. But I’m talking about all of the companies. So it’s not

a small issue when people raise it. I just wanted to make sure that

you saw the scope of that issue.

There’s been a discussion of Toyota’s secrecy, and I just want to

say that I think this has less to do with their culture in Japan than

it has to do with the fact that they are an auto company. All the

auto companies are secretive. So it’s an issue that is really crucial.

And so is NHTSA. NHTSA is very secretive. Clarence Ditlow has

filed probably more Freedom of Information Act requests to

NHTSA. And Public Citizen, while I was the president, has litiVerDate 11-MAY-2000 16:12 Oct 13, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00143 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 U:\DOCS\58346.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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gated more than you can possibly imagine, for no good reason. I do

think that is something that this committee may want to take a

closer look at, is how secretive this agency has been.

One of the things that really got my goat was when I read in the

October 5th filing by Toyota on the floor mat recall, October 5,

2009, is that they claimed they were doing this, but it wasn’t a

safety-related defect. Please. Sudden acceleration isn’t safety-related? I mean it was so arrogant, what they did, and it was so unbecoming of a company that should have much more sensitivity than

that.

The other action that they took, which I found very disappointing, was that they hired a litigation expert company to supposedly

evaluate whether or not they have a problem with the electronics,

and in fact the whole purpose of this company is to defend manufacturers.

In terms of NHTSA, I would just like to ask you to get more details about the financial information, because here is their budget

document filed by the agency in this Congress, and what it shows

is that, of their total budget, only 15 percent is for motor vehicles.

Only 15 percent. The vast majority of it, 71 percent, is for grant

and aid to the States, and another 13 percent is for highway safety

research. And only 15 percent is for vehicle safety of the total budget of this agency.

And so when they say they can have 66 new positions coming up

or that they are going to ask for more money, where are they going

to ask for this money? Where is it going to be? So I hope that there

will be a question asked about that.

The last sort of major point—and, by the way, this agency is the

poor step-sister in DOT, because 95 percent of the deaths in Transportation occur on the highway, and they have 1 percent of DOT’s

budget. So it is a very grossly underfunded agency. It has been for

far too long.

A lot has been mentioned about the event data recorders. I will

hope that you followup on that. I don’t know whether or not Toyota

has looked at the event data recorders for the crashes that you’ve

been hearing about. Have they looked at what the event data recorder said for the crash we just heard about or for the other 38

deaths and all those injuries? They haven’t made it available easily

in the United States. I will bet that NHTSA doesn’t have that data.

And that would help to elaborate what actually happened in those

crashes and it wouldn’t be ‘‘he said, she said,’’, it would be factual

data.

The last thing is that when the Firestone-Ford Explorer debacle

happened 10 years ago, Congress passed a new law called TREAD,

and in there it required early warning systems to be established by

the agency, which it did do. But it keeps it all secret. NHTSA is

not transparent either. All of the information is kept secret. So if

you have a problem and you go to see whether or not a company

has given information to the agency about that particular make

and model of vehicle and what the problem is, that is all you can

find. But you can’t get the number of consumer complaints, you

can’t get the number of warranty claims, you can’t get the information about their field activities. And they don’t even have the number of lawsuits filed in that particular case. So you’re really disVerDate 11-MAY-2000 16:12 Oct 13, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00144 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 U:\DOCS\58346.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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abled. And I hope that this transparency issue will become a key

concern of this committee.

Last, I’d just like to say that some new safety standards do need

to be issued. I’ve got them in my statement.

Mr. CUMMINGS [presiding]. Thank you very much.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Claybook follows:]

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Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Ditlow.

STATEMENT OF CLARENCE M. DITLOW

Mr. DITLOW. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Sudden unintended acceleration has always been recognized as a serious safety hazard.

In 1971, General Motors recalled 6.7 million Chevrolets for defective engine mounts that caused sudden acceleration. That is the

fourth largest recall ever. But the early sudden acceleration recalls,

they were mechanical in nature. Easy to detect, easy to fix.

With the advent of electronic ignition and cruise controls systems

in the late seventies and the early eighties, we began to see complaints that didn’t happen of a mechanical nature. They were hard

to find. In January 1989—and this is a fundamental problem with

NHTSA’s logic—the Department of Transportation’s Transportation

Systems Center did a major study into sudden acceleration and

concluded that absent finding a defect that could cause the throttle

to open, such as a failed cruise control, it must have been driver

error. And in investigation after investigation after investigation

after 1990, the agency took the position that they would close the

investigation without a defect determination or recall if they

couldn’t find a mechanical problem that caused the throttle to

open.

