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THE GM IGNITION SWITCH RECALL: 

INVESTIGATION UPDATE 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND 

INVESTIGATIONS 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND 

COMMERCE 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

JUNE 18, 2014 

Serial No. 113–154 

( 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Energy and Commerce 

energycommerce.house.gov 

(II) 

COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE 

FRED UPTON, Michigan 

Chairman 

RALPH M. HALL, Texas 

JOE BARTON, Texas 

Chairman Emeritus 

ED WHITFIELD, Kentucky 

JOHN SHIMKUS, Illinois 

JOSEPH R. PITTS, Pennsylvania 

GREG WALDEN, Oregon 

LEE TERRY, Nebraska 

MIKE ROGERS, Michigan 

TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania 

MICHAEL C. BURGESS, Texas 

MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee 

Vice Chairman 

PHIL GINGREY, Georgia 

STEVE SCALISE, Louisiana 

ROBERT E. LATTA, Ohio 

CATHY MCMORRIS RODGERS, Washington 

GREGG HARPER, Mississippi 

LEONARD LANCE, New Jersey 

BILL CASSIDY, Louisiana 

BRETT GUTHRIE, Kentucky 

PETE OLSON, Texas 

DAVID B. MCKINLEY, West Virginia 

CORY GARDNER, Colorado 

MIKE POMPEO, Kansas 

ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois 

H. MORGAN GRIFFITH, Virginia 

GUS M. BILIRAKIS, Florida 

BILL JOHNSON, Missouri 

BILLY LONG, Missouri 

RENEE L. ELLMERS, North Carolina 

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California 

Ranking Member 

JOHN D. DINGELL, Michigan 

Chairman Emeritus 

FRANK PALLONE, JR., New Jersey 

BOBBY L. RUSH, Illinois 

ANNA G. ESHOO, California 

ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York 

GENE GREEN, Texas 

DIANA DEGETTE, Colorado 

LOIS CAPPS, California 

MICHAEL F. DOYLE, Pennsylvania 

JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois 

JIM MATHESON, Utah 

G.K. BUTTERFIELD, North Carolina 

JOHN BARROW, Georgia 

DORIS O. MATSUI, California 

DONNA M. CHRISTENSEN, Virgin Islands 

KATHY CASTOR, Florida 

JOHN P. SARBANES, Maryland 

JERRY MCNERNEY, California 

BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa 

PETER WELCH, Vermont 

BEN RAY LUJAN, New Mexico 

PAUL TONKO, New York 

JOHN A. YARMUTH, Kentucky 

(III) 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS

TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania 

Chairman 

MICHAEL C. BURGESS, Texas 

Vice Chairman 

MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee 

PHIL GINGREY, Georgia 

STEVE SCALISE, Louisiana 

GREGG HARPER, Mississippi 

PETE OLSON, Texas 

CORY GARDNER, Colorado 

H. MORGAN GRIFFITH, Virginia 

BILL JOHNSON, Ohio 

BILLY LONG, Missouri 

RENEE L. ELLMERS, North Carolina 

JOE BARTON, Texas 

FRED UPTON, Michigan (ex officio) 

DIANA DEGETTE, Colorado 

Ranking Member 

BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa 

BEN RAY LUJAN, New Mexico 

JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois 

G.K. BUTTERFIELD, North Carolina 

KATHY CASTOR, Florida 

PETER WELCH, Vermont 

PAUL TONKO, New York 

JOHN A. YARMUTH, Kentucky 

GENE GREEN, Texas 

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California (ex officio) 

(V) 

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Hon. Tim Murphy, a Representative in Congress from the Commonwealth 

of Pennsylvania, opening statement ................................................................... 1 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 3 

Hon. Diana DeGette, a Representative in Congress from the state of Colorado, 

opening statement ................................................................................................ 5 

Hon. Fred Upton, a Representative in Congress from the state of Michigan, 

opening statement ................................................................................................ 6 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 7 

Hon. Janice D. Schakowsky, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of Illinois, opening statement .............................................................................. 9 

WITNESSES

Mary T. Barra, Chief Executive Officer, the General Motors Company ............. 11 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 14 

Answers to submitted questions ...................................................................... 109 

Anton R. Valukas, Jenner and Block ..................................................................... 17 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 18 

Answers to submitted questions ...................................................................... 121 

SUBMITTED MATERIAL

Document binder 1 ................................................................................................... 68 

Committee memorandum ........................................................................................ 70 

Letter of June 17, 2014, from the Center for Auto Safety to Mr. Valukas, 

submitted by Ms. DeGette ................................................................................... 79 

Report from June 2014 entitled, ‘‘Driven to Safety,’’ from the American Association for Justice, submitted by Ms. DeGette ................................................... 82 

1 The document binder can be found at: http://docs.house.gov/Committee/ 

Search/Home.aspx?Keyword=Path%3a%22%2fIF02%2f%22. 

(1) 

THE GM IGNITION SWITCH RECALL: 

INVESTIGATION UPDATE 

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 18, 2014 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS, 

COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE, 

Washington, DC. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:02 a.m., in room 

2123 of the Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Tim Murphy 

(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. 

Members present: Representatives Murphy, Burgess, Blackburn, 

Gingrey, Olson, Griffith, Johnson, Long, Ellmers, Barton, Terry, 

Upton (ex officio), DeGette, Braley, Schakowsky, Butterfield, Castor, Tonko, Yarmuth, Green, and Dingell. 

Staff present: Gary Andres, Staff Director; Charlotte Baker, Deputy Communications Director; Mike Bloomquist, General Counsel; 

Sean Bonyun, Communications Director; Matt Bravo, Professional 

Staff Member; Leighton Brown, Press Assistant; Karen Christian, 

Chief Counsel, Oversight; Brad Grantz, Policy Coordinator, Oversight and Investigations; Brittany Havens, Legislative Clerk; Sean 

Hayes, Deputy Chief Counsel, Oversight and Investigations; Kirby 

Howard, Legislative Clerk; Alexa Marrero, Deputy Staff Director; 

John Ohly, Professional Staff, Oversight and Investigations; Mark 

Ratner, Policy Advisor to the Chairman; Krista Rosenthall, Counsel 

to Chairman Emeritus; Tara Rothschild, Professional Staff, Oversight and Investigations; Tom Wilbur, Digital Media Advisor; Phil 

Barnett, Democratic Staff Director; Peter Boduer, Counsel; Brian 

Cohen, Democratic Staff Director, Oversight and Investigations, 

Senior Policy Advisor; Lisa Goldman, Counsel; Kiren Gopal, Democratic Counsel; Elizabeth Letter, Press Secretary; and Stephen 

Salsbury, Democratic Investigator. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. TIM MURPHY, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA 

Mr. MURPHY. We now convene this hearing of the Oversight and 

Investigations Subcommittee, entitled, ‘‘The GM Ignition Switch 

Recall: Investigation Update.’’ I thank my colleagues and representatives for being here. 

Ms. Barra, when you were before this committee almost 3 

months ago, you could not answer many of this subcommittee’s 

questions about why it took General Motors years to figure out why 

the airbags in the Cobalts, Ions, and HHRs, were not deploying 

2 

when they should have. It took GM years before finally issuing a 

safety recall. 

Now Mr. Valukas has made public his report on the GM fiasco 

in which he concludes there doesn’t appear to be a case of a coverup or a conspiracy. Instead, according to Mr. Valukas’ report, GM’s 

failure to recall faulty vehicles was a case of incompetence and neglect. Perhaps this report should have been subtitled, Don’t Assume Malfeasance When Incompetence Will Do. 

I still have questions about whether GM employees knowingly 

withheld information during previous liability lawsuits; information that could have led to an earlier recall, and prevented some 

of these tragedies from occurring. 

In many ways, the facts surrounding what finally resulted in the 

GM recall are far more troubling than a cover-up. GM engineers 

and attorneys who were given the facts, including reports on stalls 

and airbag malfunctions, and who were tasked with figuring out 

what went wrong, did not connect the dots. That is because they 

were either incompetent or intentionally indifferent. 

Today, I want to know from both Ms. Barra and Mr. Valukas not 

just how it happened, but why did this happen. 

Even when a good law, like the TREAD Act of 2000, is in place, 

it requires people to use commonsense, value a moral code, and 

have a motivation driven by compassion for it to be effective. Here, 

the key people at GM seemed to lack all of these in a way that underscores that we cannot legislate commonsense, mandate morality, nor litigate compassion, and at some point it is up to the culture of the company that has to go beyond paperwork and rules. 

The failures at General Motors were ones of accountability and 

culture. If employees do not have the moral fiber to do the right 

thing, and do not have the awareness to recognize when mistakes 

are being made, then the answer must be to change the people or 

change the culture. That is a lesson another large organization 

under congressional scrutiny should have also taken heart. I hope 

officials from the Veterans Affairs Department are watching. 

What is particularly frustrating about GM is that the company 

appeared in no great hurry to figure out the problems with its vehicles. Despite customer complaints, reports from GM’s own engineers that they were able to turn off the ignition switch with their 

knees during test drives, and finally reports of deaths, it was not 

until 2009 that GM figured out the airbags had any connection to 

the power mode status of the car. Then, it took another 4 years to 

link that finding to one of the components that determines the 

power mode; the ignition switch. And that discovery was not a result of GM’s own investigative work, but raised in the course of a 

lawsuit brought by the family of a young woman who died behind 

the wheel of a Cobalt. How was this discovered? 

An investigator for the family simply took two ignition switches 

apart and compared them; something GM failed to do during over 

7 years of investigations into the mystery of Cobalt airbag non-deployment. 

Ms. Barra, you sought this internal investigation of the ignition 

switch recall and you have publicly acknowledged how troubling its 

findings are. Your company has cooperated with this committee’s 

investigation, and I thank you for that. You have taken corrective 

3 

action by changing procedures and trying to remove roadblocks to 

make sure safety concerns come to light. Based on this report, 

though, there are no easy fixes for the kind of systemic, cultural 

breakdowns and fundamental misunderstandings that permitted 

GM engineers not to suspect a safety problem when Cobalts were 

stalling due to a faulty ignition switch. 

The possibility that these problems are pervasive and cultural 

deeply concerns me. It concerns us all. We learned Monday that 

GM has announced yet another recall; its thirty-ninth since January. This one is hauntingly similar to the Cobalt ignition switch recall. The ignition switch in certain Buicks, Chevys, and Cadillacs 

inadvertently moves out of the run position if the key has too much 

weight on it, causing the car to lose power and stall. The model 

years for the recalled vehicles goes back to the year 2000. 

Mr. Valukas, your report tells us about the engineering and legal 

findings with GM, but what it doesn’t divulge is whether GM attorneys made conscious decisions during discovery in other product liability lawsuits that prevented the truth from coming out sooner 

and potentially saving lives. That kind of malfeasance should be 

the crux of a cover-up. I want to delve deeper into that issue today 

and find out if that occurred. 

A harder question to answer, and for you, Ms. Barra, to solve, 

is to why this happened. We know engineers approved a part that 

did not meet GM specifications. Why? Was it a cost concern? Was 

it a rush to get a car off the road? Was it just sloppy? When complaints were raised about Cobalt’s ignition switch almost as soon 

as the car was on the road, why did the engineers not diagnose 

stalling as a safety problem? Again, was this a lack of basic education about how the car worked, or is it something less specific, 

but more difficult to address: a culture that does not respect accountability and that does not take responsibility for problems. 

When investigations drifted for years, there seems to be little to no 

evidence to suggest that this troubled anyone. Some of this is undoubtedly poor information-sharing and silos, and a failure to properly document change orders. But why didn’t anyone at GM ask: 

we have known for years we have an airbag system that isn’t working when it should; when are we going to do something about it? 

Ms. Barra and Mr. Valukas, I thank you for being here today. 

I look forward to your testimony. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Murphy follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. TIM MURPHY

Ms. Barra, when you were before this committee almost 3 months ago, you could 

not answer many of this subcommittee’s questions about why it took General Motors 

years to figure out why the airbags in its Cobalts, Ions, HHRs were not deploying 

when they should have. It took GM years before finally issuing a safety recall. 

And now, Mr. Valukas has made public his report on the GM fiasco in which he 

concludes there doesn’t appear to be a case of a cover-up or a conspiracy. Instead, 

according to Mr. Valukas’ report, GM’s failure to recall faulty vehicles was a case 

of ‘‘incompetence and neglect.’’ 

I still have questions about whether GM employees knowingly withheld information during previous liability lawsuits -information that could have led to an earlier 

recall and prevented some of these tragedies from occurring. 

In many ways the facts surrounding what finally resulted in the GM recall are 

far more troubling than a cover-up. GM engineers and attorneys who were given 

the facts—including reports on stalls and airbag malfunctions—and who were 

4 

tasked with figuring out what went wrong—didn’t connect the dots. That’s because 

they were either incompetent or intentionally indifferent. 

Today, I want to know from both Ms. Barra and Mr. Valukas not just how it happened but why did this happen. 

Even when a good law like the TREAD Act of 2000 is in place it requires people 

to use common sense, value a moral code, and have a motivation driven by compassion for it to be effective. Here the key people at GM seemed to lack all of these 

in a way that underscores that we cannot legislate common sense, mandate morality, nor litigate compassion. At some point, it’s up to the culture of the company that 

has to go beyond paperwork and rules. 

The failures at GM were ones of accountability and culture. If employees do not 

have the moral fiber to do the right thing, and do not have the awareness to recognize when mistakes are being made, then the answer must be to change the people 

or change the culture. 

That’s a lesson another large organization under congressional scrutiny should 

also take to heart; I hope officials from the Department of Veterans Affairs are 

watching. 

What is particularly frustrating about GM is that the company appeared in no 

great hurry to figure out the problems with its vehicles. Despite customer complaints, reports from GM’s own engineers that they were able to turn off the ignition 

switch with their knees during test drives, and finally reports of deaths—it wasn’t 

until 2009 that GM figured out the airbags had any connection to the power mode 

status of the car. 

Then, it took another four years to link that finding to one of the components that 

determines the power mode—the ignition switch. And that discovery was not a result of GM’s own investigative work, but raised in the course of a lawsuit brought 

by the family of a young woman who died behind the wheel of a Cobalt. 

How was this discovered? 

An investigator for the family simply took two ignition switches apart and compared them—something GM failed to do during the over seven years of investigations into the mystery of Cobalt airbag non-deployments. 

Ms. Barra—you sought this internal investigation of the ignition switch recall and 

you have publicly acknowledged how troubling its findings are. Your company has 

cooperated with this committee’s investigation. You have taken corrective action by 

changing procedures and trying to remove roadblocks to make sure safety concerns 

come to light. Based on this report, though, there are no easy fixes for the kinds 

of systemic, cultural breakdowns and fundamental misunderstandings that permitted GM engineers not to suspect a safety problem when Cobalts were stalling 

due to a faulty ignition switch. 

The possibility that these problems are pervasive and cultural deeply concerns 

me. We learned Monday that GM has announced yet another recall—it’s thirtyninth since January. This one is hauntingly similar to the Cobalt ignition switch 

recall. The ignition switch in certain Buicks, Chevys, and Cadillacs inadvertently 

moves out the ‘‘Run’’ position if the key has too much weight on it, causing the car 

to lose power and stall. The model years for the recalled vehicles goes back to the 

year 2000. 

Mr. Valukas—your report tells us about the engineering and legal failings with 

GM, but what it doesn’t divulge is whether GM attorneys made conscious decisions 

during discovery in other product liability lawsuits that prevented the truth from 

coming out sooner and potentially saving lives. That kind of malfeasance would be 

the crux of a cover-up. I want to delve deeper into that issue today. 

A harder question to answer—and for you, Ms. Barra to solve—is why did this 

happen. We know engineers approved a part that did not meet specifications. Why? 

Was it a cost concern? Was it a rush to get a car on the road? Was it just sloppy? 

When complaints were raised about the Cobalt’s ignition switch almost as soon as 

the car was on the road, why did engineers not diagnose stalling as a safety problem? Again, was this a lack of basic education about how the car worked—or is it 

something less specific, but more difficult to address: a culture that does not respect 

accountability and that does not take responsibility for problems. When investigations drifted for years, there seems to be little to no evidence to suggest that this 

troubled anyone. Some of this is undoubtedly poor information sharing and silos— 

and a failure to properly document change orders. But why didn’t anyone at GM 

ask: we have known for years we have an airbag system that isn’t working when 

it should—when are we going to do something about it? 

Ms. Barra and Mr. Valukas, I thank you for being here today and I look forward 

to your testimony. 

Mr. UPTON. And I now turn to Ms. DeGette for 5 minutes. 

5 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. DIANA DEGETTE, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF COLORADO 

Ms. DEGETTE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Chairman, we are still trying to unravel the facts that led 

to one of the worst automated tragedies of the last decade, and that 

is the installation of these faulty ignition switches in GM vehicles 

that we know has caused over a dozen deaths. These switches were 

bad from the start; they should have never been installed, and once 

they were installed, it became quickly clear to GM officials that 

something was very, very wrong with them. Disturbingly, the company left these unsafe vehicles on the road for over a decade. 

Mr. Valukas, you have done important work describing how a defect known to GM employees for over a decade went unaddressed 

for so long. This report paints a troubling picture of GM’s culture 

and commitment to safety that allowed this tragedy to take place. 

It describes engineering and investigative failures, a lack of urgency in addressing issues, poor communication within the company, and numerous other systemic problems, and, in the end, the 

company failed to inform customers and federal regulators of the 

deadly problem. But the report, unfortunately, does not answer all 

of the key questions. It does not fully explain how the ignition 

switch was approved without meeting specifications, and then how 

it was redesigned in 2006. It does not fully explain why stalling 

was not considered a safety issue within GM. And most troubling, 

as the chairman alluded to, the report does not fully explain how 

this dysfunctional company culture took root and persisted. The report singles out many individuals at GM who made poor decisions 

or failed to act, but it doesn’t identify one individual in a position 

of high leadership who was responsible for these systemic failures. 

The report absolves previous CEOs, the legal department, Ms. 

Barra, and the GM Board from knowing about the tragedy beforehand. This is nothing to be proud of. That the most senior GM executives may not have known about a defect that caused more than 

a dozen deaths is, frankly, alarming and does not absolve them of 

responsibility for this tragedy. 

Ms. Barra, while you are a new CEO, you have a decades-long 

history with GM. From 2011, you were executive vice president of 

global product development, and the GM staff responsible for vehicle safety reported either directly or through a chain of command 

to you. At least one high-level executive who was working on solutions to the ignition switch problem reported directly to you. So 

while you may not have known about this defect, many people who 

worked for you did. 

The culture of a company is shaped by its senior leadership. 

They set the tone and shape the attitudes of the employees. They 

are also responsible for putting in place systems to foster transparency, and ensure that safety issues are taken seriously. Those 

systems failed at GM. 

Today, what I want to know are specific answers to how the culture of secrecy at GM can be changed to encourage reporting of 

problems, not just structural management changes. I appreciate, 

Ms. Barra, the changes you have made at GM so far, but I think 

6 

the jury is still out on whether we can have success in changing 

the culture. 

Last week, as the chairman mentioned, GM announced the recall 

of over 500,000 late-model Chevy Camaros, including 2014 model 

year vehicles, because of ignition switch problems. And Monday 

evening, just a couple of days ago, another 3.3 million cars with ignition switch and engine shut-off issues were recalled, including 

Chevy Impalas that are currently in production. This means that 

this year alone, GM has announced 44 recalls effecting more than 

20 million vehicles worldwide. 

Ms. Barra, this record reinforces the notion that the safety problems with the Cobalt and Ion were not unique at GM, and that the 

senior executives at the company, including you, should have acted 

sooner to resolve the company’s culture. 

So now, we need to show the American public that the changes 

that have been announced will really address the longstanding 

problems at GM. 

Mr. Chairman, Ms. Barra is not the only one with work to do. 

This committee should get to work on legislation to address the 

findings of our investigation. And, in these last few minutes, I also 

want to acknowledge the families who are here in the hearing room 

today, and their beloved loved ones with the picture on the back 

wall there. I know it is not easy for you to learn about so many 

things that went wrong at GM. You have my word that we will do 

our best to make sure that this kind of tragedy will never, never 

happen again. 

And, Mr. Chairman, I know that we can work together in a bipartisan way to do that. Thank you. 

Mr. MURPHY. Thank you. Gentlelady’s time has expired. 

