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95–995 PDF 2015

S. HRG. 113–715 

EXAMINING ACCOUNTABILITY AND CORPORATE 

CULTURE IN WAKE OF THE GM RECALLS 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CONSUMER PROTECTION, 

PRODUCT SAFETY, AND INSURANCE 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE, 

SCIENCE, AND TRANSPORTATION 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

JULY 17, 2014 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation 

( 

(II) 

SENATE COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE, SCIENCE, AND TRANSPORTATION 

ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER IV, West Virginia, Chairman 

BARBARA BOXER, California 

BILL NELSON, Florida 

MARIA CANTWELL, Washington 

MARK PRYOR, Arkansas 

CLAIRE MCCASKILL, Missouri 

AMY KLOBUCHAR, Minnesota 

MARK BEGICH, Alaska 

RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, Connecticut 

BRIAN SCHATZ, Hawaii 

EDWARD MARKEY, Massachusetts 

CORY BOOKER, New Jersey 

JOHN E. WALSH, Montana 

JOHN THUNE, South Dakota, Ranking 

ROGER F. WICKER, Mississippi 

ROY BLUNT, Missouri 

MARCO RUBIO, Florida 

KELLY AYOTTE, New Hampshire 

DEAN HELLER, Nevada 

DAN COATS, Indiana 

TIM SCOTT, South Carolina 

TED CRUZ, Texas 

DEB FISCHER, Nebraska 

RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin 

ELLEN L. DONESKI, Staff Director 

JOHN WILLIAMS, General Counsel 

DAVID SCHWIETERT, Republican Staff Director 

NICK ROSSI, Republican Deputy Staff Director 

REBECCA SEIDEL, Republican General Counsel and Chief Investigator 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CONSUMER PROTECTION, PRODUCT SAFETY, 

AND INSURANCE 

CLAIRE MCCASKILL, Missouri, Chairman 

BARBARA BOXER, California 

MARK PRYOR, Arkansas 

AMY KLOBUCHAR, Minnesota 

RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, Connecticut 

BRIAN SCHATZ, Hawaii 

CORY BOOKER, New Jersey 

DEAN HELLER, Nevada, Ranking Member 

ROY BLUNT, Missouri 

KELLY AYOTTE, New Hampshire 

DAN COATS, Indiana 

TED CRUZ, Texas 

DEB FISCHER, Nebraska 

(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Hearing held on July 17, 2014 ............................................................................... 1 

Statement of Senator McCaskill ............................................................................. 1 

Statement of Senator Heller ................................................................................... 2 

Statement of Senator Klobuchar ............................................................................ 18 

Statement of Senator Blunt .................................................................................... 20 

Statement of Senator Blumenthal .......................................................................... 21 

Statement of Senator Thune ................................................................................... 42 

Statement of Senator Ayotte ................................................................................... 46 

Statement of Senator Markey ................................................................................. 49 

Statement of Senator Boxer .................................................................................... 51 

Letter dated July 8, 2014 to Hon. Chuck Schumer from Lee R. Godown, 

Vice President, Global Government Relations, General Motors Company ................................................................................................................ 51 

Letter dated June 26, 2014 to Hon. Chuck Schumer from Lee R. Godown, 

Vice President, Global Government Relations, General Motors Company ................................................................................................................ 52 

Article dated June 18, 2014 from Bloomberg Businessweek entitled ‘‘GM 

Recalls: How General Motors Silenced a Whistle-blower.’’ ....................... 53 

Article dated July 15, 2014 from The New York Times entitled ‘‘Documents Show General Motors Kept Silent on Fatal Crashes’’ .................... 64 

WITNESSES

Hon. Tammy Baldwin, U.S. Senator from Wisconsin ........................................... 23 

Kenneth R. Feinberg, Founder and Managing Partner, Feinberg Rozen LLP ... 3 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 5 

Michael P. Millikin, Executive Vice President and General Counsel, General 

Motors Company .................................................................................................. 25 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 27 

Mary T. Barra, Chief Executive Officer, General Motors Company .................... 28 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 29 

Rodney O’Neal, Chief Executive Officer and President, Delphi Automotive 

PLC ........................................................................................................................ 30 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 32 

Anton R. Valukas, Chairman of the Firm, Jenner & Block LLP ......................... 33 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 34 

APPENDIX

Letter dated July 29, 2014 to Senator Edward J. Markey from Rodney O’Neal, 

Chief Executive Officer and President, Delphi Automotive PLC ..................... 89 

Letter dated July 29, 2014 to Senator Richard Blumenthal from Rodney 

O’Neal, Chief Executive Officer and President, Delphi .................................... 107 

(1) 

EXAMINING ACCOUNTABILITY 

AND CORPORATE CULTURE IN WAKE 

OF THE GM RECALLS 

THURSDAY, JULY 17, 2014 

U.S. SENATE, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CONSUMER PROTECTION, PRODUCT

SAFETY, AND INSURANCE, 

COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE, SCIENCE, AND TRANSPORTATION, 

Washington, DC. 

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:02 a.m. in room 

253, Russell Senate Office Building, Hon. Claire McCaskill, Chairman of the Subcommittee, presiding. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. CLAIRE MCCASKILL, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM MISSOURI 

Senator MCCASKILL. All right. This hearing will come to order. 

Today we revisit the tragic management failures at General Motors 

that killed people. First, I want to acknowledge in my opening remarks that from my viewpoint the CEO of General Motors, Mary 

Barra, has stepped up and, with courage and conviction, has confronted head-on the problem and the corporate culture that caused 

it. Some see the record number of recalls at General Motors as a 

problem. I see it as a good sign. 

Second, I want to briefly say that I think I speak on behalf of 

all Members of Congress who have asked very difficult questions 

surrounding these tragic events that while we are asking tough 

questions, we have great respect for the workers of General Motors. 

I would like to take this moment to thank the workers at General 

Motors. You are terrific, you build good cars, and you are also the 

victims of outrageously incompetent management. Management 

was the problem here, not the workers. 

The Valukas Report I have spent some time with. I find it thorough and damning. There was indifference, incompetence and deceit among engineers in positions of important responsibility. And 

second, it is very clear that the culture of lawyering up and whacka-mole to minimize liability in individual lawsuits killed innocent 

customers of General Motors. 

I have many questions about the failures of the legal department 

today. I am also interested today in hearing from Mr. Feinberg, 

who has been asked to put together a plan to compensate those 

who have suffered from these management failures. He is here 

independently of the witnesses from General Motors. He is appearing independently of the witnesses of General Motors, and he will 

2 

exert independence in his role as he makes decisions about compensation to the many people who have suffered, and I certainly 

thank him for being here today in that regard. 

But perhaps I am even more interested today in understanding 

how, in the aftermath of this report, how in the world in the aftermath of this report, did Michael Millikin keep his job. I do not understand how the general counsel for a litigation department that 

had this massive failure of responsibility, how he would be allowed 

to continue in that important leadership role in this company, and 

the questions I ask today will be surrounding what he knew and 

why he didn’t know it and what kind of direction did he give a 

legal department that would allow them to do nothing in the face 

of the evidence they were confronting over years of litigation by 

people who were trying to get the attention of General Motors 

about the fatal defect in the product they were selling. 

Senator Heller? 

STATEMENT OF HON. DEAN HELLER, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM NEVADA 

Senator HELLER. Chairman McCaskill, thank you, and I would 

like to thank the witnesses who are here today for both hearings, 

and also thank Chairman McCaskill for this second hearing on 

General Motors. 

Today, based on the findings of the Valukas Report, we can confirm that this is, in fact, one of the darkest chapters in the history 

of General Motors. An ignition switch supplied by Delphi was approved by GM even though it failed to meet GM’s own standard 

specification for torque resistance. Due to these failures, the ignition switch would slip from ‘‘Run’’ to ‘‘Accessory’’ with little more 

than a knee hitting the key or the car driving over a bump. The 

car’s power shut off while it was being driven. 

I have raced cars my entire life. I will tell you, even for the most 

experienced drivers, there is nothing more terrifying than a loss of 

power while moving at high speeds. I can only imagine the sheer 

terror of the individual who was driving these vehicles the moment 

the ignition slipped out of ‘‘Run.’’ What those drivers didn’t know 

as their cars swerved across lanes, hit walls, inclines, ravines and 

trees, was that the one thing that could have saved their life, the 

airbag, was not going to deploy because the power to the airbag 

itself was shut off. 

If—and this is a big if—after a few crashes General Motors was 

able to understand the ignition switch problem, many more lives 

could have been saved. But as the Valukas Report points out, 

group after group, committee after committee within GM failed to 

take action, or acted too slowly for over a decade. 

Two critical factors have been identified as reasons for this. 

First, GM failed to understand how its cars were built. Let me repeat that. GM failed to understand how its cars were built. Incredibly, the official findings pin the blame for the delay to recall this 

car on the fact that GM didn’t understand how its own car was 

built. 

Second, the same engineer who approved the original ignition 

switch changed the part in 2006 and did not inform any person at 

GM and did not change the part number. People died and millions 

3 

more were put at risk because GM didn’t understand its own car, 

and one engineer cut corners and then changed the torque on the 

part without telling anybody or, again, changing the model number. 

Fifty-four frontal impact crashes and more than a dozen fatalities later, we find ourselves here this morning for our second hearing on this issue. It is truly a dark chapter in the history of General Motors. What we need to do today is to make sure that the 

Valukas Report is the full story. Is the Valukas Report accurate? 

Is it the definitive account of this matter, or are there missing 

pieces? 

The CEO of Delphi is with us today, and it’s my hope that he 

will help this subcommittee understand if there’s additional information that provides us with more of a complete picture. I hope his 

testimony today will be forthcoming and not circle the wagons. 

We need to know what happened here, and Delphi has a responsibility to the families and the survivors to provide a complete picture. If Delphi knows more than the Valukas Report identified or 

believes there are inaccuracies, now is the time to make those 

known. 

The Valukas Report offers a strong timeline of the issues, but I 

have concerns that it may not paint the entire picture. I’d like to 

explore whether Delphi was fully cooperative. In the Valukas Report it states that Delphi had numerous documents and other relevant material that they did not supply. 

Madam Chairman, I appreciate that we’re holding this hearing. 

Nevadans and all Americans deserve to know that for over a decade General Motors and Delphi failed to demonstrate a basic level 

of corporate competence. There will be a discussion regarding 

whether changes of laws are necessary. However, if GM understood 

how their own cars worked and followed current legal obligations 

to report defects to NHTSA in a timely manner, lives would have 

been saved and we would not be here today. 

Thank you, Chairman McCaskill. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Thank you, Senator Heller. 

Our first witness today is, in fact, and our first panel consists entirely of Kenneth Feinberg and Ms. Barra, who are in charge of the 

fund that will compensate many of the people who have suffered 

tragically as a result of GM’s failures, and we look forward to your 

testimony, and thank you very much for being here, Mr. Feinberg. 

STATEMENT OF KENNETH R. FEINBERG, FOUNDER AND 

MANAGING PARTNER, FEINBERG ROZEN LLP 

Mr. FEINBERG. Thank you. I want to thank the Chair for her vigorous leadership in this matter. I want to thank all the members 

of this subcommittee. I particularly want to thank Senator 

Blumenthal and his staff. They provided some valuable, constructive suggestions as to what this protocol should look like. And indirectly, I must thank Senator Blunt, indirectly, because Senator 

Blunt was critically important and very instrumental in the design 

and administration of the 9/11 Victims Compensation Fund, which 

proved to be a precedent for much of what is in this protocol, and 

I want to publicly thank Senator Blunt for his work many years 

ago in the drafting of the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund. 

4 

I am accompanied by Ms. Camille Biros who over the last 35 

years has worked at my side in the drafting, design, and administration of the 9/11 Fund, the BP Oil Spill Fund, OneFund Boston 

Marathon, the Virginia Tech Hokie Spirit Memorial Fund, et 

cetera. She is also here to answer any questions that the Committee might have about the administration of this program. 

It’s a bit premature to be talking about this program because we 

do not begin receiving claims until August 1, a few weeks from 

now. We are right on track. This protocol will form the basis for 

the submission of claims. I thank lawyers around the country for 

their input as to what this fund might look like. I thank various 

non-profit foundations interested in automotive safety for their 

input. And I also must say, in line with what the Chair said, I 

thank General Motors. From the top down, they have been very 

helpful and constructive in drafting this protocol. 

This compensation protocol, however, is entirely my responsibility. I don’t think there is anybody who provided us input who 

is entirely satisfied with all aspects of the protocol. The perfect is 

the enemy of the good, and we will see, but I am optimistic that, 

as the Chair pointed out in her introductory comments, we will 

compensate the innocent victims of this tragedy. That’s the purpose 

of the protocol, and I am confident that it will succeed. 

Now, we begin August 1. Claims can be submitted for the next 

5 months, through December 31. We will stay in active work into 

2015 processing claims that may come in late in the year. We’re 

not going to disappear on December 31. So we’ll stick around. 

But there are some very interesting features of this protocol, of 

this compensation program that I can highlight in 1 minute. 

It is uncapped. We are authorized to pay as much money as is 

required through the processing of eligible claims. 

The bankruptcy of GM is no barrier to compensation. If there 

were accidents that occurred before the bankruptcy, they are as eligible as accidents that occurred after the bankruptcy. 

There are some people who already settled their claim years ago 

with General Motors and signed a release that they won’t sue. 

They can come into this program. And if, under our compensation 

rules, they are entitled to additional compensation, they will be 

paid. 

The contributory negligence of the driver—speeding, cell phone 

texting while driving, intoxication—irrelevant. We are not looking 

at the driver or the circumstances of the driver’s negligence. We 

are looking at the automobile and only at the automobile to determine whether or not the defective ignition switch was the proximate cause of the accident. 

So you never know on these programs. We have our fingers 

crossed. We are very cautiously optimistic. We build on the success 

of past similar programs. I believe that beginning August 1 we will 

be ready, as the Chair and others have insisted, to begin receiving 

claims. We are finalizing the documentation which we will deliver 

to the Subcommittee. But we will be ready to receive claims. We 

will pay those claims within 90 to 180 days after the claims are 

deemed substantially complete. 

And finally, we have a very pervasive notice program to reach 

out to all eligible claimants, all those who think they might be eliVerDate Nov 24 2008 06:18 Sep 15, 2015 Jkt 075679 PO 00000 Frm 00008 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 S:\GPO\DOCS\95995.TXT JACKIE
5 

gible. We are determined to reach every driver or injured victim to 

make sure they know of this program, and we are confident that 

the program will work as intended. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Feinberg follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF KENNETH R. FEINBERG, FOUNDER AND MANAGING

PARTNER, FEINBERG ROZEN LLP 

Distinguished Members of the Subcommittee: 

We thank you for this opportunity to testify and explain the important features 

and benefits of the ‘‘GM Ignition Compensation Claims Resolution Facility, FINAL 

PROTOCOL’’ (a copy of which is attached to my formal written remarks and which 

I respectfully request be included in the final record of this hearing). I am accompanied at the witness table by my colleague, Ms. Camille Biros, who has worked 

with me in the administration of this Compensation Program, and all other compensation programs going back to the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund, the BP Gulf 

Coast Claims Facility and other similar programs. 

This Final Protocol, and our remarks here today, are designed to explain the Program about to be put in place for the ‘‘Compensation of Certain Death and Physical 

Injury Claims Pertaining to the GM Ignition Switch Recall.’’ I will summarize my 

formal written testimony and we will then be prepared to answer any questions 

posed by Members of the Subcommittee. 

We thank a number of individuals and entities for their assistance and valuable 

input in our preparation of the Final Protocol. Although I doubt that any of them 

are completely satisfied with the Protocol in all particulars, they have contributed 

in very important ways in guiding our thinking when it comes to the design of the 

Compensation Program. Individual plaintiff lawyers, non-profit entities devoted to 

automobile safety and GM officials themselves, have all made constructive and valuable suggestions and recommendations concerning the Program. 

But we emphasize here today that the Final Protocol and resulting Compensation 

Program are entirely and solely our responsibility. We, and we alone, defend the 

terms and conditions of the Program discussed here today. We stand behind the 

Program ready to defend it. 

The most important features of this Compensation Program can be summarized 

as follows: 

• The Program we have designed and will administer is totally independent from 

GM. As the Protocol expressly spells out, any final determinations concerning 

individual claims for compensation, and the amount of such compensation, cannot be challenged or appealed by GM. The decision we reach—exercising our 

‘‘sole discretion’’—is final and binding on GM. 

• The scope of the Compensation Program is limited to individual deaths and 

physical injuries. Claims for economic damage to the automobile itself, e.g., 

property damage or diminished resale value of the automobile, are not included 

within the scope of this Final Protocol. 

• The Compensation Program is purely voluntary; no individual is required to 

participate in the Program. 

• There is no aggregate cap on the amount of compensation GM will make available to eligible claimants pursuant to this Compensation Program. Whatever 

the total amount of compensation, GM has agreed to pay it. 

• The previous GM bankruptcy will not pose a legal barrier to any claimant submitting a claim for death or physical injury pursuant to this Program. Whether 

the unfortunate accident occurred before or after the GM bankruptcy is irrelevant. The claim will be considered on its own merits without regard to any GM 

bankruptcy date. 

• Individual claimants who previously settled their claims with GM before learning of the defective ignition switch problem will be permitted to reopen their 

claims, and seek additional compensation from this new Program if the calculated amount under the Program exceeds the earlier settlement amount. 

• The contributory negligence of the driver, e.g., intoxication, speeding, cell phone 

use while driving, etc., is completely irrelevant in the processing of individual 

claims pursuant to this Protocol. We are focusing on the causal connection between the defective ignition switch and the accident; the conduct of the driver 

will not enter into our deliberations in any way. 

6 

• Nor is the Compensation Program limited to the driver of the vehicle; passengers, pedestrians and occupants of other vehicles involved in the accident are 

also eligible to file individual claims. 

• An individual claimant must agree not to litigate against GM only after such 

claimant learns whether the filed claim is eligible and, if so, the amount of compensation. In effect, the claimant receives a ‘‘free preview’’ of the claim before 

deciding whether to forego the right to litigate in favor of immediate compensation. 

The Compensation Program will begin receiving individual claims in just a few 

weeks, beginning August 1, 2014. Individual claimants will have until the end of 

the year, December 31, 2014, to submit claims. (We will continue our work into 2015 

to complete the review and determination of all claims which are timely filed by the 

deadline.) 

Our goal is swift and certain compensation with minimal cost and delay to the 

claimant. Once we deem the individual claim and accompanying required documentation ‘‘substantially complete,’’ payments will be made within 90 days for the 

straightforward claim or 180 days for the more complex claim. (Compare this 

timeline with the cost, delays and uncertainties of the courtroom.) 

The earlier a claim is submitted beginning August 1, the quicker we can process 

the claim and determine both eligibility and the amount of compensation. And, as 

the Final Protocol makes clear, we will work closely with the claimant to cure any 

deficiencies found in the submitted claim. Our objective is to pay all eligible claimants as soon as possible; we will work with the claimant to try and do so. 

When it comes to eligibility to file a claim, there are three important prerequisites: 

• The accident must involve an ‘‘eligible vehicle,’’ as defined and listed on page 

3 of the attached Final Protocol. This constitutes the exclusive list of vehicles 

involved in this Compensation Program. According to GM, these are the only 

vehicles involved in the recall of 2.6 million automobiles in which the circumstances surrounding the defective ignition switch justify the creation of this 

unique Compensation Program. Neither Ms. Biros nor I have any authority to 

expand this list to other vehicles or other recalls. As with the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund and the BP Gulf Coast Claims Facility Program, our jurisdiction has been defined by others. 

• Individual claims are ineligible for compensation if the facts and circumstances 

of the accident demonstrate the deployment of any airbag and/or the deployment of seatbelt pretensioners during the accident. This is because in such situations automobile power continues to function and the airbags and seatbelts 

work as designed; the ignition switch remains in the ‘‘on’’ position and cannot 

be the cause of the accident. 