Beginning in 2001, though, the game changed with the introduction of electronic throttle controls. Complaints at the Center for

Auto Safety, NHTSA, and Toyota went up fourfold. After that,

NHTSA received five defect petitions, they opened three preliminary evaluation investigations, and two engineering analyses. But

none of these investigations resulted in a single vehicle safety recall.

What happened, the investigations as a whole, though, show significant weaknesses in NHTSA’s enforcement program, which Toyota exploited to avoid recalls until the tragic crash in San Diego

that took the lives of Mrs. Lastrella’s family. In the defect petitions, most consumer complaints were excluded because they were

long duration events or where the driver said the brakes could not

bring the vehicle to a stop. Not a single defect petition resulted in

any recall. In the most crucial investigation, which was engineering

analysis 07010, NHTSA commissioned a technical study and test at

their vehicle research test center in Ohio to determine whether it

was electronic controls or floor mats that caused it.

We FOIA-ed NHTSA for the results of that test, because their

conclusion was it’s only floor mats; there’s no EMI interference,

there’s no electronic control problem. NHTSA responded to that

FOIA by saying they don’t know how they did the test, they don’t

know what they measured, and they had no test data. In other

words, they had nothing other than a conclusion.

Now as an engineer, which I am, you keep lab books, you enter

the data, you enter the test procedure. NHTSA had nothing. Yet

that report was what enabled NHTSA to do an equipment recall of

the Lexus. But look at that equipment recall. It resulted in 55,000

vehicles on floor mats. It was designed to fail. The completion rate

in the recall, as Representative Issa was interested in earlier, was

40 percent; 60 percent of the mats still had never been replaced.

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The only other investigation that resulted in anything was a

safety improvement campaign. What’s that? That’s not even a safety recall. It’s just something where the manufacturer says, There’s

no safety defect; we’re not going to even comply with—be subject

to the part 573 in the Safety Act requirements.

And so when we look at all this from 2001 to the October 2009

floor mat recall, which was generated by the San Diego crash—not

by an investigation, not by anything else. All they got was an

equipment recall, which Toyota told in its internal memo that it

saved the country $100 million.

The other thing that we filed a FOIA for is the early warning

system. After TREAD, as Joan indicated, Congress established an

early warning system. It was supposed to prevent more tragedies,

like Ford-Firestone. It didn’t. We have been told there are hundreds of investigations under early warning. The agency won’t even

give us a list of the investigations.

Now, we have a number of recommendations for moving forward

to improve this process. Here’s what needs to be done. For NHTSA,

it needs to require all responses investigations to be sworn. Just

simply say the information in here, is truthful under penalty of

perjury. Not a subpoena, just a statement or affidavit that it’s true.

Make the early warning investigations public, make the minutes

public, revamp and revise their NAS systems so we have more

crash investigations to find out what happens in crashes.

Finally, they need to do a comprehensive evaluation of electronic

controls and adopt safety standards, including the requirement

that every vehicle have brake override.

For Toyota, we just have a few recommendations. First of all, install the brake override in all the vehicles. Open up the public

record in these investigations so we can see. Finally, for every consumer who files a complaint, and there’s only been 2,500, give that

consumer a report and evaluation on what happened in their car

and tell them what they did to fix it.

Thank you.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Ditlow follows:]

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Mr. CUMMINGS. Let me just start off the questions. Ms.

Claybrook, you told the committee staff that all of this seems to

represent a failure of regulation. What’s been wrong with NHTSA’s

approach to the issue of sudden unintended acceleration?

Ms. CLAYBROOK. I think they lack leadership. I don’t think there

was an enforcement mentality. This agency is a cop, it’s a policeman. It should act like a cop. If it’s not popular, that is just too

bad. They should be a cop. I think that there has been great improvement since Secretary LaHood took over, and David Strickland, but for the past decade there were one investigation after another closed. No real explanations.

The agency is grossly underfunded. It never used any of its subpoena power. It rarely hired an outside consultant to help it. It

didn’t put out public alerts. Thirty thousand complaints that Secretary LaHood talked about. When I was there, there were 200,000.

Why were there? Because I put out consumer alerts all the time.