I now recognize the chairman of the full committee, Mr. Upton, 

for 5 minutes. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. FRED UPTON, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MICHIGAN 

Mr. UPTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Ms. Barra, we all thank you for returning to the committee today 

as you said you would. 

Three months ago, we held our first hearing on the GM ignition 

switch recall. We asked a lot of tough questions, but we got only 

a few answers. I expect things to go differently today. 

We have the Valukas report in-hand, and we have its word 

seared in our minds. Our investigation tracks with the findings of 

the report of maddening and deadly breakdown over a decade, 

plagued by missed opportunities and disconnects. Engineers didn’t 

comprehend how their cars operated or how vehicle systems were 

linked together. The company believed a car that stalled while 

driving wasn’t necessarily a safety concern. Investigators let investigations drift for years, despite having proof right before their eyes 

that an airbag system wasn’t deploying when it should have, and 

all of this existed in a bureaucratic culture where employees avoided taking responsibility with a nod of the head. 

Ms. Barra, you have said you found the report deeply troubling 

as well. I find it very disturbing and downright devastating to you, 

7 

to GM, to folks in Michigan who live and breathe pride in the auto 

industry, but most of all to the families of the victims. 

The recall announced on Monday this week makes it painfully 

clear that this is not just a Cobalt problem. A new set of vehicles, 

including multiple Chevrolet, Cadillac, Buick models, are facing an 

ignition switch recall for the very same kind of torque problem that 

lurked for over a decade in the Cobalt and similar small vehicles, 

with fatal consequences for unsuspecting drivers, including two 

teens from my own community. 

Ms. Barra, Mr. Valukas, many questions today will focus on how 

and why this happened. I intend to focus on how we can make sure 

it never happens again. A culture that allowed safety problems to 

fester for years will be hard to change, but if GM is going to recover and regain the public’s trust, it has to learn from this report 

and break the patterns that led to this unimaginable systematic 

breakdown. I want specifics on whether the changes you have already put in place really have made a difference. 

With the Valukas report, GM is provided an assessment of what 

went wrong. I want to be clear today that our investigation does 

continue. This committee has reviewed over one million pages of 

documents, and interviewed key personnel from GM and NHTSA. 

While we are addressing GM’s actions in response today, we will 

address NHTSA’s part of the story in the near future. We don’t yet 

have all the answers about what changes in our laws, the regulators’ practices, or the company’s culture, would have prevented 

this safety defect from lingering so long or harming so many, but 

we are going to find out. Yes, we will. The system failed and people 

died, and it could have been prevented. 

I yield the balance of my time to Dr. Burgess. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Upton follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. FRED UPTON

Ms. Barra, thank you for returning back to the committee today. Three months 

ago we held our first hearing on the GM ignition switch recall. We asked a lot of 

questions, but we got few answers. I expect things to go differently today. 

We have the Valukas report in hand, and we have its words seared in our minds. 

Our investigation tracks with the findings of the report: a maddening and deadly 

breakdown over a decade plagued by missed opportunities and disconnects. Engineers didn’t comprehend how their cars operated or how vehicle systems were 

linked together. The company believed a car that stalled while driving wasn’t necessarily a safety concern. Investigators let investigations drift for years despite having proof right before their eyes that an airbag system wasn’t deploying when it 

should have. And all of this existed in a bureaucratic culture where employees 

avoided taking responsibility with a nod of the head. 

Ms. Barra, you have said you found this report deeply troubling. I find it deplorable, disturbing, and downright devastating—to you, to GM, to folks in Michigan 

who live and breathe pride in our auto industry, but most of all, to the families of 

the victims. 

The recall announced on Monday makes it painfully clear this is not just a Cobalt 

problem. A new set of vehicles—including multiple Chevrolet, Cadillac, and Buick 

models—are facing an ignition switch recall for the very same kind of torque problem that lurked for over a decade in the Cobalt and similar small vehicles, with 

fatal consequences for unsuspecting drivers—including two teenagers from my own 

community. 

Ms. Barra and Mr. Valukas, many questions today will focus on how and why this 

happened. I intend to focus on how we can make sure it never happens again. A 

culture that allowed safety problems to fester for years will be hard to change. But 

if GM is going to recover and regain the public’s trust, it must learn from this report 

and break the patterns that led to this unimaginable systemic breakdown. I want 

8 

specifics on whether the changes you have already put in place have made a difference. 

With the Valukas report, GM has provided its assessment of what went wrong. 

I want to be clear today that our investigation continues. This committee has reviewed over one million pages of documents and interviewed key personnel from GM 

and NHTSA. While we are addressing GM’s actions and response today, we will address NHTSA’s part of this story in the near future. We don’t yet have all the answers about what changes in our laws, the regulator’s practices, or the company’s 

culture would have prevented this safety defect from lingering so long or harming 

so many. But we will find out. The system failed and people died, and it could have 

been prevented. 

Mr. UPTON. I yield the balance of my time to Dr. Burgess. 

Mr. BURGESS. I thank the chairman of the full committee for 

yielding. 

We now know this is not an evidence problem. The evidence is 

simply overwhelming. It is an analysis problem. General Motors 

still needs to answer the fundamental question of how it missed all 

of these glaring signs. Indeed, failure to recognize the problems in 

a timely fashion may well have cost 13 people their lives. 

This report is deeply troubling. Maybe the most concerning aspect of the report is the simple recognition that, while everyone at 

General Motors had responsibility to fix the problem, no one took 

responsibility. That is unacceptable for one of America’s flagship 

companies, and one that millions of us rely upon every day. Now, 

according to the report by Mr. Valukas, he offers 90 recommendations as to the problems and their failures that led to the ignition 

recall. I am certain that all 90 are crucial, but really, only one; accountability, and accountability that is not transferrable, is crucial. 

If personal accountability is missing, as the report here suggests, 

then disastrous consequences will not only occur, they will reoccur 

and reoccur. 

Ms. Barra, Mr. Valukas, I thank you for being here in our committee today. The Valukas report is a start, a first step to solving 

a problem by identifying it. I hope also there are some answers for 

many of us as to the effect of now the understanding of the problem, and when the understanding occurred. Will this affect those 

cases that have already been litigated? How does General Motors’ 

bankruptcy affect its position on those cases that were previously 

litigated, and perhaps we can even touch on Mr. Feinberg’s employment. Is he an employee of GM, or is he working for the crash victims. All of these questions need to be answered today, and I look 

forward to your testimony, and thank you. 

Mr. MURPHY. The gentleman yields back. 

I now recognize Ms. Schakowsky for 5 minutes. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, A 

REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF ILLINOIS 

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this 

hearing; the second on the failure to recall defective GM vehicles 

in a timely manner, and I thank our witnesses for being here. 

As I said at our first hearing on this issue, the families of the 

victims of GM’s defective vehicles deserved better. GM failed you. 

We are looking at those pictures in the back of the room and they 

need more than an apology. 

9 

On June 5, Mr. Valukas, who is well known in Chicago where 

I come from and well respected there, reviewed GM’s ignition 

switch failures and his report was released on June 5. The report 

characterized GM as a company with a convoluted structure and 

very little accountability, a place where there was an institutional 

failure to communicate and coordinate both within and between 

different departments. There is a story today in Bloomberg 

Businessweek about a whistleblower who apparently tried to bring 

these problems to the attention of the company and lost his job as 

a result. 

During her previous appearance before the subcommittee, Ms. 

Barra repeatedly pointed to the importance of the Valukas report 

in addressing the many questions that she was not able to answer. 

I look forward to getting answers to those questions today. 

A question I raised at our last hearing has yet to be answered 

to my satisfaction, and that is how GM will compensate those who 

were injured or who lost loved ones in crashes prior to GM’s bankruptcy in 2009. Ms. Barra said that it would take her and Kenneth 

Feinberg, who was selected to advise GM on options of how to establish a victims’ compensation fund, up to to 60 days, from 30 to 

60 days, from the time of the first hearing to determine how to proceed with those claims. That first hearing was April 1 and it has 

now been 79 days, and so I hope we will get the answers today. 

As Ms. Barra said when the Valukas report became public, ‘‘We 

failed these customers, and we must face up to it, and we must 

learn from it.’’ 

While 15 GM employees have been dismissed, it is not clear to 

me that any senior-level manager has been held responsible for the 

GM corporate culture that allowed the ignition switch defect to go 

unaddressed for years after it was first discovered in 2001. The 

question now is how far accountability extends at GM. As executive 

vice president of global product development, purchasing and supply from 2011, until taking over last year as CEO, Ms. Barra, my 

understanding is, was responsible for safety issues at the company. 

The Valukas report suggests that senior management at GM was 

unaware until 2013 that serious questions should have been asked 

about the ignition switch defect, however, two newspapers, including the New York Times, addressed the ignition switch defect in 

2005. Now, if I were a senior-level executive that read about those 

problems in the newspaper, I would want answers and action. It 

seems GM executives demanded neither. 

The Valukas report does make several suggestions on changing 

the corporate climate at GM, to respond faster and better to safety 

issues, and that includes improving communications with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, NHTSA, and I look 

forward to hearing from Ms. Barra about the changes the company 

has already made, and its plans for improvements in the future. 

GM paid the maximum penalty for failing to inform NHTSA 

about the ignition switch defect. That was $35 million. To me, it 

sounds like a lot of money, but that is not enough of a deterrent 

for a company with over $150 billion in revenue. It sounds to me 

more like a slap on the wrist. I am an original cosponsor of Ranking Member Henry Waxman’s Motor Vehicle Safety Act, H.R. 4364, 

which would increase the maximum penalties for failing to inform 

10 

NHTSA and the public of potentially deadly auto defects. As the 

ranking member of the Commerce Manufacturing and Trade Subcommittee, I am working on legislation that would do the same, 

while also addressing several other issues raised by the GM ignition switch defect, including requiring the public disclosure of technical service bulletins. Those are the bulletins which provide information to dealerships about how to repair vehicles that are experiencing a widespread problem kept from the public. In GM’s case, 

TSBs were issued for the faulty ignition switch in 2005; almost 10 

years before a recall was issued. Those TSBs instructed dealerships 

to replace the defective part. 

I hope today’s hearing will allow us to consider additional actions 

that might be needed in improving auto recalls, and I look forward 

to hearing from our witnesses. 

I yield back. 

Mr. MURPHY. Thank you. 

I would now like to introduce the witnesses on the panel for today’s hearing. Ms. Mary Barra is the Chief Executive Officer for 

General Motors Company, and has been in this role since January 

15, 2014, when she also became a member of its board of directors. 

She has been with the company over 30 years, and has held a number of positions in the company, including vice president of global 

manufacturing engineering from 2008 to 2009, and executive director of vehicle manufacturing engineering from 2005 to 2008. Mr. 

Anton Valukas is a litigator and the chairman of Jenner and Block. 

He is a former U.S. attorney and fellow of the American College 

of Trial Lawyers. He was hired by the General Motors corporation 

to conduct the internal investigation into the faulty ignition switch, 

and he is the author of the report on the findings that was released 

2 weeks ago. 

I will now swear in the witnesses. 

You are both aware that the committee is holding an investigative hearing, and when doing so, has the practice of taking testimony under oath. Do you have any objections to testifying under 

oath? Both witnesses say they do not. The Chair then advises you 

that under the rules of the House and the rules of the committee, 

you are entitled to be advised by counsel. Do either of you desire 

to be advised by counsel during your testimony today? Both decline. Thank you. In that case, if you would please rise and raise 

your right hand, I will swear you in. 

[Witnesses sworn.] 

Mr. MURPHY. Thank you. Both witnesses answered in the affirmative. You are now under oath and subject to the penalties set forth 

in Title XVIII, Section 1001 of the United States Code. You may 

now each give a 5-minute summary of your written statement. 

Ms. Barra, would you like to open? Thank you. Please pull the 

microphone close to you. Thank you. You have to turn it on as well. 

I think there is a—thank you. 

11 

TESTIMONY OF MARY T. BARRA, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, 

THE GENERAL MOTORS COMPANY; AND ANTON R. VALUKAS, 

JENNER AND BLOCK 

TESTIMONY OF MARY T. BARRA 

Ms. BARRA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the chance 

to appear before you again today on the ignition switch issue. 

Before I proceed with my brief remarks, I want to again express 

my sympathies to the families that lost loved ones, and those who 

suffered physical injury. I am ever mindful that we have a special 

responsibility to them and to those families, and the best way to 

fulfill that responsibility is to fix the problem by putting in place 

the needed changes to prevent this from every happening again. 

When I was here 11 weeks ago, I told you how we intended to 

proceed with this matter. I promised we would conduct a comprehensive and transparent investigation into the causes of the ignition switch problem. I promised we would share the findings of 

Mr. Valukas’ report with Congress, our regulators, NHTSA and the 

courts. I promised we would hold people accountable, and make 

substantial and rapid changes in our approach to recalls. Finally, 

I promised we would engage Ken Feinberg to develop a just and 

timely program for compensating families who lost loved ones, and 

those who suffered serious physical injury. We have done all of 

these things and more, and I welcome the opportunity to discuss 

them with you further. 

The Valukas report, as you know, is extremely thorough, brutally 

tough and deeply troubling. It paints a picture of an organization 

that failed to handle a complex safety issue in a responsible way. 

I was deeply saddened and disturbed as I read the report. For 

those of us who have dedicated our lives to this company, it is enormously painful to have our shortcomings laid out so vividly. There 

is no way to minimize the seriousness of what Mr. Valukas and his 

investigators uncovered. 

On June 2, Mr. Valukas presented the findings of his investigation to the Board of Directors of General Motors. I will leave it to 

Mr. Valukas to comment on his report, but for my part, I want you 

to know my reaction to the report and some of the actions I have 

taken since reviewing it. 

First, we have made a number of personnel decisions. Fifteen individuals identified in the report are no longer with the company. 

We have restructured our safety decisionmaking process to raise it 

to the highest levels of the company, addressing a key point in the 

Valukas report that critical information was kept from senior management. Under the new system, this should never happen again. 

We are currently conducting what I believe is the most exhaustive comprehensive safety review in the history of our company. We 

are leaving no stone unturned, and devoting whatever resources it 

takes to identify potential safety issues in all of our current vehicles and on vehicles no longer in production. Our responsibility is 

to set a new norm and a new industry standard on safety and quality. I have told our employees it is not enough to simply fix this 

problem; we need to create a new standard, and we will create a 

new norm. 

12 

We have announced the creation of, and have implemented, a 

new global product integrity organization that is already enhancing 

the overall safety and quality of our products, and we are taking 

a very aggressive approach on recalls, and we are bringing greater 

rigor and discipline to our analysis and decisionmaking process regarding these recalls and other potential safety-related matters. It 

is difficult to announce so many recalls, but it is absolutely the 

right thing to do. 

As we discussed last time, we have engaged Kenneth Feinberg 

to review options for establishing a compensation program, and the 

process is moving rapidly. Mr. Feinberg has the full authority to 

establish eligibility criteria for victims, and to determine the compensation levels. He has indicated he will share his final criteria 

with us by the end of this month, and we expect to begin processing claims by August 1. 

We have created a new position of vice president of global vehicle 

safety, and appointed Jeff Boyer, who is a highly respected expert 

in the field, to this position. I have personally told Jeff that he will 

have whatever resources he needs to do the job, and he has many 

already. In fact, we have also named a senior attorney to support 

him and to facilitate rapid information sharing across the organization. In addition, we have added 35 safety investigators that are already allowing us to identify and address safety issues much more 

quickly. And finally, we have instituted a Speak Up For Safety program, encouraging employees to report potential safety issues 

quickly, and we are recognizing them when they do so. This is 

more than a campaign or a program, it is the start of changing the 

way we think and act at General Motors. 

Two weeks ago, I addressed the entire global workforce about the 

report. I told our team as bluntly as I knew how that the series 

of questionable actions and inactions uncovered in the investigation 

were inexcusable. I also told them that while I want to solve the 

problems as quickly as possible, I never want anyone associated 

with GM to forget what happened. I want this terrible experience 

permanently etched in our collective memories. This is not another 

business challenge. This is a tragic problem that should never have 

happened, and must never happen again. 

The report makes a series of recommendations in 8 major areas. 

I have committed the company to act on all of the recommendations, and many of which we had started before and are already 

implemented. 

Finally, Mr. Chairman, and members of the committee, I know 

some of you are wondering about my commitment to solve deep underlying cultural problems that were uncovered in the report. The 

answer is simple. I will not rest until these problems are resolved. 

As I told our employees, I am not afraid of the truth, and I am not 

going to accept business as usual at GM. It is time, in fact, it is 

past time, to insist on total accountability, and to make sure vital 

information is shared across all functions of the company, so we 

can unleash the full power of our 200,000 employees, our 21,000 

dealers, and our 23,000 suppliers. We are a good company, but we 

can and must be much, much better. 

This is my focus, and this is my promise to you, our employees, 

our customers, our shareholders, and the American people. 

13 

Thank you again for having me here today. I am pleased to take 

your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Barra follows:] 

14 


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91734.002
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Mr. MURPHY. Thank you, Ms. Barra. 

Mr. Valukas, you are recognized for 5 minutes. 

TESTIMONY OF ANTON R. VALUKAS 

Mr. VALUKAS. Have I got it? 

Mr. MURPHY. You have to bring that very close to your mouth, 

and lift it up and—— 

Mr. VALUKAS. All right. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. MURPHY. Even closer if you would, sir. 

Mr. VALUKAS. Even closer? 

Mr. MURPHY. Yes. 

Mr. VALUKAS. OK. Thank you. Now I have it? OK, thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

In March of this year, General Motors asked me to determine 

why it took so long to recall the Cobalt and other vehicles that contained this faulty and defective switch, which has resulted in such 

disaster for General Motors and for the families who were involved 

in this matter. My explicit mandate from the General Motors Board 

of Directors was to promote and provide an unvarnished report as 

to how and why this occurred, to pursue the facts wherever they 

took us, and to report those facts in a report. General Motors’ 

Board also directed me to make recommendations based on those 

factual findings to help them ensure that this did not happen 

again. 

Jenner and Block, my firm, was given unfettered access to General Motors witnesses and documents. In point of fact, we interviewed, in the 70 days or so, 230 witnesses, some of them multiple 

times, so we had about approximately 350 interviews, some of them 

lasting 6 to 8 hours. We viewed over 41 million documents, coming 

from the files of everybody from the top executives down to the individuals who were involved at the most technical level. A number 

of documents involved tens of millions of materials that were personally reviewed by individual reviewers, and all of this was in an 

effort to find out the facts as to why this Cobalt recall took over 

a decade, and why that defective switch remained unaccounted for 

during that period of time. 

A copy of that report was provided to the committee. I am not 

going to go through the details, but the story of the Cobalt is a 

story of individual and organizational failures that have led to devastating consequences. Throughout the decade it took General Motors to recall the Cobalt, there was, as has already been described 

here this morning by one of the Members, a lack of accountability, 

a lack of urgency, and extraordinarily a failure of the company personnel charged with safety issues to understand how this car was 

manufactured, and the interplay between the switch and other aspects of the automobile. 

In our report, we reviewed these failures, and identified cultural 

issues that may have contributed to this problem. As General Motors’ Board requested, we have provided recommendations to help 

ensure that this problem does not take place in the future, but as 

we note in my written statement to you, that is an issue with 

which GM must deal. The report does not give all of the answers. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Valukas follows:] 

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Mr. MURPHY. Thank you very much. 

Now I recognize myself for 5 minutes of questions. 

Mr. Valukas, your report references such terms as the GM nod 

and the GM salute, where people nod in agreement and do nothing 

or look to others to do something, but no one accepts responsibility. 

Ms. Barra, do you agree with Mr. Valukas when he states that 

culture is the problem at GM, that a culture where GM personnel 

failed to recognize significant issues to decisionmakers, delayed the 

ignition switch recalls? 

Ms. BARRA. I agree that there are specific people involved that 

did not act appropriately. 

Mr. MURPHY. You have been with the company for 30 years, 

right? 

Ms. BARRA. Yes, I have. 

Mr. MURPHY. How does someone who has spent an entire career 

within the culture of GM change the culture of GM? I believe there 

are 210,000 employees or so with GM. You mentioned 15 were 

fired. 

Ms. BARRA. Yes. 

Mr. MURPHY. That is 99.999 percent, if my math is right, of the 

people are the same. If you haven’t changed the people, how do you 

change the culture? 