• The ignition switch defect in an eligible vehicle must be the ‘‘proximate cause’’ 

of the death or physical injury. This is a standard of proof well known to all 

lawyers. Evidence of this ‘‘proximate cause’’ link between ignition switch failure 

and the accident might include, by way of example: an examination of the automobile itself; a review of the ‘‘black box’’ data providing contemporary evidence 

of such failure; photographs of the accident scene; a contemporary police accident report; contemporary witness statements; contemporary insurance investigative reports and medical records; warranty and maintenance records confirming mechanical problems with the vehicle prior to the accident; and prior 

litigation depositions, written interrogatories and other similar information. We 

will work with individual claimants and their lawyers in an effort to satisfy this 

familiar legal standard of causation. 

Once eligibility is determined, the Final Protocol recognizes three categories of individual claims for compensation: 

• Individual Death Claims. 

• Catastrophic Physical Injury Claims involving quadriplegic and paraplegic injury, double amputation, permanent brain damage or pervasive burns. 

• Other Physical Injury Claims requiring overnight hospitalization or outpatient 

medical treatment within 48 hours of the automobile accident. 

The calculation of compensation for the first two claim categories listed above— 

death or catastrophic physical injury—will be made either based upon standard national Federal agency valuation statistics or the individual ‘‘extraordinary circumstances’’ of the claimant. The choice is up to the claimant. These are the same 

7 

two options which guided us in the successful design and administration of the 

9/11 Victim Compensation Fund. 

When it comes to hospitalization of the less seriously physically injured, the Final 

Protocol simply provides a flat amount of compensation tied to the number of overnight stays in the hospital, ranging from $20,000 (one night in the hospital) to 

$500,000 (at least 32 overnight stays). Hospitalization is an accurate reflection of 

seriousness of physical injury. Alternatively, outpatient medical treatment is also 

compensated up to $20,000. This flat amount ‘‘rough justice’’ approach relies on such 

previous precedents as the One Fund Boston marathon bombings compensation program and the Virginia Tech Hokie Spirit Memorial Fund. 

In either case, the Final Protocol requires hospitalization and/or outpatient medical treatment within 48 hours of the accident. 

The goal here is simple and straightforward—we want to concentrate our immediate efforts in determining both eligibility and compensation on behalf of those who 

have suffered the most grievous loss as a result of the accident. There is no substitute for distributing compensation as quickly and efficiently as possible. We have 

learned this from our previous work in designing and administering compensation 

funds. 

In order to avoid delay and inefficiency, it is important to emphasize speed and 

similar compensation for similar physical injuries which do not rise to the level of 

death or catastrophic injury. The bulk of our time should be spent determining eligibility and calculating individual damages tailored to those families who have lost 

loved ones, or those victims who now confront life-altering catastrophic physical injury. We must not be diverted in this task by focusing on less serious physical injuries in which we would be asked to evaluate extensive medical records and hospital 

reports. 

As already indicated, both Ms. Biros and I will begin receiving individual claim 

submissions on August 1, 2014. We have initiated a comprehensive, pervasive notice 

campaign designed to notify all 2.6 million individuals subject to the relevant GM 

recall program. In addition, we are reaching out and notifying all former owners of 

eligible vehicles included in this Compensation Program in an effort to determine 

whether they, too, may have been involved in an accident involving such vehicles. 

Our goal is to encourage all eligible claimants to file a claim pursuant to this Compensation Program as soon as possible. 

We cannot compensate eligible claimants unless they file a claim. More information can be found about the Compensation Program by telephoning Toll-Free 1–855– 

382–6463 (in the U.S. and Canada), and 01 800–111–2140 (in Mexico) or by accessing the Compensation Program website at: http://www.gmignitioncompensation 

.com/index. 

This completes my formal testimony and we welcome questions from the distinguished Members of this Subcommittee. 

June 30, 2014 

GM IGNITION COMPENSATION CLAIMS RESOLUTION FACILITY FINAL PROTOCOL FOR

COMPENSATION OF CERTAIN DEATH AND PHYSICAL INJURY CLAIMS PERTAINING TO

THE GM IGNITION SWITCH RECALL

I. Purpose 

General Motors LLC (‘‘GM’’) issued safety recalls identifying a defect in the ignition switch of certain vehicles in which the ignition switch may unintentionally 

move from the ‘‘run’’ position to the ‘‘accessory’’ or ‘‘off’’ position (‘‘the Ignition 

Switch Defect’’). This Protocol outlines the eligibility and process requirements for 

individual claimants to submit and settle claims alleging that the Ignition Switch 

Defect caused a death or physical injury in an automobile accident. 

The effective date of the Final Protocol is August 1, 2014. 

A. Role 

GM asked Kenneth R. Feinberg to develop and design a Protocol for the submission, evaluation, and settlement of death or physical injury claims allegedly resulting from the Ignition Switch Defect. The resulting Protocol creates a Claims Resolution Facility (‘‘the Facility’’) under which the independent Administrator, Mr. 

Feinberg, will process and evaluate claims to determine: a) whether the submitted 

claim meets the eligibility requirements, and b) the compensation to be paid for eligible claims as defined below. 

8 

GM has authorized the Facility to process only eligible claims involving death or 

physical injury. No other claims for economic injury or other allegations of damage 

are subject to this Protocol. 

Participation in the Facility is completely voluntary and does not affect any rights 

the claimant may have until and unless the claimant accepts the compensation 

amount and signs a release. 

B. Approach 

The following non-exclusive principles apply to the operation of this Protocol: 

• The Facility will evaluate claims submitted with the required documentation in 

a prompt and fair manner. 

• Any documentation already submitted by individuals to GM in support of death 

or physical injury claims allegedly resulting from the Ignition Switch Defect will 

be transferred to the Facility consistent with this Protocol. 

• GM has agreed that a substantially complete submission of an individual claim 

pursuant to this Protocol will toll the statute of limitations on any potential 

death or personal injury claim that the claimant has related to the Ignition 

Switch Defect (1) until the Facility renders a decision rejecting the submitted 

claim or (2) until the claimant rejects the Facility’s offer to settle the claim or 

the settlement offer becomes null and void. 

• Acceptance of payment from the Facility will require the execution of a full release of liability, as discussed below. 

• The Facility is administered by Mr. Feinberg, a neutral fund Administrator responsible for all decisions relating to the administration, processing, and evaluation of claims submitted to the Facility. 

II. Eligibility Requirements 

The only claimants that can submit claims to the Facility are: a) the individual 

physically injured in the accident, or b) the Legal Representative (as defined below) 

of the decedent or the individual physically injured in the accident. 

Claims submitted by insurance companies seeking reimbursement for payments 

made to individual claimants are ineligible pursuant to this Protocol. 

The ‘‘Legal Representative’’ of the decedent or the individual physically injured in 

the accident shall mean: (1) in the case of a minor, a parent or legal guardian authorized under law to serve as a minor’s legal representative; (2) in the case of a 

decedent, the spouse, descendant, relative or other person who is authorized by law 

to serve as the decedent’s legal representative; and (3) in the case of an incompetent 

or legally incapacitated individual, a person who has submitted proof to the Facility 

that such person has been duly appointed in accordance with applicable law. 

For a claimant to be eligible for compensation under the Protocol (‘‘Eligible Claimants’’), the following eligibility requirements must be met: 

A. The individual on whose behalf the claim is filed must have been the driver, 

a passenger, a pedestrian, or the occupant of another vehicle, in an accident 

involving one of the following categories of vehicles (‘‘Eligible Vehicle’’): 

Production Part Vehicles (Ignition Switch Recall Repair was not Performed Prior to 

the Accident) 

• Chevrolet Cobalt (Model Years 2005–2007) 

• Chevrolet HHR (Model Years 2006–2007) 

• Daewoo G2X (Model Year 2007) 

• Opel/Vauxhall GT (Model Year 2007) 

• Pontiac G4 (Model Years 2005–2006) 

• Pontiac G5 (Model Year 2007) 

• Pontiac Pursuit (Model Years 2005–2006) 

• Pontiac Solstice (Model Years 2006–2007) 

• Saturn Ion (Model Years 2003–2007) 

• Saturn Sky (Model Year 2007) 

Service Part Vehicles (Ignition Switch was Replaced by a Dealer or Independent 

Service Center with an Ignition Switch bearing Part Number 10392423) 

• Chevrolet Cobalt (Model Years 2008–2010) 

• Chevrolet HHR (Model Years 2008–2011) 

• Daewoo G2X (Model Years 2008–2009) 

9 

1 Ignition Switch Recall Repair is defined as a repair performed by a dealer or independent 

service center to address the recall condition set forth in National Highway Traffic and Safety 

Administration Recalls 14V–047 and 14V–171. 

• Opel/Vauxhall GT (Model Years 2008–2010) 

• Pontiac G5 (Model Years 2008–2010) 

• Pontiac Solstice (Model Years 2008–2010) 

• Saturn Sky (Model Years 2008–2010) 

B. The accident must have occurred prior to December 31, 2014. In addition: 

1. If the accident involved an Eligible Production Part Vehicle, the Ignition 

Switch Recall Repair 1 was not performed prior to the accident; or 

2. If the accident involved an Eligible Service Part Vehicle, (a) the vehicle’s ignition switch was replaced by a dealer or independent service center with an 

ignition switch bearing Part Number 10392423 and (b) the accident occurred 

after such replacement of the ignition switch and prior to the Ignition Switch 

Recall Repair. 

C. Any individual claim submitted to the Facility shall be deemed ineligible if the 

facts and circumstances of the accident demonstrate the deployment of any airbag during the accident and/or the deployment of seatbelt pretensioners during 

the accident. 

D. There are three categories of individual claims for physical injury/death which 

may be submitted pursuant to this Protocol. Claims for physical injury must 

provide contemporaneous documentation of either overnight hospitalization or 

outpatient medical treatment within 48 hours of the accident. The following are 

the three categories: 

1. Individual Death Claims 

2. Category One Physical Injury Claims: claims involving quadriplegic injury, 

paraplegic injury, double amputation, permanent brain damage requiring 

continuous home medical assistance, or pervasive burns encompassing a substantial part of the body. 

3. Category Two Physical Injury Claims: claims, other than Category One Physical Injury Claims, that, within 48 hours of the accident, require either overnight hospitalization of one or more nights or, in extraordinary circumstances as determined on a case by case basis by the Administrator, outpatient medical treatment. 

E. No claim shall be eligible unless, after reviewing all of the information submitted as required herein, the Facility determines, in its sole discretion, that 

the Ignition Switch Defect in an Eligible Vehicle was the proximate cause of 

the death or physical injury. The Facility will not take into account any contributory negligence of the claimant in making this determination. 

III. Methodologies For Calculating Compensation 

To determine the amount of compensation to be paid to Eligible Claimants the 

Facility will use the following calculation methodologies: 

A. Individual Death Claims 

Eligible Claimants submitting a death claim shall voluntarily elect to receive compensation based on one of the following two tracks: 

1. Track A—Presumptive Compensation 

The Track A presumed methodology relies upon a combination of the decedent’s 

historical earnings and personal details with assumptions of likely future events 

based upon multiple sources of publicly available national data including the 

Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Internal Revenue Service. Eligible Claimants 

need not present detailed computations or analyses. Instead, they only need to 

supply the Facility with the following data: 

• decedent’s historical earnings 

• decedent’s employment benefits 

• decedent’s age 

• age and status of members of the decedent’s household who are dependents 

of the decedent 

10 

This Track A presumed methodology ensures consistent economic loss calculations for similarly situated victims (i.e., same age, number of dependents and 

income level). Eligible Claimants voluntarily choosing Track A will receive compensation within 90 days from the date that the Facility deems the submission 

of the pertinent Claim Form and required supporting documentation as ‘‘substantially complete.’’ In cases where a victim had little or no earnings history, 

or in the case of calculating the amount of compensation for minor children, the 

Facility will calculate the economic loss by using the average income of all wage 

earners in the U.S. for the year 2013. 

2. Track B—Complete Economic Analysis 

Track B entails a complete, comprehensive economic loss analysis of the decedent’s past, present and assumed future income. The Facility will consider the 

financial history of the decedent through incorporation of submitted individual 

income data, including past, present and future earnings, wage growth, work 

life expectancy, etc., as well as other case-specific information and circumstances of the decedent that the claimant believes the Facility should consider in determining the total value of the claim. In determining the final Track 

B award, the Facility will also consider information submitted by the claimant 

regarding any extraordinary circumstances associated with the claimant. In this 

manner, the Track B methodology incorporates the individual circumstances of 

the decedent and will require the submission of substantially more information 

than for Track A. Eligible Claimants voluntarily choosing Track B will receive 

compensation within 180 days from the date that the Facility deems the submission of the pertinent Claim Form and required supporting documentation 

‘‘substantially complete.’’ 

In addition to the economic loss compensation calculated pursuant to Track A 

or Track B, each Eligible Claimant submitting a death claim will receive the 

following uniform amounts for non-economic loss (e.g., pain and suffering, emotional distress, loss of consortium, etc.): 

• $1,000,000 for the death of the decedent, and 

• $ 300,000 for the surviving spouse, and 

• $ 300,000 for each surviving dependent of the decedent. 

B. Individual Claims Involving a Category One Physical Injury 

Economic loss compensation for individual claims involving a Category One Physical Injury, as defined above, will be calculated in the same way as Individual Death 

Claims under Track A or Track B, as voluntarily selected by the Eligible Claimant. 

Claims submitted pursuant to this Section will, in some cases, also require the 

calculation of a long term life-care plan along with the calculation of non-economic 

loss. 

1. If the claimant chooses Track A (Presumptive Compensation), the value of such 

a long term life-care plan will be presumed to be the present value of the national average of such long term life-care plans, which includes consideration 

of costs associated with home assistance, therapy and transportation, medical 

care, medications, equipment and supplies, home modifications, etc. The 

amount of non-economic loss compensation will be determined as an average 

fixed calculation tied to the total cost of a proposed long term life-care plan for 

an individual claimant. 

2. If the claimant chooses Track B (Complete Economic Analysis), the value of 

such a long term life-care plan will require the submission of case-specific information corroborating the individual circumstances of the claimant and the 

need for the facility to take into account such circumstances, e.g., home assistance, therapy and transportation, medical care, medications, equipment and 

supplies, home modifications, etc. The amount of non-economic loss compensation will be determined by considering such case-specific factors as the nature 

and extent of the injury, the lifestyle of the claimant and the total cost of a 

proposed long term life-care plan for the individual claimant. 

The Facility will also provide non-economic loss compensation for Eligible Claimants submitting a Category One Physical Injury Claim where no long term life-care 

plan is required. Because the physical injuries are so vastly different, and have significantly different long term effects, the Facility will evaluate each individual Category One Physical Injury Claim to determine the extent and nature of the injury 

in order to establish non-economic loss. 

11 

C. Category Two Physical Injury Claims—Hospitalization of One or More Nights or 

Outpatient Medical Treatment 

Eligible Claimants who were physically injured and hospitalized within 48 hours 

of the accident for one or more nights as a result of the accident will receive the 

following compensation (encompassing both economic loss and non-economic loss): 

• Hospitalization of no less than 32 overnights: $500,000.00 

• Hospitalization of 24 to 31 overnights: $385,000.00 

• Hospitalization of 16 to 23 overnights: $260,000.00 

• Hospitalization of 8 to 15 overnights: $170,000.00 

• Hospitalization of 2 to 7 overnights: $70,000.00 

• Hospitalization of 1 overnight: $ 20,000.00 

Such hospitalization need not be on consecutive days and may be cumulative if 

such subsequent hospitalization is documented to be the result of the accident. 

Eligible Claimants who were physically injured, but were not hospitalized overnight because of extraordinary circumstances, will receive up to a maximum of 

$20,000 for medical treatment resulting from the accident, if such treatment commenced within 48 hours of the accident. (This compensation encompasses both economic loss and non-economic loss.) Any subsequent overnight hospitalization of such 

Eligible Claimant for physical injuries as a result of the accident will be compensated according to the number of nights of hospitalization as outlined above for 

a Category Two Hospitalization claim. However, the total compensation will not exceed the maximum allocated amount of each hospitalization category shown above. 

IV. Documentation Requirements 

All individuals submitting a claim pursuant to this Protocol must submit a completed Claim Form as provided by the Facility. Each claimant must submit the documentation requested on the Claim Form, or other similar information sufficient 

both to substantiate and determine Protocol requirements, including eligibility requirements, and to allow the Facility to review, process, and evaluate the submitted 

claim. 

If the claim is being presented by an attorney or a Legal Representative, then the 

attorney or Legal Representative will be responsible for submitting the necessary 

documentation relating to the represented decedent, minor, or incompetent or legally incapacitated individual. Legal Representatives must supply proof of representative capacity—such as a power of attorney, guardianship, appointment as 

guardian or attorney ad litem, custodial parent, or the equivalent—as is required 

to establish authority to act in a representative capacity under the law of the resident state of the decedent, minor, or incompetent or legally incapacitated individual. 

The proof requirements for Eligible Claimants as defined above are as follows: 

A. All Claims 

• An official police report contemporaneous with the accident date, if available, 

including any attachments, photos, or supplemental reports. 

• Vehicle computer data captured by the vehicle’s Event Data Recorder and the 

Sensing and Diagnostic Module (‘‘EDR’’/‘‘SDM’’), if available. 

• Information (preferably a Vehicle Identification Number (VIN), if available) confirming that the vehicle involved in the accident is an Eligible Vehicle. 

• Any other corroborating documentation deemed relevant by the Facility. 

B. Individual Death Claims 

• An official death certificate. 

• Documentation and proof requirements for past and future loss of income and 

earnings pursuant to Track A or B as appropriate, as well as any other noneconomic loss documentation evidencing extraordinary circumstances pursuant 

to Track B. 

• Other pertinent financial information, and information and documentation regarding the decedent’s Legal Representative, will be required with the filing of 

the Claim Form. 

• Any other corroborating documentation deemed relevant by the Facility. 

C. Category One Physical Injury Claims 

• Contemporaneous pertinent medical records describing the nature of the serious 

physical injury and documenting hospitalization within 48 hours of the accident, 

including information concerning any total or partial disability of the claimant. 

12 

• Documentation and proof requirements for past and future loss of income and 

earnings pursuant to Track A or B as appropriate, as well as any other noneconomic loss documentation evidencing extraordinary circumstances pursuant 

to Track B. 

• Other pertinent financial information may be required with the filing of the 

Claim Form. 

• A proposed long term life-care plan, if appropriate. 

• Any other corroborating documentation deemed relevant by the Facility. 

D. Category Two Physical Injury Claims 

• Hospitalization: A contemporaneous hospital record that confirms the following: 

» The date of hospitalization within 48 hours of the accident. 

» The date of discharge from the hospital. 

» The nature of the injury; and 

» That the injury was sustained as a result of the automobile accident. 

• Other Outpatient Medical Treatment: A contemporaneous medical record that 

confirms the following: 

» The date of the outpatient medical treatment within 48 hours of the accident. 

» The nature of the injury and medical treatment; and 

» That the injury was sustained as a result of the automobile accident. 

• In addition, claimants submitting documentation of outpatient medical treatment shall also provide a description of the extraordinary circumstances resulting in such outpatient medical treatment rather than hospitalization. 

• Any other corroborating documentation deemed relevant by the Facility. 

Specific documentation and proof requirements will be defined on the Claim Form. 

Additional documentation may be required, e.g., pertinent hospital and insurance 

records, etc. 

V. Filing for Compensation 

A. Equal Access and Fair Adjudications in the Claims Process 

All claimants will be treated with respect, dignity, and fairness, without regard 

to race, color, sexual orientation, national origin, religion, gender, or disability. The 

Facility will manage the process so that all claimants can equally access the Facility’s claim submission process so that claims will be adjudicated fairly. Individuals 

with disabilities will be given the opportunity to effectively communicate their 

claims and to request special process accommodations to the Facility. Accommodations will be made for individuals with language barriers to ensure that they will 

have meaningful access to the process and to the Facility. 

B. Process and Procedures 

Eligible Claimants should file a pertinent Claim Form for: (1) individual death 

claims, (2) individual claims involving a Category One Physical Injury, or (3) individual claims involving a Category Two Physical Injury. A single Claim Form 

should be submitted for each Eligible Claimant. 