I asked the public to come in and tell us about things. We had

23,000 complaints on one Ford defect. We valued those consumer

complaints because that’s the richest, freest information you’ll ever

get on what’s happening in the highway.

This agency has just been—I don’t know whether its been beaten

down or just didn’t care or whether it didn’t have any enthusiasm,

but it certainly didn’t have any leadership. There was no caring by

the top staff of that agency that says, Tell me what’s going on with

these. Give me a weekly report. I want to know every case that’s

happened. I want to know the number of deaths, I want to know

the number of industries. And let’s put out some consumer alerts

to alert the public.

And on the early warning issue, the fact that Public Citizen had

to sue the agency twice in the mid-2000’s in order to even get just

the vehicle, the make and model of the vehicle, and the problem

put in the public record. It’s ridiculous. This whole program was

meant to be public. And if the public knows what’s going on,

they’re going to tell you. As you’ve heard today, they’re going to

give you information that is rich. And the agency should do its job.

Mr. CUMMINGS. I’m sure you heard the testimony of Secretary

LaHood. He said that they were trying to bring on 66 new employees, I assume to do the followup on some of these complaints. From

what you know, do you think that is a sufficient number of folks

to bring in to do what they need to do?

Ms. CLAYBROOK. Well, no. The agency has always been understaffed and underfunded. When I was——

Mr. CUMMINGS. When were you Administrator?

Ms. CLAYBROOK. In the Carter administration. And when I was

the administrator, we had 119 employees in the entire Enforcement

Office. Today, there are about 30 less than that. That is for standard enforcement as well as for defect enforcement.

So there are only 18 investigators in the Defects Office for the

whole country and all automobile defects. And there’s only 57 employees just in the Defects Office. So it is not enough.

But the key issue to me is how is it going to be allocated. Because, as I mentioned to you, 71 percent of the money this agency

gets now goes in grants to the States. Only 15 percent of that

money, which is $132 million a year, that is the total budget for

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the entire Motor Vehicle program at the Department of Transportation to do research, to set standards, to do litigation cases that

they have that come up, to investigate defects, to investigate safety

standards.

So I say it needs another hundred million dollars, minimally,

right now. I also think that it needs to be able to impose penalties

against companies in that range as well, because $16.4 million is

chump change to Toyota.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Ditlow, you said that NHTSA has relied on

an outdated sudden acceleration study; is that right?

Mr. DITLOW. Yes.

Mr. CUMMINGS. How do you think that’s affected them? So they

are not up to date with regard to that issue?

Mr. DITLOW. I’m sorry? No, they are definitely not up to date on

sudden acceleration. They did more in studies in 1975 and 1976

than they have since then. The only study they did was one that

was aimed at showing that it was driver error that was causing

sudden acceleration, not electronics.

There are twice as many vehicles on the road today and the vehicles are five times as complex. The job is enormous, and their staffing and resources are down.

Mr. CUMMINGS. I see. If there’s a message that you want to deliver, Mr. Haggerty, what would that be to NHTSA? And you, Mrs.

Lastrella, what would be your message?

Mrs. LASTRELLA. I beg your pardon?

Mr. CUMMINGS. If there was a message that you want to deliver

to NHTSA, what would that be?

Mrs. LASTRELLA. Full capacity of investigation by NHTSA.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Haggerty.

Mr. HAGGERTY. I think they need to take the investigations more

seriously. I was contacted by NHTSA from Scott Yon. He seemed

very interested in my case. He also copied several other people in

his agency. He also mentioned they may be interested in taking a

look at my car to see if there was anything else that may be contributing to the acceleration problems, with the electronics, and

they wanted to dig into it. And they seemed very interested.

And I never heard from them after the one conversation we had.

I sent him an e-mail telling him I was planning on selling my car.

If you’re interested in taking the car and taking a look at, please

let me know. I never heard anything back.

I just wish they would take some of the complaints very seriously, from the dealership on up, once they get a complaint from

the dealership, to contact Toyota and take it seriously and really

dig into it and find out how the problem is and how to correct it.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Issa.

Mr. ISSA. I’d ask unanimous consent that the prepared written

statement of John Saylor, the deceased father, be placed into the

record.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Without objection.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Saylor follows:]

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Mr. ISSA. Mrs. Lastrella, once again, our condolences. I had an

opportunity also to be asked to pass on again deep regret from Bob

Baker, the elderly 50-year car dealer, who simply was the unfortunate owner of the dealership that provided the loaner car to your

daughter and son-in-law.