Ms. BARRA. Well, again, the 15 people that are no longer with 

the company are the people that either didn’t take action they 

should, or didn’t work urgently enough to rectify this matter, and 

they are no longer part of this company. That was a strong signal 

to send within the company. Again, what is much more important 

is that we create the right environment where everyone in the company is able to come to work every day and do their best work, be 

supported, and that is the culture that we are working to create, 

that is the programs we have put in place, like Speak Up For Safety, and the structural changes we have made. 

Mr. MURPHY. The previously-referenced article by Bloomberg 

notes that Courtland Kelley, who worked on the Cavalier, the predecessor to the Cobalt, raised questions about a defective fuel line. 

He had to continue to do that, even threatening in moving forward 

with whistleblower actions. This was referenced on page 93, Mr. 

Valukas, of your report where it says, ‘‘Oakley also noted, however, 

that he was reluctant to push hard on safety issues because of his 

perception that his predecessor had been pushed out of the job for 

doing just that.’’ 

I guess this speaks to the question of what is a cover-up. Mr. 

Valukas, you concluded there was no conspiracy and no cover-up. 

Does an employee acting alone, who hides or doesn’t share information, a cover-up? 

Mr. VALUKAS. I am sorry. Can—the latter part of the—the last 

part? 

Mr. MURPHY. Does an employee who acts alone, or who hides or 

doesn’t share information, a cover-up? 

Mr. VALUKAS. If the individual knows that the information is, for 

instance, a safety information, and understands that and deliberately decides to conceal that, that is a cover-up, yes, it is. 

23 

Mr. MURPHY. And on a corporate culture of carelessness, where 

lifesaving information sits in file boxes collecting dust, as you referred to, is that a cover-up? 

Mr. VALUKAS. What we found in connection with this, Mr. Chairman, was the following. We found that a large number of individuals had information that they—in the first instance, they didn’t 

believe was safety-related information. Clearly up until about 2009, 

they looked at this as a convenience matter, and they dealt with 

it that way. We did not find evidence that any individual had a 

piece of evidence in connection with this Cobalt recall which they 

considered to be safety information, which they deliberately withheld from somebody else. 

Mr. MURPHY. You put in your report though that Mr. Oakley specifically says he is reluctant to push hard on safety issues. 

Mr. VALUKAS. I am sorry? 

Mr. MURPHY. You put in your report where Mr. Oakley specifically says, on page 93, he was reluctant to push hard on safety 

issues because of his perception that his predecessor had been 

pushed out of a job. That implies he withheld safety information. 

First of all, Ms. Barra, is he still working for you? 

Ms. BARRA. Yes, he is, and actually he has raised issues and we 

are actively investigating. It is part of our Speak Up For Safety 

program. 

Mr. MURPHY. Well, it sounds like he decided not to speak up. 

Ms. BARRA. Well, he is now, and we are taking it very seriously. 

Mr. MURPHY. I just find it hard to believe that of 210,000 employees, not a single one in that company had the integrity to say, 

I think we are making a mistake here. Not a single one. That is 

puzzling to me. I mean even out at the VA Hospital, we have lots 

of whistleblowers. I don’t see here in GM that there are whistleblowers. Not a single person you interviewed in this? 

Mr. VALUKAS. Well—— 

Mr. MURPHY. Well, let me jump to another question. I am going 

to get back to this, because there were also a lot of issues about 

lawsuits. You referenced some of those, but what I don’t see here 

is questions, if GM responded appropriately to victims’ discovery 

requests in the lawsuits, including what GM understood about the 

airbag deployment. Did you find that—I don’t know if you spoke 

with plaintiffs’ attorneys in this case, but did you find that in every 

case that information requested of GM was responded to in a timely manner of the plaintiffs’ attorneys’ request, and that the information they presented to GM was responded to? 

Mr. VALUKAS. Mr. Chairman, what we did was we—and at the 

very beginning of this investigation I sent letters and e-mail to the 

key plaintiffs’ lawyers who were involved, and where there would 

be—in the most sensitive of these cases, I don’t want to mention 

family names, but including the case that resulted in the disclosure 

of the two switches, inviting them to contact me so that we could 

talk in the investigation, determine that very issue, that deal with 

that issue. Not one of those attorneys responded to me. I also interviewed the attorneys who were outside counsel in connection with 

the GM matters, the particular piece of litigation, determine 

whether I had any evidence there of something which would indicate that GM had particular facts which they were withholding in 

24 

order to accomplish something, and I did not find evidence of that 

in my discussions with outside counsel. 

I reviewed all of the e-mail relating to the legal department in 

connection with all of these cases. And I say I. Jenner and Block 

did, I didn’t interview them personally, to determine whether there 

was any evidence that there was information that they had that 

they were now making a decision, for instance, to settle a case because they wanted to conceal the safety defect and prevent a recall, 

and I did not find information such as that, so—— 

Mr. MURPHY. I appreciate that. I am out of time, but I want to 

say there is a difference between not getting a response and not 

having the facts, and my assumption is when you tasked Mr. 

Valukas with getting all the information, if you don’t have this information, do you still want it? 

Ms. BARRA. I—— 

Mr. MURPHY. The information with regard to if information was 

not passed on to plaintiffs’ attorneys who had made the request, do 

you still want that information? That is what I—I am out of time. 

I will go to Ms. DeGette. 

Ms. DEGETTE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Valukas, the Chairman just asked Ms. Barra about this GM 

nod and GM salute that you talked about in your report on page 

255 and 256, where you said one witness described the GM phenomenon of avoiding responsibility as the GM salute, a crossing of 

the arms and pointing outwards to others, indicating the responsibility belongs to someone else, not me. And then you said, similarly, Mary Barra described a phenomenon known as the GM nod. 

The GM nod Barra described as when everyone nods in agreement 

a proposed plan of action, but then leaves the room with no intention to follow through, and the nod is an empty gesture. 

When the Chairman just asked Ms. Barra about this, she said, 

‘‘There were specific people involved that did not act appropriately.’’ Do you think this company culture, the GM nod and the 

GM salute, was just limited to those 15 people who have been terminated from GM, yes or no? 

Mr. VALUKAS. I can’t tell—I can’t answer that question. 

Ms. DEGETTE. Do you think it was only 15 people who did this 

GM nod and salute? 

Mr. VALUKAS. No, I think there were a number of people—— 

Ms. DEGETTE. Thank you. 

Mr. VALUKAS [continuing]. Who were on the committees. 

Ms. DEGETTE. Thank you. 

Mr. VALUKAS. OK. 

Ms. DEGETTE. And you learned that although the problems with 

the ignition switch’s safety issues were known by many in the company, GM senior leadership, including Ms. Barra, was unaware of 

these issues for years. Is that correct? 

Mr. VALUKAS. That is factually correct. 

Ms. DEGETTE. Thank you. These leaders included GM CEOs, including Rick Wagner, Mike Millikin, who was then GM’s general 

counsel, and Ms. Barra, correct? 

Mr. VALUKAS. That is correct. 

25 

Ms. DEGETTE. And, Ms. Barra, you previously testified that you 

didn’t know about the problems with the ignition switch until December 2013, is that correct? 

Ms. BARRA. I testified I knew there was an issue with the Cobalt 

in December that they were studying. I knew there was an ignition 

switch issue on January 31, that’s what I testified. 

Ms. DEGETTE. In December 2013, right? 

Ms. BARRA. January 31, 2014, was when I knew—— 

Ms. DEGETTE. OK. 

Ms. BARRA [continuing]. There was an ignition—— 

Ms. DEGETTE. Thanks. 

Ms. BARRA [continuing]. Switch issue. 

Ms. DEGETTE. OK. Now, Gay Kent, who was the director of vehicle safety in your department, she made decisions in 2004 about 

the stalling being a safety risk. Did she ever share those findings 

with you, yes or no? 

Ms. BARRA. No. 

Ms. DEGETTE. And Jim Federico, a senior GM executive, brought 

in to find solutions to the airbag situation in 2012, he knew about 

the problems and he reported directly to you. Did he ever share his 

knowledge with you—— 

Ms. BARRA. He—— 

Ms. DEGETTE [continuing]. Yes or no? 

Ms. BARRA. Well, he reported directly to me at a portion of his 

time, and then he no longer reported—— 

Ms. DEGETTE. But did he ever tell you about these problems? 

Ms. BARRA. No he did not. 

Ms. DEGETTE. No, he didn’t. Now, you have made a number of 

structural changes at GM, and I appreciate this and I know you 

are committed to doing it, but the company culture is what concerns me as well as the chairman, and the problems that I have 

identified today are not problems about who reports to whom, but 

rather a culture that encourages people not to stick their necks out 

and report things. And, in fact, just yesterday, I learned from a 

source very close to GM who has intimate knowledge of the culture 

there, that the results of Mr. Valukas’ investigation and the terminations of these 15 employees have only created more paranoia 

within the company that people are going to lose their jobs. And 

so I want to ask you, Ms. Barra, what are you doing, not just to 

change the structure and put these safety programs together and 

so on, but to change the culture of the company so that the company rewards people reporting problems, not sweeping it under the 

rug? 

Ms. BARRA. We are doing a lot, and to your point, it is not done 

by words, it is not done by slogans, it is done by actions. 

Ms. DEGETTE. Well, so what is it that you are doing? 

Ms. BARRA. So we have put the Speak Up For Safety program, 

and I am getting personally information from employees. I am acting on it, we have a regular program, we are going to be recognizing those individuals. I have spoken to all of our employees globally, encouraging them. But I think most important, the work that 

we are doing and the actions we are taking with the additional recalls demonstrate how sincere we are to the customer and the cenVerDate Nov 24 2008 13:30 Feb 26, 2016 Jkt 037690 PO 00000 Frm 00031 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\MY DOCS\HEARINGS 113\113-154 CHRIS
26 

ter of everything we do, and we want to make sure we are doing 

the right thing as it relates to safety, as it relates for quality—— 

Ms. DEGETTE. But we—— 

Ms. BARRA [continuing]. And our employees are seeing that. 

Ms. DEGETTE. OK. I would like to see, if you may supplement 

your answer with the specifics of how you are rewarding this. 

Ms. BARRA. Yes. 

Ms. DEGETTE. I would appreciate that. 

Ms. BARRA. We can do that. 

Ms. DEGETTE. Now, I want to talk to you briefly about this compensation fund. I am pleased now that you are telling us that Mr. 

Feinberg is setting up a compensation fund, but we still don’t have 

very many details of it. Has the company or Mr. Feinberg determined the criteria about who will be eligible for payment, yes or 

no? 

Ms. BARRA. He is developing that, but I think the important 

point—— 

Ms. DEGETTE. So we don’t have that criteria yet—— 

Ms. BARRA. He has a—— 

Ms. DEGETTE [continuing]. Correct? 

Ms. BARRA. He has a draft protocol that he is getting input. He 

is an independent—— 

Ms. DEGETTE. Would you please provide that to this committee, 

the draft protocol? 

Ms. BARRA. We can. 

Ms. DEGETTE. Thank you very much. 

Ms. BARRA. Can I add—— 

Ms. DEGETTE. And—— 

Ms. BARRA [continuing]. A point? 

Ms. DEGETTE. And—no. Let me ask you this. Will Mr. Feinberg 

have discretion to make eligible for payment victims beyond those 

identified by GM to date, because we are hearing there may be up 

to 100 deaths from this? 

Ms. BARRA. We want to capture every single person who suffered 

serious physical injury or lost a loved one, every single person as 

a result of the ignition switch—— 

Ms. DEGETTE. So your answer is yes? 

Ms. BARRA. Yes. 

Ms. DEGETTE. OK, and will those people who receive payment 

through this program be required to release their legal claims? 

Ms. BARRA. I am sorry, the voluntary program? 

Ms. DEGETTE. No. If they get compensated from Mr. Feinberg’s 

program, will they have to release their legal claims to go to court? 

Do you know? 

Ms. BARRA. This program is in lieu of taking this to court. 

Ms. DEGETTE. So your answer is yes? 

Ms. BARRA. I can’t say exhaustively, but as it relates to this specific instance, yes. 

Ms. DEGETTE. OK, will you submit your answer please and let 

me know that? 

Mr. MURPHY. Thank you. 

Ms. DEGETTE. Thank you very much. 

Mr. MURPHY. Gentlelady’s time expired. 

Now recognize Mr. Upton for 5 minutes. 

27 

Mr. UPTON. Thank you again. 

You know, I am a firm believer that you cannot solve a problem 

that you don’t acknowledge or fully understand, so while I am 

going to try to be very interested in forward-looking solutions, I 

want to begin by walking through and defining some key problems 

that we identified from this report. 

First, a simple yes or no. Is it true that GM engineers did not 

believe the ignition switch moving from run to accessory and causing a stall, constituted a safety problem? First, Ms. Barra—— 

Ms. BARRA. Initially—— 

Mr. UPTON [continuing]. And then—— 

Ms. BARRA [continuing]. Yes. 

Mr. UPTON. And Mr. Valukas? 

Mr. VALUKAS. Yes. 

Mr. UPTON. Can you confirm that a GM engineer test driving the 

Cobalt in ’05 experienced a shutoff after hitting the key with his 

knee, and that his report on the incident was categorized as an annoyance rather than a safety issue? 

Ms. BARRA. Yes, that was quite true. 

Mr. UPTON. So let us continue talking about how GM employee 

warnings and experiences were handled. I read with a lot of concern this morning’s news coverage alleging that employee safety 

concerns went unheeded. I won’t ask you to respond to a particular 

newspaper article, but I do want to get your reaction to a case uncovered in our investigation about a specific employee concern, and 

I want to know how it was handled at the time and how it would 

be handled if it was raised today. And you have a tab on page 83 

in your binder, but in ’05, a GM employee drove an ’06 Chevy Impala home from work. When she hit a bump in the road, the ignition switch fell out of the run position and stalled the car. Let me 

read you from her e-mail, which is up on the screen, sent in October of ’05 after she took the vehicle for repair. ‘‘I think this is a 

serious safety problem, especially if this switch is on multiple programs. I am thinking big recall. I was driving 45 miles per hour 

when I hit the pothole and the car shut off, and I had a car driving 

behind me, swerving around me. I don’t like to imagine a customer 

driving with their kids in the backseat on I–75 and hitting a pothole in rush-hour traffic. I think you should seriously consider 

changing this part to a switch with a stronger detent.’’ 

So to reiterate, nearly 9 years ago, a GM employee suggested the 

stalling of the ’06 Impala was a serious safety problem, and speculated that a big recall was coming. So when was the recall for the 

’06 Impala announced, do you know? 

Ms. BARRA. I believe that was part of Monday’s—— 

Mr. UPTON. Two days ago. Monday. Nine years ago. So looking 

at that case, and looking as if it happened today, can you tell us 

specifically how a concern like this would be handled if it was 

raised today? 

Ms. BARRA. Yes. As I testified when I was here last time, we consider a stall to be a safety issue, and so when a stall is brought 

forward, if we then learn and understand it is because of a defect 

in the way some part of a system in the vehicle is working, we are 

going to address it. We do have to understand stalls also happen 

when you run out of gas or pop the clutch, but if we are aware of 

28 

a stall, and we then learn that it is because some part of the vehicle or a system is not operating properly, we will immediately take 

action, and that is what is represented in what we did on Monday. 

Mr. UPTON. Mr. Valukas, in going through the report, there were 

some comments made as to the consumer friendliness of the 

TREAD Act requirements in terms of complaints that were received. What suggestions might you have relating to that, in terms 

of how we proceed in the future? 

Mr. VALUKAS. I don’t have a specific legislative suggestion for 

you. I did include in the recommendations something which I think 

is very important for General Motors, which is they need to look 

at NHTSA as a partner in this issue, and not somebody to be held 

at bay, so that the transmission of information is a free flow of information and problems are elevated at the earliest possible point. 

It is clear to me from the earlier aspects of this investigation that 

there were times where it was almost an adversarial relationship 

rather than a passing of information, but I don’t have a legislative 

suggestion for you. 

Mr. UPTON. Ms. Barra, do you have a comment as it relates to 

the compiling of the information for the TREAD Act for the complaints? 

Ms. BARRA. I think it is very important that we have a productive relationship with the Agency, with NHTSA, and I do think 

there are things that can be done through the national VIN database and also improving the search capability and ability to use 

valuable information that is in the TREAD database. 

Mr. UPTON. OK. I yield back. 

Mr. MURPHY. Thank you. I have a clarifying question based on 

something Ms. DeGette and Mr. Upton said. Given that I think GM 

has now recalled something like 40 million cars, do you have a revised number on the number of deaths and crashes that may have 

been associated with the faulty ignition switch? Do you have a 

number yet? 

Ms. BARRA. The recall that we did on Monday, there’s no 

known—we know of no fatalities. 

Mr. MURPHY. But overall, related to what Ms. DeGette was saying, is there—— 

Ms. BARRA. With the information that we have as it relates to 

the Cobalt and the population of those vehicles, the known number 

we have is still 13. 

Mr. MURPHY. Thank you. 

Recognize Mr. Dingell now for 5 minutes. 

Mr. DINGELL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Welcome to Ms. Barra 

and to Mr. Valukas. We appreciate you being here today. 

You, Mr. Valukas, and your team have compiled a report about 

serious internal shortcomings at General Motors that has contributed to the company’s failure to report a safety defect in the Chevrolet Cobalt. I know that Ms. Barra shares my grave concern about 

the report’s findings, and I look to her and the GM leadership for 

establishing more responsible and communicative cultures at GM. 

We all recognize your report as not an end to the investigation. 

It does impute a number of commonsense recommendations which 

I feel GM should commit to implementing in full. 

29 

My questions to Ms. Barra today will require simple yes or no 

answers. Now, to Ms. Barra, we have learned that Cobalt’s ignition 

switch was redesigned, but it was not given a new part number. 

This obfuscated the company’s internal investigation, and contributed to a delay in defect reporting and subsequent recalls. Mr. 

Valukas suggests in his report that GM adopt procedures that include a specific protocol for reviewing authorizations of out-of-specification parts, tracking out-of-specification parts, identifying who 

should be notified of them, and identifying and elevating any particular safety issues that might be associated with the use of outof-specification parts. The report goes on to suggest that high-level 

review should be required before approval of use of an out-of-specification part. 

Now, does GM commit to implementing these particular suggestions in full, yes or no? 

Ms. BARRA. Yes. 

Mr. DINGELL. Now, Ms. Barra, subsequently, Mr. Valukas suggests in his report that GM make improvements in its problem resolution tracking system, PRTS. More specifically, his report suggests that the standard for closing PRTS without action is clearly 

defined and sufficiently rigorous. He goes on to suggest that PRTS 

should not be closed without action, absent clear sign-off by named 

individuals, and appropriate levels of review. Furthermore, his report suggests that GM reaffirm that the lack of an acceptable business case is not an acceptable reason for closing out a PRTS if that 

involves a safety issue. 

Does GM commit to implementing all of these suggestions moving forward, yes or no? 

Ms. BARRA. Yes. 

Mr. DINGELL. Now, again, Ms. Barra, likewise I think we all 

agree with Mr. Valukas, that GM should implement more robust 

policies and training with respect to component and vehicle safety 

matters. 

At the most basic level, does GM commit to training its employees about the lessons learned from the Cobalt investigation, yes or 

no? 

Ms. BARRA. Yes. 

Mr. DINGELL. Now, again, Ms. Barra, will GM train employees 

to recognize and elevate safety issues, including the emphasis on 

the need to identify and address safety issues actively, regardless 

of whether the vehicles are in the design or production phase, yes 

or no? 

Ms. BARRA. Yes. 

Mr. DINGELL. Now, again, Ms. Barra, when fostering a culture of 

safety, I think we all recognize it is very important that employees 

who recognize and report safety problems in components and vehicle feel comfortable in so doing. 

As such, does GM commit to promote visibility and enforce rigorously the non-retaliation policy contained in paragraph 19 of the 

May 16 NHTSA consent order, yes or no? 

Ms. BARRA. Yes. 

Mr. DINGELL. Now, Ms. Barra, it is also important that all automakers communicate clearly and promptly with NHTSA. I said all 

automakers. 

30 

Will GM create a centralized database for all communications 

with NHTSA, and train its employees who communicate with 

NHTSA, to file their communications in this database, yes or no? 

Ms. BARRA. Yes. 

Mr. DINGELL. Now, do you think that that is good for other companies? 

Ms. BARRA. Yes, I do. 