This Protocol and pertinent Claim Forms will be available to all interested parties 

beginning on August 1, 2014, the effective date of this Protocol. The Claim Form 

should be completed and submitted to the Facility (along with all required supporting documentation) postmarked no later than December 31, 2014. Questions regarding the completion of the Claim Form should be sent via e-mail to the Facility. 

(Contact information will be provided on the Claim Form and on the Facility’s 

website.) The Facility will maintain and make available to claimants a list of Frequently Asked Questions and responses. Claim Forms may be obtained and submitted in any one of the following ways: 

1. Via the Internet: Claimants may submit a claim online by visiting the Facility 

website at www.GMIgnitionCompensation.com. Claimants will be instructed to 

follow simple steps for completing a claim. 

2. Via U.S. Mail: Claimants may visit the Facility website and download a copy 

of the Claim Form or call the Facility’s toll-free line to request a copy. Claimants will mail the completed Claim Forms via U.S. Mail to: 

GM Ignition Compensation Claims Resolution Facility 

PO Box 10091 

Dublin, OH 43017–6691 

13 

In order for the claim to be eligible for payment, all claimants must consent to 

participate in the Facility and agree to be bound by its terms, but shall not release 

any legal rights until an award is determined, the claimant is notified, and the 

claimant accepts the award and executes a binding Release. The Facility will work 

directly with all claimants as reasonably requested to make sure that all claims are 

submitted by the December 31, 2014 deadline. 

A Claim Form filed for a decedent will require the spouse’s signature if the decedent was married at the time of death, if the Legal Representative is a person other 

than the spouse, and if the spouse is still alive and competent. In cases where the 

decedent was not married, or where the spouse is no longer alive or competent, and 

where the Legal Representative is a person other than the personal representative 

legally responsible for administering the decedent’s estate, the personal representative of the decedent’s estate must sign the Claim Form. The decedent’s Legal Representative will be responsible for submitting a Proposed Distribution Plan to the 

Facility along with the Claim Form, showing how any compensation from the Facility would be allocated among the decedent’s heirs, beneficiaries, and legatees consistent with the law of the decedent’s State of domicile, or with any applicable ruling made by a court of competent jurisdiction. The Legal Representative is responsible for ensuring that the decedent’s heirs, beneficiaries, and legatees are notified 

of the filing of the claim and receive a copy of the Proposed Distribution Plan. All 

of the decedent’s heirs, beneficiaries and legatees must consent to participate in the 

Facility and agree to be bound by its terms. Before receiving any compensation from 

the Facility, the Legal Representative of the decedent, as well as all of the decedent’s heirs, beneficiaries, and legatees, must sign a full release of all past and future claims against any potentially liable parties relating to the Ignition Switch Defect. 

A Legal Representative filing a Claim Form for a minor child will be required to 

obtain the signatures of all living parents, or of the minor’s legal guardian(s) if neither parent is living. A Legal Representative filing a claim on behalf of an incompetent or legally incapacitated individual will be required, along with proof of the 

Legal Representative’s authority, to obtain the signature(s) of all other legally appointed representative(s) of the individual as may exist. 

The Facility cannot provide tax advice to those receiving payments pursuant to 

this Protocol. The Facility recommends consultation with a tax advisor concerning 

any questions regarding tax liability for payments pursuant to this Protocol. 

C. Due Process Procedures and the Right to be Heard 

Individual claimants or GM may request a face-to-face personal meeting (or telephone meeting) with the Administrator prior to his making a determination pertaining to only an Individual Death Claim or Category One Physical Injury Claim. 

Both the individual claimant and GM reserve the right to submit to the Facility any 

information deemed relevant to the Administrator’s evaluation and determination of 

any such Individual Death Claim or Category One Physical Injury Claim before the 

final processing and determination of the claim. Meetings will be scheduled at mutually convenient times and locations. Such a requested meeting will not serve to 

alter the eligibility, process, or documentation requirements or any allocation 

amounts set forth in this Protocol. Requests to meet with the Administrator should 

be sent by e-mail to the Facility. (Contact information to be provided on the Claim 

Form and on the Facility website.) 

D. Incomplete or Deficient Claims 

If a claimant submits an incomplete or deficient claim, e.g., the claimant failed 

to include required documentation or failed to sign the Claim Form, a deficiency notification will be sent to the claimant and a representative of the Facility will informally work with the claimant in an effort to cure any such deficiencies. 

E. Notification of Facility Decision 

The Facility will send the claimant the following in writing: 

1. The Facility’s decision regarding the claim, including the reason for any denial 

of the claim. 

2. The settlement amount offered pursuant to this Protocol to settle the claim; 

and 

3. A Release to be signed by the claimant if the claimant accepts the offered settlement. 

Settlement offers pursuant to this Protocol shall be valid for 90 days, after which 

they are null and void. 

14 

F. Payment 

Payments will be issued by the Facility following the final processing of an Eligible Claimant’s Claim Form and any requested due process hearing. The Facility will 

authorize the payment, by check or electronic bank wire, to each Eligible Claimant. 

Checks will be sent to claimants by the Facility via courier service. 

VI. Privacy 

Information submitted by a claimant to the Facility will be used and disclosed 

only for the following purposes: 

1. Processing the claimant’s claim for compensation. 

2. Legitimate business use associated with administering the Facility, including 

the prevention of fraud; and/or 

3. Law, regulation or judicial process. 

VII. Quality Control and Procedures to Prevent and Detect Fraud 

A. Verification Procedures 

For the purpose of detecting and preventing the payment of fraudulent claims, 

and for the purpose of accurate and appropriate payments to claimants, the Facility 

will implement procedures to: 

1. Verify and authenticate claims. 

2. Analyze claim submissions to detect inconsistencies, irregularities, and duplication. 

3. Ensure the quality control of claims review procedures. 

B. Quality Control 

The Facility shall institute all necessary measures designed to evaluate the accuracy of submissions and the accuracy of payments. 

C. False or Fraudulent Claims 

Each claimant will sign the Claim Form at the time of submission, stating that 

he or she certifies that the information provided in the Claim Form is true and accurate to the best of his or her knowledge, and that he or she understands that false 

statements or claims made in connection with such submission may result in fines, 

imprisonment, and/or any other remedy available by law. Suspicious claims will be 

forwarded to federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies for possible investigation and prosecution. Claims filed via the Internet will require an electronic signature which shall be equally as binding upon the claimant as a physical signature. 

VIII. Release, Offsets and Liens 

A. Release 

In order for the claim to be eligible for payment, all claimants must consent to 

participate in the Facility and agree to be bound by its terms. No such Agreement 

will be enforceable until the claimant is made aware of the settlement amount. 

Until a Final Release is executed, each individual claimant retains all rights under 

the law, including proceeding with, or continuing with, litigation during the processing of the claim. Such litigation shall be immediately dismissed by agreement of 

the parties if the claimant elects to accept the award and execute the appropriate 

Release. 

By submitting a claim under this Protocol, a claimant is seeking to resolve all 

claims against all responsible parties relating to the Ignition Switch Defect in an 

Eligible Vehicle. If a claimant chooses to accept a final payment pursuant to this 

Protocol, the claimant will be required to sign a full release of all past and future 

claims against any party relating to the Ignition Switch Defect in the Eligible Vehicle. The release will waive any rights the claimant or his/her heirs, descendants, 

legatees and beneficiaries may have against General Motors or any potentially responsible party to assert any claims relating to the Ignition Switch Defect, to file 

an individual legal action relating to the Ignition Switch Defect, or to participate 

in any legal action associated with the Ignition Switch Defect. 

B. Offsets 

In determining all payments pursuant to this Protocol, the Facility will take into 

account and offset any prior payments made by GM or General Motors Corporation 

to individual claimants in connection with claims encompassed by this Protocol. 

15 

C. Medical Liens 

In determining all payments pursuant to this Protocol, the Facility will take into 

account any outstanding medical liens, if any, currently owed by the claimant. The 

Facility will retain the services of a Lien Resolution Administrator to serve as an 

agent for the benefit of the settling claimants and to identify, resolve and satisfy, 

in accordance with Federal law, all settling claimant repayment obligations related 

to payments associated with this Facility including, but not limited to, Medicare 

parts A and B, Medicaid and commercial or private health care liens. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Thank you so much, Mr. Feinberg. 

A couple of questions. 

When they hired you to administer this compensation program, 

did General Motors lay out any limitations on the program’s scope? 

And if so, what were the limitations they laid out? 

Mr. FEINBERG. The only limitation they really laid out was the 

limitation that only certain eligible vehicles are subject to this program. As the Chair knows, in BP there were limitations to my jurisdiction. In 9/11, as then-Congressman Blunt and others drafted 

that legislation, there were limitations. The only limitation in this 

program that GM insisted on were that only the eligible vehicles 

listed in page 3 of the compensation protocol are eligible for consideration. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Did you suggest any classes or coverage 

that should be included that General Motors rejected? 

Mr. FEINBERG. No. 

Senator MCCASKILL. OK. 

Mr. FEINBERG. I’m not an automotive engineer. I asked General 

Motors what are the vehicles, what is the definition of an eligible 

vehicle that could give rise to a valid claim, and this was their response, which is reflected expressly in the protocol. 

Senator MCCASKILL. So if the airbags didn’t deploy but should 

have, if there’s any evidence that the seat belt pretensioners 

worked as designed, under your protocol the victim is not eligible? 

Mr. FEINBERG. That’s right. The victim is not eligible if the 

power was on and the airbag did deploy. If the airbag deployed and 

the seat belts were working, then a fortiori the likelihood that the 

ignition switch could have been in the off position causing the accident is not possible. So we concluded, and I concluded, that airbag 

deployment renders the claim ineligible. Airbag non-deployment or 

a claim in which the victim or his family or her family say we don’t 

know whether the airbag deployed or not, eligible. File the claim 

and we’ll work with the claimant in that regard. 

Senator MCCASKILL. So, let me make sure I understand. If the 

airbag did not deploy, you are eligible if you are in one of the cars 

on the list. 

Mr. FEINBERG. Exactly. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Regardless of the seat belt. 

Mr. FEINBERG. Exactly. 

Senator MCCASKILL. OK. So the total decision here is what car 

it is and whether or not the airbags deployed. 

Mr. FEINBERG. And/or whether the seat belts deployed. It’s the 

same issue. If the seat belts deployed, the power is on. It couldn’t 

have been the ignition switch. 

Senator MCCASKILL. I’m confused what you mean by ‘‘seat belt 

deployed.’’ I mean, are you talking about whether a seat belt is on? 

Would you explain that for the record, Ms. Barra? 

16 

Mr. FEINBERG. Ms. Barra? 

Ms. BIROS. It’s not the seat belts, per se. It’s the pretensioners, 

which are electrically controlled, our understanding is. So if they 

were operational, then it’s unlikely that the cause of the accident 

was the ignition switch. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Oh. So what you’re saying is if the 

pretensioners are working, that is an indication that there was not 

a shutdown of the electrical system or the power system that would 

have prevented the airbags from deploying. 

Ms. BIROS. That’s correct. 

Senator MCCASKILL. What if you have a situation where the airbag, there is a frontal crash and the airbag doesn’t deploy, and 

then seconds later there is a rear crash and the airbag does deploy? 

Mr. FEINBERG. File the claim. If there’s a frontal crash and the 

airbag didn’t deploy, we want to look into that claim. 

Senator MCCASKILL. OK. All right. So you are open to looking at 

each situation. So that would be a situation where the airbag did 

deploy but not until the second crash. So I want to make sure that 

everyone’s clear that even if your airbag did deploy, it could depend 

on the facts of your case. 

Mr. FEINBERG. That’s an interesting hypothetical for law school. 

But, I mean, I’d like to take a look at that claim. 

Senator MCCASKILL. I think there is one. 

Mr. FEINBERG. Well, I’d like to take a look at it. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Because this is the issue. This switch goes 

off and on easily, right? It slides to off easily. It slides back, because there’s not appropriate torque in it. So things that bump it 

move it. So just as easily as a riding off the road could bump it 

and it could go off, a frontal crash could move it from off to on; correct? 

Mr. FEINBERG. We looked at that problem. I think theoretically 

you are correct. I have two answers to your hypothetical. First, it 

is highly unlikely that that circumstance that you just posited occurs. I guess it could. It’s highly unlikely. 

Second, what I want to avoid with this program is being inundated by thousands of claims where the airbag deployed, making 

it extremely unlikely that it was the ignition switch causing delay 

in getting money out the door to the vast number of claimants 

which clearly can demonstrate airbag non-deployment through police reports, photographs, et cetera. 

The whole key to this program, as you and others have pointed 

out, is getting money out the door as fast as possible to eligible 

claimants. That’s why the airbag deployment provision in the protocol is designed, frankly, to discourage thousands of people from 

filing a claim when in the overwhelming number of cases, I mean 

overwhelming number of cases, airbag non-deployment is a certain 

step in the direction of finding eligibility. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Right. Well, I have questions about the 

amount of money that you have to spend, and also about punitive 

damages, but I have a feeling my colleagues will handle those questions before we finish all the questions on this panel. So I will 

leave those questions to my colleagues and turn it over to Senator 

Heller. 

Senator HELLER. Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

17 

And again, thanks for being here. 

I don’t know that it’s premature to have this discussion because 

I think this is the perfect time to have this discussion before this 

program moves forward. I want to go back to what the Chairman 

was asking you. 

So you’re saying that there’s no scenario where the key could 

have gone from Run to Accessory, have an accident occur, and still 

have the airbag deploy? 

Mr. FEINBERG. That’s right. 

Senator HELLER. No scenario? 

Mr. FEINBERG. There may be—Senator McCaskill raises a hypothetical situation, but it’s not the type of situation that is at all 

likely that would justify drafting a compensation program that 

would invite anybody where the airbag deployed to file a claim. 

Senator HELLER. So it took 10 years to figure out what the problem was, and you’re telling me that that scenario can’t happen. 

Mr. FEINBERG. It’s so rare that you don’t want to discourage 

claims from being filed by the overwhelming cases where airbag 

non-deployment is a major step in the direction of finding eligibility. 

Senator HELLER. You said that you’re going to compensate all innocent victims. Let me give you a scenario, since this is preliminary. 

Suppose I’m driving a Cobalt and the airbag doesn’t deploy and 

the key goes from Run to Accessory, and I walk away unscathed 

but I destroy the car. Am I compensated? 

Mr. FEINBERG. That’s a litigation matter. You’re not compensated 

under a protocol that’s limited to death and physical injury. You 

may very well be compensated, and I think there are thousands of 

lawsuits pending on economic damage to the car, diminished value 

of the car, but that’s not the scope of this death and physical injury 

program. 

Senator HELLER. Well, why would you stop there? Isn’t a loss a 

loss? 

Mr. FEINBERG. A loss is a loss. From the very beginning, in my 

conversations with both lawyers representing injured and deceased 

victims, it was always understood that this program, like 9/11 and 

like OneFund Boston, is limited to death and physical injury. I’m 

not saying those folks don’t have a valid claim. They just don’t 

come to this program. 

Senator HELLER. Is there a way to appeal that decision? 

Mr. FEINBERG. Which decision is that? 

Senator HELLER. That a loss isn’t a loss in this case. 

Mr. FEINBERG. In the courts I assume there is. 

Senator HELLER. But can they appeal to GM? 

Mr. FEINBERG. I guess they can appeal it to GM as well. 

Senator HELLER. I want to ask about your compensation. I don’t 

know if you have performance indicators on moving forward on 

what you and your staff will be based on your pay. I think it’s important that there is transparency of your compensation, and I 

think knowing here that you’re being compensated by GM, I think 

transparency is important. 

Will you or your staff be paid based on number of claims made 

or the number of claims processed or anything of that nature? 

18 

Mr. FEINBERG. Absolutely not. 

Senator HELLER. Let me talk to you a little bit about BP, because 

I know that previous administrations of the BP Oil Spill Victim 

Compensation Fund did receive some criticism from some of the 

stakeholders, that you were working for the oil company’s interest 

instead of being independent. 

Mr. FEINBERG. I’ll say. 

[Laughter.] 

Senator HELLER. How do we know that you’ll be independent in 

this case and be accountable to the victims? 

Mr. FEINBERG. First of all, as with BP, you’ll recall, Senator, 

when that criticism came my way I asked for Attorney General Michael Mukasey of the Bush Administration to review my whole 

compensation, the whole way that we went about being paid, my 

independence, and he wrote an opinion letter which I made available making it very clear that I was independent and doing the 

type of work that I was asked to do. 

Second, the only real way that you blunt criticism that is sure 

to come about my compensation, the only way, is how fast you get 

money out the door to eligible claimants in a generous way so that 

they can see that the conduct of this program and the professed 

independence is backed up by the way these claims are being processed. 

I will say again, until these claims begin to come in and people 

see how they’re being processed and how they’re being found eligible, I’ll always confront that criticism, and that’s the way you have 

to address it. 

Senator HELLER. OK. 

All right, I’m fine. Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Senator Klobuchar. 

STATEMENT OF HON. AMY KLOBUCHAR, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM MINNESOTA 

Senator KLOBUCHAR. Thank you very much, Chairman 

McCaskill. Thank you for holding this hearing. 

Thank you, both of you, for being here. 

The investigation into the General Motors ignition switch defect 

issue paints a picture of a company that for years showed indifference in the face of mounting evidence of risk and of danger, and 

I believe there are still questions to be answered. 

A key point for victims, Mr. Feinberg, and one of the reasons 

we’re having the hearing today are questions about how the fund 

will work and how the claims will work. 

I also greatly appreciate the fact that Ms. Barra, the new GM 

CEO, has stepped up and taken this on, head on, not only with the 

recalls but also with setting up this fund and working with the victims. 

Something very bad happened here, and we all know that. And 

as you know, Mr. Feinberg, only the results and history will judge 

whether there is true justice for these victims, and I’m glad that 

the Chairman held this hearing so quickly after our last one so we 

can continue to be informed and ask questions. 

In my case, I’ve got a victim, a very young woman named 

Natasha Weigel, and she is from Albert Lea, Minnesota. She was 

19 

only 19 years old. She died when her car went barreling at 71 

miles per hour into a grove of trees. She was a hockey goalie. She 

had a lovely little note she wrote to her dad right before she died 

about how she always knew he had her back and he was there. 

And I know all they want now is to make sure that GM has their 

back. 

So my first question really is about these young victims. Since 

many of these cars involve younger drivers—they like the Saturn. 

I’m a Saturn driver. I still have a 15-year-old Saturn, so I can relate to this. And the Chevy Cobalt, that was the kind of car that 

she was killed in, the Chevy Cobalt. 

Could you ensure, Mr. Feinberg, that there will be fair compensation for these younger victims when it’s often harder to assess 

what their earnings potential will be? 

Mr. FEINBERG. Absolutely. Like 9/11, where many young people 

died on the planes, at the World Trade Center, at the Pentagon, 

here even younger people, we will make sure that compensation is 

generous and it is adequate and it is appropriate, and the protocol 

lays out in some detail how we will go about estimating compensation for younger non-wage earners who were in school or had not 

yet begun a professional or an employment career. 

We also lay out rules that allow any younger victim or anybody 

who has died in the crash or who was terribly physically injured 

to come in and see us, and we will develop a tailored compensation 

program, what I call ‘‘Track B,’’ that reflects the unique circumstances of those younger people, and we’ll be glad to do that 

under the rules of the protocol. 

Senator KLOBUCHAR. And do you anticipate a lower participation 

rate for younger people just because of the fact you hadn’t seen this 

in the past? 

Mr. FEINBERG. No. 

Senator KLOBUCHAR. OK. Concerns have been raised by some 

safety groups about the documentation required, that it may be too 

burdensome. Some say it may be very difficult to prove that years 

ago an ignition switch failure caused a crash. How do you respond 

to those concerns? 

Mr. FEINBERG. First of all, it’s a lot less burdensome and a lot 

quicker than if they go to court and have to prove their claim, I’ll 

tell you that. Second, there is a provision in this protocol that 

makes absolutely clear that if anybody files a deficient claim, they 

can’t find the documentation, we will work—this was a point Senator Blumenthal asked about—we will work with that claimant to 

try and cure that deficiency. 