There are many victims that we are dealing with in this tragedy,

in this group of tragedies, but none touches us in San Diego more

closely than the loss of your family.

We are here today I think trying to get to the bottom of an agency’s failures.

And, Ms. Claybrook, I am deeply concerned that the agency that

you administered back in the 1970’s has become complacent. And

I would like to be fair to them and I would like to run just a line

of questioning and then talk about some of the things that should

be done to revitalize it.

In 1975, a study was done just before you became the administrator that estimated that about 50 percent of all auto accidents

were alcohol related; 93 percent of all crashes were directly or indirectly related to the individual drivers; and approximately 13 percent were mechanical or vehicle related. And in those days, as you

and I recall, a lot of cars were driving without automatic self-adjusting brakes and most had drums. So no surprise that vehicles

were more a part of it. And there were 51,000 deaths in 1980, the

last year of your administration, and that was 3.35 per thousand.

Now, the good news. Today, about one-third of all fatalities are

estimated to be alcohol related. In 2008, there were 37,261 fatalities, even though our population has grown greatly, and that is

about 1 per, 1.27, I should say, per thousand. Or actually so call

it. And about 2 percent of automobile fatalities are estimated to be

directly related to the vehicle failures, meaning we have gone from

13 percent where the car is at fault to 2 percent.

Ms. Claybrook, I believe that probably a lot of what NHTSA is

dealing with is the fact that cars are simply a lot better and less

likely to fail. And, what Mr. Ditlow has said is, they are also harder to find those failures when they occur.

You heard Secretary LaHood earlier today answering questions

about transparency of the agency, looking around the world so that

this problem or problems that had been detected and changed differently in Japan, detected and dealt with in Great Britain sooner

than in this country. And had they been done, no doubt in my

mind, your family would still be alive.

Do you believe, first of all, that the Secretary is going to be able

to make those changes within the budget and the present constraints, if you will, of the law; and, if not, what we need to do to

help him make those changes?

Ms. CLAYBROOK. Thank you so much for your question, Mr. Issa.

There is a lot of information in what you said.

Mr. ISSA. I don’t want to mislead people. Cars are safer, but they

are not as safe as, obviously, they could be if the agency you once

shepherded was doing a better job.

Ms. CLAYBROOK. And there’s also different things. For example,

there’s 10,000 rollover deaths a year that virtually didn’t exist

when I was the administrator because we didn’t have SUVs.

Mr. ISSA. And we had long gas lines then, too.

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Ms. CLAYBROOK. Well, I issued the toughest fuel economy standards you’ll ever see, and Lee Iacocca can tell you that.

But, yes, there has been a reduction in deaths and injuries, and

it is actually a little bit lower right now because of the recession.

If you look at the economy and deaths on the highway, they sort

of track each other.

But I think that the vehicle safety standards that we have, particularly air bags and safety seat belts, now that are used by the

vast, vast majority of public have made a huge difference in the

safety, and the campaigns that have been launched and the laws

that have been passed on drunk driving have made a huge difference in that area. And those are big, big issues.

I still think that there are a lot of issues that haven’t been addressed in terms of safety standards.

And then we have, in the defects area, for example, in the Ford

Firestone case, there were over 200 deaths. And I believe that the

34, 39 deaths we know about now in the Toyota case is probably

going to triple by the time all the information comes in, because

it—a lot of people don’t tell you that it happened.

In terms of big changes, I think that the agency needs a lot more

money. It has, I think, a meager budget for the work it is required

to do, and as I said I think it needs $100 million more. And I know

that’s maybe pie in the sky, but I think that ought to be the goal

fairly soon.

Second, the agency collects data in a very old-fashioned way. It

collects data by doing accident investigations, SWAT teams as Mr.

Toyoda said. But they were supposed to collect huge numbers of

crash data, maybe 20,000 crashes a year. They are now only under

the funding able to collect 4,000.

The reason I focus so hard on the data recorder, the black box,

is because the black box could be not only the liberator of information about what happened in particular crashes; it could become

the data source for the agency and very inexpensively, because it

is quite accurate. And so it should be mandatory. It should collect

a lot more data. And that data should automatically go to the agency. And if it did, then they could take that $20 million they now

spend on crash investigations and do analyses and fill in, in little

gaps.

So there’s some very special things that this agency should do

right now, and I believe that my testimony also elaborates on that.