Mr. MURPHY. Gentleman’s time has expired. 

Mr. DINGELL. Mr. Chairman, I thank you for your courtesy. 

Mr. MURPHY. Thank you very much. 

Now recognize the vice chair of the full committee, Mrs. 

Blackburn, for 5 minutes. 

Mrs. BLACKBURN. Ms. Barra, I thank you for coming back. 

I have a few questions for you, and I have to tell you, many of 

my questions that I asked and couldn’t get answers for in April 

when you were with us, you said after Mr. Valukas finished the report, you hoped to be able to answer these questions. 

Now, since that time, I have been able to be on the floor at the 

Springhill facility which is there in my district. We have 1,868 employees that certainly do not want the GM brand to be tarnished 

by all of this, and so it is important to me on behalf of all those 

constituents that we get some answers, and that we do this very 

quickly. So we thank you for coming back to us today. 

I want to go back to something I asked you about in April, and 

you explained that a part that doesn’t meet all specifications can 

still be acceptable for safety, and the example that you used was 

with steel. Now, we know that the Cobalt ignition switch was redesigned in ’06, right? And testing documents from that time show 

that the torque of the redesigned switch was still below specifications, and yet after this change, the reported incidents of non-deployment in these vehicles dropped dramatically. 

Well, when we look at that and we read those documents, and 

the chairman mentioned, we have been through 1 million pages of 

documents, and 15,000 pages of documents from NHTSA. So we 

are not sitting idly on this, we are taking some action. 

So I want you to go back through this and elaborate on your response that something could still not meet specifications and be acceptable for safety, and I would like to hear from you when it is 

OK to deviate from specifications, and people in the process not be 

aware of this. 

Ms. BARRA. Well, I think when you look, as you start developing 

something, you have a design specification, but what is most important, and the testing that we are doing now is—and had done in 

the past, but are doing in a much more broad fashion now, relates 

to the actual performance of the part and how the part operates in 

a subsystem, how it operates in a broader system, and then how 

it operates in the vehicle. And so as we design now, we are validating that the part level, with the new organization we put together called the product integrity organization, they are actually 

now looking into a much more validation as it relates to subsystems, because what you really want to know is, as all the parts 

come together, that it is going to operate as a system and perform 

safely. 

Mrs. BLACKBURN. OK. 

31 

Ms. BARRA. And that is what the new organization is accomplishing. 

Mrs. BLACKBURN. OK, so what you are saying then, if it doesn’t 

affect safety or effectiveness, it is OK not to meet specifications. 

Ms. BARRA. I am saying there are times where, as long as—it has 

to meet the performance requirements. 

Mrs. BLACKBURN. OK, then how should an engineer evaluate the 

performance, the part’s performance, against the technical specifications? 

Ms. BARRA. Again, there is—you look at performance against requirements. What are the requirements of how that part needs to 

behave in the system, and that is how an engineer evaluates it. 

And, again, what we are doing now is taking that much more 

broadly, so we are not relying on one person—— 

Mrs. BLACKBURN. OK. 

Ms. BARRA [continuing]. To understand across the whole vehicle. 

Mrs. BLACKBURN. Then in this product integrity system, how 

does GM track the deviations that are occurring from the technical 

specifications? 

Ms. BARRA. That is all captured in, you know, very specific documents. 

Mrs. BLACKBURN. How transparent is it? Is it transparent to 

the—— 

Ms. BARRA. It is—— 

Mrs. BLACKBURN [continuing]. Engineer? 

Ms. BARRA. It is available to the engineers, to the chief engineers 

in the organization. 

Mrs. BLACKBURN. OK, was this done, when the switch was approved in ’02 and redesigned in ’06? 

Ms. BARRA. No, what I am talking about is what we have done 

this year. 

Mrs. BLACKBURN. OK, so this was not done. So we still have— 

there was a glitch in the system and people approved a part that 

was not OK. 

Ms. BARRA. Well, the problem with the specific change you are 

referring to was that change was made and it was not documented. 

Mrs. BLACKBURN. OK, then how does a GM engineer know when 

there is a deviation from a specification if it is too much or too little, or if it is acceptable or if it is going to pose a safety problem? 

Ms. BARRA. Again, there are a couple of aspects of this that you 

have to look at, but if you go back to when those changes were 

made and it wasn’t documented, the records were not there to document there was a change, and that was something that is unacceptable, and the individual who didn’t document that is no longer 

with the company. I am telling you that as you do good engineering, you are going to make sure you understand the requirements 

of what you are designing, make sure the part, the subsystem, the 

system meets those requirements, and have full documentation. 

Mrs. BLACKBURN. OK. All right, I will yield back. 

Mr. MURPHY. The gentlelady yields back. 

Now recognize Mr. Braley for 5 minutes. 

Mr. BRALEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Ms. Barra, welcome back. Mr. Valukas, welcome to the committee. 

32 

Ms. Barra, I want to start with some of the comments you made 

in your opening remarks. I have a couple of questions I want to 

talk to you about. 

You mentioned specifically that you had promised that you would 

conduct a comprehensive and transparent investigation. Do you believe that that was accomplished? 

Ms. BARRA. I think the Valukas report was comprehensive. It 

was very far-reaching and we have shared that information. 

Mr. BRALEY. And you also said that you promised you would 

share the findings of the report with Congress, our regulators, 

NHTSA and the courts. 

This is a copy of the report that we received, and it states on the 

very front page of the report, privileged and confidential, protected 

by attorney-client privilege and as attorney work product. You indicated that you hired Mr. Valukas to do this independent investigation, but it is obvious from the report that you considered this to 

be an attorney-client relationship, and the report itself has sections 

blacked out so that we, on this panel, don’t know who some of the 

victims were that are identified in the report. Were you aware of 

that? 

Ms. BARRA. Yes. 

Mr. BRALEY. You also indicated that you would engage Mr. 

Feinberg to develop a just and timely program for compensating 

the families who lost loved ones, and those who had suffered a serious physical injury, including the families who are represented 

here today. There was a recent news report from the Detroit News 

which indicated that Mr. Feinberg has confirmed that the compensation fund will not in any way address people who weren’t 

killed, people who weren’t seriously injured, whose value of the 

automobiles they purchased has been diminished because of all the 

controversy over these parts that we have been talking about. Were 

you aware of that? 

Ms. BARRA. The compensation program that Mr. Feinberg will 

independently administer is for those who lost loved ones or those 

who suffered seriously physical injury. The issue of the value of the 

vehicle is in front of the courts. 

Mr. BRALEY. And that will not be addressed by Mr. Feinberg? 

Ms. BARRA. That is correct. 

Mr. BRALEY. Now, one of the things that we know is that this 

year alone, GM has issued an astonishing 44 recalls, covering 17.7 

million vehicles in the U.S., and more than 20 million worldwide. 

How many of those recalls, to your knowledge, relate to problems 

that were known to someone in GM before the bankruptcy sale 

order of July 2009? 

Ms. BARRA. At the senior level of the company, none, or the action would have been taken. 

Mr. BRALEY. So it is your testimony that none of those are covered. 

Ms. BARRA. I am not sure what you just said. 

Mr. BRALEY. You are saying here today that none of the recalls 

that have been initiated this year relate to problems known to 

someone at GM before the bankruptcy sale order in July of 2009. 

Ms. BARRA. What I said was the senior leadership had no knowledge of those issues—— 

33 

Mr. BRALEY. And that is not my question. You did a very exhaustive investigation into the cultural problems at GM. 

Ms. BARRA. Yes, we did. 

Mr. BRALEY. My question is, as part of that investigation, did you 

identify anyone working at GM who had knowledge relating to 

those product recalls that covered products affected by that bankruptcy discharge order in July of 2009? 

Ms. BARRA. Again, if there was a known safety issue, there 

would have been a recall done. 

Mr. BRALEY. Did you attempt to determine that? 

Ms. BARRA. I was not involved in that process so I can’t comment. 

Mr. BRALEY. Isn’t it possible that that discharge order contributed to GM’s lax approach to safety defects on cars built by the old 

GM? 

Ms. BARRA. Absolutely not. 

Mr. BRALEY. Well, we have talked a lot about this culture of irresponsibility at GM. You have testified about it. It is covered in Mr. 

Valukas’ report. How can you say absolutely not when you haven’t 

even focused on that issue? 

Ms. BARRA. Evidence of that is there were many recalls that 

were conducted during that period of time, but I would say now 

with—we have re-doubled our efforts, and we have gone back even 

more exhaustively than looking at data from TREAD, data from 

customer feedback, and we are now even—with the product integrity organization, it is already accomplishing its task of going and 

looking at how the vehicle performs to a higher level, to ensure we 

have the safest vehicles. 

Mr. BRALEY. Mr. Valukas, you focused on this culture at GM in 

your report. You weren’t here the first time when I showed Ms. 

Barra the screwdriver that was handed out by General Motors in 

the ’70s and ’80s as a promotional item, and it says safety comes 

first at GM on this screwdriver. As part of your investigation into 

the history and culture of GM, did you look back at to whether the 

old GM had made safety a priority the same way that Ms. Barra 

says the new GM is committed to it here today, and aren’t there 

institutional problems that are much far-reaching—much more farreaching than simply firing 15 employees? 

Mr. VALUKAS. Congressman, good question. We looked back and 

solicited from everybody that we interviewed information about 

whether something they—something in the culture caused them to 

do something differently than they otherwise would have done, or 

whether safety became a secondary issue. Almost uniformly, people 

would say to us safety was the top priority, but we identified in 

this report all of the instances of which we were aware relating to 

this matter where people took a different position, so it is there. 

And I would not ascribe to everybody the conduct of the people involved here, but I do say that culture had something to do with the 

reason why this recall took so long. 

Mr. BRALEY. My time is up. Thank you—— 

Mr. VALUKAS. Thank you. 

Mr. BRALEY [continuing]. For your testimony. 

Ms. MURPHY. Thank you. 

Now recognize Mr. Barton of Texas for 5 minutes. 

34 

Mr. BARTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Ms. Barra, we are glad 

to have you back, and Mr. Valukas, we are glad to have you before 

us. 

Our opportunity or responsibility on the committee is to provide 

for the general welfare, and in doing that, get the facts on the table 

so that people can have faith that the products that your company 

produces are safe. And, of course, your requirement is to make sure 

that you do produce a safe product that hopefully results in a profit 

for the company and the stockholder, but we are both on the same 

side. We both want products that are safe, and let the public be 

aware of the capabilities, but also the shortfalls. 

I am going to ask most of my questions to Mr. Valukas, simply 

because we didn’t have your report last time, but I will have one 

or two questions for Ms. Barra at the end of my time. 

I want to focus on the fact that the part number was not changed 

back in April of 2006. A GM engineer did approve changes to the 

ignition switch, but did not change the part number. And, Mr. 

Valukas, in your report, you observed that the decision to not 

change the part number was not properly vetted or scrutinized. 

You note that a Mr. DeGiorgio did not recall why he did not change 

the part number. Is that correct, is that what your report says? 

Mr. VALUKAS. Mr. DeGiorgio told us that he did not change the 

part number, and that as he looked back at it, that he reflected 

that he should have changed the part number. 

Mr. BARTON. OK. And apparently, and obviously, that is very important because you have a part number change, then that creates 

a paper trail, there was some sort of a problem that had to be corrected, and if you are doing an investigation, you can compare, and 

from that time forward, see if the problem was fixed. 

Now, I want to direct your attention to that big binder that we 

have right between you and Ms. Barra, and on tab 35—— 

Ms. VALUKAS. Thirty-five? 

Mr. BARTON. Yes, sir, 3–5. 

Mr. VALUKAS. Give me a moment. 

Mr. BARTON. There is an April 5 chain of e-mails between this 

Mr. DeGiorgio and the engineers at the switch supplier, Delphi, 

and some other GM employees. Attached to that exchange is a 

spreadsheet of upcoming changes to the Delta ignition switch. Can 

you locate that? 

Mr. VALUKAS. I think I have it, yes. 

Mr. BARTON. OK. Now, it is interesting to me that these OK, the 

subject is not anything that is safety-related. The subject matter is 

Delta ignition switch changes, tooling tweaks, increased process capability. And then in the e-mail it talks about this is a black box 

design, and they want to change the part to increase the process 

capability. This will improve the fallout rate at the Delphi Condura 

plant. 

Well, first of all, what is a fallout rate? 

Mr. VALUKAS. I presume it is the rate in which something fails. 

Mr. BARTON. OK. So if you improve the fallout rate, that means 

you are going to decrease the number of failures. Is it important, 

in your mind, that since they talk about a black box, apparently, 

anything within the black box they don’t have to be too worried 

about it as long as everything in the black box works as specified, 

35 

because there, apparently, in retrospect, is quite a bit of commentary about, well, we didn’t really pay much attention because 

it was all within the black box. 

Mr. VALUKAS. Well, that is the commentary, but the general 

rules are to change fit, form or function, whether it is in the black 

box or otherwise, the part number ought to change. And in this situation, particular to this aspect of it which is increasing the torque, 

that would fall within one of those 3 categories. And I think you 

can find an explanation, black box, but even Mr. DeGiorgio in his 

interview with us conceded that this was a change in fit, form and 

function, and would have required a change in the part number. 

And the consequences were devastating over the years. This was 

not the only time. That issue came up four times, as you properly 

note, where people came back to him and said did something 

change, and he said no, and that is one of the reasons why this 

took a decade. 

Mr. BARTON. Well, do you think that this particular e-mail exchange, they knew they had a safety problem and they are 

couching their phraseology differently to hide it, because they don’t 

really talk about a torque issue or anything, they are talking about 

a fallout rate and—within the black box. Do you think this was intentional or—— 

Mr. VALUKAS. No. 

Mr. BARTON. You don’t. 

Mr. VALUKAS. I don’t. Let me put it this way. We have not been 

given access to the Delphi witnesses. We have not been permitted 

to interview them, and our receipt of documents has been limited 

from them. On the GM side of the process, the answer to that question is no. 

Mr. BARTON. OK. And, Ms. Barra, In the time that I don’t have 

anymore, my question to you, Mrs. Blackburn tried to elucidate an 

answer from you about a change in culture, and the fact that, even 

where they are making these specification changes, that they didn’t 

meet the specification as, wasn’t that a problem and shouldn’t you 

make sure that everything meets your specifications. And your answer was, well, if the overall system works, it is OK. Now, to me, 

that doesn’t represent a cultural change. And I have talked to the 

General Motors, the engineers and management team in my district down in Arlington, and they are vocally insistent that they are 

not going to use any part in their plant that doesn’t meet the specification and operate just as it is supposed to. 

Ms. BARRA. I totally agree with you. A part needs to operate just 

as it is supposed to, and there has been significant change. First 

of all, everything that is done, it is documented, it has gone 

through a validation process, it has also gone through a systems 

integration, so it is much more rigorous. And knowing that the part 

is good, and that the system is going to act, or the vehicle is going 

to perform safely and with quality. And as it relates to making a 

part change, absolutely acceptable. I ran an assembly plant and I 

totally agree with the people that you have talked to at the Arlington plant. If you do not have a documented part number you 

shouldn’t be changing parts. So their answer is absolutely correct, 

and I appreciate the fact that they are committed to do that. 

Mr. BARTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

36 

Mr. MURPHY. Thank you. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

Recognize Mr. Butterfield for 5 minutes. 

Mr. BUTTERFIELD. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. You 

know, Mr. Chairman, it is an unspeakable tragedy that so many 

families have suffered as a result of these shortcomings of General 

Motors, and some of these families are with us today. And as feeble 

as it may be, I simply want to offer my condolences to the families 

who have been affected. 

Let me start with you, Ms. Barra. Is it Barra or Barra? 

Ms. BARRA. It is Barra. 

Mr. BUTTERFIELD. OK. We have had a little debate about that 

back here, but, Ms. Barra, Mr. Boyer, who is on the public record 

as stating that the company has hired 40 new defect investigators. 

How many of these individuals will be new to the company? 

Ms. BARRA. I can’t speak specifically, but I can tell you that I believe most of them came from within the company, they—but they 

came, and I know how the selection process was, and they were 

some of our very best engineers across the company, so they knew 

a broad—together, collectively, they knew a broad array of parts 

and systems in the vehicle. 

Mr. BUTTERFIELD. Well, our information—— 

Ms. BARRA. They were handpicked. 

Mr. BUTTERFIELD. Our information and in acting with your company suggests that all 40 of these new individuals would be promoted from within the company. Do you dispute that? 

Ms. BARRA. As I said, I believe—I knew the lion’s share—I can’t 

tell you if one or two came from outside. I know we did an exhaustive search inside to get some of the best and most experienced engineers into this role. 

Mr. BUTTERFIELD. Well, I think you have heard the theme 

throughout this committee today on both sides of the aisle that we 

are talking about a new culture within the company—— 

Ms. BARRA. Yes. 

Mr. BUTTERFIELD [continuing]. And I would strongly suggest that 

you look at bringing in some outside fresh blood to run that part 

of the company. 

How many vehicles has General Motors recalled since the Cobalt 

recall began in February? I have heard 40 million, but I know that 

is over a period of years, but how many actually have been recalled 

since February of this year? 

Ms. BARRA. I have to add up the count. I don’t know if we have 

that information. 

Mr. BUTTERFIELD. Hundreds of thousands? 

Ms. BARRA. It is several millions. In the tens of millions. 

Mr. BUTTERFIELD. And let me ask you this. How are vehicle owners informed by GM about these recalls? Do you e-mail them, do 

you mail them, how do you do it? 

Ms. BARRA. Well, first of all, we follow what the regulations are, 

the NHTSA process. So we send a letter, but we have gone above 

and beyond that. We have sent additional letters in addition to the 

ones that are required as part of the NHTSA process. We have also 

gone out on social media, we have also hired more than 100 people 

to work in our customer engagement centers to call and reach out 

to these individuals. We also know dealers who have been great 

37 

partners in this, have, in many cases, gone out and contacted or 

received calls and explained the situation. 

Mr. BUTTERFIELD. So you go beyond. You go beyond—— 

Ms. BARRA. We have gone well beyond—— 

Mr. BUTTERFIELD [continuing]. Just sending a letter to the address of record? 

Ms. BARRA. Absolutely. 

Mr. BUTTERFIELD. That is reassuring. When you communicate 

with vehicle owners, are they informed of the seriousness of these 

safety hazards posed by the ignition switch? 

Ms. BARRA. Yes, in fact, very specifically in the letter it states 

that to operate the vehicle safely, that you need to have the key 

or just the key in the ring, and take everything off your key ring. 

We have also to these individuals, as you know, made, if they are 

still uncomfortable, although we have demonstrated and NHTSA 

has reviewed and said it is safe to operate the vehicles this way, 

again, with the key or the ring, if the individual still is uncomfortable, because we are customer-focused, we are putting these individuals into loaner or rental vehicles. 

Mr. BUTTERFIELD. And what percentage of the people who were 

notified actually bring the cars back into the dealer? 

Ms. BARRA. Well, in general, we are in the 80s, and I have been 

told we are one of the highest of how we complete recalls, but in 

this case, we are still working through it. 

Mr. BUTTERFIELD. And once there, how long does it take to get 

it fixed? 

Ms. BARRA. It is a matter of an hour or so. 

Mr. BUTTERFIELD. Just a couple of hours, it can—— 

Ms. BARRA. Right. 

Mr. BUTTERFIELD [continuing]. It can get done. It seems like 

there is a large volume of recalls, according to your testimony, and 

I am more concerned about how safely and timely can these corrections be made. I mean—— 

Ms. BARRA. Well, we have—— 

Mr. BUTTERFIELD. With the large volume that—— 

Ms. BARRA. Yes. 

Mr. BUTTERFIELD [continuing]. You are talking about. 

Ms. BARRA. Right. 

Mr. BUTTERFIELD. You are talking about millions of cars. 

Ms. BARRA. Right, but if you look at—— 

Mr. BUTTERFIELD. Yes. 

Ms. BARRA [continuing]. In some cases it is replacing a part, in 

some cases it is as simple as making sure a connection was made. 

In other cases, for instance, in some of our crossover vehicles, over 

time a crimp of an electrical connection where it is simply going 

back and re-crimping and soldering that. We have been exhaustive, 

and I know it sounds like a large number of vehicles, it is, but we 

want to do the right thing for our customers. To my knowledge, 

this is the most expansive, comprehensive review we have done, because in some cases we are acting on vehicles where there is no 

TREAD data even to support there is an issue, but as we went in 

and looked at the subsystem performance, we wanted to make sure 

we were acting safely. 