There are various ways, a menu of options as to documentation— 

a contemporary police report, the car, the black box in the car, insurance reports, warranty and maintenance reports. We’ll work 

with the claimant. Photographs. Perhaps one of the best examples 

of corroboration, citing Senator McCaskill’s example, is a photograph showing a front-end collision and no airbag deployment. 

Now, that case, I must say, is well along the way to eligibility. 

So we’ll work with the claimant to make sure that even though 

some of these claims are very old, the accidents occurred over a 

decade ago, we’ll try to reconstruct that documentation. 

20 

Senator KLOBUCHAR. Along that point, one last question. Under 

the terms of the 2009 bankruptcy, GM is technically free from liability for injuries and deaths that occurred pre-bankruptcy. Can 

you assure the plaintiffs that they will have equal opportunity to 

compensation regardless of whether and when GM went through 

bankruptcy? 

Mr. FEINBERG. Yes, that is absolutely assured, and GM has acquiesced in that recommendation. 

Senator KLOBUCHAR. Thank you very much. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Senator Ayotte? 

Oh, she’s not here. 

Senator Blunt? 

STATEMENT OF HON. ROY BLUNT, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM MISSOURI 

Senator BLUNT. Thank you, Chairman. 

The Chairman and I, obviously she mentioned in her first comments, we have a number of GM employees in our state. We are 

grateful for those employees and the work that they do and are 

concerned about anything that reflects on their products, their future opportunities, their ability to make the good living that they 

make with the hard work that they do. So looking at this is important to us. It’s important to the country. 

Mr. Feinberg, I appreciate your comments. Certainly, when we 

set up the model after 9/11, the idea is the one you continue to pursue, which is victims are not subject to which judge they’re assigned to, that you don’t have cases handled one way somewhere 

and one way somewhere else. They still have the legal option if 

they want to take it. But if they want the assurance that these 

cases are going to be handled in a way that has a structure, they 

have that from you. 

Now, in that structure, as I understand it, when it comes time 

to do a settlement, you have the ultimate authority on what that 

settlement would be. Am I right on that? 

Mr. FEINBERG. That is correct. The program is, as you just pointed out, entirely voluntary. No one has to come into this program. 

And if they do come into the program, we will determine their eligibility, and, if they’re eligible the amount of compensation. And 

only, as with 9/11, as you know, only after they know what it is 

they will receive, how generous it is, only then do they agree to 

waive going to court in order to receive this money. And there is 

no appeal from my determination, and GM cannot reject our final 

determination. They have agreed in advance to abide by any final 

decision that is made. 

Senator BLUNT. And am I right in believing that GM, then, has 

no input on what your final determination on an individual case 

would be? 

Mr. FEINBERG. They can, just like the claimant, they can provide 

whatever information they want in advance of my determination to 

complete the record. But once I have that record—I’ve heard from 

the claimant, I’ve heard if GM has anything they want to add— 

once we make that determination, they have no say, they have no 

right to appeal, they have no right to second guess. They are bound 

by that determination that we make. 

21 

Senator BLUNT. And at what point do you think you’ll begin to 

deal with some of these individual cases? 

Mr. FEINBERG. August 1 the claims start to come in, and under 

the protocol, once the claim is deemed substantially complete, once 

we have the documentation, then within 90 days we will begin to 

process the claims, authorize payments, and invite the claimant to 

accept that compensation. 

Senator BLUNT. And you said earlier you were grateful to GM in 

helping draft the protocol in addition to determining eligible vehicles. Was there anything that they added to that protocol or helped 

with in that protocol? 

Mr. FEINBERG. Yes. I asked GM and plaintiff lawyers and nonprofit foundations about the entire protocol. What do you think 

about the dollar levels? What do you think about the process, the 

procedures? And I must say that General Motors, from the CEO to 

Mr. Millikin and down the line, extremely cooperative, constructive, wanting to do the right thing. I have only appreciation for 

General Motors in assisting Ms. Biros and myself in the actual 

drafting of the protocol. I doubt anybody likes all of it except Ms. 

Barra and myself. But they provided us some very valuable input, 

and I’m very grateful to them. 

Senator BLUNT. Well, thank you for your leadership on this and 

so many other funds like this, and I wish you well and certainly 

everybody involved well as you move forward with trying to deal 

with these claims in the best possible way. In terms of the company, better late than never. But for those people who were dramatically impacted and who have losses that they’ll never recover 

from, as Senator Klobuchar was talking about, that note from a 

daughter to her father is a sad last and only thing to have of those 

last moments of that young girl’s life. 

So we’re going to be very interested as you work your way 

through this, and I think the company made a good choice, and I 

look forward to watching as this progresses. 

Mr. FEINBERG. Thank you, sir. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Senator Blumenthal? 

STATEMENT OF HON. RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM CONNECTICUT 

Senator BLUMENTHAL. Thank you, Madam Chairman. I want to 

thank you for having this hearing, which I think is very important. 

I thank Mr. Feinberg for your work, very challenging work in 

this area. I have only 5 minutes here, but you’ve spent many more 

than 5 minutes, in fact more than 5 hours talking to me and my 

staff, and I appreciate your openness and hope that we can continue to work on many of these very profoundly important details. 

But the devil here is in the details and in the discretion that you 

will have. 

I want to ask you about one area of what I hope is within your 

discretion. On June 30 of this year, when you announced the details of your compensation protocol, GM announced the recall of 

more than 8 million cars that had ignition defects, defective ignition switches. The company acknowledged those defective ignition 

switches beyond the models involved in your compensation fund so 

far caused at least three deaths and numerous injuries. 

22 

Added to the list of the Chevrolet Cobalt and the Saturn Ion, 

among others, we now have multiple other models of Chevrolet, 

Oldsmobile, Pontiac cars. GM has now recalled more than 14 million cars in 2014. Many of the reasons for these recalls are defects 

in the same part, the ignition switch, that killed people and injured 

many in the matter that you are providing your compensation 

fund. 

I happen to believe that the compensation fund has to be expanded. I believe strongly that your fund must be extended to include those victims of deaths, injuries and damage in those other 

recalls. Would you agree with me? 

Mr. FEINBERG. I can’t agree or disagree. I have no jurisdiction, 

Senator, and I can be very clear on this. Just as with these other 

compensation programs, where policymakers tell me ‘‘in drafting 

your protocol this is what is eligible,’’ I have no authority to go beyond the list of automobiles listed in this compensation protocol. 

Senator BLUMENTHAL. Would you recommend to GM that it expand or extend the fund? 

Mr. FEINBERG. That is entirely up to GM. I’m not an automotive 

engineer. All I can say, Senator, is that when GM asked me to create a fund and for Ms. Biros and myself to administer that fund, 

they made it very clear that the only models where this problem 

and the context of the problem gave rise to this special compensation are these models. As with 9/11 and with BP, I must abide by 

that delegation of authority. 

Senator BLUMENTHAL. Let me move, then, to another topic. I can 

tell you about instances where the airbags deployed and the crashes resulted from this defective ignition switch. The hypothetical 

scenario that we’ve been discussing here is a real fact. I’ve talked 

to people who drove those cars. They stalled, and they were able 

to turn them on, and I can present to you specific instances of 

crashes. Will you consider them and make refunds? 

Mr. FEINBERG. I want to see those claims. I’ve talked in the last 

three or 4 months to automotive engineers, to lawyers, to GM officials. I think it is such an unlikely possibility—— 

Senator BLUMENTHAL. If GM—— 

Mr. FEINBERG. But if it is—— 

Senator BLUMENTHAL. You’re willing to see that claim. 

Mr. FEINBERG. I would. 

Senator BLUMENTHAL. Let me just close with this thought, and 

I’m inspired to raise it by the observation made by Chairman 

McCaskill about the lawyering here. You know, lawyers typically 

are supposed to be the corporate conscience. They’re supposed to be 

the ones who make sure that corporations comply with the law in 

spirit and letter. 

Here, the lawyers for GM actually enabled cover-up, concealment, deceit, and even fraud. And I believe, although we use the 

word ‘‘alleged’’ as lawyers all the time, that the criminal investigation now under way by the Department of Justice will find culpability on the part of those lawyers. 

Would you agree with me, as someone who has been a member 

of this profession and done it with great distinction for a long time, 

that the lawyers here failed the public and failed GM? 

23 

Mr. FEINBERG. I agree that the lawyers work in the public interest, or should. I don’t know enough about the underlying circumstances that give rise to this to make an official, on-the-record 

decision about the lawyers in this case. I just don’t know the answer to that question. 

Senator BLUMENTHAL. Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

Thank you, Mr. Feinberg. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Senator Baldwin, welcome. 

Senator Baldwin is here as a special guest of this committee 

today, and we welcome you and welcome your questions. 

STATEMENT OF HON. TAMMY BALDWIN, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM WISCONSIN 

Senator BALDWIN. Thank you, Chairman McCaskill and Ranking 

Member Heller, for allowing me to join you today. I am not a member of the Commerce Committee, but I have had discussions with 

family members, and let me just share by way of an opening statement that on the night of October 24, 2006, three girlfriends— 

Natasha Weigel, who you heard about earlier from Senator 

Klobuchar, Amy Rademaker and Megan Kerns—were returning 

from a trip to a Walmart in St. Croix County, Wisconsin. St. Croix 

County is one of the border counties between Wisconsin and Minnesota. 

They were heading east on Highway N in a 2005 Chevy Cobalt 

that suddenly lost power. The steering wheel locked and the car careened into a telephone pole. The airbags never deployed. 

The accident killed Natasha and Amy and left Megan seriously 

injured. 

As you heard from Senator Klobuchar, Natasha was a goalie on 

her hockey team. Her parents could count on one hand the number 

of times they’d seen her in a dress. The tomboy also had an artistic 

side that impressed her art teachers with her drawing and her parents with her poetry. 

The first thing that comes to mind when Amy Rademaker’s parents, teachers and friends remember her is her laugh. It was infectious, and once she got going, her whole class couldn’t help but join 

in. She loved playing with her nieces and nephews and dreamed of 

one day opening a day care to work with kids professionally. 

Officer Keith Young, a member of Wisconsin’s State Patrol Technical Reconstruction Unit, was one of the first officers to arrive on 

the scene that night. A 20-year accident construction veteran, Officer Young was able to correctly identify the cause of the crash, that 

the ignition had been turned from the Run to the Accessory position, shutting off the car’s engine and disabling the airbags. 

Officer Young sent his report to the National Highway Traffic 

Safety Administration, NHTSA, and subsequently to GM. Despite 

the careful analysis, neither NHTSA nor GM took action. 

For the parents of these Wisconsin girls, this hearing, of course, 

is of little solace. Nothing we do here today can repair the damage 

that has been done. The best we can do is work to ensure that no 

other family has to endure what they have. So I again thank the 

Chair and Ranking Member for allowing me to join this. 

Mr. Feinberg, for you I have only one very simple question, I 

hope. One of the victims in the October 2006 accident was sitting 

24 

in the back seat of the Cobalt. Her family expressed concerns to my 

staff in preparation for this hearing that GM did not consider this 

victim one of the official 13 victims because there is no back seat 

airbag that could have then failed to deploy. 

Mr. Feinberg, can you shed some light on if the back seat passengers will be included in this compensation program? 

Mr. FEINBERG. The answer is absolutely yes, not only the back 

seat passenger. Pedestrians are included, occupants of a second vehicle that collide with the defective vehicle, all included. All can file 

a claim. Based on your summary, it sounds like a very eligible 

claim. Whether you’re the driver, a passenger, a pedestrian, or the 

occupant of another vehicle, all eligible to file under this program. 

Senator BALDWIN. Thank you. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Thank you, Senator Baldwin. 

I just have one question, and then we need to move on to the 

other panel because we have a series of votes coming up at midday. 

Mr. Feinberg, there are no punitive damages in this, and this is 

a very difficult and gut-wrenching decision for lawyers. So I want 

to make sure I understand this procedurally. 

If, for example, a victim from Missouri is 81 years old, obviously 

her damages in terms of compensatory are going to be smaller because she was near the end of her life. Her case is such that I 

think factually there would be a strong case for punitive damages. 

If she files a claim and gets an award from you, is she then obligated to take that award, or can she leave it on the table and allow 

her attorneys the opportunity to litigate the issue as to whether or 

not her claim can still be heard because of misrepresentations that 

were made in bankruptcy around the GM bankruptcy filing? 

Mr. FEINBERG. If I understand your question, the compensation 

will remain on the table for 90 days, during which time the claimant can decide whether to accept that compensation, release her 

right to litigate for punitive damages, or decide, nope, I think I’m 

going to go the litigation route and try and get not only compensatory damages but punitive damages as well. That is entirely the 

option of the claimant. 

Senator MCCASKILL. It’s really a difficult, gut-wrenching choice 

for a lawyer, though, which I know you appreciate based on your 

background, because typically the bar to overcome a bankruptcy 

decision as to what claims are discharged is difficult to overcome 

because you have to show that there was fraud, and that’s a high 

bar in the law. On the other hand, it seems hollow, I think, to 

many of these victims’ families that just because their loved one 

was at a certain age or at a certain income level, General Motors 

will really never feel the brunt of what punitive damages are designed to do, and that is to penalize a corporation for exactly the 

kind of conduct that was present at General Motors. I’m sure you 

acknowledge this is a very difficult decision for these families. 

Mr. FEINBERG. I do acknowledge that. Now, of course, you and 

I can agree that if a claimant decides that 100 percent compensation leaves open the question of a punitive damage verdict against 

GM, there will certainly be some lawyers and some claimants who 

will opt to seek punitive damages. So it’s not as if a claimant who 

comes into this fund and decides to accept full compensation, it’s 

not as if there is no option for somebody else to go and seek those 

25 

punitive damages. I think one way or the other, your hypothetical 

is true, Senator. Somebody is certainly going to go after GM for punitive damages. It just under the hypothetical wouldn’t be this 

claimant—— 

Senator MCCASKILL. I understand. 

Mr. FEINBERG.—who decides I want 100 percent of this money 

right now. 

Senator MCCASKILL. I understand, and I just wish that we could 

leave this open longer so there would be time for that issue to be 

litigated so that lawyers are making their advice based on what decisions the court had made in regard to this fact pattern. 

Mr. FEINBERG. You know how long that would be. If there is 

going to be litigation over punitive damages, you’re talking about 

years and years of uncertainty in that regard. 

Senator MCCASKILL. I do understand that. 

Thank you, Mr. Feinberg. 

Mr. FEINBERG. Thank you very much. 

Senator MCCASKILL. I think the name tags are in the wrong 

place. We will move the name tags. If you all want to sit where you 

would like to sit, we’ll make sure the name tags get in the right 

spot. 

Thank you. If you could take your seats as quickly as possible. 

We are under a time constraint here, which I know you hate to 

hear. 

We will begin the second panel of this hearing. 

I want to make sure that the members of the Committee know 

and the public knows we will have another follow-up hearing dealing with NHTSA. The reason NHTSA is not on this panel today is 

because we are planning a hearing. We have to look at the reauthorization of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 

and we want to look at the highway proposals in the coming weeks. 

So we will cover NHTSA at that time. 

Thank you all for being here very much, and we’ll begin with 

your testimony, Mr. Millikin. 

STATEMENT OF MICHAEL P. MILLIKIN, EXECUTIVE VICE 

PRESIDENT AND GENERAL COUNSEL, GENERAL MOTORS 

COMPANY 

Mr. MILLIKIN. Chairman McCaskill, Ranking Member Heller, 

and members of the Committee, before I begin, I want to say to 

those who lost loved ones and to those who were injured, I am 

deeply sorry. I know we as a company and I personally have a responsibility to make sure this never happens again. 

I am the General Counsel of General Motors Company. I have 

worked for GM for 37 years. Prior to that, I was an Assistant U.S. 

Attorney, and before that I clerked for the Honorable Vincent J. 

Brennan of the Michigan Court of Appeals. 

As you are aware, the investigation conducted by Anton Valukas 

revealed the failures behind the ignition switch recall, including 

failures on the legal staff. When Ms. Barra testified before this 

committee on April 2, a number of you, including you, Chairman 

McCaskill, raised serious and important questions about the performance of the legal staff and our responsibility in this tragedy. 

26 

As General Counsel, I am ultimately responsible for the legal affairs of the company, and I’m here today to answer your questions. 

I first learned about the Cobalt ignition switch defect during the 

first week of February of this year. I immediately took action. I 

wish I had known about it earlier because I know I would have 

taken action earlier if I did. We had lawyers at General Motors 

who did not do their jobs, didn’t do what was expected of them, and 

those lawyers are no longer with the company. I have taken and 

will continue to take steps to make sure something like this never 

happens again. 

The Valukas Report contains detailed recommendations for how 

the legal staff can improve and serve an even greater role in meeting GM’s commitment to safety. I am assuring the implementation 

of each and every recommendation, and I have made and will continue to make other changes to help improve. 

I have, for example, directed that before any settlement or trial 

of a case involving a fatality or serious bodily injury, that the case 

be brought to me for my personal review with a focus on open engineering issues. I have reorganized the legal staff to foster sharing 

of information and the identification of emerging trends, including 

elevating a senior attorney to be the Chief Legal Advisor to Jeff 

Boyer, Vice President of Global Safety, with a direct reporting line 

to me and an indirect reporting line to Mark Reuss, Executive Vice 

President of Global Product Development. 

I have supplemented existing legal resources with attorneys from 

two outside law firms to make sure that we have the proper level 

of engagement. I’ve also appointed a well-respected outside law 

firm to conduct a zero-based review of our litigation practices. Finally, I’ve met with the entire U.S. legal staff to discuss the 

Valukas Report’s findings and to set high expectations for the staff 

going forward. 

These changes and others will result in greater transparency and 

information flow on issues of safety within the legal staff, as well 

as between the legal staff and the company generally, and I’m committed to make sure that I and GM’s senior management team 

have a full line of sight into all safety-related matters. 

GM’s legal staff is comprised of hard-working, dedicated professionals of the highest integrity. They strive daily to help Global 

GM achieve its business objectives in a lawful and ethical manner. 

They have expressed sincere and deep disappointment and regret 

because of the actions and inactions of some individuals within the 

company, including some on the legal staff, who failed the company 

and our customers. 

The GM legal staff is dedicated to helping GM become the leader 

in automotive safety. We now have to correct our mistakes, and we 

are. But this is only the beginning. All of us at GM are committed 

to setting a new industry standard for safety, quality, and excellence. 

We must do better. We will do better. I am personally committed 

to this. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Millikin follows:] 

27 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF MICHAEL P. MILLIKIN, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT AND

GENERAL COUNSEL, GENERAL MOTORS COMPANY

Chairman McCaskill and Ranking Member Heller, members of the Committee. . . 

Before I begin, I want to say to those who lost loved ones and to those who were 

injured—I am deeply sorry. I know we as a company, and I personally, have a responsibility to make sure this never happens again. 

I am the General Counsel of General Motors Company. I have worked for GM for 

37 years. Prior to that, I was an Assistant United States Attorney, and I clerked 

for the Honorable Vincent J. Brennan of the Michigan Court of Appeals. 

As you are aware, the investigation conducted by Anton Valukas revealed the failures behind the ignition switch recall, including those of the Legal Staff. 

When Ms. Barra testified before this Committee on April 2, a number of you, including Chairman McCaskill, raised serious and important questions about the performance of the Legal Staff and our responsibility in this tragedy. As general counsel, I am ultimately responsible for the legal affairs of the company. I am here today 

to answer these questions. 

I first learned about the Cobalt ignition switch defect during the first week of February of this year. I immediately took action. Had I learned about it earlier, I would 

have taken action earlier. 

We had lawyers at GM who didn’t do their jobs; didn’t do what was expected of 

them. Those lawyers are no longer with the company. 

I have taken, and will continue to take steps to make sure something like this 

never happens again. 

The Valukas Report contains detailed recommendations for how the Legal Staff 

can improve and serve an even greater role in meeting GM’s commitment to safety. 

I am assuring the implementation of each and every recommendation, and I have 

made and will continue to make other changes to help us improve. 