Mr. ISSA. Thank you.

And, Mr. Chairman, I would ask just to be able to ask a question

for the record very briefly.

Secretary LaHood was, let’s just say, not completely prepared to

answer the questions related to, when we do a recall, how few actually in the ordinary course get implemented versus people get the

letters, they don’t see the significance, and they get lost. Would you

answer for the record your view of obviously, then, now, and how

we could change that?

Ms. CLAYBROOK. Well, it’s about 75 percent, 74 percent. That is

the best. We never have 100 percent. The newer the car, the cheaper the fix, the more likely there is to be a recall and the higher the

returns are, except in examples like this, which are so unusual

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where people are scared to death, so they bring the car in to get

it fixed.

The agency does get quarterly reports—I mean, quarterly reports

for six quarters after a recall is announced, so it knows what the

progress is of the company in getting these cars fixed. And it can

extend that. It can also require the company to send out a second

letter. It can also require them to do advertisements and other

things like that to publicize it if it is particularly needed.

I think that one of the key issues is how the letter is written to

the consumer. When I was administrator, I reviewed all those letters and they had to say ‘‘alert,’’ ‘‘safety.’’ You know, now they are

sort of smudged down so that they don’t, as some people say, they

don’t scare the consumer. I want to scare the consumer. I want

them to bring that car in to get it fixed.

And it is also how the dealer reacts to it. Sometimes the dealers

are underpaid, and when they are underpaid, then they make that

the last thing that they do. Sometimes the manufacturers don’t

make the parts on time, so the letter goes out, and you can’t get

your car fixed for 6 months or 4 months, and so people then don’t

do it.

So there are a lot of factors. And I think that there was an investigation by the Inspector General of DOT in 2004, I would commend that to you to look at, in which he talked about this process,

the early warning system and getting the defects office activated.

And I think that maybe another IG report on what NHTSAis doing

and could do to enhance the repairs of these vehicles would be very

worthwhile.

Mr. ISSA. Thank you.

Chairman TOWNS. Thank you very much.

And let me also again thank you so much for your testimony.

Let me begin by asking you, Ms. Claybrook, and also Mr. Ditlow,

NHTSA missed many warning signs regarding sudden unintended

acceleration. Further, it appears that the agency was caught completely by surprise when Toyota began a series of recalls. I thought

these problems were solved after the Ford Firestone fiasco, but

clearly they were not, according to this.

What specific changes must be made at NHTSA so we don’t see

this again? Is it a resource issue, or is it a lack of commitment?

Or it is they just hope that things will just sort of go away and

they won’t have to deal with it?

Ms. CLAYBROOK. I think there is a wonderful phrase that you can

lead a horse to water, but you can’t make them drink. And I think

there are some changes that could be made. But I think it is a

leadership issue. I think it is whether or not there is an interest

by the administrator and the Secretary, and an insistence that this

part of the agency be well-funded and that there be weekly reports

on exactly what is going on with all the defect cases they have, so

that the administrator knows that some cases have been pending

for 2 or 3years, or they have been closed without a really good explanation for why they were closed.

So I think that part of it is administrative. Part of it is transparency. If this stuff was all up on the Internet, if it was easy to

find—their Web page is disastrously difficult to use. The early

warning system doesn’t even summarize things for you, so you

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have to spend hours digging through it to try to find anything out.

If the agency helped with the transparency so that a person, like

Mr. Haggerty, who has a problem could go easily to their Web page

and find out if other people had that problem, and then there

would be the ability of the citizens to push harder as well. And also

the Congress would know. You know, your staff could check it

every week: What is the progress of this agency in doing its job?

So I think transparency is a huge issue. I think criminal penalties are a big issue, because that puts an incentive to the manufacturer not to get caught and have to go to jail. And when executives know there are criminal penalties in the statutes, they behave

differently. And I think there needs to be a heavier penalty, and

there needs to be better funding.

Mr. DITLOW. In addition, the agency used to publish monthly

press releases on all the pending investigations that went out to

the media with a summary of each one. They need to redo that

again. The agency used to make public the names and addresses

of consumers so you could contact them and get information like,

are the—were the floor mats in your car? There os a check box on

a complaint form for the manufacturer to get a complaint, but

there’s no check box on that form for the consumer to make the entire complaint public.