Mr. BUTTERFIELD. One dealer can do dozens in a single day? 

38 

Ms. BARRA. I am sorry? 

Mr. BUTTERFIELD. One dealer, one large dealer, could do dozens 

in a single day. 

Ms. BARRA. Dozens. Actually, we have dealers that are extending 

their hours and their service department to be responsive to customers to get these repairs made. 

Mr. BUTTERFIELD. Finally, is GM currently investigating ignition 

systems of any other product lines which have not been recalled to 

date? 

Ms. BARRA. We will continue, as I said, we plan to be substantially complete by the end of this month with the additional people 

we have put in, but we are going to continue until we are confident 

that if there are any issues on our vehicles, whether it is a different safety system or ignition switch, that we have reviewed it. 

Mr. BUTTERFIELD. Thank you. Mr. Valukas, we live by the clock 

up here, I am sorry. 

Mr. MURPHY. Thank you. 

Mr. BUTTERFIELD. We will get you next time. 

Ms. MURPHY. Now recognize Dr. Burgess for 5 minutes. 

Mr. BURGESS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And, Ms. Barra, if we 

could just continue on that line of questioning that Mr. Butterfield 

was pursuing. How are your dealers, how are they holding up 

under what must be a massive onslaught of people needing their 

cars fixed? 

Ms. BARRA. Our dealers are doing a tremendous job of supporting 

the customer. As I said, we have many dealers who are reaching 

out. We have had dealers who had a customer that was several 

miles away, for instance, there was one who they were concerned 

because their daughter had the vehicle and there wasn’t a dealership close by. The dealer went back and forth and got the vehicle, 

got the repair made, and gave a loaner. So I can’t be more proud 

of how our dealers are supporting the customer. 

Mr. BURGESS. But yet, you have millions of cars that need to get 

in and be attended to. Pretty hard to provide a loaner car for that 

population. 

Ms. BARRA. Well, first of all, most dealers for a simple repair 

have loaner programs. It depends on the dealer and the issue, but 

on specifically the Cobalt and that population of vehicles, we are 

providing loaners or rentals, and we have worked with rental companies to make sure they have enough vehicles to do that, but 

again, in many of these cases, even though the vehicle is recall, it 

is a very simple visual inspection to know if the vehicle is OK or 

not, and the dealers are very equipped to do that with their service 

technicians. 

Mr. BURGESS. And I just recall being on this committee when we 

went through this with Toyota back in 2009, the Toyota dealership 

in the district that I represent had extended hours, would stay 

open until late at night to accommodate people who otherwise were 

working and couldn’t get in. And you feel that that is the case currently with the GM dealers? 

Ms. BARRA. I absolutely do. I have spoken to hundreds of dealers, 

and I know our North America president, Alan Batey, has also— 

we have regular communications—— 

Mr. BURGESS. But—— 

39 

Ms. BARRA [continuing]. As they share with—— 

Mr. BURGESS [continuing]. Let me interrupt just because my 

time is going to run out. How are you doing—what seems to be the 

chokepoint in this? Is it getting the part to the dealer? 

Ms. BARRA. Actually, we have produced and shipped over 400,000 

parts. The challenge is getting the customer to come in and get the 

vehicle repaired, and that is why we have employed a lot of innovative ways to do that, and that is why the dealers are reaching out. 

Mr. BURGESS. And yet, in a story in the New York Times either 

yesterday or today, people talk about receiving multiple postcards, 

you have to come in and get your car fixed, and they say I have 

tried but they don’t have the part available for me. Are we going 

to start hearing less and less of those stories? 

Ms. BARRA. I think we should because we start another line 

within a week, so we are continuing to ramp up, but right now, we 

do have the parts, but we have tried to be incredibly fair and 

that—in a first-come-first-serve basis as customers raise their 

issues. Some of the postcards that we have sent are because they 

are required on a frequency by law, and we are complying with the 

law. 

Mr. BURGESS. Thank you. 

Mr. Valukas, let me ask you a couple of questions. And I think 

I understood from your introduction that you are a trial attorney, 

is that correct? 

Mr. VALUKAS. I am. 

Mr. BURGESS. I mean I have to tell you, at some point, were you 

just pulling your hair out over some of these things that—as your 

investigation churned through this information? Let me specifically—you have the binder in front of you. I don’t have—mine is 

not divided up into tabs, but page 119—— 

Mr. VALUKAS. Of the report? 

Mr. BURGESS. In your report. 

Mr. VALUKAS. Thank you. 

Mr. BURGESS. Here is a paragraph, witnesses have inconsistent 

recollection as to whether the product investigations group became 

involved in the Cobalt airbag non-deployment issues at this stage. 

Everest reports that in April ’07, the FDA group transitioned the 

Cobalt airbag matter to the PI Group where it was taken on by an 

engineer named Eric Buddrius. Documents in Buddrius’ file indicate he was working on the issue, and a May 4, 2007, investigation 

status review presentation planning worksheet states that he was 

scheduled to present on an issue described as Cobalt airbag discussion item. Buddrius had no recollection of the involvement. I mean 

they were right up to the point where they had an answer, and 

now this guy doesn’t even remember working on it. Was that pretty 

frustrating from a trial lawyer’s perspective? 

Mr. VALUKAS. One of the key problems we found is the lack of 

documentation, which led to lack of accountability. And I think a 

classic example of that was what happened in 2005, when we went 

back to find out why did they close the investigation into the Cobalt issue, and we found ourselves in a position where there were 

no notes with regard to the matter, everybody at the meeting pointed to somebody else in the meeting has having responsibility for 

having closed the matter, but we could not ascertain who actually 

40 

had that responsibility, or what were the circumstances which 

caused the closure to take place. 

Mr. BURGESS. All right. 

Mr. VALUKAS. And that lack of accountability is reflected in so 

many of those areas. When we went back, we were dealing in many 

instances with no documents. 

Mr. BURGESS. Well, let me just ask you, because I am going to 

run out of time. The 15 individuals have been terminated by General Motors, is that correct, but we can’t know those 15—as we 

read through this report, we can’t know the names of those 15 individuals because of employee privacy concerns, is that correct? 

Ms. BARRA. It has been submitted to the committee. 

Mr. BURGESS. It has been submitted to the committee? 

Ms. BARRA. It has been—but we have asked that it be confidential to respect the—— 

Mr. BURGESS. All right—— 

Ms. BARRA [continuing]. Privacy. 

Mr. BURGESS [continuing]. Thank you for that. Can you just tell 

us what was the basis for termination, because I go through this, 

it looks like a lot more than 15 people should have been terminated. 

Ms. BARRA. Yes, and there was a senior group of my leaders that 

we looked, we read the report, and we were very thorough in looking at those who we believed didn’t take the actions they should, 

and then those who simply didn’t move with a sense of urgency. 

The people closest to us over a repeated period of time are those 

who are no longer with the company. 

Mr. MURPHY. Thank you. 

Mr. BURGESS. Thank you. 

Mr. MURPHY. All right. Now recognize Mr. Green for 5 minutes. 

Mr. GREEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for doing 

the follow-up hearing. 

Ms. Barra, you said that you had shipped 400,000 parts. Was 

that for the ignition issue? 

Ms. BARRA. Yes, I was specifically referring—— 

Ms. GREEN. How many—— 

Ms. BARRA [continuing]. To the ignitions—— 

Mr. GREEN. How many do you estimate were recalled or the 

need—how many were recalled, because I keep hearing 16 million, 

but I know there are other—— 

Ms. BARRA. OK. 

Mr. GREEN [continuing]. Issues. 

Ms. BARRA. Of the specific ignition switch cylinder, because it is 

a kit now that we put together, the total number of vehicles produced globally was over 2.6 million. Now, we know not all of those 

are still in service today, and we have built kits to service the 2.6 

population. We are already over 400,000. We will be complete by 

August 4—or, excuse me, October 4. 

Mr. GREEN. OK. You have been vocal about GM’s effort to change 

its corporate culture, which you describe in our last hearing in 

April as a cost culture. Mr. Valukas, can you describe some of the 

problems you saw with the corporate culture in your report, talk 

about the GM nod and the GM salute. What do these refer to? 

41 

Mr. VALUKAS. Well, let me be specific on that. The GM—without 

using those phrases, you had a situation where it took a plaintiff’s 

lawyer to do the simple thing of comparing two switches; one from 

2006 with one from 2009, to find out that GM had manufactured 

two separate switches. No one goes back to revisit previously-made 

decisions, so they are stuck in if it is the decision we have made, 

we don’t go back and revisit and look to see if there is something 

else. We have a situation where you had silos, you had people within GM who had certain levels of information that was not shared 

with other individuals, and so when the other individuals found 

that information, for instance, the Indiana report, Officer Young’s 

report, that information was ultimately supplied by third parties 

outside of GM. GM did not know that they had that information 

within their own files, at least some of that information, on files 

and some of it was in public records. You had circumstances where, 

among other things, you have a sensitivity to the use of the word 

stalls, which might have created for someone the impression that 

maybe we stay away from using words which will force people to 

ask hard questions, rather than taking an approach in which you 

ask the hard questions and—— 

Mr. GREEN. OK. OK. 

Mr. VALUKAS [continuing]. Take whatever those answers are. So 

we found instances of that which had a significant impact on—at 

least in terms of the finding information, impact on how the investigation of the Cobalt switch—— 

Mr. GREEN. Well, it sounds like the old GM’s culture was mostly 

let us not talk about a problem. Is that what it is, without notes, 

and I understand we are both lawyers, you may say, well, I don’t 

want to take notes because somebody can subpoena them, so GM 

just put them under the rug and now it is coming home to roost. 

Ms. Barra, in our last hearing, you referred to the new GM in 

your responses to you questions, the culture would change under 

your leadership. You testified that GM created a new vice president 

of global vehicle safety, it was filled by Jeff Boyer, and I know you 

have been with GM a number of years, and Mr. Boyer has been 

with GM? 

Ms. BARRA. Yes, he has been—— 

Mr. GREEN. And so you all both worked for the old GM. Can you 

tell me what is going to be different in the new GM, even though 

everybody in the 40 inspectors that Congressman Butterfield 

talked about, are GM. You need a culture change and not just verbiage. 

Ms. BARRA. I completely agree with you, so it will be the actions 

we take, the actions we are taking, but I can also tell you that the 

men and women of General Motors, the vast majority come to work 

every day and they want to do a good job. They heard me talk 

about this report. They are as deeply troubled as I am, and they 

are taking action, and we are creating a culture. I have evidence 

of it every day where employees are coming forward, they want to 

do the right thing, they want to produce high quality safe vehicles. 

Mr. GREEN. Well, and I only have a minute, and I agree, but that 

needs to continue because I also know how it works on the shop 

floor, that, oh, don’t talk about that, just do your job, and that is 

what got GM into this position. 

42 

Your company set up a compensation fund for victims of this 

fault, in recognizing that no amount of money can replace a loved 

one or can compensate for someone who is terribly injured, how 

would that fund be administered, and what in the mere total do 

you expect to compensate the victims with? Have you announced 

a total for that? 

Ms. BARRA. We haven’t announced a total. Again, it is being run 

by Ken Feinberg, who is known as an expert in this area. He will 

have complete—— 

Mr. GREEN. I am familiar with Mr. Feinberg from the—— 

Ms. BARRA. He will—— 

Mr. GREEN [continuing]. BP. 

Ms. BARRA [continuing]. Have complete independence, but I 

think it is important to note that General Motors wants to reach 

with this compensation program everyone who lost a loved one due 

to this issue, or suffered serious physical injury, and that is what 

we have communicated to Mr. Feinberg. 

Mr. GREEN. Well, I am out of time, but there are a whole lot of 

GM customers out there who are frustrated because over the decade have been loyal, but now we are seeing the 16 million recalls. 

There is a problem, and I hope you will have it fixed. 

But, Mr. Chairman, I would hope we would continue this to 

make sure it is fixed. 

And I yield back my time. 

Mr. MURPHY. Gentleman yields back. 

I now recognize Dr. Gingrey for 5 minutes. 

Mr. GINGREY. Ms. Barra, I want to ask you a question about the 

situation in the Cobalt. If one of my two, or twin, 16-year-old 

granddaughters driving in the Cobalt and inadvertently the ignition turns to the accessory position, if they, who just got their driver’s license 3 months ago, I would think that their initial reaction 

would be to try to turn the car back on, start the car back again, 

although it is in drive and it is not in neutral, would the car start 

back up? 

Ms. BARRA. Well, first of all, if they were driving the vehicle and 

they had just the key in the ring, this condition shouldn’t happen. 

Mr. GINGREY. No, but if it did happen. 

Ms. BARRA. So—— 

Mr. GINGREY. Let us assume that it did happen. 

Ms. BARRA. OK, so then you have to restart the car. I guess—— 

Mr. GINGREY. I think the answer is—— 

Ms. BARRA [continuing]. You would have to go—— 

Mr. GINGREY. You would have to put it in neutral—— 

Ms. BARRA. Put it in neutral or park, right. 

Dr. GINGREY [continuing]. Before it would start. And that would 

be pretty hard for a 16-year-old, inexperienced driver to even think 

of, with an 18-wheeler bearing down on them. And as I listen and 

the other hearing that you were at several weeks ago, General Motors has got to have the best engineers in the world, whether they 

are electrical engineers or mechanical engineers, probably both. 

How in the world would they not know that when the vehicle, 

when the ignition inadvertently, because of the low torque, and it 

shifts to the accessory position, the engine stalls, that that would 

also deactivate the airbags? I would think that that kind of testing 

43 

is done to a fare-thee-well before a vehicle is approved for sale. I 

mean, well, how could they not know that? 

Ms. BARRA. I can’t speculate on why they didn’t know. What I 

can tell you is any time a vehicle stalls now, we consider it to be 

a safety issue, and if we find that there is a malfunction in a part 

or a defect in a part that causes the stall to occur, we are going 

to—— 

Mr. GINGREY. Well, I would say a safety issue indeed if a side 

airbag would not inflate if somebody got T-boned in the middle of 

an intersection when this happened, and a young person, even an 

experienced driver of 40 years, is not going to think that quickly. 

Mr. Valukas, and I think you alluded to this a few minutes ago, 

if not for the Brooke Melton lawsuit, and Brooke’s—I can’t see the 

back of the room but her picture may be up there on the wall. She 

is in my district in Paulding County, Georgia, 11th Congressional 

District of Georgia. If not for the Brooke Melton lawsuit, and she 

was killed, and the fact that her lawyers figured out that the ignition switch part from model year 2008 was different from model 

years 2005, ’06 and ’07, in the Cobalt, would we even know about 

this ignition switch problem today? Would we even be aware of it? 

Mr. VALUKAS. The answer is yes, because there was an open and, 

at that point, significant investigation going on at that particular 

point, and certainly, there was information and evidence that was 

accumulating as they were going forward, pointing to the fact that 

they had these non-deployments, pointing to the fact they had fatalities, and pointing to the fact—— 

Mr. GINGREY. Well—— 

Mr. VALUKAS [continuing]. That the switch had something to do 

with it. 

Mr. GINGREY. Well, that smacks—— 

Mr. VALUKAS. I mean—— 

Mr. GINGREY. That smacks of a big cover-up to me. And after 

General Motors learned of this change, it took months for GM outside experts to confirm that there had been a change. Why did this 

take so long? 

Mr. VALUKAS. I don’t have a good answer for that. I can tell you 

it did take that long. I can tell you that from the time of April of 

2013, when that deposition took place, they knew or should have 

known at that—or they knew at that point that they had two different switches, and they gave it to Mr. Mellady, the expert, and 

he came back with his confirmation of what they were given in the 

way of information in April, and that took until almost October. 

Mr. GINGREY. Yes, it is amazing, and that when the issue was 

presented to decisionmakers in December, no recall was announced. It took another month and a half before GM finally decided to recall the Cobalt. 

What information was missing in December that prevented GM 

from issuing a recall at that time? Ms. Barra, can you tell me? 

Ms. BARRA. I can’t talk about the specific information. I think we 

do know that not all the information was presented at that meeting. I would say when the right information was in front of that 

group, they did make the right decision, but I would also say, and 

I have said publically—— 

44 

Mr. GINGREY. Well, let me just say in my concluding 35 seconds, 

this whole sequence, this whole sequence, from the time the company learned of a potential difference in the parts during the 

Melton litigation, to the time the recalls were announced, took 10 

months. Ms. Barra, why the foot-drag? Is this typical of GM’s investigations into a product concern, and how do you intend to 

change this? 

Ms. BARRA. Well, we already have with the way we are working 

through recalls today. We have changed that process. It is expedited, and the most senior levels of the company are involved in it, 

and I think, again, although I don’t want to do recalls, we are going 

to do what is right for our customers, and we are demonstrating 

it today. 

Mr. GINGREY. Thank you. And I yield back. 

Mr. MURPHY. I should ask a clarifying question because the doctor referred to it, and a number of Members have asked with regard to the word cover-up. Can you define what cover-up means, 

Mr. Valukas? 

Mr. VALUKAS. In this instance, what we looked for was any evidence that individuals knew that they had a safety issue, and took 

steps to conceal the fact that they had a safety issue. That is what 

we were looking for in terms of cover-up. And then we interviewed 

individuals, we asked them questions to gather the facts to see 

whether, in fact, that had taken place, and we sought to test those 

facts against the documents that we were reviewing. So if someone 

knew something on a given day, we identified that and we took 

steps to see whether they concealed what they knew from other individuals. We did not find that. That is what I am talking about. 

Mr. MURPHY. Does your definition also include if people slowwalked moving on safety issues—— 

Mr. VALUKAS. If it was a—— 

Mr. MURPHY [continuing]. Is that also a cover-up? 

Mr. VALUKAS. If it was a—pardon me, I don’t mean to interrupt. 

Mr. MURPHY. That is OK. 

Mr. VALUKAS. If it was deliberately done, then it would encompass something like that. If it was a matter of someone being in 

a position, for instance, when one of the investigators was given 

the assignment, he was given no deadline, he was given no sense 

of urgency, so he put it into the queue with other investigation and 

it took its time. That I would not call a cover-up, I would call that 

something other than that. 

Mr. MURPHY. Thank you. 

All right, Mr. Yarmuth, you are recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. YARMUTH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Ms. Barra, welcome back to the committee. When you were here 

on April 1, I told you that a member of my staff had had a Chevrolet Malibu that was subject to a recall. She found that out by 

going on the Web site, not through any personal notification. And 

she inquired of the dealership, how she should proceed and they 

said there is no fix, and I presented you with that dilemma and 

you said at the time there is a fix, whether it is a check or a replacement of the product, but that fix does exist for that specific 

vehicle. Well, I have here the important safety recall that she just 

received on Monday, so that is 2 1⁄2 months after you appeared here 

45 

on April 1, notifying her of the recall, saying that her vehicle may 

experience a sudden loss of power steering assist, and then other 

language, which could result in an increased risk of a crash, and 

also informed her that the part doesn’t exist yet to fix the product. 

So when you consider that situation, a different vehicle, different 

problem, with the ignition problem that we have focused on, and 

you have already said that many of these vehicles will not be fixed, 

the ignition problem, until October, those parts won’t be available, 

what are consumers supposed to do when they are going a period 

of up to 6 months or longer without any way to fix their vehicle? 

How can they assess the risk? I don’t know what my staffer should 

do. There is no—I mean I see all the pharmaceutical products, the 

long list of possible side-effects, and you have to calculate the risk, 

but would you advise or would you let your son or daughter drive 

these vehicles now with the level of risk that you may know more 

about than we do? 

Ms. BARRA. Well, on the Cobalt specifically, we have done extensive testing on driving the vehicle with the key or the key in the 

ring, and it has validated that it is safe. We have also reviewed 

that with the technical experts at NHTSA and they have concurred. So, in that case, those vehicles are demonstrated safe to 

drive. 

Just in general, if people have concerns, they can go to their 

dealer or they can call our customer engagement center and we 

walk them through the specifics of their specific issue, because, 

again, in many of the recalls that we have done, it is not a part 

replace, it is a visual check, and depending on what happens, it 

would be what needs to be repaired. So each individual recall has 

a slightly different look and feel to it. 