I have, for example: 

1. Directed that before any settlement or trial of a case involving a fatality or serious bodily injury, the case be brought to me for review, with a focus on any 

open engineering issues; 

2. Reorganized the Legal Staff to foster sharing of information and the identification of emerging trends, including elevating a senior attorney to be the Chief 

Legal Advisor to Jeff Boyer, Vice President of Global Vehicle Safety, with a direct reporting line to me, and a dotted reporting line to Mark Reuss, Executive 

Vice President of Global Product Development; 

3. Supplemented existing legal resources with attorneys from two outside law 

firms to assure the proper level of engagement; 

4. Appointed a well-respected outside law firm to conduct a zero-based review of 

GM’s litigation practices; and 

5. Met with the entire U.S. Legal Staff to discuss the Valukas Report’s findings 

and to set high expectations going forward. 

These changes and others will result in greater transparency and information flow 

on issues of safety within the Legal Staff, as well as between the Legal Staff and 

the company generally. And, I am committed to making sure I, and GM’s senior 

management team, have full line of sight into all safety related matters. 

GM’s Legal Staff is comprised of hardworking, dedicated professionals of the highest integrity. They strive daily to help global GM achieve its business objectives in 

a lawful and ethical manner. 

They have expressed sincere and deep disappointment, and regret, because of the 

actions—and inactions—of some individuals within the company, including those on 

the Legal Staff; who failed the company. The GM Legal Staff is dedicated to helping 

GM become the leader in automotive safety. 

We now have to correct our mistakes. And, we are. But this is only the beginning. 

All of us at GM are committed to setting a new industry standard for safety, quality, and excellence. We must do better. We will do better. I am personally committed 

to this. 

Thank you. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Thank you. 

Ms. Barra? 

28 

STATEMENT OF MARY T. BARRA, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, 

GENERAL MOTORS COMPANY 

Ms. BARRA. Chairman McCaskill, Ranking Member Heller, and 

members of the Committee, when I first appeared before you, we 

were in the earliest stages of the ignition switch recall. I promised 

you we would get answers and be fully transparent in what we’ve 

learned. I also said I would not wait to make changes. Today, our 

work to fully understand and fix the mistakes that led to the ignition switch recall are well under way. As a result, we are building 

a stronger company that places customers and their safety at the 

center of every aspect of our business. 

In a town hall meeting before thousands of General Motors employees and several thousand more around the world via satellite, 

we accepted responsibility for what went wrong. I told the men and 

women of GM that our actions would be guided by two clear principles. First, we would do everything in our power to make sure 

this never happens again, and we will do right for those who were 

harmed. It is on this very important point that I want to begin. 

I want to recognize the families who lost loved ones and those 

who have suffered physical injury because of these mistakes. To 

each of them, I extend my and our GM employees’ sympathy. We 

will not forget them nor the special responsibility we have to them. 

We are committed to treating each of them with compassion, decency, and fairness. That is why Ken Feinberg will independently 

administer a compensation program. 

Mr. Feinberg has talked about his compensation program. It is, 

however, worth noting that he has complete and sole discretion 

over all compensation awards to eligible victims. And this is very 

important—there is no cap on this program. 

As I stated earlier, we want to do all that we can to make sure 

this does not happen again. We created this compensation program 

as an exceptional response to a unique set of mistakes that were 

made over an extended period of time. The Valukas Report was 

only a start, and many changes were in motion even before we received the findings of the report. I will use the report’s findings and 

recommendations to attack and remove the information silos wherever we find them, and to create an organization that is accountable and focused on customers. I am committed to acting on all of 

the recommendations contained in the report. 

Actions we have already taken include elevating safety decisionmaking to the highest levels of the company. I have created a new 

position, Vice President of Global Safety. He has full access to me. 

We removed 15 employees from the company, some for misconduct 

and incompetence, others because they didn’t take responsibility or 

act with a sense of urgency. We’ve instituted a ‘‘Speak Up For Safety’’ program to encourage and recognize employees that bring potential safety issues forward quickly. And we’ve added over 35 investigators to identify and address issues much more quickly when 

they relate to safety. 

We’ve aligned the legal staff to help assure greater transparency 

and information sharing among the staff and across all business 

units around the globe. 

29 

And most importantly, we created the Product Integrity Organization, which brings a complete systems engineering approach to 

the safety or our vehicles. 

Overall, we are dramatically enhancing our approach to safety. 

You can see it in the aggressive stance we are taking on recalls 

with the redoubling of our efforts. We are bringing greater rigor, 

discipline and urgency to our analysis and decisionmaking. We are 

mining every source of data available to us, from the factory floor, 

warranty information, customer calls, legal claims, and social 

media. We are not waiting to see if a trend develops or updating 

spreadsheets. We want our customers to know when we identify an 

issue that could possibly affect their safety, we will act quickly. 

Yes, we’ve recalled a large volume of past models, a result of our 

exhaustive review coming out of the ignition switch recall. But 

we’ve also conducted 12 recalls of less than 1,000 vehicles and four 

of less than 100 this year. This demonstrates how quickly we are 

reacting when we see a potential issue. 

I also know that the recent efforts and the current frequency of 

recalls have garnered considerable attention, but placing the highest value on our customers’ safety is what our employees want to 

be known for. We want to stand as the company that is setting the 

new industry standard for safety. 

Our employees will not forget what led to the ignition switch recall, but they also don’t want to be defined by it. After my town 

hall, I could hear it in their voices, I could read it in their messages—they are all in to make this a better company. I believe in 

them, and together we have been working hard over the last few 

months to address the underlying issues that caused this problem 

in the first place. Since that town hall, I have been inundated with 

calls and e-mails from employees telling me they are more motivated than ever to make GM the best possible company for our customers. 

This is our mission, and it won’t happen overnight, but I can tell 

you we are holding each other accountable to do exactly that. We 

are 100 percent committed. 

I appreciate the opportunity to be here today, and I welcome 

your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Barra follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF MARY T. BARRA, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, GENERAL MOTORS COMPANY

Chairman McCaskill and Ranking Member Heller, members of the Committee. . . 

When I first appeared before you, we were in the earliest stages of the ignition 

switch recall. I promised you we would get answers and be fully transparent in 

what we learn. I also said that I would not wait to make changes. 

Today, our work to fully understand and fix the mistakes that led to the ignition 

switch recall is well underway. As a result, we are building a stronger company that 

places customers and their safety at the center of every aspect of our business. 

In a town hall meeting before thousands of GM employees—and several thousand 

more around the world via satellite—we accepted responsibility for what went 

wrong. I told the men and women of GM that our actions will be guided by two clear 

principles: We will do everything within our power to make sure this never happens 

again. And, we will do the right thing for those who were harmed. 

It is on this very important point that I want to begin. 

I want to recognize the families who lost loved ones and those who have suffered 

physical injury because of these mistakes. To each of them, I extend our deepest 

sympathies. We will not forget them, nor the special responsibility we have to them. 

30 

We are committed to treating each of them with compassion, decency and fairness. 

That is why Ken Feinberg will independently administer a compensation plan. 

Mr. Feinberg will talk more about his compensation program. It is, however, 

worth noting that he has complete and sole discretion over all compensation awards 

to eligible victims. And this is important—there is no cap on that fund. 

As I stated earlier, we will do all we can to make certain that this does not happen again. We created this compensation program as an exceptional response to a 

unique set of mistakes that were made over an extended period of time. 

The Valukas Report was only a start, and many changes were in motion even before we received the findings of the report. I will use the report’s findings and recommendations to attack and remove information silos wherever we find them and 

to create an organization that is accountable and focused on the customer. I am 

committed to acting on all of the recommendations contained in the report. 

Actions that we have already taken and about which you have no doubt heard 

already include: 

• We elevated safety decision-making to the highest levels of the company. I created a new position, Vice President of Global Safety. He has full access to me. 

• We removed fifteen employees from the company . . . some for misconduct or 

incompetence, others because they didn’t take responsibility or act with a sense 

of urgency. 

• We instituted the Speak Up for Safety program to encourage and recognize employees to report potential safety issues quickly. 

• We added 35 safety investigators to identify and address issues much more 

quickly. 

• We aligned the legal staff to help assure greater transparency and information 

sharing among that staff and other business units across GM. 

Overall, we are dramatically enhancing our approach to safety. You can see it in 

the aggressive stance we are taking on recalls with the redoubling of our efforts. 

We are bringing greater rigor, discipline and urgency to our analysis and decision 

making. We are mining every source of data available to us from the factory floor 

to warranty claims to customer calls and social media. We’re not waiting to see if 

trends develop or updating spreadsheets. We want our customers to know that if 

we identify an issue that could possibly affect their safety, we will act quickly. 

Yes, we’ve recalled large volumes of past models—a result of our exhaustive review coming out of the ignition switch recall. But, we also conducted 12 recalls of 

less than 1,000 vehicles and 4 recalls of less than 100 this year. In this way, we 

are keeping the vehicle populations small and limiting the risk and inconvenience 

to fewer customers. This demonstrates how quickly we are reacting when we become 

aware of an issue. 

I also know these recent efforts and the current frequency of recalls have garnered considerable attention. But placing the highest value on our customers’ safety 

is what our employees want to be known for. We want to stand as the company that 

is setting the new industry standard for safety. 

Our employees will not forget what led to the ignition switch recall—but they do 

not want to be defined by it. After my town hall, I could hear it in their voices and 

read it in their messages—they are ‘‘all in’’ to make this a better company. 

I believe in them, and together, we have been working hard over the last few 

months to address the underlying issues that caused this problem in the first place. 

Since that town hall meeting, I have been inundated with calls and e-mails from 

employees telling me that they are more motivated than ever to make GM the best 

possible company for customers. 

This is our mission. It won’t happen overnight but we are holding each other accountable to do exactly that. 

Thank you again for having me here today. I welcome your questions. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Thank you, Ms. Barra. 

Mr. O’Neal, thank you for being here. 

STATEMENT OF RODNEY O’NEAL, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER 

AND PRESIDENT, DELPHI AUTOMOTIVE PLC 

Mr. O’NEAL. Thank you. Chairman McCaskill, Ranking Member 

Heller, and members of the Subcommittee, thank you for inviting 

31 

me here today to testify. My name is Rodney O’Neal, and I am the 

Chief Executive Officer and President of Delphi Automotive. 

First and foremost, on behalf of Delphi, I want to express our 

profound sympathies to the victims and their families. People were 

hurt and lives were lost. We must work together to avoid tragedies 

of this nature going forward, and this subcommittee’s work is an 

important part of that effort. 

So, members of the Subcommittee, I appreciate this opportunity 

to address the important issues that you are considering. We fully 

support your efforts. 

I would like to discuss today three main points: first, Delphi’s efforts to provide replacement parts and support General Motors in 

connection with the recall; second, our cooperation with the Subcommittee and other governmental bodies, as well as GM; and 

third, the review and reinforcement of Delphi’s key product engineering safety policies and procedures. 

With regard to my first point, I’d like to provide some information pertaining to Delphi’s production of replacement parts for General Motors. The vehicles that were recalled went out of production 

several years ago. As a result, it has been a monumental task to 

build over 2 million switches in a matter of months. We’ve ordered 

new tooling, we’ve installed three new production lines, and we’ve 

trained additional workers. At this time, we’ve shipped over 1 million new switches, and we’re on track to deliver more than 2 million switches by the end of August. We’ve done all of this so that 

consumers can have their vehicles repaired by General Motors as 

quickly as possible. 

My second point is that Delphi fully supports this Subcommittee’s efforts, as well as those of the House Energy and Commerce 

Committee and other governmental bodies. Our support has included conducting an exhaustive review and providing relevant documents and meeting multiple times with staffs of this subcommittee and Federal agencies. In addition, we have cooperated 

with General Motors in the recall and its investigation, and our cooperation includes entering into a reciprocal document sharing 

agreement, and we have provided relevant documents in accordance with that agreement. 

Lastly, we have conducted a thorough review of our current policies and procedures related to product safety which we believe are 

robust and which we are continuously working to improve. For example and at my direction, we have reinforced to our global engineering team the importance of raising safety concerns so that they 

can be handled properly. We have strengthened our procedures to 

ensure that safety concerns are communicated across all relevant 

functions within our company, and that includes reports to our senior management and to our customers. We are committed to acting 

upon all such concerns in a timely manner. 

The industry has created a new standard to focus on how these 

complex safety systems work together instead of looking at safety 

on a part-by-part basis. We support this new standard, and given 

what we’ve learned from these tragedies, this new standard should 

be very helpful going forward. 

32 

My written statement provides additional details, and I will be 

pleased to address any questions you may have. Again, thank you 

for this opportunity to testify today. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. O’Neal follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF RODNEY O’NEAL, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER AND

PRESIDENT, DELPHI AUTOMOTIVE

Chairman McCaskill, Ranking Member Heller and Members of the Subcommittee: 

Thank you for inviting me to testify today. 

My name is Rodney O’Neal. I am the Chief Executive Officer and President of 

Delphi Automotive, a global auto parts manufacturer, which was formed in 2009 

and acquired some of the businesses of the former Delphi Corporation. For convenience, throughout my statement and oral testimony I may not distinguish between 

the company I now head and the companies that made the ignition switch at issue. 

Although these distinctions have important legal significance, I do not believe they 

are germane to the primary focus of this Subcommittee’s inquiries. 

First and foremost, on behalf of Delphi, I want to express our profound sympathies for the victims of the accidents that led to this Subcommittee’s investigation. 

People were hurt, and lives were lost. We must work together to ensure that tragedies like this do not happen again, and this Subcommittee’s work is an important 

part of that effort. 

Members of the Subcommittee: 

I appreciate this opportunity to address the important issues that you are considering. Delphi fully supports your efforts. 

I would like to discuss three main points: 

• First, Delphi’s efforts to provide replacement parts and support General Motors 

in connection with the recall. 

• Second, our cooperation with this Subcommittee and other governmental bodies. 

• Third, the review and reinforcement of Delphi’s key product engineering safety 

policies and procedures. 

With regard to my first point, I would like to provide some information regarding 

Delphi’s production of replacement parts for GM. The vehicles that were recalled 

went out of production several years ago. As a result, it is a monumental task to 

build over two million ignition switches in a matter of months. 

• We ordered new tooling; 

• We installed three new production lines (for a total of four lines); and 

• We trained additional workers. 

At this time, we have shipped over one million new switches, and we are on track 

to deliver more than two million switches by the end of August. 

We have done all of this so that GM can repair its customers’ vehicles as quickly 

as possible. 

In addition, we have cooperated with GM in all aspects of the recall and its investigation. Our cooperation includes entering into a reciprocal document sharing 

agreement, and we have provided relevant documentation in accordance with that 

agreement. 

My second point is that Delphi fully supports this Subcommittee’s efforts, as well 

as those of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and other governmental 

bodies. Our support has included: 

• Conducting an exhaustive review and providing relevant documents. 

• Meeting multiple times with this Subcommittee’s staff and other governmental 

bodies. 

My third point relates to our product safety policies and procedures. We have conducted a thorough review of our current policies and procedures. We believe they 

are robust, but we are always working to continuously improve them. For example: 

• Delphi’s Chief Technology Officer has personally reinforced with our global engineering team the importance of promptly raising concerns so that they can be 

handled. 

• We have strengthened our procedures to ensure that safety concerns we discover during the development or manufacture of our products are immediately 

communicated across all relevant functions within our company, including to 

33 

our senior management team, and to our customers, and that all such concerns 

are acted upon in a timely manner. 

• We are also embracing a new industry standard that relates to vehicle system 

safety. 

We have also confirmed that we have strong document retention policies in place, 

and our critical engineering documents are now stored digitally. 

In addition to the main points I have covered, I would like to describe our involvement with the cars that have been recalled, and more broadly, our role in the automotive industry. 

Today’s automobiles are extremely complex, technologically advanced machines. 

They typically consist of more than 30,000 different parts that are produced and assembled by many different suppliers and the vehicle maker. 

Sometimes Delphi supplies individual parts. At other times, we provide sub-assemblies or complete systems. For the vehicles that are the focus of this hearing, 

GM relied upon several suppliers for an ignition system. Our only contribution was 

the switch. Delphi did not supply the key or the lock cylinder (the part that actually 

holds the key). Delphi did not supply the steering column or determine where the 

lock cylinder would be located. 

As vehicles and their systems are put together, each of us has a distinct role to 

play, with our own clear responsibilities. It is highly important that the Subcommittee understand that there is always a company, be it the system integrator 

or the vehicle manufacturer that has responsibility for ensuring that complete systems work together properly. In this case, that was not Delphi. 

There has been a lot of discussion regarding the specifications for the switch. 

Allow me to provide some information about that issue. GM’s initial parameters 

called for a switch that turned smoothly. This was very important to GM. Requirements for the effort required to turn the switch, or torque, were also included. These 

requirements were originally described as a ‘‘target’’ and contemplated that the feel 

of the switch, which relates to the effort required to turn it, would be subject to 

GM’s approval. 

As GM acknowledges, before production started, GM knowingly approved a final 

design that included less torque than the original target. In our view, that approval 

established the final specification. Delphi then began producing the switch that GM 

approved and wanted. 

At GM’s direction, in approximately January 2006, Delphi submitted a revised ignition switch with several changes that we understood were intended to address 

warranty concerns. These changes included a different spring that produced higher 

resistive torque—the same spring as was included in Delphi’s original drawings for 

the part. In April 2006, this change was approved by GM engineer Ray DeGiorgio. 

Thank you for this opportunity to testify today. I will be pleased to address any 

questions you may have. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Thank you, Mr. O’Neal. 

Mr. Valukas? 

STATEMENT OF ANTON R. VALUKAS, CHAIRMAN OF THE FIRM, 

JENNER & BLOCK LLP 

Mr. VALUKAS. Thank you. Chairman McCaskill, Ranking Member Heller, and members of the Committee, thank you for asking 

me here today to testify about the Cobalt ignition issues. 

In March of this year, General Motors Board asked me to determine why it took so long to recall the Cobalt and other vehicles 

that contained the faulty ignition switch. My explicit mandate from 

the Board was to provide an unvarnished report as to how and why 

this occurred, pursue the facts wherever they took us, and to put 

those facts into a report. That’s the report which we submitted to 

the Board. 

General Motors Board also directed me to make recommendations drawn from the facts to help ensure that this did not occur 

again. 

Jenner & Block, my law firm, was given unfettered access to 

General Motors witnesses and to their documents. We interviewed 

34 

more than 230 witnesses. We, in fact, conducted over 350 total 

interviews. Some of those interviews lasted over 2 days. We collected more than 41 million documents, all in an effort to find out 

why the Cobalt recall was delayed for so many years. 

In that research in terms of the investigation, we looked at every 

CEO, we looked at all of the engineers. We used search terms of 

the sort which would produce documents of any kind which might 

relate to this issue. So no one was exempt from that review. 

I will not summarize the report; you have it. I will, however, note 

that among the issues we specifically examined are the issues that 

are the topic of this hearing, accountability and corporate culture. 

We asked questions of dozens of witnesses, from top executives to 

line engineers, about these topics. We examined the decisionmaking processes that related to the ignition switch issues and 

whether there were broad cultural issues which may have contributed to the delayed recall. 

The story of the Cobalt is one of a series of individual and organizational failures that led to devastating consequences. Throughout the decade it took General Motors to recall the Cobalt, there 

was a lack of accountability, a lack of urgency, and a failure of the 

company personnel charged with ensuring the safety of the company’s vehicles to understand how General Motors vehicles were 

manufactured. 

In our report we reviewed these failures, including cultural 

issues that may have contributed to this problem. At General Motors Board’s request, we provided recommendations to help ensure 

that this problem would never occur again. 

I’m happy to take your questions. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Valukas follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF ANTON R. VALUKAS, CHAIRMAN OF THE FIRM, 

JENNER & BLOCK LLP 

Chairman McCaskill, Ranking Member Heller, and Members of the Committee: 

Thank you for having me here to testify about my report on the Cobalt ignition 

switch. 

In March of this year GM asked me to determine why it took so long to recall 

the Cobalt and other vehicles that contained the faulty ignition switch. I approached 

this task in much the same way that I did in conducting my review of the Lehman 

Brothers matter, albeit on a much more expedited timetable. My job was to find the 

facts as to how and why this occurred and set forth those facts in a report to the 

GM Board. I have conducted similar internal investigations for many other companies, boards, and board committees. 