Ms. CLAYBROOK. Make that clear, this is a form filled out by the

consumer. So they would say, yes, it’s OK for you to make my

name public. They now say it’s OK to send it to the manufacturer,

but here they would have to say it’s OK to make it public. And

then, as Clarence says, we could have called Mr. Haggerty or whatever and found out.

Mr. DITLOW. There’s case after case in the early days where we

got expanded recalls by going to the consumer and rebutting the

information that the manufacturer had put in. And the other way

to do that is to talk to the consumer. But if you can’t get to the

consumer, you can’t do it. There needs to be a restoration of that

check function of the outside public to look at what the agency is

doing. The agency wants to operate behind closed doors.

And one other thing is minutes. They have minutes of meetings

of the manufacturers where the only thing you see are the list of

the attendees. They should be required to have detailed minutes of

what went on behind closed doors with the manufacturer and investigations.

Chairman TOWNS. Let me ask you this. In response to a letter

I sent to Toyota regarding the possible causes of sudden unintended acceleration, Toyota cited a report, of course, as to why it

did not believe that an electronic malfunction is to blame for sudden acceleration. Is this a serious study? And do you think its

methodology proves that the sudden acceleration problem is not

caused by an electrical malfunction?

Ms. CLAYBROOK. Is this the Exponent’s report?

Chairman TOWNS. That’s correct.

Ms. CLAYBROOK. Right. Well, I don’t think that it’s a serious

study, and Toyota has now said that it’s an ongoing study. This is

not a company that I would go to if I were seriously interested in

trying to find out the answer to a problem. This is a company that

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Toyota went to, to justify what it did, and that is the purpose of

this company. That’s what it does.

Chairman TOWNS. Why wouldn’t you go to them?

Ms. CLAYBROOK. I don’t know why they did it. I guess they were

in a defensive mode. And normally what this company does is it

protects companies that are sued in product liability litigation.

That’s the purpose of this company and—or, a large part of it. And

so that’s what it was attempting to secure was justification for

what it had done. If it was really seriously interested in a fresh approach and a fresh look, I think it could have gone to a lot of other

people in the United States, including Mr. Gilbert who testified

yesterday.

Mr. DITLOW. General Motors once hired the same firm to do an

analysis of fuel tank fires in GM vehicles. And they did such a misleading analysis that the president of General Motors had to make

an apology for the fact that the study was misleading, that they

didn’t intend to mislead the agency, but in fact, they did.

Chairman TOWNS. And then I can understand your response, Ms.

Claybrook.

But let me just say to you two, Mr. Haggerty, and to you, Mrs.

Lastrella, when I hear the situation that occurred, this is the reason why it is just so important that we really continue to push to

make certain that this is corrected. Because listening to you in

terms of losing family members, and you in terms of, Mr. Haggerty,

that must have been some experience when you have a car accelerate on you like that. And then you receiving that phone call, Mrs.

Lastrella, I can imagine how you felt in that time. But so we want

to let you know that we are going to stay on this and continue to

see what we can do to try and get to the bottom of it.

And thank you again——

Mr. HAGGERTY. If I can make a comment.

Chairman TOWNS. Go ahead.

Mr. HAGGERTY. Regarding the acceleration and as far as the

sticky pedal, I just want to make a note that the first or second

time that happened, I was able to slow down the car, and I stopped

it. I turned off the engine and turned it on again to reset itself.

And when I brought it to the dealership after that day driving to

work, you know, when I was driving to work when it was accelerating and the only way to stop it was putting it into neutral, they

really didn’t know what the problem was, and they never determined that it was a sticky pedal, or it was a defective pedal. I probably would have been OK with that.

Here’s the problem. We found it. It is defective; we fixed it. But

that’s how it happened. They put an accelerator pedal in, a throttle

body, and replaced the sensors and sent it out to be tested. And

I don’t think they even knew themselves, and they had the car for

a week and a half. They brought specialists in. And I just really

in my heart don’t feel they knew exactly what the problem was.

And if it was a sticky pedal or if it was stuck in any way, I believe—and you would have to talk to the mechanic, but I believe

he had spoke to some other people, that he turned the car off and

then it reset itself. So just by knowing that information, I just hope

they look into that as well, for my car particularly. I hope they look

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into that and make sure that may be—just take a look at that seriously.

Chairman TOWNS. Thank you.