Mr. YARMUTH. So I know you have talked about the possibility 

of loaner vehicles and rental cars and so forth, but—and I understand the difficulty with a supplier gearing up to produce a part 

that they may not have made in 4 or 5 years, and they have to all 

of a sudden come up with several million of them. We have a part 

manufacturer in Kentucky in my district that services Peterbilt 

trucks, and I have been to theirs and I know how much work they 

have to do, but again, is there any reliable alternative to these consumers who, again, face a very important decision as to whether— 

I mean I don’t know what the risk—of whether NHTSA has assessed the risk with regard to power steering assist, whether that 

is significant or not, but there are a lot of consumers out there, I 

am sure, who are wondering whether they should be driving or not. 

Ms. BARRA. Again, I would encourage them to call our customer 

engagement center or talk to the dealer, and we can talk about the 

specific situation. 

Mr. YARMUTH. OK. I have no other questions. 

Ms. DEGETTE. The gentleman—— 

Mr. YARMUTH. Yes, I am sorry, yield to the ranking member. 

Ms. DEGETTE. I just wanted to ask you a question, Ms. Barra, 

since there is a little time here. 

So you had testified that out of the roughly 2.6 million of these 

cars that were recalled, you guys have sent 400,000 parts out to 

your dealers, is that right? 

Ms. BARRA. Produced and shipped. 

46 

Ms. DEGETTE. I am sorry? 

Ms. BARRA. Yes 

Ms. DEGETTE. Yes, roughly. And as of Monday, it looks like 

about only 177,000 of these vehicles have been repaired. And you 

had testified a little bit earlier—so that is 177,000 vehicles out of 

2.6 million vehicles. And we have talked about this before. This is 

one of our big concerns in this committee, is how do we get those 

folks to take in those recalled vehicles to be repaired, and you said 

you are looking at some innovative ways to do that. I am wondering if you could just take a few seconds to talk about how GM 

is trying to get those people to take those cars in. 

Ms. BARRA. Well, we are doing a lot on social media, and we are 

looking at the populations especially, some of these vehicles are 

older vehicles, so we have done actual research to figure out what 

messages would be most compelling to have these individuals come 

in to get their vehicles fixed. I would also say we are, the dealers 

are working to do specific arrangements with each individual to 

make it as inconvenient or to—— 

Ms. DEGETTE. As convenient. 

Ms. BARRA. As convenient as possible, to reduce the inconvenience. And so there are a number of steps. You know, right now, 

we are in a—— 

Ms. DEGETTE. Or let me ask you because we are—— 

Mr. MURPHY. No, we are—— 

Ms. DEGETTE [continuing]. Can you meet the October 4 NHTSA 

deadline? 

Ms. BARRA. We are on track. I have talked to the CEOs of the 

companies making these parts, and we monitor it on a daily basis. 

Ms. DEGETTE. OK. 

Mr. MURPHY. All right, thank you. 

OK, Mr. Olson, 5 minutes. 

Mr. OLSON. I thank the chair. And welcome, Ms. Barra, and, Mr. 

Valukas. 

I approach issues like these from the perspective as a Naval officer and a pilot. Leaders in The Navy are called skippers. Good 

skippers give credit for others who do good. When good things happen in a squadron, they give credit to others. Bad skippers take 

all—I’m sorry. Good skippers give the credit and take all the 

blame. By that definition, Ms. Barra, you are a decent skipper, but 

people have died because of GM’s defective product. 

As we knew, and Mr. Valukas’ report shows clearly, those deaths 

occurred because our ship, GM, had some problems that can’t be 

fixed overnight. As GM’s skipper, the burden to fix these problems 

is upon you, ma’am. Squarely upon you, and I think you know that. 

GM has to rebuild its trust with the American people, and part of 

that trust is being straightforward on the number of deaths that 

have occurred because of these defective Cobalts. 

You have testified that 13 deaths occurred because of these cars, 

is that right, ma’am? 

Ms. BARRA. I have testified that with the information we 

have—— 

Mr. OLSON. OK. 

Ms. BARRA [continuing]. We believe that the ignition switch may 

have been related to 13, but I don’t have all the information. 

47 

Mr. OLSON. OK, because that is a problem because on the wall 

behind you, there are 15 photographs of tragedy and loss from Cobalt vehicles. 

Ms. BARRA. And that is why we are doing the compensation program. It will be independently administered by Mr. Feinberg, and 

I can assure you that I and General Motors want to make sure that 

anybody who was harmed as a result of the ignition switch defect 

is a part of that program. 

Mr. OLSON. I will get to that compensation fund later. 

How about injuries? Any number of injuries you think that has 

been caused by defective Cobalt—injuries, not deaths but injuries? 

What is the number? Any idea, ballpark? 

Ms. BARRA. Again, I don’t have the specific number in front of 

me, but we don’t have a complete number because we only have the 

information that is available to us, but again, that is why Mr. 

Feinberg, who is an expert in doing this, and we want to have everybody who had suffered serious physical injury or suffered the 

loss of a loved one, we want everyone to be a part of this program. 

Mr. OLSON. And thank you very much, Mr. Feinberg because, as 

you know, restoring the trust of the American people, part of that 

is having a viable, robust compensation program for the victims’ 

families. And I know you have tasked Mr. Feinberg, as you have 

mentioned, to evaluate options for the compensation trust fund, my 

question is, from your opening statements, it sounds like GM has 

not put any limits on Mr. Feinberg. Is that true? No limits on the 

compensation? What is—he has got all options out there to determine the compensation trust fund? 

Ms. BARRA. I didn’t hear the beginning of your question, I am 

sorry. 

Mr. OLSON. The question is, you have tasked Mr. Feinberg to 

have this compensation fund, are there any limits upon him because he is out there doing whatever he wants to do. I mean what 

are—— 

Ms. BARRA. He is independent, and he will determine those who 

qualify that meet his protocol and the appropriate amounts. 

Mr. OLSON. Will your Board have oversight—have to approve his 

recommendations or—— 

Ms. BARRA. No. 

Mr. OLSON [continuing]. Just—no, so he is—— 

Ms. BARRA. He is—— 

Mr. OLSON [continuing]. An independent operator. 

Ms. BARRA. He is independent. 

Mr. OLSON. Have families that have previously reached settlements with GM, will they be eligible for this trust fund? 

Ms. BARRA. They are eligible to apply. 

Mr. OLSON. How about the families whose claims were before 

GM’s bankruptcy, they—— 

Ms. BARRA. Eligible to apply. 

Mr. OLSON. They are eligible as well. How much do you expect 

the fund to be? Any ballpark? 

Ms. BARRA. Without knowing the protocol, I can’t speculate on 

that. By the time Mr. Feinberg shares with us his protocol, then 

we will have to take an appropriate estimate, but we really won’t 

know until the program has been fully administered, and we have 

48 

indicated that we will share the number of incidents and also the 

total. 

Mr. OLSON. Is there a chance the fund will be capped, a limit? 

Ms. BARRA. No. 

Mr. OLSON. No chance. OK, I yield back. Thank you, sir. 

Mr. BURGESS. Will the gentleman yield? 

Mr. OLSON. I will. 

Mr. BURGESS. Let me just ask you, Ms. Barra, along the lines of 

do people know how to get in touch with you if they are having 

trouble getting their car fixed? 

Ms. BARRA. Again, in the letters that we sent, and we send to 

the the record, we go to Polk and get registration data, and that 

is the best information we have. That is why one of the things that 

would be very helpful is to have a national VIN database. That 

would be incredibly helpful to make sure we are reaching them directly. But in the communications that we have had, there is information on how to contact us as well as their dealer. 

Mr. BURGESS. So the message should be, a person should contact 

their dealer? 

Ms. BARRA. Well, they can contact our customer engagement center. There is also a 1-800 number at the back of their owner’s manual, but then in addition, we know many people will contact their 

dealer. 

Mr. BURGESS. Before this testimony concludes today, could you 

provide us with that 800 number? 

Ms. BARRA. Sure. 

Mr. BURGESS. A lot of people are watching this hearing, and I am 

getting a lot of activity on Twitter, people wanting to know how to 

get their cars fixed. 

Ms. BARRA. Sure. 

Mr. BURGESS. So you would help us if you did that. 

Mr. MURPHY. OK. 

Mr. BURGESS. Thank you. 

Mr. MURPHY. Thank you. 

I now recognize Ms. Castor for 5 minutes. 

Ms. CASTOR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The Valukas report refers to the Board’s commitment to improving the quality of GM’s vehicles through a bonus plan for corporate 

officers and employees at the executive, director and supervisor levels, and part of whether the calculation for whether a bonus would 

be payable was improvement in the quality of GM’s vehicles. 

Mr. Valukas, do you know what improvement in quality means, 

or how it is quantified for the purposes of the bonus calculation? 

Mr. VALUKAS. I can’t give you the calculation. I can tell you that 

within the quality calculation, it is supposed to be safety, that the 

individuals which we interviewed identify improvement in quality 

as relating to the safety issues, so that it would include—— 

Ms. CASTOR. So safety is supposed to be a quality—— 

Mr. VALUKAS. Absolutely. 

Ms. CASTOR [continuing]. Component, but how is that quantified? 

Mr. VALUKAS. I don’t have an answer for you on that. 

Ms. CASTOR. OK. Ms. Barra, did you receive bonuses through 

this bonus program during the last decade while the ignition 

switch issues were ongoing with GM? 

49 

Ms. BARRA. There were many years where there was no bonus 

paid, but there are some years where there was. Not all of those 

years there was quality, but I can tell you that the quality components, one aspect of it is, is external surveys in which safety is an 

element of that. 

Ms. CASTOR. How many years did you receive those bonuses? 

Ms. BARRA. I would have to go back and check. 

Ms. CASTOR. OK, so you will provide those to the committee? 

Ms. BARRA. Sure. 

Ms. CASTOR. Thank you. And, Ms. Barra, will GM’s bonus program be revised to include an explicit safety component? 

Ms. BARRA. It already has quality that has safety as a piece of 

it. I will commit though, I will go back and review to make sure 

it is explicit. 

Ms. CASTOR. Because Mr. Valukas just said he reviewed it and 

he is not certain how expansive that is, and what really goes into 

considerations of safety. 

Ms. BARRA. I will make sure it is explicit. It is a good suggestion. 

Ms. CASTOR. OK. Ms. Barra, will GM’s compensation structure 

for all employees, including those below the leadership levels, now 

include a safety component? 

Ms. BARRA. Again, when you speak of all employees, 220,000 employees, or over 200,000 around the world, and we comply with the 

different laws in those compensation programs, but we have sent 

a strong signal that quality is important, and that represents 25 

percent across all levels. 

Ms. CASTOR. I would recommend that, as part of your overhaul 

for all employees to encourage considerations of safety, that it is 

made much more explicit to all of those employees. In the past, GM 

has put into place incentives for high-level employees to make improvements. If GM is serious about its new focus on safety, there 

should be stronger incentives in place for executives and all of the 

other GM employees, at the very least, to identify safety problems 

and improve the safety of all GM’s vehicles. 

And now I would like to ask about the adequacy of the recall. 

GM has assured the public that the replacement part for the recalled vehicles will fix the defect; low torque that causes the ignition switch to turn too easily from the run position to the off or accessory position. Ms. Barra, I hope you can assure me that this is 

the case? 

Ms. BARRA. It has been validated extensively, and then NHTSA 

has as well reviewed it. 

Ms. CASTOR. But here is my concern. There seemed to be two 

problems with these vehicles’ ignition switches. Issue number one 

is that the force required to turn the switch is too low. And issue 

number two is that a driver’s knee can hit the key or key fob and 

inadvertently turn the switch to the off position because of it is 

placed too low. The fix to the recall will be to install a new ignition 

switch with higher torque, requiring more force to turn off the 

switch. Is that correct? 

Ms. BARRA. Right, but if you look at the switch, the cylinder and 

the key, and then you look at how that works as a system, it has 

been validated to not only talk about the issue that you are talking 

50 

about, about turning, but also the potential knee interference. Both 

have been validated. 

Ms. CASTOR. What will the torque specification that the new 

switches will make? What is the new torque specification? 

Ms. BARRA. Well, the specification is 20 plus-or-minus 5, but the 

more important thing to look at is the overall performance of the 

system, and that is what we have done. 

Ms. CASTOR. Is that 20 newton centimeters? 

Ms. BARRA. It is 20 newton centimeters, yes. 

Ms. CASTOR. And do you know how GM arrived at that specification? 

Ms. BARRA. Well, that was a specification, but we have gone back 

and tested extensively with varying levels of keys on rings, and 

with varying heights of people—size of people. It has been an exhaustive testing—— 

Ms. CASTOR. Well, here is our—— 

Ms. BARRA [continuing]. That has been done. 

Ms. CASTOR [continuing]. Concern, because when the committee 

interviewed several GM engineers, Mr. DeGiorgio, Mr. Altman and 

Mr. Stouffer, they all told us they had no idea of the basis for that 

specification. And GM has received multiple reports indicating that 

the placement of the ignition switch in these vehicles could cause 

a driver’s knee to hit the key or the key fob and turn off the switch, 

isn’t that right? 

Ms. BARRA. Neither of those individuals have been a part of the 

company as we have done, or been involved in, all of the extensive 

testing and validation that we have done specifically with the new 

product integrity organization, so they are really not in a position 

to comment. 

Ms. CASTOR. But certainly, that would raise a concern if your 

former engineers continue to have concerns over the fix. 

Ms. BARRA. Well, I don’t find Mr. DeGiorgio credible, and I personally reviewed the testing that has been done by very experienced, seasoned engineers, and I am confident that the right validation has been done of the system in the vehicle. 

Ms. CASTOR. I yield back. 

Mr. MURPHY. Thank you. 

Now recognize Mr. Griffith for 5 minutes. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Ms. Barra, we have talked a little bit about the compensation 

trust fund, and you have indicated that Mr. Feinberg is going to 

set parameters, but you don’t have those yet. He is going to determine who is eligible, and he is going to make the determination as 

to how much they are eligible for. Is that correct? 

Ms. BARRA. That is correct. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. And do you know if he is going to determine—because most people have focused just on the airbag deployment, and 

your list of 13 that you know of at this point only includes airbag 

deployment issues. Do you know if he is looking at other parameters? 

Ms. BARRA. We have told him that we want to make sure anybody who suffered harm, either lost a loved one or suffered serious 

physical injury because of the defect with the ignition switch, that 

they should be a part of the program. 

51 

Mr. GRIFFITH. So you acknowledge what Mr. Gingrey was getting 

to earlier, and that is, if you are traveling down the highway at a 

fairly good rate of speed, whether it be 48 miles or more, or 35 

miles an hour, and all of a sudden your car goes into a stall or the 

ignition turns off, you have to put that into neutral and restart it, 

that is going to have been responsible for a number of the accidents 

that took place, whether or not the airbags were deployed or, in 

fact, even if the airbag not being deployed didn’t cause the death 

or injury, there might still have been an injury as a result of that. 

You acknowledge that? 

Ms. BARRA. If the ignition switch was part of the issue, we want 

them in the program. And there are other incidences. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. So then I have to question why you have one of 

the two folks in the accident that was referred to in Trooper 

Young’s accident report, one of those two individuals is on the list 

of 13, but Natasha Weigel is not, and that raises the question, because she was in the backseat. So the airbag didn’t affect her, but 

clearly that accident may very well have been the result of the fact 

that you had a young driver, as pointed out by Mr. Gingrey, who 

suddenly finds themselves in an emergency situation on the highway, going 48 miles an hour, and they don’t have an engine that 

works anymore. And you would agree that if the engine is not 

working, if the power is off, you don’t have power steering anymore 

either, do you? 

Ms. BARRA. We were clear about the 13, but again, we want to 

get everybody who was affected, and that is what we are focused 

on. And so, again—— 

Mr. GRIFFITH. And you want to make sure that everybody is fully 

and fairly compensated, is that correct? 

Ms. BARRA. That is correct. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. Then I have to ask you this question, Ms. Barra. 

Why are your lawyers still trying to seek protection in the bankruptcy court? 

Ms. BARRA. We are not going to revisit those decisions. I think 

what we are doing is going above and beyond with this compensation program to get to the people. This was a unique series of mistakes that was made over a long period of time, and we feel it is 

the right thing to do to—— 

Mr. GRIFFITH. So you feel it is the right thing for GM to continue 

to ask your bankruptcy lawyers to defend them and get the shield 

from the bankruptcy court in the bank—in that court, and not have 

to deal with these cases that come up, and to only let the only solution be Mr. Feinberg, if there has not already been a settlement, 

isn’t that correct? 

Ms. BARRA. Mr. Feinberg—— 

Mr. GRIFFITH. Yes or no. 

Ms. BARRA. Mr. Feinberg’s program is a voluntary program, otherwise people have the same rights they have today. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. They have the same rights, but you are trying to 

block those rights in the bankruptcy court, yes or no? 

Ms. BARRA. Our intent is to do a compensation program, is to do 

the right thing for these individuals. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. But you are not instructing your lawyers to back 

off of their claims in the bankruptcy court, that you want to be 

52 

shielded in the bankruptcy court from any claims that these outside parties might bring. So if Mr. Feinberg’s parameters don’t fit, 

but a competent court might find that they should fit, not going to 

matter to you because you have the bankruptcy protection. I will 

move on to another question. 

I am concerned a little bit about the fact that your legal department didn’t pick this up, and I want to know were any of the lawyers fired for not being diligent? 

Ms. BARRA. I have stated that there were four different functions 

in which individuals were fired at all levels of the company, legal 

being one of them, engineering, quality and public policy. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. OK, because it did concern me that Trooper 

Young’s report was sitting in the GM files in the legal department 

for a period of about 6 years, and only one person opened the file 

during that time period, and that was a legal assistant. 

Let me ask you this. Can the lawyers, and I think they ought to 

be, but can the lawyers start a safety investigation? 

Ms. BARRA. Anyone in the company can raise a safety issue. We 

want them to—— 

Mr. GRIFFITH. Yes. 

Ms. BARRA [continuing]. Thank you, they are more than able to 

do that. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. And in this case, the lawyers didn’t do that, is 

that why one of them might have been fired, or some of them may 

have been terminated? 

Ms. BARRA. You know, clearly there were people that didn’t share 

information to pull all the pieces together in this, and it is unacceptable, and those individuals that were in the best position to 

share are no longer with the company. And we are strongly encouraging everybody in the company to raise issues. I will tell you specifically—— 

Mr. GRIFFITH. All right, I am about to run out of time, so I appreciate that, but let me just state this in closing. If GM truly 

wants to compensate everybody who has been harmed, fully and 

fairly, they ought to ask their lawyers to stop asking the bankruptcy court for bankruptcy court protection, and let these matters 

work their way out. 

Thank you. Yield back. 

Mr. MURPHY. Gentleman yields back. 

Now recognize Ms. Schakowsky for 5 minutes. 

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The Valukas report identifies Mr. Ray DeGiorgio, who you said, 

Ms. Barra, has no credibility, that the GM design release engineer, 

that was his title, as being almost solely responsible for key decisions to approve the deadly ignition switch in 2002, and to modify 

it in 2006. 

Mr. Valukas, your report states that one of the key failures was 

‘‘the decision by a single engineer who did not advise others of his 

decision to accept an ignition switch with full knowledge that it fell 

well below GM’s own specifications.’’ Is that correct? 

Mr. VALUKAS. Right. 

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. The implication here is that Mr. DeGiorgio 

acted alone, but the report describes problems associated with the 

ignition switch, aside from low torque, many of which were known 

53 

as early as 2001, according to the report, the ‘‘entire electrical concept needed to be redesigned’’. The switch had significant problems 

that were known to GM. In his interview with the committee, and 

at this point I just want to congratulate the staff of our committee 

for the amazing work that they did independently to investigate all 

these issues, that in his interview with the committee, Mr. 

DeGiorgio told committee staff that he met with his superiors 

around February 2002 to inform them that the ignition switch 

would be delayed. Attendees at the meeting included the vehicle’s 

chief engineer, the program engineering manager and electrical directors. It was clear this switch was getting a lot of attention. 

So, Ms. Barra, is it your belief that one engineer, Mr. DeGiorgio, 

unilaterally approved a part that had been plagued by problems 

from the start? 

Ms. BARRA. The basic issue is that the switch that he approved 

to go into production did not meet the performance requirements. 

That was the first mistake. 

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. And it was DeGiorgio’s alone? 

Ms. BARRA. He was the one responsible for it. 

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Knowledge of the problem is important. 