Jenner & Block was given unfettered access to GM witnesses and documents and 

was asked for an unvarnished account. We interviewed more than 230 witnesses 

and collected more than 41 million documents. We obtained and reviewed 

forensically imaged hard drives, including those belonging to top executives. We 

searched server-based e-mails and shared drives, electronic databases, and hundreds of boxes of hard-copy documents, all in an effort to identify any documents 

that would bear on our assignment to find out why the Cobalt recall was delayed 

for so many years. If we discover any new information that materially affects our 

report, we will supplement our findings to the Board. 

In our report, we did not simply repeat what any individual GM employee told 

us. We tested those assertions against the extensive documentary record we gathered and against the statements of other witnesses. 

I will not summarize the report in any detail—it speaks for itself. I will, however, 

highlight a few broad conclusions that tie directly to our recommendations. 

• GM personnel approved the use of an ignition switch in the Cobalt and other 

cars that was far below GM’s own specification. This was done by a single engiVerDate Nov 24 2008 06:18 Sep 15, 2015 Jkt 075679 PO 00000 Frm 00038 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 S:\GPO\DOCS\95995.TXT JACKIE
35 

neer and was not known by those who were investigating the Cobalt from the 

time of the approval until 2013. 

• From the time it first went into production, the Cobalt (and the Ion before it) 

had problems because the ignition switch could too easily be turned to Accessory, resulting in a moving stall including the loss of power steering and power 

brakes. GM engineers were fully aware of this problem but did not consider it 

a safety issue. That conclusion was the wrong one—amazingly, the engineers 

investigating the Cobalt in 2004 and 2005 did not understand that, when the 

key turned to Accessory, the airbags would fail to deploy. 

» Because GM personnel failed to understand the potential hazard caused by 

the ignition switch, GM engineers debated through various committees 

whether any of the potential fixes were cost-effective. This focus on cost was 

driven by the failure to understand that a safety defect was at issue and the 

consequences of that defect. 

• In 2006, the engineer who authorized the below-specification switch in the first 

place increased the torque in the ignition switch by authorizing a change to the 

switch. He approved a change to the switch, but did not change the part number, thereby concealing the change and leading to years of confusion among investigators about why, if the ignition switch was mechanically the same in all 

model years, accident data was so markedly different before and after Model 

Year 2008. 

• GM personnel began recognizing the problem of non-deployment of airbags in 

the Cobalt as far back as 2007, but failed to take advantage of all the resources 

at their disposal—including information in GM’s own databases—to understand 

that the non-deployment was related to the known problem of the ignition 

switch. Others—outside GM—made this connection as early as 2007. But, as fatalities and injuries mounted in cases in which airbags did not deploy in Cobalts, GM personnel displayed no sense of urgency in determining the cause. 

• By 2011, GM personnel knew that there was a pattern of non-deployments in 

Cobalts and that the ignition switch might be to blame. GM’s outside counsel 

warned GM that it might be liable for punitive damages for failing to deal with 

the problem for so many years. 

» But, once again, GM personnel failed to display any sense of urgency. The 

non-deployment investigation languished, even as it became more and more 

clear that the ignition switch was the problem. 

» And the investigation was further delayed when the engineer who originally 

approved the faulty switch told GM safety engineers that he had never 

changed the switch, when, in truth, he had. 

• By 2013, the investigation had not progressed, and it was only when an outside 

expert hired by a plaintiff’s lawyer took the switches apart and compared them 

that GM personnel finally understood that the switch had been changed. Even 

then, however, GM took another 10 months to recall the Cobalt. 

The story of the Cobalt is one of a series of individual and organizational failures 

that led to devastating consequences. Throughout the decade that it took GM to recall the Cobalt, there was a lack of accountability, a lack of urgency, and a failure 

of company personnel charged with ensuring the safety of the company’s vehicles 

to understand how GM’s own cars were designed. We found failures throughout the 

company—including individual errors, poor management, byzantine committee 

structures, lack of training, and inadequate policies. 

In our report, we review these failures, including cultural issues that may have 

contributed to this problem, and we provide recommendations to ensure that it 

never occurs again. 

I understand that while this report answers many questions, it leaves open others: 

• Government officials (and perhaps judges and juries) will assess the credibility 

of witnesses and whether there was civil or criminal culpability; 

• GM will have to make decisions about how to ensure that this never happens 

again; 

• Others, whether courts or Mr. Feinberg, will make decisions about which specific accidents were caused by the Cobalt’s faulty ignition switch. 

Our role was to find the facts as to why this recall took far too long. I believe 

we have done so. 

36 

Senator MCCASKILL. Thank you very much, Mr. Valukas. 

I want to say for the Committee that many members of this committee have worked very hard in preparation for this hearing, and 

it would be terrific if we could get two rounds of questions in. So 

I’m going to ask everyone to try, beginning with me, to be very respectful of the 5-minute time period—if I say it out loud, then 

maybe I will be better—so that we can try to get two rounds of 

questions in before we have to leave for votes. OK? 

Mr. Millikin, I want to spend my time on my first round with 

you. I want to make sure everybody understands what punitive 

damages are. 

Mr. MILLIKIN. Pardon? 

Senator MCCASKILL. What punitive damages are. For lawyers, 

that is a blinking red light. I’m sure Mr. Valukas and you, Mr. 

Millikin, will confirm that punitive damages in our system are designed to punish corporations or people for conduct that is outrageous and egregious. It is a method by which justice can be done, 

by punishing bad behavior. 

A pattern was emerging at General Motors for almost a decade 

about these cars. There was some confusion because of deceit on 

the part of at least one engineer. But in October 2010, your lawyers—this wasn’t a plaintiff’s lawyer that was out there making a 

frivolous lawsuit. Your lawyers that you hired said you are possibly 

subject to punitive damages over the way you have handled this 

problem in this automobile. That was in October 2010, and I believe you were General Counsel then; correct? 

Mr. MILLIKIN. That is correct. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Again, in July 2011, your lawyers told you 

that there is a potential for punitive damages because of this factual scenario. You were also General Counsel then; correct? 

Mr. MILLIKIN. That is correct. 

Senator MCCASKILL. And at that point in time, Lucy Clark 

Dougherty, in July 2011, she was General Counsel for North America; correct? I believe she began in that position in March 2011. 

Mr. MILLIKIN. I’m thinking it was in 2012, but I could be wrong. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Well, my document says it was March of 

2011. 

Mr. MILLIKIN. I’ll take your word for that. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Then in April 2012, another one of your outside lawyers warns your department that you were subject to punitive damages, which could be millions of dollars with a corporation 

the size of General Motors. At that point in time, you were General 

Counsel? 

Mr. MILLIKIN. That is correct. 

Senator MCCASKILL. And Lucy Clark Dougherty was, in fact, 

Counsel for North America. 

Mr. MILLIKIN. That is correct. 

Senator MCCASKILL. And again, in April 2013, almost the same 

time that you had the bombshell dropped on you in the deposition 

where DeGiorgio was confronted with a basic engineering task that 

had been done showing the switches had been switched out, had 

been changed, the part had been changed, once again you were 

warned about punitive damages. 

Mr. MILLIKIN. As a company, that is correct. 

37 

Senator MCCASKILL. OK. So you have a legal obligation as General Counsel to report material events and liabilities to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Did you ever do that about this 

issue? 

Mr. MILLIKIN. On the issue of punitive damages? 

Senator MCCASKILL. On the issue of this product defect and the 

problems surrounding it, have you ever reported it to the SEC? 

Mr. MILLIKIN. Not up until the time that this became known had 

we made any disclosures to the SEC. 

Senator MCCASKILL. The time that you knew it, not your legal 

department. 

Mr. MILLIKIN. Yes. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Your legal department knew it. 

Mr. MILLIKIN. No, no. I’m talking about from the time I knew 

forward, I’m excluding that. Before that, no, we had not. 

Senator MCCASKILL. OK. So at the time you recalled, you told 

the SEC. 

Mr. MILLIKIN. Subsequent to that we may have made a filing 

with the SEC about the ignition switch recall. That is correct. 

Senator MCCASKILL. OK. And what about the legal obligation to 

inform the Board of Directors? Were they aware that your lawyers 

were telling you this car was going to cause you punitive damages? 

Mr. MILLIKIN. They were not. 

Senator MCCASKILL. And what about financial reserves? Were 

you entering into the books the financial reserves necessary to 

cover this liability, which is your obligation as the General Counsel? 

Mr. MILLIKIN. We were not entering any reserves to cover punitive damages. No, we were not. 

Senator MCCASKILL. OK. So I don’t get how you and Lucy Clark 

Dougherty still have your jobs. 

Can you explain that to me, Ms. Barra? I think you’ve done a lot 

of good work since you took over. I think you’ve handled this, as 

I said in my opening statement, with courage and conviction, have 

stepped forward. I cannot for the life of me—this is either gross 

negligence or gross incompetence on the part of a lawyer, the notion that he can say ‘‘I didn’t know.’’ 

Ms. BARRA. Senator McCaskill, I respectfully disagree. As you 

know, I have made the promise to fix what happened in the company to make sure that we are dedicated to safety, that we’re dedicated to excellence. We are well on our way. We’ve made significant 

change. To do that, I need the right team, and Mike Millikin is a 

man of incredibly high integrity. He has tremendous global experience as it relates to the legal profession. He’s the person I need on 

this team. 

He had a system in place. Unfortunately in this instance, it 

wasn’t brought to his attention frankly by people who brought 

many other issues forward. 

He is a man of high integrity and he is the right person—— 

Senator MCCASKILL. So there wasn’t a system in place that your 

lawyer is telling you you’re subject to punitive damages didn’t get 

to your desk? How is that not incompetent? How can you not have 

a system in place that you are at least—Lucy Clark Dougherty has 

a way of telling you we now have our lawyers telling us four difVerDate Nov 24 2008 06:18 Sep 15, 2015 Jkt 075679 PO 00000 Frm 00041 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 S:\GPO\DOCS\95995.TXT JACKIE
38 

ferent times within a couple of years on something you hadn’t even 

talked about recalling punitive damages. How do you have a system in place that doesn’t account for that? 

Ms. BARRA. We had very senior lawyers who had this information and didn’t bring it forward who are no longer with this company. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Well, Deborah Nowak-Vanderhoef is still 

with the company, and she had the knowledge. 

Ms. BARRA. As we went through the details of the Valukas Report very carefully, and I would say when in doubt we reached further to take action, there are many lawyers that are no longer with 

the company. 

Senator MCCASKILL. I think there has been a blind spot here, I 

really do. My time is up. I think the failure of his legal department 

is stunning, and the notion—I mean, you look around government. 

When something like this happens, you know what? Secretary 

Shinseki didn’t know about those problems with scheduling. Nobody told him. He’s gone. 

Senator Heller? 

Senator HELLER. Madam Chair, thank you. 

I want to thank our witnesses for being here today and for taking the tough questions. 

Mr. O’Neal, thank you for being here also. You weren’t here at 

the last hearing, so you kind of complete the circle here. If you 

don’t mind, I’d like to ask you just a couple of questions regarding 

your products and I don’t have a lot of time. So the shorter the answers, the better. 

The complaints, as they started piling up in the mid-2000s on 

your product, did Delphi conduct any internal investigation to determine whether your part was at fault? 

Mr. O’NEAL. We were not aware of this situation in terms of 

deaths until February of this year, 2014. 

Senator HELLER. So you’re saying obviously not—— 

Mr. O’NEAL. Obviously not. 

Senator HELLER.—if you didn’t know until February of this year. 

Was there any reason to believe that anyone in your company may 

have known? 

Mr. O’NEAL. No. In the exhaustive review that we’ve done of our 

documents and in talking with individuals, it was clear the Delphi 

team, in working with the General Motors team in this particular 

situation, was very concerned about customer satisfaction, warranty costs and quality issues, no safety issues. 

Senator HELLER. OK. Is there a possibility that any individual 

in your company just simply didn’t take it to the top? 

Mr. O’NEAL. We looked deep—— 

Senator HELLER. Similar situations in GM—— 

Mr. O’NEAL. We looked very, very hard, and there’s no evidence 

of that because it’s quite clear the mindset was based on information that they were given. They were working on quality issues, not 

safety issues. 

Senator HELLER. Did anyone ever raise concerns about keeping 

the number the same with this part, or was that a decision just to 

unanimously follow GM? 

39 

Mr. O’NEAL. Standard protocol in our industry is that the original equipment manufacturer, the car manufacturer, in this case 

General Motors, they determine the part number, and they control 

that part number. So if that part number is ever to change, the car 

manufacturer would dictate that change and we would automatically upgrade it. 

Senator HELLER. Do you feel that Delphi shoulders any responsibility here? 

Mr. O’NEAL. Well, let me explain, I think, some very important 

information, and I think it would lead to a discussion of an answer 

for you. 

We had a product that we worked with General Motors to develop, and that was the switch, and that switch started with a certain set of requirements, and often in development, working with 

the customer and General Motors in this case, those requirements 

can become more stringent, they can become less, or they can stay 

the same. In this particular case, they were made less stringent in 

order to meet I think what Mr. Valukas said in his report, a switch 

feel, a tactile feel of a very European style switch in terms of when 

you turned it, and hence the lower torque. That was ultimately approved by General Motors, and that part met the requirements 

that were dictated. 

So that part then met with other parts and became part of a subsystem called the ignition assembly. 

Senator HELLER. I hate to interrupt you, but I don’t have a lot 

of time. Do you feel Delphi acted responsibly? 

Mr. O’NEAL. Yes. Our product met the requirements of the customer. 

Senator HELLER. So, no responsibility. 

Mr. O’NEAL. No. 

Senator HELLER. None. 

Mr. Valukas, I understand there was a sharing agreement with 

Delphi that wasn’t as forthcoming as you would have liked it to 

have been. Do you think the limited information that you received 

from Delphi and their employees prevented you from providing a 

complete report? 

Mr. VALUKAS. No. I believe at this point, having had the chance, 

with the extra 6 weeks or the month that’s involved here in looking 

at what we have in the way of materials so far, I think our report 

is complete. I’m comfortable that in this aspect, the Delphi aspect 

of it, that we have that information. 

Senator HELLER. Is there anything that we don’t know that’s relevant? 

Mr. VALUKAS. No. I promised and committed to an earlier committee that if we found something different, I told the Board of Directors, and they directed me if there was anything factually that 

we learned that would in any way alter the report or add to it in 

any significant way, that we would supplement the report, and I 

would make that commitment to this committee. But right now, I 

believe that everything that we could know about this issue we put 

forth in that report or in a supplemental letter. 

Senator HELLER. Do you feel that Delphi shoulders any responsibility? 

Mr. VALUKAS. I’m sorry. Say that again? 

40 

Senator HELLER. Do you feel that Delphi shoulders any responsibility for the 13 deaths? 

Mr. VALUKAS. That’s a legal—I can tell you this. I can tell you 

that GM, General Motors approved the switch knowing that it was 

below torque values, and that was an approval that Mr. DeGiorgio 

gave to Delphi, and Delphi manufactured the switch in accordance 

with that approval. 

Senator HELLER. Ms. Barra, do you believe that Delphi shoulders 

any responsibility for the 13 deaths? 

Ms. BARRA. We’re the OEM. We’re the company that’s responsible to integrate the parts into the vehicle, so integration of parts 

is our responsibility. 

Senator HELLER. Thank you. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Thank you very much. Thank you, Senator 

Heller. 

Senator Klobuchar? 

Senator KLOBUCHAR. Thank you very much, Madam Chairwoman. 

Thank you, all of you. 

I spoke earlier about Natasha Weigel, who grew up in Albert 

Lea, Minnesota. The car goes barreling—the car she’s a passenger 

in—at 70 miles per hour in Wisconsin into a grove of trees, and 

this story isn’t just tragic because Senator Baldwin and I have constituents and because the facts are tragic. It also turns out to be 

an important part of Mr. Valukas’ report in terms of what happened here. 

In this case, a Wisconsin State Trooper named Keith Young conducted an investigation himself after the crash and clearly made 

the link between the defective ignition switch and the failure of the 

airbag to deploy. Trooper Young’s report cracked the code that 

seemed to have evaded GM’s engineers and lawyers for years. He 

wrote in this report—and this report was in GM’s legal department, filed as of February 2007—he wrote, ‘‘The two front seat airbags did not deploy. It appears the ignition switch had somehow 

been turned from the Run position to Accessory prior to the collision with the trees.’’ 

Mr. Valukas, did you interview people about this report, and did 

you figure out why no engineers had read it in GM? 

Mr. VALUKAS. What happened with this report was that the report—and I believe correctly analyzed the situation back as far as 

2007—was collected by GM as part of ESIS, which is their claims 

administrator, put into what is called a rumor file, and then at 

some point it was accessed by a paralegal. Dwayne Davidson then 

sent it to NHTSA as part of the TREAD responses. 

At no point—and we had this forensically reviewed by outside experts. At no point was that report accessed by anyone in GM Legal 

between then and March or so of 2014 when this investigation was 

undertaken. So during that period of time it was in those files, that 

rumor file, and no one at GM looked at it, other than back in 2007 

when they sent a copy to—— 

Senator KLOBUCHAR. So this is like an official State Trooper report. I know it’s in a rumor file, but it seems to me it’s somewhat 

official. And then I think there was also an Indiana University 

41 

study. They were commissioned by NHTSA to look at this crash as 

well. Was that also in the rumor file? 

Mr. VALUKAS. No. That was actually—they actually did not even 

have that. Even though that was publicly available in 2012, GM 

did not gather that public information. That wasn’t something they 

had until 2012 when an outside expert for a plaintiff’s lawyer made 

it available as part of their report. 

Senator KLOBUCHAR. And, Mr. Millikin, back to Trooper Young’s 

report, how could it be that you guys had this for seven years, 

you’re trying to figure out why, you’re starting to see all these airbag non-deployment cases, that no one saw this report and looked 

at it? 

Mr. MILLIKIN. I think what you’re seeing is an example of exactly 

what Mr. Valukas’ report identified, and that is absolutely poor information flow. The file that this document was in was one that 

was not one that was searchable by the normal terms that people 

would use when looking for documents, it’s my understanding from 

the Valukas Report, and we’re doing what we can to make sure 

that we don’t have this on a going-forward basis. This is a tragedy 

that cannot happen again, and I’m dedicated to making sure that 

we make the changes we need to make to assure that. 

Senator KLOBUCHAR. Ms. Barra, I said earlier with the first 

panel here that I do appreciate that you have come forward and 

out front and set up this compensation fund. As I said, we’re not 

going to know if justice is done until we see what the outcomes are. 

And I also appreciate the work that’s been done on the recalls as 

an owner of a GM car. 

And one of the things that Mr. Valukas wrote in his report, he 

said that although everyone had responsibility to fix the problem, 

nobody took responsibility. He said a top executive described it as 

the ‘‘GM nod, when everyone nods in agreement to a proposed plan 

of action’’—I’ve been in meetings when this happens—‘‘but then 

leaves the room and does nothing.’’ 

What concrete steps have you taken to implement, to get rid of 

what we call the ‘‘GM nod,’’ and how do you ensure that you move 

from this culture of sort of diffused responsibility to defined responsibility? 

Ms. BARRA. Well, first I’d like to say in my career at General Motors I’ve never accepted the GM nod, and frankly I’ve called people 

out on it because it’s not appropriate. I mean, we make a very complex product, and it’s important that all voices are heard. 

The way that you change culture is by demonstrating the behavior, making sure people understand what your expectations are, 

and calling them out when they don’t. I’ve been demonstrating 

that. I will tell you our leadership team, my direct leadership team 

is 100 percent committed to that, and I’ve talked openly about it. 

When I talk to all employees globally, on June 5, after I read the 

Valukas Report, which I found deeply troubling, I told them that, 

and I told them that behavior was unacceptable, we weren’t going 

to tolerate it. 

But the true change will be by behaviors, and I’m intent on making sure the right behaviors continue going forward. 

Senator KLOBUCHAR. Thank you. 

42 

Senator MCCASKILL. We have a custom in this committee that 

when the Chairman or the Ranking Member show up, they get to 

cut in line. So I’m going to abide by that, what I think is an absolutely appropriate custom, and recognize Senator Thune for his 

questioning. 

STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN THUNE, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM SOUTH DAKOTA 

Senator THUNE. That makes you really popular here, Madam 

Chairman. 

[Laughter.] 

Senator THUNE. I do appreciate it, and I thank you, and I thank 

both you and Senator Heller for holding this hearing and staying 

on these issues. It’s really important that we examine the developments following this recall issue, and I know you’ve been working 

very hard on this issue, and I know we all share the desire to get 

the answers and ensure that this doesn’t happen again. 

GM has admitted via a consent order that it failed to report this 

safety-related defect to NHTSA in a timely manner, and the internal report prepared by Mr. Valukas called GM’s delay in addressing the ignition switch defect a failure of accountability, of oversight, of urgency, and of engineering. As we all know, these delays 

cost lives, and I know I express my deepest sympathies to those 

who were injured or lost loved ones in car accidents involving the 

GM vehicles that have now been recalled. 

I’d like to direct this question to Ms. Barra. I welcome the very 

public steps that you’ve taken thus far to address the needed 

changes within GM, some of which you’ve discussed in your written 

testimony. But I’m also reminded of statements that your immediate predecessor, Mr. Akerson, also discussed in his efforts to create a culture of accountability at GM following the company’s bankruptcy and Federal bailout. 

Mr. Valukas uncovered many troubling findings regarding a lack 

of accountability and urgency among GM employees and senior 

managers. My question is, in your view, are these vestiges of the 

past or a sign that a cultural change is yet to take hold at GM? 

Ms. BARRA. I think when you look at culture change, it happens 

over a long period of time, and it’s by leadership actions. I would 

say Mr. Akerson did extensive work to make sure he drove accountability and drove the right behavior, but I think we’re on a 

continuum of making that cultural change. I would frankly say 

we’re accelerating that now with the work and the very open and 

transparent way that we’re dealing with this issue and the way 

we’re sharing it with employees, and they want to change. They 

want to make sure we have the right systems and processes in 

place. 

But I would say Mr. Akerson started on that journey, and we’re 

continuing and accelerating it. 

Senator THUNE. How do you plan to measure that change? 

Ms. BARRA. I think on a couple of fronts. One, on the very real 

part, from a safety perspective, we’ve already broken down the silos 

and we are mining data. We’re using some of the latest data analytic techniques to make sure information comes from across the 

43 

company. We’ve engaged employees, and they are participating in 

our Speak Up for Safety program. 

But I would also say we do a Workplace of Choice survey every 

18 months, and we’ve seen improvements in that. That will be another key, very objective way that we’ll look to make sure we’re 

driving the right openness. 

But I can tell you, I get hundreds of e-mails from our employees 

on a weekly/monthly basis, and they’re engaged, and that to me is 

the best sign because it’s actions, not words, that are going to 

change the behaviors. 

Senator THUNE. What role do you think the Board of Directors 

has in changing the culture? 

Ms. BARRA. I think the role of the Board is to very clearly state 

their expectations of how the company should operate; and me as 

the CEO, it is my job to make sure we’re living up to their expectations across the company with my leadership team. 

Senator THUNE. I’d like to direct a question to Mr. O’Neal, and 

this is based on the Valukas Report. The ignition switch that your 

company developed appears to have been plagued with both electrical and mechanical problems, problems that weren’t limited to 

the switch having a lower torque specification. In addition, a GM 

document from 2001 released by the House Energy and Commerce 

Committee mentions quite a bit of frustration on the part of GM 

in dealing with these Delphi switches due to electrical failures and 

Delphi’s inability to deliver parts on time for testing purposes. 

Taken together, this evidence would seem to indicate the problems with the Delphi switch were greater than we were initially led 

to believe. Now that these ignition switch issues have come to light, 

have you gone back and reviewed these concerns and determined 

what Delphi will do differently in the future? 

Mr. O’NEAL. We did go back and look extensively at all of the 

documentation, and we found nothing that was abnormal in terms 

of the product development and ultimately how the problems were 

addressed that you sometimes run into as you move from development to production, et cetera. As I said, our product met the requirements. It entered an ignition assembly system that had other 

products. Our part met its requirement. I’m assuming the other 

products met their requirements. But when they come together, 

they form a system, and as Ms. Barra said earlier, it’s someone 

else’s job to make sure—in this case it was the OE to make sure 

that those products worked in total harmony when they come together. 

So we’ve gone back and understood our role in that. I think the 

new industry standard of how safety systems interact from a safety 

perspective versus by part we have totally embraced, and we will 

work diligently with General Motors over this issue. 

Senator THUNE. In 2006, GM authorized a change to the ignition 

switch but didn’t change the part number. As a supplier, is it a 

common practice for Delphi to allow a manufacturer to change a 

part but not change the part number? 

Mr. O’NEAL. In 2013 we had about 120,000 changes, engineering 

changes, and only about 40 percent of those actually had a part 

number change. So it’s quite normal not to change the part number. 

44 

Senator THUNE. Do other manufacturers do the same thing? 

Mr. O’NEAL. Yes. 

Senator THUNE. Madam Chair, my time has expired. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Thank you. 

Senator THUNE. Thank you. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Thank you very much. 

Senator Blunt? 

Senator BLUNT. Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

Mr. Valukas, in your report, when did the legal team know about 

this problem? 

Mr. VALUKAS. When did they first learn of the fact that they had 

airbag deployment issues? 

Senator BLUNT. Yes. 

Mr. VALUKAS. I think you could go back—if you go back to their 

investigators, it would have been probably in the range of 2007 

that it was called to their attention in a NHTSA meeting, one of 

the individuals involved there, and there became an inquiry about 

that by the investigator who was assigned to the GM legal team. 

Senator BLUNT. And when did they know about the ignition 

switch problem? 

Mr. VALUKAS. The ignition switch problem developed over a period of time, and I would say that the first time that I can recall 

that this matter was being called to their attention in some way, 

which is not to say they related the two, may have been as early 

as 2009/2010. 

Senator BLUNT. And, Mr. Millikin, how long have you been the 

Chief Counsel? 

Mr. MILLIKIN. Since the middle of 2009. 

Senator BLUNT. And when did you first find out? Were you at the 

company before that? 

Mr. MILLIKIN. I’ve been with the company, sir, for 37 years. 

Senator BLUNT. So you ran the legal side of the company before 

that? 

Mr. MILLIKIN. Yes, sir, before I knew about the ignition defect. 

Senator BLUNT. And when did you first find out about these two 

problems? 

Mr. MILLIKIN. I first found out about the ignition switch recall 

situation involving non-deployment of airbags first week of February of this year. 

Senator BLUNT. How is that possible that nobody would have 

told you before the first week of February of this year? 

Mr. MILLIKIN. My information on that is based largely on the 

Valukas Report and then talking to other lawyers who had had 

some involvement in it. But, frankly, there was a long time, as the 

Valukas Report indicates, where there wasn’t a connection made 

between the ignition switch problem and the non-deployment of 

airbags. In terms of my taking a look at the results of the Valukas 

Report, I think it all came together for the lawyers at the time of 

the Melton deposition in 2013, and from that point on there was 

enough information inside the legal staff for people to have taken 

action and to have caused the engineering organization to take action. 

45 

They didn’t. That was tragic. If they had brought it to my attention at that time, I certainly would have made sure that they 

would have done something. But they—— 

Senator BLUNT. OK. Give me those dates again? From the time 

you think they had enough information to take action until the 

time you found out was from when to when? 

Mr. MILLIKIN. I’m basing it on the date of the DeGiorgio deposition. I believe that was in April 2013. 

Senator BLUNT. And you didn’t know until—— 

Mr. MILLIKIN. February 2014. 

Senator BLUNT. I’m going to ask Mr. Valukas this as well, but 

would this kind of problem be allowed to happen again? What have 

you done to prevent that same exact set of circumstances from occurring again? 

Mr. MILLIKIN. I’ve done a number of things. The one I think is 

most designed to make sure it doesn’t happen again is before any 

case can be settled or taken to trial, if it involves a fatality or a 

serious bodily injury, that has to come to me regardless of the 

amount of the settlement proposal, and I want it brought to me 

with a full explanation of the case, with a focus on any open engineering issues so that I have an opportunity to cause open engineering issues to be addressed if they’re not being properly addressed. 

Senator BLUNT. And is there any way to trigger this before you 

have a serious bodily injury or fatality or a lawsuit that results 

from those two things? 

Mr. MILLIKIN. There are other things that I’ve done to make sure 

that there’s a flow of information upwards inside the organization 

that would also be bringing to my attention cases on a more regular basis than they were brought to my attention before. 

Senator BLUNT. Mr. Valukas, is it your view that the changes 

that have been made would prevent what happened from ever happening again? 

Mr. VALUKAS. I believe, based on what I know is taking place, 

I think the answer is yes. I think that one of the things that’s happened here is with the flow of information, what you are able to 

identify, which they didn’t, were the trends quickly enough so that 

the engineering department, to the extent the engineering department wasn’t acting on it and going back to a comment that had 

been made earlier, the legal department would be in a position to 

push that and force that to take place. 

Senator BLUNT. And have employees been let go because of this? 

Mr. VALUKAS. That you’ll have to address to—— 

Senator BLUNT. Mr. Millikin, have employees been let go because 

of this? 

Mr. MILLIKIN. Yes, they have. 

Senator BLUNT. And are any of them challenging their dismissal? 

Mr. MILLIKIN. They are not. 

Senator BLUNT. One last question, Ms. Barra. You all are selling 

lots of cars, also recalling lots of cars. I think 25 million is the 

number in the last 12 months. Why would there still be so many 

recalls? And I’m not suggesting that’s necessarily a bad thing, but 

this is a high number. Why is that number so high? 

46 

Ms. BARRA. Well, when we learned what happened with the ignition switch recall, we immediately went back, redoubled our efforts. 

We went and looked at a number of places, were there any open 

NHTSA investigations. We tackled all of those. We went back extensively and looked at information that we had to see if we could 

more quickly put together any trends. We also, then, as it relates 

to every safety item that Mr. DeGiorgio had responsibility for, we 

looked and assessed every single one of those. In some cases there’s 

not even any field information to suggest there is an issue. But as 

we did our systems engineering analysis, if we saw simply by, for 

instance, adding an insert into a key we could make the system 

more robust, we did that. 

So we are intent on being a company known for our safety, and 

this was an important step, and we’ll continue to look for those 

items to make sure we have a company that is dedicated to the 

safety of our vehicles. 

Senator BLUNT. Mr. Millikin, I thought of one final question in 

the line I was asking you. Were those employees who were dismissed, were any of those employees given retirement benefits or 

salary that they had not previously earned? It’s called ‘‘packaging 

out.’’ 

Mr. MILLIKIN. Yes, they were. 

Senator BLUNT. That might explain why they’re not challenging 

their dismissal. 

That’s all I have, Chairman. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Thank you, Senator Blunt. 

Senator Ayotte? 

STATEMENT OF HON. KELLY AYOTTE, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM NEW HAMPSHIRE 

Senator AYOTTE. Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

I want to ask Mr. Millikin, you’ve been General Counsel, as I understand it, since July of 2009. Is that right? 

Mr. MILLIKIN. July 20 of 2009, that’s correct. 

Senator AYOTTE. And before that, though, you had a long legal 

career at GM. 

Mr. MILLIKIN. That’s correct. 

Senator AYOTTE. So how is it that—one thing that deeply troubles me is the important regulator for GM is NHTSA; correct? 

Mr. MILLIKIN. That is correct. 

Senator AYOTTE. And as I understand it, GM’s response in a 

number of complaints regarding this matter—but this is a pattern 

that extends beyond this matter—was in terms of inquiries made 

by NHTSA about problems with the Chevy Cobalt and this specific 

issue. Really, the answers were attorney-client privilege. The answers to NHTSA were things like ‘‘we had not assessed the case,’’ 

‘‘GM opts not to respond.’’ And I guess I have a question for you 

as general counsel. Are NHTSA complaints brought to your attention and the response of the company to NHTSA complaints? 

Mr. MILLIKIN. Since I’ve been General Counsel, on multiple occasions the lawyers that report to me, and some that don’t report to 

me on a consistent basis, have brought safety concerns to my attention. If you go back and take a look—if I go back and take a look 

at some of my e-mails over the last couple of years, it has been on 

47 

frequent occasions they’ve brought it to my attention, including 

some of the lawyers we had to let go. So there was a clear understanding in terms of my expectation of the kinds of issues that 

needed to be brought to my attention. For some reason, that did 

not happen here, and that’s very troubling to me, and that’s why 

I’m doing the things that I’m doing to make sure that on a goingforward basis those kinds of information lapses do not reoccur. 

Senator AYOTTE. So let me understand it. Not only were you not 

notified according to your testimony about the potential for punitive damages as the legal officer for GM, and that that potential 

for punitive damages you didn’t notify to authorities, but also in 

terms of what I understand were complaints that were brought forward to NHTSA about this matter, you were not informed about 

those either? 

Mr. MILLIKIN. Well, the reports that you’re referring to I think 

are the reports that were mentioned in a newspaper yesterday. I 

went back and took a look at when those reports were given to 

NHTSA. Most of them were given to NHTSA at a time when I was 

not general counsel. One of them was, but—— 

Senator AYOTTE. Wasn’t there one in 2009 that was, in fact, post2009 involving a December 2009 crash? 

Mr. MILLIKIN. I’m saying there was one that was when I was 

General Counsel. That was, I believe, something that occurred in 

2010. That did not come to my attention. That is correct. 

Senator AYOTTE. So that was not brought to your attention. 

Mr. MILLIKIN. That is correct. 

Senator AYOTTE. And what was the company’s response to that 

complaint to NHTSA? 

Mr. MILLIKIN. Well, I don’t remember what the company’s response to that specific complaint was. I do know that, if I’m remembering this one correctly, the initial thought based on the investigation that was done by the engineering organization was that 

it was a power—— 

Senator AYOTTE. Well, let me be clear about what I understand 

the company’s response to be. 

Mr. MILLIKIN. OK. 

Senator AYOTTE. Which was a response that it was attorney-client privilege, that there was a refusal to answer the regulatory 

agency in that regard. And I’ve got to tell you, it’s actually shocking to me that you would be general counsel in this regard and not 

be the recipient of NHTSA complaints and what the company 

would respond with regard to NHTSA. That is obviously an important regulatory agency for you in terms of public safety, and that 

you wouldn’t have known. But also I see a consistent pattern of 

GM answering, refusing to answer NHTSA. 

Let me just say that I’m looking forward also to hearing from 

NHTSA because I think there were some serious lapses of responsibility by the regulatory agency because, as a regulatory agency, 

they should have refused to accept your answers, meaning GM’s 

answers of not answering, of asserting attorney-client privilege, of 

I think refusing under circumstances where as a regulatory agency 

I don’t know how you could accept that and be able to say to the 

public that you’re going to protect people’s safety. 

48 

But I don’t understand how you, given not only the pattern we 

see with the punitive damage issue, how the NHTSA complaints 

wouldn’t have come to your attention either in this one based on 

a 2009 crash where, as I understand it, a young woman was killed, 

was quite shocking that you wouldn’t have understood that. It’s interesting that you would hold this position and you wouldn’t get 

this critical information from a regulator. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Senator Blumenthal. 

Senator BLUMENTHAL. Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

Thank you, Ms. Barra, for being here again. I am sure that 

you’re familiar with this ad which has appeared in many newspapers around the country. It says, ‘‘The key to safety,’’ and then 

it essentially tells the reader that the key to safety is removing 

weight from the keychain until the car is repaired. There have 

been egregious delays in deliveries of those parts to dealers who 

want to repair these cars. 

The key to safety, in my view, is taking these cars off the road, 

not taking keys off the chain. So I hope that you will work with 

Mr. O’Neal, who is right next to you, in accelerating delivery of 

these parts so dealers and drivers can be sure that these cars are 

repaired and made safe. 

And I also hope that you will expand the compensation fund to 

vehicles that were in crashes as a result of defective ignition 

switches beyond the 2.6 million that have been recalled already, including the millions more that GM acknowledges caused at least 

three deaths and many injuries. There is no way, in my view, to 

distinguish the injuries, deaths and harm resulting from those 

crashes as opposed to the ones that are the subject of this hearing. 

So I hope you will consider extending the fund. I’m glad there is 

no cap to it, but both fairness, equity, and accountability argue 

powerfully for covering all of those crashes, all the victims who 

were involved in cars defective because of exactly the same part. 

And I want to make a suggestion, with all due respect. If GM is 

really serious about changing its culture and imposing a new era 

of truth-telling and accountability, the place to start is with your 

legal department. You well know, lawyers are responsible for being 

the conscience of the company, for ensuring compliance with the 

law in spirit as well as letter. In this instance, the lawyers enabled 

purposeful concealment and cover-up, possible criminal action that 

is the subject right now of an investigation. 

I know that you have a responsibility to choose your own team, 

but my view is the team has to change. Right now, the buck stops 

at an empty desk. 

I know, Mr. Millikin, you say you wish you had done differently. 

Will you agree to recommend to Ms. Barra that GM unseal all of 

those settlements involving presumably millions of dollars, unseal 

the secret settlements that could have saved lives if they hadn’t 

been kept secret from the beginning? Will you make that recommendation? 

Mr. MILLIKIN. No, I will not, but those settlement documents are 

with responsible government agencies who can look at them. 

Senator BLUMENTHAL. Will you agree—well, they haven’t been 

unsealed. They haven’t been made public. Will you agree to waive 

the immunity shield, the absolute barrier to people suing GM in 

49 

court because of the shield that was granted during a bankruptcy 

proceeding that, in fact, involved potentially fraud by GM on the 

courts and the United States taxpayers that bailed it out? 

Mr. MILLIKIN. We have done that already, Senator. 

Senator BLUMENTHAL. You would allow lawsuits against the company or pre-2009—— 

Mr. MILLIKIN. We’ve done that in connection with the Feinberg 

protocol, Senator. 

Senator BLUMENTHAL. Yes, but that’s only for settlements. What 

if somebody goes to court to sue GM? 

Mr. MILLIKIN. Other than the Feinberg protocol, we are going 

to—— 

Senator BLUMENTHAL. Would you agree to waive that shield? 

Mr. MILLIKIN. We will not. 

Senator BLUMENTHAL. You know, I have a couple of other questions. For example, will you agree to make public all of the documents made available to Mr. Valukas? 

Mr. MILLIKIN. We will not. 

Senator BLUMENTHAL. Would you agree to enable all those 15 

people who have been discharged and who are under confidentiality 

agreements not to talk about what they did at the company, enable 

them to overcome those gag orders? 

Mr. MILLIKIN. Senator, the people who were let go, the agreements that they have enable them to go talk to any regulatory 

agency that they feel they need to, or to answer any questions that 

come from any governmental body with respect—— 

Senator BLUMENTHAL. What about the public? What about reporters? What about your drivers and customers? If they go to 

those 15 people, will they be free to answer those questions? 

Mr. MILLIKIN. I’d have to take a look at the agreements to make 

sure I know the answer to that. 

Senator BLUMENTHAL. Will you waive any confidentiality requirements under those agreements that they have been rewarded by 

those additional payments to agree to? 

Mr. MILLIKIN. I’d have to take a look at the agreements themselves before I would be able to answer that question honestly, 

Senator. 

Senator BLUMENTHAL. I hope that you will come back to this 

panel with different answers. If not, I would respectfully suggest 

that this company is not well served by your continuing. 

Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Senator Markey? 

STATEMENT OF HON. EDWARD MARKEY, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM MASSACHUSETTS 

Senator MARKEY. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

According to Mr. Valukas’ report, in 2004 GM and the Transportation Department had a meeting in which the attendees 

inexplicably agreed that cars stalled by themselves and that this 

was not necessarily a safety problem. Do any of you disagree that 

many members of the public would probably have rejected this conclusion if they had known about it? 

Let the record show that no one disagreed. 

50 

Mr. Valukas’ report describes warnings of accidents that GM was 

aware of involving their vehicles, but some of these warnings and 

reports were not publicly disclosed or acted on. Do any of you disagree that if the public knew about these reports of cars stalling 

on their own at the time, it is possible that some of the deaths and 

injuries caused by this defect could have been avoided? Does anyone disagree with that? 

Mr. MILLIKIN. No. 