Congressman Chaffetz, recognized for 5 minutes.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Just a brief question. There was some discussion about Exponent, the company. They were evidently the organization used to

investigate the Columbia crash, the space shuttle. Do you care to

comment on that? Are you suggesting that they had that same type

of reputation and that investigation was flawed?

Ms. CLAYBROOK. I don’t know anything about that, so I can’t answer that question. I can only say that, in the automobile area,

where I do know something about them——

Mr. CHAFFETZ. I mean, you just kind of tore a company and their

reputation apart. And yet you are willing to give them a deference

on the space shuttle?

Ms. CLAYBROOK. I will take your criticism and limit my comments to automobiles.

Mr. DITLOW. In the automotive area, they have done a half a

dozen major defects where they’ve come in and found there’s no defect, even though there’s been a recall in many of the cases.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Is there any reason to think that they are any different on space shuttles versus aircraft?

Ms. CLAYBROOK. They probably have different people working on

them, and they may be different if they’re working for——

Mr. CHAFFETZ. How big a company? I just don’t know. How big

a company is this?

Ms. CLAYBROOK. It’s a pretty big company. And it may have a

different mode of operation when it’s working for the government

than when it’s working for manufacturers.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. So you would question what their motivation was

kind of behind the scenes. Are you suggesting that we should go

back and reconsider the work that they did in other areas? Or——

Ms. CLAYBROOK. Well, I don’t know that you would want to do

that, but——

Mr. CHAFFETZ. I mean, that’s a pretty serious allegation, and it’s

a pretty big disaster in the history of our country.

Ms. CLAYBROOK. I have no idea, as I said to you, about the space

program. I have no idea at all.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. And so going back to what you do know, is that

from your own firsthand experience?

Ms. CLAYBROOK. Well, that is from my reading and understanding and talking to lots of different people and knowing a lot about

what the agency has done and what they have said about these defects and looking at cases.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Would you be willing to share with the committee

the people that you have garnered this information from so that we

can further investigate why we would be so—why we should question their integrity?

Ms. CLAYBROOK. You probably don’t know, but I just retired as

the head of Public Citizen, and I sent 450 boxes to George Washington University of every file that I ever had on auto safety to

start a new library there, so and they are piled up in some room

out near Dulles Airport. So I don’t know that I could supply you

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with much of anything. Maybe Clarence, however, who is still

working in his job and has files.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. You just bring a wealth of information and perspective that many of us don’t have since we are brand new to this.

Ms. CLAYBROOK. Well, maybe we could do it together, and Clarence could pull from his files. I have nothing.

Mr. DITLOW. I would be glad to submit for the record a book by

a retired professor from Yale, Leon Robertson, who looked into a

number of different cases where that failure analysis was involved

in. And I think that’s much broader than just the automotive area.

But I, personally, have looked at their reports on Firestone Tires,

their reports on GM fuel tanks and several other automotive investigations, and I would be happy to provide information on those.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. I think this committee would appreciate your

helpful input. I mean, you are two very credible witnesses giving

us a perspective and calling into question the very core of the integrity of people who we have relied upon for some of the biggest

disasters in our country. So to the extent that you can further help

the committee with your insight and perspective, at least guiding

us and giving us direction or documents that you may be aware of.

You know, when you have a company that borders—has questionable conduct and integrity, I don’t know that you necessarily draw

that, well, they are really good on space shuttles. So we appreciate

your testimony and perspective, and I guess that’s why we bring

it up, is it’s a serious charge, and we would like to explore that further, and I think we would be negligent if we didn’t.

So thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman TOWNS. Thank you very much. The gentleman yields

back his time.

And I now recognize the gentleman from Ohio, Mr. Kucinich.

Mr. KUCINICH. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

You know, I had a representative of Toyota visit with me in my

office to deliver this Exponent report. I noted a couple things when

I looked at it.

One is that it was, Exponent was retained in December 2009 to

look into these reports and claims of unintended acceleration. December 2009. Now, they looked at over a period of—looks like they

focused on 3 years and looked at three different kinds of models

from 3 years.

Ms. CLAYBROOK. It was a very small sample.

Mr. KUCINICH. I just wanted to point out the sample they took

was very small. It would be interesting to pair that sample up with

the complaints that came in to see if there’s any similarity. And,

you know, none of us are interested in smearing anybody here.

But if a company has a reputation, according to LATimes.com,

the California engineering firm is known for helping big corporations weather messy disputes. OK. Well, Toyota has more than a

messy dispute. I want to submit this L.A. Times article for the

record.