Torque problems plagued the switch from the start, and the 

Valukas report says in 2006, Mr. DeGiorgio, again, unilaterally approved changes to the switch to increase the torque. Mr. Valukas’ 

report notes ‘‘there is no evidence that DeGiorgio told others at 

GM, including engineers on the Cobalt program, about the spring 

change to the ignition switch that he authorized in April of 2006.’’ 

So, Mr. Valukas, the report does note that other GM employees 

had received documents describing the ignition switch change as 

early as June 2006, and that these documents clearly indicated 

that the switches used in pre-2007 models were not within specifications. Is that correct? 

Mr. VALUKAS. The answer to that question is there were e-mails 

which were forwarded to other individuals which, contained within 

those e-mails, after the change was made, information about the 

fact that the torque had changed. We interviewed those individuals. Those individuals were by and large in the warrantee area. 

They were looking at something that—it meant nothing to them as 

they—the two that we were able to locate and find, it was not— 

they were totally unaware of the issues concerning the switch not 

deploying any aspect of it. So the one individual who did know all 

of the facts and had that information was Mr. DeGiorgio. The other 

engineers who were on this e-mail chain, it meant nothing to them. 

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. OK. But there is an e-mail—— 

Mr. VALUKAS. Yes. 

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY [continuing]. I am holding it here, cited in your 

report, discusses implementation of the new—— 

Mr. VALUKAS. At page 102 and—— 

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. I believe that is right. And the quote is ‘‘increased torque forces to be within specifications’’, and it was sent 

to five GM employees on June 2, 2006. But we have also obtained 

another document that was not included in your report, and this 

document indicates that another GM contract engineer may have 

approved the 2006 change. It is a production part approval process 

report obtained by Delphi through GM’s global quality tracking 

54 

system. It is dated June 1, 2006, and it lists a GM quality—supplier quality engineer. The document has a section labeled ‘‘supplier quality engineer notes’’, and these notes read—this is a quote, 

‘‘new PCB and spring plunger implementation for performance improvement. Part approved per supplier. Submitted, warrant and 

GM 3—3660.’’ 

So, Mr. Valukas, have you seen that report, the global quality 

tracking system? 

Mr. VALUKAS. Yes. 

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. So did you interview the listed supply quality 

engineer, or look into what role he might have played in approving 

the switch change in 2006? 

Mr. VALUKAS. We did the following. We looked at that form 

change, and what happened with that form change is the following. 

So the supply quality engineer’s function is to determine whether 

the boxes are filled out and materials are properly identified here, 

and then he submits that and puts that into the system. He does 

not have, as we understand it, anything to do with making decisions on the change. He’s actually functioning as somebody putting 

something into the system. Did we do an interview? I don’t think 

we interviewed that particular individual. We know what his function was and what the role was. 

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Well, I don’t want to minimize Mr. DeGiorgio’s 

role or excuse his actions in any way, but I do think these documents going to the fact that the problem at GM is deeper than just 

one rogue engineer. 

And I yield back. 

Mr. MURPHY. Thank you. Yields back. 

And now recognize Mr. Johnson from Ohio for 5 minutes. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Valukas, your report discusses an early May 2005 e-mail related to a customer concern about the ignition switch. That is at 

tab 12 of the folder that you have there. Your report focused on Mr. 

DeGiorgio’s awareness of this exchange. There were others on this 

exchange, including Doug Parks. What was Doug Parks’ position at 

the time? 

Mr. VALUKAS. I honestly don’t recall his title at that time. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Wasn’t he the vehicle chief engineer? 

Mr. VALUKAS. He may well have been. As I say, I don’t recall. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Why was it more significant that Mr.—let us assume that he was, because that is what we think he was, why was 

it more significant that Mr. DeGiorgio was aware of this exchange 

rather than the vehicle chief engineer? 

Mr. VALUKAS. I don’t know that it was more significant. It was 

significant because Mr. DeGiorgio ultimately made the decision to 

change the part. And in our interviews with him, he said that he 

was not aware of the fact that this was an issue, that he was not 

aware of the publicity and was not aware of the e-mail traffic concerning this, while we had information that that was not, in fact, 

the case. 

Mr. JOHNSON. What is the chief engineer’s responsibility? 

Mr. VALUKAS. Within the company? 

Mr. JOHNSON. Yes. 

Mr. VALUKAS. And I do not have an answer for that. 

55 

Mr. JOHNSON. OK. 

Mr. VALUKAS. But I can find out and I would be happy to submit 

that information. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Ms. Barra, do you know what the chief engineer’s 

responsibility is? 

Ms. BARRA. The chief engineer is responsible for the overall integration of the vehicle, and making the balance and tradeoff decisions for that vehicle. 

Ms. JOHNSON. OK. What—— 

Ms. BARRA. And if issues are raised to him, then he or she will 

deal with that. 

Mr. JOHNSON. OK. What knowledge should someone in the chief 

engineer position have about the vehicle, compared to someone 

such as Mr. DeGiorgio? I mean would it be reasonable that the vehicle chief engineer would have known about this situation? 

Ms. BARRA. Again, there are 30,000 parts on a car. The chief engineer has to count on the people doing their job. We have now 

put—in the mid-2000s there were validation engineers that were 

added to make sure that the process was done well, and now with 

the product integrity organization, we will be validating the subsystems. But the chief engineer—— 

Mr. JOHNSON. Takes information from those that—— 

Ms. BARRA. Right. 

Mr. JOHNSON [continuing]. Come up, OK. 

Ms. BARRA. The system works—— 

Mr. JOHNSON. I have to move on. In a May 4 response to this 

chain, Mr. Parks requests a plug to insert in the key head, since 

it appears to be the only, in his opinion, ‘‘only real quick solution.’’ 

But this solution was not implemented for months. 

Mr. Valukas, do you know why? 

Mr. VALUKAS. Park of the dysfunction of what was happening in 

the organization. They were treating this as a customer convenience issue, rather than safety issue, so they looked at issues in 

terms of price, expense, cost—— 

Mr. JOHNSON. Rather than safety. 

Mr. VALUKAS. That was it. 

Mr. JOHNSON. OK. A few weeks later on May 17, a new PRTS 

was initiated. At the time, the program team decided to pursue additional solutions beyond the service fix for the key insert, a shortterm production fix for a new key that changed the slot to a hole, 

and a long-term solution to introduce a more robust ignition 

switch. Who was responsible for initiating and implementing these 

changes? 

Mr. VALUKAS. These would have been the committees which were 

involved in the—and I don’t have the committee name in front of 

me, I will look at the report, but the committees that were involved 

in the review, and ultimately they didn’t do what they said they 

were going to do. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Were they reviewed by the vehicle chief engineer? 

Mr. VALUKAS. I don’t know that. 

Mr. JOHNSON. You don’t know. Do you know? 

Ms. BARRA. As I read the Valukas report, I think that—I think 

what you are referring to was continuous improvement team—— 

Mr. JOHNSON. OK. 

56 

Ms. BARRA [continuing]. And I believe the chief was not there, 

it was the program engineering manager. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Why did it take until 2009 to implement the new 

key head, and who was responsible for ensuring that this change 

was implemented? Do either of you know? 

Mr. VALUKAS. I can tell you that the reason it was delayed was 

because it was treated again as a customer convenience issue. They 

had an issue with regard to their supplier, and a dispute with regard to his ability to deliver, and it wasn’t until 2009 that the dispute was resolved, and they ultimately made that change with regard to the key. 

Mr. JOHNSON. OK. Ms. Barra, in my previous life, I worked in 

a publicly traded company as a part of the executive team. We had 

a risk and compliance department. We had a risk and compliance 

director. My understanding of this issue, part of the concern that 

you have addressed, and that you are continuing to address, is that 

this information never bubbled up to some of the key decision-makers. The SEC requires, there are laws that require reports of risk 

and compliance-related issues. Were any of the SEC reports, or did 

the risk—were the risk and compliance folks notified that millions 

were being paid out for claims as a result of some of these problems? How does it break down that bad in a company that is publicly traded? 

Ms. BARRA. I can’t speak to specifically what was in an SEC report, but what I can tell you, it is unacceptable the way things 

broke down, and that is why we have made dramatic process 

changes. But as Congresswoman DeGette indicated as well, we 

have to make substantial changes in the culture, and we are well 

on our way to doing that. And I believe the men and women of 

General Motors want to make sure we have the safest and the 

highest quality vehicles on the road. 

Mr. JOHNSON. OK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

Mr. MURPHY. Gentleman yields back. 

Now recognize Mr. Tonko for 5 minutes. 

Mr. TONKO. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And welcome to our panel. 

As we examine what went wrong on this terrible tragedy, the 

most important job, I believe, for Congress is to strengthen and improve auto safety laws to ensure that something like this never 

happens again. We certainly owe it to the families of the victims 

of this tragedy, many of whom are in our audience today for the 

hearing. 

That being said, one area that I believe we need to address is to 

improve early warning report data. 

Mr. Valukas, can you describe briefly early warning report data? 

Mr. VALUKAS. What is the data itself? 

Mr. TONKO. Yes. 

Mr. VALUKAS. Information that comes to the attention of the 

company which indicates that there are potential safety problems 

of which they are required to make alerts. 

Mr. TONKO. And I believe the 2000 TREAD Act requires that the 

information be reported to NHTSA? 

Mr. VALUKAS. That is correct. 

Mr. TONKO. So, Mr. Valukas, you describe a number of cases 

where GM investigators analyzed this TREAD data to attempt to 

57 

identify or explain airbag non-deployment in Cobalts and Ions. Is 

that not correct? 

Mr. VALUKAS. In the Ions, yes. The answer is I cannot give you 

a number of where that was done. 

Mr. TONKO. And the federal regulators also conducted analyses 

of the early warning report data, but were not able to separate the 

wheat from the chaff, so to speak, and identify the defect? 

Mr. VALUKAS. The issue of the non-deployment of the airbag was 

a matter of discussion in 2007 between NHTSA and General Motors. We note—it was NHTSA saying we note that there are these 

non-deployments. GM’s response to that was to begin an investigation under Mr. Sprague to keep a chart of what was taking place. 

There were no major further discussions about that issue until 

2013. 

Mr. TONKO. It seems that part of the problem here is that early 

warning report data provided to NHTSA are reported in 23 broad 

categories. In the case of this defect, the early warning data provided to NHTSA spans several categories, including engine, airbags, and a category of other. NHTSA is able to request more detailed information from auto manufacturers for individual warrantee claims and field reports, but it is difficult to know what is— 

what to request, given the minimal level of detail provided in the 

first place. NHTSA needs more detailed early warning data so that 

they can spot trends, and request the most useful follow-up information from the auto manufacturers, and more early warning data 

should be available to the public. We can all appreciate the value 

of outside experts in spotting issues that otherwise go undetected. 

Finally, NHTSA needs appropriate enforcement mechanisms to 

ensure auto manufacturers comply with the laws, especially when 

safety is at stake. 

On May 16, GM agreed to pay the maximum fine for failure to 

report a safety-related defect to NHTSA, and that, I believe, is $35 

million. Ms. Barra, what was GM’s net income in 2013? 

Ms. BARRA. Three point—yes, I was going to say, it was just 

under $4 billion. 

Mr. TONKO. Just under $4 billion. So the penalty for failing to 

report the ignition switch defect is less than 1 percent of GM’s 

earnings for last year. 

Ms. BARRA. That is correct math, but I think our intent is that 

we deal with safety issues. By the time you get to talking about 

a fine, the customer has already been impacted in an incredibly 

negative way. We want to make sure we are putting high quality, 

safe vehicles on the road, and we want to work in cooperation with 

NHTSA to do that. 

Mr. TONKO. Nonetheless, it is not much of a deterrent, Mr. 

Chair. We need to increase this maximum penalty. Thirty-five million dollars is not an adequate deterrent to a large profitable company like GM. If the penalty for inaction had been higher, GM 

might not have waited over a decade to report this safety defect to 

NHTSA. And it is clear to me that NHTSA needs higher penalty 

authorities. We need to make certain that the penalty for not reporting a safety defect is a sufficient threat to deter auto companies from needlessly delaying safety decisions. Fixes in these areas, 

58 

like the TSB’s public improving early warning report data, and increasing penalties, should be easy for us to agree upon. 

And with the seconds that I have remaining, the GM recall Web 

site indicates that, even after the new switch is installed, customers should ‘‘only utilize the key, key ring and key fob, if 

equipped, that came with the vehicle. 

Ms. Barra, many consumers have key chains with multiple keys. 

Why, if the new replacement switch is adequate, does GM still recommend that consumers not use their full key rings the way they 

would normally use them? 

Ms. BARRA. Again, the system meets and has been validated, and 

that has been validated also by NHTSA, but as I have gone 

through this process over the last 3 months, I have seen incredible 

things on key chains that, across the industry—I think this is actually an industry issue that we have to look at. I notice key chains 

everywhere I go now, and I just think it is something that needs 

to be addressed more broadly across the industry. 

Mr. TONKO. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I yield back. 

Mr. MURPHY. Thank you. 

Now recognize Mr. Long for 5 minutes. 

Mr. LONG. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you all for 

being here. 

Mr. Valukas, do you feel like that you conducted a thorough investigation? 

Mr. VALUKAS. Yes. 

Mr. LONG. According to what you testified to today, if my math 

is right, how many people were on that team? How many people 

investigated along with you? 

Mr. VALUKAS. The number of individuals who were employed at 

one point or another in reviewing documents, doing interviews, several hundred. 

Mr. LONG. Several hundred. According to my math, you all 

looked at 1,220 documents a minute. 

Mr. VALUKAS. I am sorry, say that again, Congressman. 

Mr. LONG. I said, according to my math, you all looked at 1,220 

documents a minute, if you said you had access to 41 million documents over a 70-day period—I don’t know how in the world you 

could do a thorough investigation in that time frame. 

Mr. VALUKAS. Congressman, we used computers and programs to 

analyze the documents for purposes of kicking out those documents 

which are reflective of the issues that are here. We used as part 

of that database, requests were being made by Congress, requests 

were being of us by the United States Attorney’s Office, by NHTSA, 

and we isolated those documents and then gave them, through 

three levels of review, for purposes of determining whether they 

were relevant to any aspect here. I feel very comfortable, I can’t 

tell—— 

Mr. LONG. But back to my first question, do you think it was a 

thorough investigation? I am not in your business, and you are, so 

I am just trying to learn here. 

Mr. VALUKAS. Well, I am sorry. 

Mr. LONG. Yes, so the report that you released, were you given 

a deadline by General Motors on when that needed to be out? 

59 

Mr. VALUKAS. General Motors, the Board of Directors, when they 

employed me to do this investigation, asked me whether I could get 

it done within a certain time frame, and I told them we could. That 

was the deadline; was my commitment that we could do it in that 

time period. Part of that was associated with the fact that they 

wanted to know because there were deaths involved here, what 

caused it, what were the problems. Part of it was because we wanted to get the report out or to be able to respond to Congress. So 

we had that deadline. 

Mr. LONG. And you got your report completed, or once you completed the report, to whom at General Motors did you present the 

results? 

Mr. VALUKAS. The Board of Directors. 

Mr. LONG. OK. And what was their reaction? 

Mr. VALUKAS. The reaction. I can’t tell you what their reaction 

was. I know the reaction was that, as what you have seen with Ms. 

Barra here, is to follow up on it. 

Mr. LONG. OK, so you didn’t receive any resistance to your findings or your recommendations from the Board? 

Mr. VALUKAS. None. None. 

Mr. LONG. And were you asked to make any changes to your report? 

Mr. VALUKAS. No, I was not, and what I did tell them, and what 

I have mentioned to to staff here, that if we found something different as we pursued, continued to gather documents because there 

were requests here and elsewhere, we would review the report, and 

if there was anything in the report that we found to be in error, 

or needed to be corrected, or changed or anything, we would report 

that back to the Board, and I presume they would report it back 

to you. 

Mr. LONG. So other than that, your report, does that end your 

investigation. And I apologize, I have been here for about 90 percent of the hearing, but I did have to step out for a few minutes 

a few minutes ago, so—— 

Mr. VALUKAS. No, we believe we have completed the inquiry, but 

as I say, we would update it if we found something which changed 

in any significant way. I believe back last week we found something in the report that we corrected, and we notified your staff of 

that immediately. 

Mr. LONG. OK, thank you. And I yield back. 

Mr. MURPHY. Mrs. Ellmers, you are now recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mrs. ELLMERS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you to Ms. 

Barra and Mr. Valukas for being here today for this very, very serious subcommittee hearing. And I too, as some of my colleagues 

have said, extend my condolences to the families. It must be very 

difficult for you to be here and listening to this dissection of information. As important as it is, these are your loved ones. 

Mr. Valukas, this is more of a process question that I have for 

you, sir. Going back, again, over the investigation and what you 

have reported, back in March 2007, it says staff from NHTSA approached GM personnel in between meetings in Washington and 

mentioned a concern about non-deployments of the Cobalts and 

60 

Ions. What is your understanding of the information that was 

shared by NHTSA? 

Mr. VALUKAS. My understanding, it comes from the interviews. 

I did not talk to anybody from NHTSA. We did not think that we 

were going to be interviewing federal officials. We interviewed the 

people at GM, and looked at the documents and materials which 

they produced as a result of that meeting—— 

Mrs. ELLMERS. Yes. 

Mr. VALUKAS [continuing]. And it was that, in the course of that 

meeting, NHTSA noted that there had been these non-deployment 

cases and asked General Motors about them. The response to that 

was the assignment of Mr.—I believe it was Mr. Sprague at that 

point, to look into it and how to document what was taking place, 

to keep a chart essentially as to are these happening, how many 

are there, et cetera. 

Mrs. ELLMERS. OK, and the gentleman that you are referring to, 

what division was he in—I am assuming General Motors or 

NHTSA? What division was he part of? 

Mr. VALUKAS. He was an investigator, I believe, with FPA. Yes, 

FPA investigator, which means he would have been detailed into 

the legal department. 

Mrs. ELLMERS. OK, so according to our information, when the engineers returned to Michigan, apparently after being here in DC, 

the product investigations team, the group that determines the root 

cause of the problem, reviewed the claims relating to the Cobalt 

non-deployment, but ultimately decided not to pursue it. Why did 

the product investigations not pursue this matter at the time? 

Mr. VALUKAS. That is a very good question, and the answer is, 

this was one of those things that was passed off to another agent. 

Mr. Sprague was keeping track of it. The other investigators 

weren’t following up with regard to it. They were gathering information, if you will, but that is where they went with it. 

Mrs. ELLMERS. OK. So when you say that it was kind of handed 

over somewhere else, you are referring to the product—the field 

performance assessment—— 

Mr. VALUKAS. Yes. 

Mrs. ELLMERS [continuing]. Division? 

Mr. VALUKAS. Yes. 

Mrs. ELLMERS. OK, because according, again, to our information, 

it says after the product investigators declined to investigate, the 

responsibility for tracking these claims, or tracking these claims— 

there again, I think that is something significant as well, was assigned to the field performance assessment division. 

Mr. VALUKAS. Right. 

Mrs. ELLMERS. Now, do you consider this to be unusual, like an 

unusual pattern to have followed? Would this be typical in a situation where there has been an obvious issue that has come to light, 

and it just kind of be passed off to another—and I guess I would 

like to know too, one, it was given to another division, but what 

exactly is the field performance assessment division responsible for, 

and was this just a way to put aside the problem because they 

weren’t focusing on it? 

Mr. VALUKAS. Well, I don’t know if it is typical. I do know it happened in this case, and it was one of the things we called out on 

61 

the report of passing off responsibility from one committee to another committee. FPA would be focused on potential claims in the 

legal department—— 

Mrs. ELLMERS. Yes. 

Mr. VALUKAS [continuing]. And whether or not to have litigation, 

or things like that, which indicate the existence of these problems, 

but they are not the products investigators, they are a different 

group. But then here is what you have, is you had it passed off to 

Mr. Sprague—— 

Mrs. ELLMERS. Yes. 

Mr. VALUKAS [continuing]. Who then gathered information about 

it for years, and nothing else was taking place other than gathering 

that information, until 2009. So everything was in hiatus. 

Mrs. ELLMERS. Do you know who it was that actually made or 

authorized that change, who gave the assignment to Mr. Sprague? 

Mr. VALUKAS. No, I don’t. I mean I don’t know if we have a 

name. I can get a name for you if—— 

Mrs. ELLMERS. OK. I—— 

Mr. VALUKAS [continuing]. You want a name. 