Chairman TOWNS. Without objection.

Mr. KUCINICH. And——

Chairman TOWNS. So ordered.

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Mr. KUCINICH. I am more interested in, you know, this issue I

raised before about, why did Toyota order a software design in

2005?

Now, Mr. Ditlow, I read your testimony, and you heard the presentation that Toyota made. Is Toyota’s representations that it’s unlikely that it could have been an electronic throttle control, is that

credible based on the information that you have seen and that you

have studied at the Auto Safety Center?

Mr. DITLOW. No. What we have done is we’ve examined the complaints that have come in.

Mr. KUCINICH. Could you sit closer to the mic?

Mr. DITLOW. We have examined the complaints that have come

in. And when you have a complaint that comes in and there’s no

floor mats in the vehicle, there’s no sticking gas pedal, and the

driver clearly has his foot on the brake to the extent that the brake

system is scorched from trying to stop the vehicle, what else is

there other than electronics?

Mr. KUCINICH. That’s the thing.

Mr. Haggerty, in your prepared testimony, when you brought

your vehicle in and it was still running to the max, you had it in

neutral. They checked it out. It wasn’t a floor mat. It wasn’t the

pedal. And then they determined that it was the electronic throttle.

Mr. HAGGERTY. They are not sure. They don’t know. They replaced a bunch of parts. They never got back to me and said, we

know what the problem was. All they kept coming back with is, per

Toyota, they told us to replace these parts. They don’t know. And

that’s why I didn’t feel comfortable.

Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Chairman, this whole hearing, which has

been a very important hearing, I feel like we are trying to—we’re

still at the point of trying to grasp smoke here.

Ms. CLAYBROOK. Well, not only that——

Mr. KUCINICH. Hold on, Ms. Claybrook.

Because I don’t think Toyota has been forthcoming. I think that

they have made a—it’s good that Mr. Toyoda was here. That was

remarkable.

But I don’t think they have been forthcoming. They seem to have

blinders on about this issue of electronic throttle control for whatever reason. It could be liability, could be that there’s a link to a

coverup. I don’t know. But there’s—the thing doesn’t fit here. If you

have a missing piece when you are doing an investigation, you

have to keep asking questions.

So, Mr. Chairman, despite the fact that this committee has put

in a very long day here, I am thinking that there’s going to need

to be a followup where we will sift through the testimony, look at

all the evidence that we have gathered so far. And we may have

to take one more crack at this, because the testimony by Toyota officials doesn’t square with evidence that has been produced to this

committee and doesn’t square with evidence that is available to experts in the automotive industry.

Now, Ms. Claybrook, you wanted to make a comment.

Ms. CLAYBROOK. Well, I just wanted to add to your collection

there, which is that they are also putting in this electronic brake

override in the vehicles.

Mr. KUCINICH. Speak closer to the mic.

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Ms. CLAYBROOK. They are also putting the electronic brake override in the floor mat recall vehicles. There’s two recalls. The one

with the sticking pedal is low impact, low speed generally. But the

floor mat recall, which most people don’t believe is a floor mat because it just doesn’t make a lot of sense; there, in most of those

vehicles, they are putting the brake override. And they are putting

the brake override—it’s an electronic brake override to override the

accelerator throttle, and that’s an electronic software change that

they are making. And so you are still going to have the problem,

perhaps, of having an accelerator that slams to the floor, but you

are going to have a brake override which will stop it.

Now, normally, if it was a floor map problem, you fix the floor

mat. Why are they putting the brake override in addition? They

say they’re doing it for the comfort of the people.

Mr. KUCINICH. My time has expired, but I just want to say thank

you for your diligence in pursuing this, Chairman Towns.

I also want to finally express my condolences to Mrs. Lastrella

and your family for the suffering that they have endured. And to

all those who are watching and trying to determine, will their families be safe, our job is a very serious one to pursue this. And I want

to thank each and every one of the witnesses for their presence

here. Thank you.

Chairman TOWNS. Let me also thank all the witnesses. And really appreciate your being here, and to say to you that safety is the

issue that we’re really pursuing here. And thank you for helping

us to do that. Thank you very much.

This committee is adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 6:48 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]

[The prepared statements of Hon. Paul W. Hodes, Hon. Mike

Quigley, and Hon. Gerald E. Connolly, and additional information

submitted for the hearing record follow:]

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Æ