Mrs. ELLMERS [continuing]. If you could, that would be incredibly—— 

Mr. VALUKAS. Absolutely. 

Mrs. ELLMERS [continuing]. Important information for us as a 

committee to have. Thank you. 

Mr. VALUKAS. I know the legal department was at the meeting 

with NHTSA, so it was as if the legal department said, well, we 

will take a look at this and then they went forward. But I will get 

you a name. 

Mrs. ELLMERS. Did the FPA ever attempt to evaluate the matter 

back in the product investigation? Was there ever an attempt, according to your investigation, did anybody address these issues? 

Mr. VALUKAS. Yes, in—well, in 2009, when they had the second 

continental—— 

Mrs. ELLMERS. Yes. 

Mr. VALUKAS [continuing]. Report, then it became elevated, if 

you will. They looked at it, they realized that it was something that 

could be associated with the switch as being the cause of the nondeployment—— 

Mrs. ELLMERS. Yes. 

Mr. VALUKAS [continuing]. And at that point, other things started to take place, including Mr. Sprague going to visit Mr. 

DeGiorgio and asking him whether there had been a change in the 

switch, and him saying no. 

Mrs. ELLMERS. OK, so I guess my last and final question here 

was basically, was there a reluctance there, but I believe you just 

indicated that there was—and a reluctance to actually acknowledge 

and address the issue. 

Mr. VALUKAS. I am sorry, I—— 

Mrs. ELLMERS. I am sorry, that would probably be hypothesizing 

on your—thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your time, and thank you. 

Mr. MURPHY. Gentlelady’s time has expired. 

Now it is the committee’s practice that if another member of the 

full committee can ask questions after other members have asked 

theirs. And so we now recognize Mr. Terry, who is the chairman 

62 

of the Subcommittee of Commerce, Manufacturing, and Trade, for 

5 minutes. 

Mr. TERRY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I too want to recognize the parents and family members in the back. Those photographs up there really keep reminding us why we are here and investigating today. 

Mr. Valukas, I want to ask you because I want to go back to— 

I am still stuck on how these sub-spec parts were even allowed at 

the very beginning of the process. So in that regard, the production 

part approval process that they go through when they do the testing, would that 2002 PPAP package be a key document in this investigation? 

Mr. VALUKAS. It certainly would be something I would want to 

see. I think we started out, I don’t think we ever found it, and we 

have asked Delphi for it and we don’t have it. 

Mr. TERRY. And Delphi wouldn’t produce it? 

Mr. VALUKAS. They informed us they don’t have it. 

Mr. TERRY. They don’t have it. Do you believe that? 

Mr. VALUKAS. I can only report what they told us. We made requests from them from the very beginning for access to any and all 

documents relating to this matter. What they produced to us were 

a limited number of documents which were documents that had actually been exchanged with us, at least initially. I think we may 

have received a few additional documents over the time, but that 

is what we got. 

Mr. TERRY. So no one has been able to locate the PPAP on the 

ignition parts? 

Mr. VALUKAS. That is my understanding. 

Mr. TERRY. Ms. Barra, do you know whether or not the PPAP for 

this ignition parts from 2002 exists? 

Ms. BARRA. I don’t. I believe Mr. Valukas and his team would 

have found it if it does exist, but what I can tell you is the part 

should have never been put in production. 

Mr. TERRY. Agree, and I am proud you said that, but it would 

have been great to discover that in 2002 during the PPAP process. 

And the fact that it wasn’t is disturbing in and of itself, and that 

is why I think those documents are extremely important, as you do, 

Mr. Valukas. 

Should this committee consider a subpoena of those records since 

they were not produced? Even though—— 

Mr. VALUKAS. You are putting me where I cannot go. The committee is going to conduct its investigation. Let me say this, and 

I think this is important. It is clear, at least from our fact-finding, 

that Mr. DeGiorgio approved this part—— 

Mr. TERRY. Yes. 

Mr. VALUKAS [continuing]. And he approved this part knowing it 

was well below specifications, and we did not find anybody else 

who was involved in it, though Delphi certainly knew that the part 

that was being approved was below specification. 

Mr. TERRY. And in that respect, you have this binder by you, and 

if you would turn to tab 4, and it is a memo from Raymond 

DeGiorgio regarding the talc issue. Now, this is an e-mail from 

around April 2002, it is around the time the original switch was 

actually being approved, is that correct? 

63 

Mr. VALUKAS. Yes. 

Mr. TERRY. And the subject here is GMX 357 talc issue for the 

Saturn Ion, correct? 

Mr. VALUKAS. Correct. 

Mr. TERRY. And that talc—what rule does the talc testing have 

on the approval of the switch, do you know? 

Mr. VALUKAS. It is part of the process. It is how does it feel— 

it has been explained to me, how does it feel when you make the 

turn, they wanted to make it feel like it was a European sports car 

or something like that. 

Mr. TERRY. Well, does this e-mail to Raymond DeGiorgio the answer from Mr. Reineke, does that raise any concerns to you as the 

investigator, particularly the sentence that Mr. Reineke did not 

find spring back from crank run to accessory as Terry Meehan and 

others had observed. 

Mr. VALUKAS. No. 

Mr. TERRY. Were you aware of these discussions around the time 

of the switch approval about the feel of that ignition switch? 

Mr. VALUKAS. Yes. 

Mr. TERRY. OK. In the last 30 seconds, you mentioned that there 

was an adversarial feeling between NHTSA and GM. Have you 

concluded who is responsible for the adversarial relationship? 

Mr. VALUKAS. No, I have not, but I just noted from the documents, and this is not from testimony; more from the documents, 

just the tone of the documents, and that is maybe an incorrect way 

to assume something, but that from the tone of the documents, it 

suggested that there was some nature of adversarial activity here. 

Mr. TERRY. One quick last question. There were many times, 

looking through the documents, that under the TREAD Act, GM 

should have provided notice to NHTSA. Does this adversarial relationship between the two impact their decision not to provide that 

notice? 

Mr. VALUKAS. No. When I say no, let me explain what we did, 

and someone else will make that judgment in a different context. 

We went back through all of the disclosures, the TREAD Act disclosures, to look to see whether something was or was not disclosed, 

and, at least as best we could tell, marking those disclosures, what 

the information which was then in possession by virtue of the 

interviews or documents we had, it appeared to us that the TREAD 

disclosures were compliant, but I will not be the ultimate judge of 

that. 

Mr. TERRY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for the additional time. 

Mr. MURPHY. Thank you. Gentleman yields back. 

Now Ms. DeGette and I will each have the final 5 minutes. All 

right, Ms. DeGette, recognized for 5 minutes. 

Ms. DEGETTE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Valukas, I wanted to follow up on a couple of questions Mr. 

Johnson was asking you. Your report says on page two: ‘‘GM engineers concluded that moving stalls were not safety issues because 

drivers could still maneuver their cars. As a result, GM personnel 

viewed the switch problem as a customer convenience issue, something annoying but not particularly problematic, as opposed to the 

safety defect it was.’’ Is that right? 

64 

Mr. VALUKAS. Correct. 

Ms. DEGETTE. And you told Mr. Johnson—so, therefore, because 

they called it a customer convenience issue, they looked at issues 

of pricing and issues like that, not issues of safety. Is that right? 

Mr. VALUKAS. That is correct. 

Ms. DEGETTE. And this was despite the fact that, really pretty 

early on, GM started getting a lot of complaints about the ignition 

shifting into neutral, and the car losing all power. Is that right? 

Mr. VALUKAS. That is correct. 

Ms. DEGETTE. In fact, in a review of the Cobalt in the New York 

Times, the freelance writer said that his test Cobalt driven by his 

wife stalled after her knee bumped the steering column, right? 

Mr. VALUKAS. There were reports in New York Times and other 

newspapers—— 

Ms. DEGETTE. And Cleveland Plain Dealer—and others, and so 

I find—this kind of boggles my mind. A car could be going down 

the highway at a high rate of speed, 65 miles an hour, and it gets 

bumped, it goes into neutral, and then everything stops, the power 

steering, the brakes, the airbags. That is what happened to Brooke 

Melton, where she is driving down the highway in Hiram, Georgia, 

on her 29th birthday, the ignition stops, the car loses power, she 

goes into the other lane and she is killed. Do you know about that 

case? 

Mr. VALUKAS. I know about that case. 

Ms. DEGETTE. Yes. 

Mr. VALUKAS. I certainly do. 

Ms. DEGETTE. And so yet the GM engineer said that this was a 

convenience issue, right? 

Mr. VALUKAS. They not only said it internally, they said it publically when they were interviewed by the Press. They said this is 

our position, that a stall does not constitute a safety issue, and 

that—— 

Ms. DEGETTE. But that—— 

Mr. VALUKAS [continuing]. Was one of—— 

Ms. DEGETTE. That is just insane, isn’t it? 

Mr. VALUKAS. I don’t—won’t use the word insane, but—— 

Ms. DEGETTE. OK. 

Mr. VALUKAS [continuing]. I am troubled by that. 

Ms. DEGETTE. Yes, OK, good. Now, at the same time, GM was 

talking to NHTSA about whether stalling was a safety risk. Are 

you aware of that? 

Mr. VALUKAS. I am aware there were conversations for all this 

period of time. 

Ms. DEGETTE. Now, Ms. Barra, were you aware that at the same 

time NHTSA was talking to GM in June 2004, that General Motors 

recalled 15,000 Oldsmobile Bravadas and Envoys because of stalling risks? 

Ms. BARRA. I was not involved in that area at that time. 

Ms. DEGETTE. So you are not aware of that? 

Ms. BARRA. No. 

Ms. DEGETTE. Well, Gay Kent signed that notice, and was Gay 

Kent reporting to you at that time? 

Ms. BARRA. No. 

65 

Ms. DEGETTE. OK. Did Gay Kent ever express any concern to 

you about the stalling and safety risks from the Ions and Cobalts? 

Ms. BARRA. No. 

Ms. DEGETTE. OK, so basically, what you are saying in your report, Mr. Valukas, is you have these cars that stall out at any 

speed really, and all of the power goes out, but yet the GM personnel maintained this was a customer convenience issue? 

Mr. VALUKAS. That is where they were, absolutely, from 2005 

through 2009 at least. 

Ms. DEGETTE. OK. Now, have you ever talked to a fellow named 

Clarence Ditlow, who is with the Center for Auto Safety? 

Mr. VALUKAS. I have received correspondence from him. 

Ms. DEGETTE. Did you receive this letter dated June 17, 2014, 

from him? 

Mr. VALUKAS. In the packet? 

Ms. DEGETTE. I am sorry? 

Mr. VALUKAS. Is it in the material that was just given to me? 

Ms. DEGETTE. I don’t know, but we can hand you a copy. And 

Mr. Ditlow’s conclusion is that the Valukas report is clearly flawed 

and accepting GM’s explanation that its engineers and senior managers did not know stalling was safety related. Are you aware of 

this claim that Mr. Ditlow made? 

Mr. VALUKAS. I am aware of his claim. Actually I know I read 

this letter and I sent him back a nice note saying thank you for 

the information. 

Ms. DEGETTE. And what is your view of that? 

Mr. VALUKAS. My view is that he didn’t read the report and understand what my responsibility was here. You have asked for my 

view, let me give my view. What we were charged to do, and I 

think this is very important to understand, we were charged by the 

Board of Directors, find the facts concerning how and why this occurred. We were charged with laying those facts before the Board, 

and we were charged with making recommendations. And the 

Board was charged with the responsibility, I presume, of making 

decisions whether or not the employees within the organization, to 

the top level, lived up to their responsibilities. That was where the 

Board’s responsibility was. So the suggestions in here that, we 

didn’t cover people or we were—— 

Ms. DEGETTE. So—— 

Mr. VALUKAS [continuing]. That we exonerated certain people is 

not—is just simply not correct. 

Ms. DEGETTE. Mr. Valukas, I really appreciate that answer because you clearly delineated what you were hired to do, and you 

believe you were hired to do that, correct? 

Mr. VALUKAS. That is correct. 

Ms. DEGETTE. Now, so there may be other information that this 

committee needs to gather beyond your report, right—— 

Mr. VALUKAS. That is—— 

Ms. DEGETTE [continuing]. And conclusions? 

Mr. VALUKAS [continuing]. Absolutely possible, and as I said before, if we found new information as we went along which reflected 

that, we would share it. 

Ms. DEGETTE. You will share it with this committee, correct? 

Mr. VALUKAS. Share it with the—— 

66 

Ms. DEGETTE. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I would ask unanimous consent to place this June 17 letter into the record, and also 

a report by the American Association for Justice, entitled Driven 

to Safety, from June 2014, talking about some of the lawsuits that 

we have involved in this issue. 

Mr. MURPHY. Without objection, so ordered. 

[The information appears at the conclusion of the hearing.] 

Ms. DEGETTE. Thank you very much. And thank you again for 

coming, both of you, today. 

Mr. MURPHY. Thank you. Dr. Burgess wanted to make that follow-up question about the phone number. 

Mr. BURGESS. The unanimous consent request, since I brought it 

up, to put into the record 1–800–222–1020, is the customer service 

number that should be available to customers of General Motors, 

and also just the observation we are talking about the non-deployment of an airbag, which is a supplemental restraint system, the 

primary restraint system is the seatbelt, and I do encourage people, 

you have to wear your seatbelts when you drive on the highways. 

And I will yield back. 

Mr. MURPHY. Thank you. 

I now recognize myself for a final 5 minutes here. 

I just want to be clear, Mr. Valukas, so when you said when you 

get additional data, and it was very clear in your mandate from 

Ms. Barra that she wanted this to be thorough, basically no stones 

unturned, that if you received that other information from plaintiffs’ attorney, I hope you will share that with us. You said that 

they have not responded to you as of yet, but if there was information that they have with regard to delays from General Motors’ attorneys in getting them information, I hope you will review that 

and let us know. 

Mr. VALUKAS. And I would like to be clear, simply because of my 

responsibilities here, I will gather that information. Whatever we 

do, we would have to share with the Board of Directors. They will 

make the decision as to disclosure, but in this instance, they have 

made those decisions up to this point, so—— 

Mr. MURPHY. Thank you. 

Ms. Barra, a couple of points. I want to make sure we are—now 

with the benefit of time, we recognize that the Cobalt and several 

other automobiles had a defective switch. That switch, for a couple 

of reasons, hitting a pothole, a bump, bumping the key ring with 

your knee, or a heavy key fob, could have moved that on switch 

into an accessory position, correct, cause a stalling of the vehicle, 

subsequent loss of power steering and power brakes when the engine was not on, and also the airbags would not deploy. All those 

things are clear, right? 

On page eight of Mr. Valukas’ report, there is reference to a technical service bulletin from 2005, and it says in here that the technical service bulletin counseled customers to remove heavy items 

from the key rings, and offered an insert to the key that would reduce the likelihood that the ignition switch would rotate inadvertently. That bulletin did not refer to the problem as ‘‘stalling,’’ however, precisely because General Motors believed customers might 

associate stalling with a safety problem, and only a customer who 

had already experienced a stall who came to a dealer to complain, 

67 

would get information about the proposed solutions. Other customers would remain unaware of the problem, as well as GM’s proposed solutions. 

I am assuming that if you knew then what you knew now, you 

would not have allowed that sort of bulletin to be written in that 

way? 

Ms. BARRA. That is correct. 

Mr. MURPHY. Thank you. Now, I want to, however, refer to something that is taking place today, which it is important for you 

know. That is, I took a look at the GM current Web site with regard to the safety recall. Your comments are under your speech, et 

cetera, and I go to the section marked frequently asked questions. 

Under the item number 7, ‘‘are the recalled vehicles safe to drive?’’ 

You say, the simple answer to that question is yes. The GM engineers have done extensive analysis to make sure if you use only 

the ignition key with no additional items in the key ring, that the 

vehicle is safe to drive. 

Ms. BARRA. And that is true. We have validated that. It has also 

been validated by NHTSA. 

Mr. MURPHY. The old Cobalts that could also go into a stall—— 

Ms. BARRA. We are talking about as long as you have just the 

key or the ring, you don’t end up having the moment and you don’t 

have an ability to trap it with your knee, that that condition is not 

going to occur. That is what that statement is referring to. 

Mr. MURPHY. They still could not hit it with their knee? OK. 

Ms. BARRA. The issue is when you look at just the key, you don’t 

create a moment to be able to do that. 

Mr. MURPHY. But still what it does not say at all in this statement, customer, if you don’t do this, your car may stall, you may 

lose power steering, you may lose your brakes, you won’t have your 

airbag, this is an extreme safety concern. It simply says this isn’t 

a big safety deal. And then you even say once a service repair is 

completed, can customer put a heavy key ring back on, you say, 

well, we recommend only utilize the key, key ring and key fob, if 

equipped, that came with the vehicle. So you say if you repair this, 

with the previous item that I just quoted, if you repair this, you 

will be fine, and later on you say, but don’t change the key issue, 

so I don’t understand how that is fixed. 

Ms. BARRA. Well, first of all, on the FAQ, the frequently asked 

questions that you are referring to, that—there are a number of 

questions, and there were also opening statements. I know I personally recorded videos that we have on our Web site to truly communicate what we need to do. It has been included in our letters. 

So I think you have to look at the complete communication, not one 

question. 

OK. 

Mr. MURPHY. But my point is this. I am making recommendations to you. You have come before our committee and I believe you 

have been trying to be honest and straightforward. My recommendation to you is there are how many Cobalts still out there, 

how many Ions, how many other cars that are affected by this? 

Ms. BARRA. Something less than 2.6 million. 

Mr. MURPHY. Two point six million. And so far, I forget how 

many you said in your Web site have been repaired. 

68 

*The information has been retained in committee files and is also available at http:// 

docs.house.gov/Committee/Search/Home.aspx?Keyword=Path%3a%22%2fIF02%2f%22. 

Ms. BARRA. Almost 200,000. 

Ms. MURPHY. OK. That is a lot of cars out there—— 

Ms. BARRA. Right. 

Ms. MURPHY [continuing]. That could still stall, you lose power 

steering, you can lose power brakes, you could lose control of the 

car, you could crash, your airbags won’t deploy, some will be injured or die. I hope that that becomes a lot more glaring than simply have him go through and says, no, it is safe to drive. I don’t 

think it is safe to drive. 

Ms. BARRA. Congressman Murphy, we have sent letters, we have 

gone on social media, I have done videos, our dealers have been informed, we have done special training sessions. Believe me, we 

take it very seriously, and we want people to know that until their 

vehicle is repaired, that we want them to only use the key and the 

ring. We have done extensive communications because I don’t want 

any other incidents to occur. 

Mr. MURPHY. Ma’am, I hear what you have done. I am talking 

about what I would recommend you still do. 

Look, the unfortunate thing about this is that with all the things 

that you do, like in our lives, to all the things we do to try to communicate with people, many times people don’t read mail, they 

don’t watch commercials on TV, they don’t look at things like this, 

and so you have to try all levels in that. It isn’t until it maybe gets 

on a comedy network or something that people pay attention. I 

would highly recommend that what you do in this situation is 

make it very clear that if you don’t do this, this is a consequence. 

I would hope that that would be something GM would make abundantly clear because I may not know a lot about—but I know as 

a psychologist what motivates people, and if you give them the 

bold, blasting facts, if you don’t do this, you could be in a serious 

accident, that might wake up people to understand that in order 

for GM to work on safety, customers have to pay attention to this 

too, and I hope that that is something that people across America 

will pay attention to. 

As I said before, I thought this report could be subtitled, don’t 

assume malfeasance when incompetence will do. There is more to 

it than that. We all have to take responsibility. And I see this as 

something that I still hope GM does more with communication. 

Ms. BARRA. We will redouble our efforts there. 

Mr. MURPHY. Thank you. 

I now want to ask unanimous consent that the Members’ written 

opening statements be introduced into the record, and without objection, those documents will be entered into the record. 

And I ask unanimous consent that the document binder from 

this hearing be entered into the record, subject to appropriate written redactions by staff. *

Mr. MURPHY. In conclusion, I want to thank the witnesses today 

and the Members that participated in today’s hearing. 

I remind Members they have 10 business days to submit questions to the record, and I ask that the witnesses all agree to respond promptly to questions. 

69 

And with that, I adjourn this hearing. 

[Whereupon, at 12:50 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

[Material submitted for inclusion in the record follows:] 

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