Senator MARKEY. Let the record reflect that. 

In 2007, NHTSA asked for and received a document from GM related to the death of two Wisconsin teenagers. That document was 

first made public by me at our May 7 hearing, and it is referenced 

repeatedly in Mr. Valukas’ report and included a report by the Wisconsin State Patrol Academy that said that the ignition switch defect prevented the airbags from deploying. It also found other examples of the same problem happening in other cars and identified 

a 2005 GM warning to dealers about the issue. In short, it correctly 

identified the safety defect at that time. Do any of you disagree 

that if the public had been told about this document and warned 

about its conclusions at that time, it is possible that some of the 

deaths and injuries caused by this defect could have been avoided? 

Let the record show that none of the witnesses disagreed. 

In 2006 and 2007, NHTSA, the National Highway Traffic Safety 

Administration, received investigative reports from its contractors 

related to two fatal crashes involving GM Cobalts. Both of these reports described airbags that did not deploy in cars because ignition 

switches had turned off. Do any of you disagree that if NHTSA had 

reviewed these reports and informed the public about the safety defect, it is possible that some of the deaths and injuries caused by 

the defect could have been avoided? 

Again, let the record make it clear that none of the witnesses disagree. 

So, Ms. Barra, I have introduced legislation, along with Senator 

Blumenthal, that calls for important steps to provide more information to the public sooner. The best way of ensuring that this does 

not happen again is to ensure that there is transparency in the future. I know that you are working hard to change GM’s safety culture, but you can’t change other companies and you can’t give me 

the confidence that NHTSA will take more aggressive action in the 

future. 

That is why the bill that we have introduced requiring the public 

availability of documents automakers receive that first alert them 

to fatalities that could be attributable to safety defects is so important. We need more information to be publicly disclosed by automakers in the early warning reporting system. I want the public 

to be able to access this kind of information in time for it to provide 

real early warnings. 

Does GM support the legislation? 

Ms. BARRA. Senator Markey, first of all, you and I agree completely on the need to make sure we are doing everything we can 

from a safety perspective. And as I’ve met with you, and I know 

my staff has worked closely with your representatives, we support 

efforts to make the NHTSA website more accessible and useful. We 

also have suggested that a national VIN database be added and 

51 

added to the bill. We think that would be very useful to make sure 

we can quickly get to people when we know that there’s a safety 

defect. 

We also support efforts to make reports on fatality and early 

warning data more available to the public as long as the right provisions are there to protect privacy and to protect confidential information from an overall perspective, and we are more than willing to continue to work with you and your office on any legislation 

that advances the safety agenda. 

Senator MARKEY. I thank you, Ms. Barra, and I think that’s 

going to go a long way if that legislation becomes law, and it 

should because that’s the surest way of ensuring this will not happen again. 

And I thank you, Madam Chair, and I thank you for your focus 

on NHTSA as well, because I don’t think we can conclude this entire process until NHTSA is—— 

Senator MCCASKILL. That’s absolutely correct. 

Senator MARKEY. I thank you for—— 

Senator MCCASKILL. Thank you, Senator Markey. 

Senator Boxer? 

STATEMENT OF HON. BARBARA BOXER, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM CALIFORNIA 

Senator BOXER. Thank you. 

Ms. Barra, after months of negotiations, Senators Schumer, 

McCaskill and I thank you for your support of the Raechel and Jacqueline Houck Rental Car Safety Act. 

I ask unanimous consent to put GM’s letter into the record, and 

I will work with you to convince the other automakers to follow 

that lead. Is it all right that we put that into the record? 

Senator MCCASKILL. Without objection, it will go in the record. 

[The information referred to follows:] 

GENERAL MOTORS COMPANY

Washington, DC, July 8, 2014 

Hon. CHUCK SCHUMER, 

322 Hart Senate Office Building, 

Washington, DC. 

Dear Senator Schumer: 

On behalf of General Motors, I would like to thank you, as well as the cosponsors, 

for reviewing our proposed changes to S. 921 as described in my June 26, 2014, letter to you (herewith again attached). 

With these changes made to the Committee—reported text of S. 921, ‘‘The Raechel 

and Jacqueline Houck Safe Rental Car Act of 2013,’’ such a revised bill will have 

the support of General Motors. 

Let me offer our appreciation to you, as well as to your staff for their professionalism, as we worked through this process. 

Sincerely, 

LEE R. GODOWN, 

Vice President, 

Global Government Relations. 

Attachment 

52 

GENERAL MOTORS COMPANY

Washington, DC, June 26, 2014 

Hon. CHUCK SCHUMER, 

322 Hart Senate Office Building, 

Washington, DC. 

Dear Senator Schumer: 

Thank you for meeting with me, our CEO Ms. Mary Barra, and for the continuing 

cooperation of your staff in an effort to find common ground on the provisions of 

S. 921, The Raechel and Jacqueline Houck Safe Rental Car Act of 2013. 

As you know, under existing law auto manufacturers have the ability to defend 

against loss of use claims by rental car companies, because rental car companies 

have the ability to manage the way they repair their fleets subject to safety recalls 

or other safety related notices. While we think that the rental companies will continue to have that ability as a practical matter (because of the size and diversification of their fleets) if S. 921 passes as currently drafted, our defense as a manufacturer might be degraded, since the rental companies would be able to point to the 

absolute statutory grounding of vehicles as the basis for claims of loss of use—even 

in the absence of a showing of actual ‘‘damages.’’ 

Our primary concern with the current language of S. 921 is that the new requirements for rental companies to repair recalled vehicles could increase manufacturers’ 

liability under state laws for the losses suffered by the rental car companies as a 

result of having to ground recalled cars before they can be repaired. In discussion 

with your staff, it became apparent that you never intended to change the status 

quo with regard to loss of use, and believe that the issue would be best addressed 

in the contracts between the manufacturers and the rental companies. 

As part of discussions I have had with your staff, and the staffs of the cosponsors 

of S. 921, I would like to suggest the below language as an amendment to the current provisions of the legislation. 

After section 8 (of S.921), insert the following: 

SEC. 9. RULE OF CONSTRUCTION. 

Nothing in this Act or the amendments made by this Act shall—— 

(1) be construed to create or increase any liability, including for loss of use, for 

a manufacturer as result of having manufactured or imported a motor vehicle 

subject to a notification of defect or noncompliance under subsection (b) or (c) 

of section 30118 of title 49, United States Code; or 

(2) supersede or otherwise affect the contractual obligations, if any, between such 

a manufacturer and a rental company (as defined in section 30102(a) of title 49, 

United States Code, as amended by section 2). 

If this change in S. 921 can be accomplished and addressed, General Motors 

stands ready to support such a revised bill. 

I would like to add that, in discussions with your staff, I have raised the possibility of mandating that rental car companies be obliged to report their repair completion rates monthly or quarterly to the National Highway Transportation Administration (NHTSA)—the goal being to prompt the companies to repair their vehicles 

in a timely fashion, and to make this completion rate more transparent and public. 

We support this requirement. 

Lastly, our auto dealer partners (NADA) have expressed a concern that the 

NHTSA rulemaking authority in section 9 of the legislation is too broad. Section 9 

states: The Secretary of Transportation may promulgate rules, as appropriate, to implement this Act and the amendments made by this Act. I understand through your 

staff that you are willing to delete this section of the legislation, and we support 

this deletion. 

Sincerely, 

LEE R. GODOWN, 

Vice President, 

Global Government Relations. 

53 

Senator BOXER. Thank you. 

A month ago, Bloomberg Businessweek published an article entitled ‘‘GM Recalls: How GM Silenced a Whistleblower.’’ Have you 

seen that article? 

Ms. BARRA. Yes, I have. 

Senator BOXER. OK. I ask unanimous consent to place it in the 

record. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Without objection. 

[The information referred to follows:] 

Bloomberg Businessweek—June 18, 2014 

GM RECALLS: HOW GENERAL MOTORS SILENCED A WHISTLE-BLOWER

By Tim Higgins and Nick Summers 

Photograph by St. Croix County Sheriffs Office/AP Photo 

In 2006 the wreck of a 2005 Cobalt killed two and injured one 

It was close to 3 a.m. on June 6 when Courtland Kelley burst into his bedroom, 

startling his wife awake. General Motors (GM), Kelley’s employer for more than 30 

years, had just released the results of an investigation into how a flawed ignition 

switch in the Chevrolet Cobalt could easily slip into the ‘‘off’’ position—cutting 

power, stalling the engine, and disabling airbags just when they’re needed most. 

The part has been linked to at least 13 deaths and 54 crashes. GM Chief Executive 

Officer Mary Barra, summoned before Congress in April to answer for the crisis, repeatedly declined to answer lawmakers’ questions before she had the company’s inquest in hand. Now it was out, and Kelley had stayed up to read all 325 pages on 

a laptop on the back porch of his rural home about 90 miles northwest of Detroit. 

The ‘‘Valukas Report,’’ named for former U.S. Attorney Anton Valukas, who assembled it at GM’s request from interviews with 230 witnesses and 41 million documents, blamed a culture of complacency for the more than decade-long delay before 

the company recalled millions of faulty vehicles. It described employees passing the 

buck and committees falling back on the ‘‘GM nod’’—when everyone in a meeting 

agrees that something should happen, and no one actually does it. On page 93, a 

GM safety inspector named Steven Oakley is quoted telling investigators that he 

was too afraid to insist on safety concerns with the Cobalt after seeing his predecessor ‘‘pushed out of the job for doing just that.’’ Reading the passage, Kelley felt 

like he’d been punched in the gut. The predecessor Oakley was talking about was 

Kelley. 


717GM1.eps
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Kelley had sued GM in 2003, alleging that the company had dragged its feet addressing dangers in its cars and trucks. Even though he lost, Kelley thought that 

by blowing the whistle he’d done the right thing and paved the way for other GMers 

to speak up. Now he saw that he’d had the opposite impact: His loss, and the way 

his career had stalled afterward, taught others at the company to stay quiet. 

‘‘He stood in the doorway of our bedroom with a stunned look on his face,’’ Beth 

Kelley, his wife of 23 years, says. ‘‘Maybe we’re just extremely naive, but we really 

thought that since this all happened, that something good would come out of it.’’ 

Kelley declined to comment for this article, but his allegations are laid out in court 

records and depositions. A number of friends and family did speak for the record. 

Kelley had been the head of a nationwide GM inspection program and then the 

quality manager for the Cobalt’s predecessor, the Cavalier. He found flaws and reported them, over and over, and repeatedly found his colleagues’ and supervisors’ 

responses wanting. He thought they were more concerned with maintaining their 

bureaucracies and avoiding expensive recalls than with stopping the sale of dangerous cars. Eventually, Kelley threatened to take his concerns to the National 

Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Frustrated with the limited scope of a recall 

of sport-utility vehicles in 2002, he sued GM under a Michigan whistle-blower law. 

GM denied wrongdoing, and the case was dismissed on procedural grounds. Kelley’s 

career went into hibernation; he was sent to work in another part of the company, 

and GM kept producing its cars. 


717GM2.eps
55 

Selling for around $16,000, Cobalts were popular with teenagers. The first death 

linked to its switch came in July 2005, when a Maryland 16-year-old, Amber Marie 

Rose, crashed her red ’05 into a tree. The airbag did not deploy. Although reports 

streamed into GM about moving stalls and disabled airbags for years, the company 

waited until Feb. 13, 2014, to issue a recall. 

Now GM professes contrition, promises change, and has ousted 15 individuals for 

misconduct or incompetence. Announcing the Valukas findings to an audience of employees on June 5, Barra called the report ‘‘extremely thorough, brutally tough, and 

deeply troubling.’’ It describes a corporate bureaucracy fatally indifferent to mounting evidence its cars were killing people. ‘‘Group after group and committee after 

committee within GM that reviewed the issue failed to take action or acted too slowly,’’ Valukas writes. ‘‘Although everyone had responsibility to fix the problem, nobody took responsibility.’’ 

Photographs by National Highway Traffic Safety Administration/The New York Times/Redux; 

St Croix Sheriff/Reuters 

As bad as that sounds, Kelley’s story shows that the situation was worse—that 

GM’s problems went beyond diffuse inaction. Management wasn’t just distracted or 

confused; speaking up was actively discouraged, and workers saw that pointing out 


717GM3.eps 717GM4.eps
56 

safety flaws could derail their careers. When a GM employee did blow the whistle, 

the Nation’s largest automaker shut him down. 

Kelley is mild-mannered and 52, with a full head of white hair that makes him 

look older. His friends, who know him as Court, joke that they should make bracelets reading ‘‘WWCD?’’—or ‘‘What would Court do?’’—a` la the popular Christian accessory. ‘‘He’s just one of those people that you can trust what he says,’’ his wife 

says. ‘‘I don’t have any doubt in his decisions.’’ 

Kelley is third-generation GM. His father and grandfather worked for the company. A prized possession is a ring his grandfather was given commemorating his 

participation in the famed Sit-Down Strike of 1936–37. In his driveway is a black 

Pontiac Fiero sports car that Kelley and his teenage son, Ryan, fixed up. 

In 1983, Kelley started at GM as a technician fresh out of community college. By 

1988 he was working on what would become the company’s Global Delivery Survey, 

an audit of GM cars at rail yards across the country—a spot check of vehicles on 

the last leg of their journey to dealerships. Originally meant to find minor noises 

and rattles, the program had begun to turn up more serious safety concerns. The 

creator of the effort, Bill McAleer, considered Kelley his prote ́ge ́ and someone who 

shared his alarm at the problems they found over the next decade—such as tie rods 

in danger of falling off. 

‘‘I’ve done all I can. I wanted more vehicles recalled. They shot me down.’’ 

‘‘Bill and I looked at each other in amazement,’’ Kelley later recalled in a deposition, ‘‘that that kind of thing was happening, where the bolts on the front suspension fell out as we drove over the track. I thought that GM alarm bells would go 

off.’’ 

They didn’t. McAleer, who thought no one at GM was taking his criticisms seriously, was taken off the audit; he sued the company seeking whistle-blower protection. GM denied the allegations, and a judge dismissed the case. With McAleer gone, 

Kelley grew even more concerned about the problems he was seeing, he said in a 

June 2000 deposition from McAleer’s lawsuit. He indicated that the audit was picking up an average of two to three ‘‘significant safety defects’’ each month. In May 

of that year, Kelley told lawyers, the audit found three problems, including a vehicle 

in Flint, Mich., with its antilock brakes improperly attached and a vehicle in Lansing with a fuel leak. McAleer’s lawsuit claimed that as much as 1 percent of all 

vehicles manufactured by GM during the 1999 model year could be defective, or 

more than 30,000 North American cars and trucks. 

Kelley said he approached his direct supervisor, George Kingston, who in 2000 

was director of quality for North American operations, about his growing concerns. 

‘‘I would go to George and tell him this, but it didn’t seem to surprise him or provoke him to take new action,’’ Kelley said in his deposition. ‘‘He seemed to take it 

more seriously when I told him that I could no longer sit by and I may have to personally go to the Federal Government.’’ The response? ‘‘He cringed,’’ Kelley said, 

‘‘and said that he would prefer that I don’t do that.’’ Kelley gave Kingston 60 days 

to act but in the end didn’t alert regulators. Kingston did not respond to a request 

for comment. 

In September 2000, Kelley would later allege in court filings, Kingston instructed 

Kelley not to give McAleer, still a GM employee at the time, any data on serious 

defects that the audit program turned up. ‘‘Kingston indicated that he just returned 

from a meeting in which depositions taken in the McAleer litigation and questions 

being posed to GM by the media about litigation had been discussed,’’ Kelley’s lawsuit said. Kingston told Kelley ‘‘that high-level GM staff and the company’s general 

counsel were involved in the teleconference and that these individuals were irate.’’ 

Kingston allegedly told Kelley that he was concerned that ‘‘higher-ranking executives might want to make things difficult’’ for Kelley—perhaps banishing him to the 

‘‘second shift at Hamtramck,’’ a plant on the outskirts of Detroit. 

While his troubles at work intensified, Kelley’s home life blossomed. He and his 

wife were raising two children, and they purchased a white two-story home on a 

tree-lined street in sleepy Owosso, Mich. Kelley remained loyal to his employer. As 

he saw it, he was agitating not to harm the company or enrich himself but to save 

it—and because it was the right thing to do. Neighbor Fred Van Alstine, a doctor 

whose father worked in a GM factory, remembers talking with Kelley around this 

time and inadvertently slighting the automaker. He recalls Kelley taking offense 

and saying, ‘‘I’m proud to be at GM.’’ 

One day in November 2001, Kelley came across a problem that would forever 

change him. Making inspections at a rail yard in Tampa, he found a Chevrolet 

TrailBlazer SUV leaking fuel. Kelley discovered that the fuel line had disconnected 

at the filter. ‘‘They told me as they were driving it off the train, the vehicle quit,’’ 

Kelley recalled in a September 2003 deposition. ‘‘Fuel began spraying.’’ The next 

57 

day, he began getting similar reports from around the country. He began pushing 

not only his supervisor but product investigators and GM’s legal department to act. 

Kelley thought it was just a matter of time before someone was injured or killed. 

‘‘I became aware of police reports, police stating that they thought the person would 

have been severely injured had a spark occurred and ignited the fuel,’’ Kelley said 

in a deposition. ‘‘I became aware of fire departments being involved because of the 

severity of the fuel leaks.’’ Despite his concerns, he said, colleagues resisted contacting the government. During a Nov. 27, 2001, conference call with GM engineers, 

Kelley wrote in his notes, ‘‘No NHTSA contact yet.’’ 

‘‘At this point, I knew it was big enough that—where we could not, in my opinion, 

not report it,’’ Kelley said in a deposition. ‘‘I heard them have many discussions 

about not wanting to notify the government, not putting voice mails out to dealers, 

because the government could get them.’’ 

By December, Kelley thought he knew what was causing the problem: The TrailBlazer’s fuel-line quick-connect fasteners weren’t the proper size. He had photos of 

nine vehicles with leaking fuel. That month, he clashed with a product investigator 

named C.J. Martin who had turned up fewer ‘‘serious quality incidents’’ in her own 

probe, according to Kelley’s deposition testimony. 

Kelley pushed Martin on the issue, he testified. ‘‘She became concerned that I was 

overly aggressive on how to fix the problem,’’ Kelley said. ‘‘Her response to me was, 

‘Well, what do you want us to do, recall all the cars?’ ‘If that’s what needs to be 

done,’ I said, ‘yes, that’s what we should do.’ She said that would be way too expensive.’’ 


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Martin, who retired from GM in early 2002, says she vaguely remembers Kelley 

but disputes his claim that she resisted a recall. ‘‘I didn’t have that power nor that 

ability,’’ she says. She also disputes the notion that safety recalls were influenced 

by costs. ‘‘We were never allowed to show cost of an item in regard to making a 

decision for a safety recall—ever,’’ she says. That a recall was conducted in April 

after being flagged in November suggests to Martin that GM acted quickly, she 

says. ‘‘That’s extremely fast. If there was something that told us that there was anything related to safety, I can tell you that team in that period of time was extremely 

aggressive,’’ she says. 

Photographs by James Fassinger/Corbis; J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo 

As 2002 began, Kelley’s crusade ‘‘gained significant momentum as a result of a 

vehicle line executive having experienced a ruptured fuel line on his own company 

vehicle while driving on the interstate,’’ according to his lawsuit. On April 30, 2002, 

GM sent the NHTSA a letter saying it was recalling 60,044 Chevrolet TrailBlazers, 

GMC Envoys, and Oldsmobile Bravadas, according to government records. Kelley 

felt vindicated—a moment of satisfaction that would prove fleeting. 

Like his predecessor McAleer, Kelley was taken off the quality audit in 2002. He 

was transferred to a role as brand quality manager for the Chevrolet Cavalier and 

Pontiac Sunfire, compact cars that preceded the Cobalt. He was given an employee 

named Steven Oakley, who’d worked for GM since 1990, to handle the Sunfire. They 

were the middlemen between dealers, who wanted to talk about problems with cars, 

and engineers, who would work with factories to address those issues—and it was 

in this role that Kelley began hearing that the TrailBlazer recall had not gone far 

enough. Dealers complained that SUVs not covered by the recall were still leaking 

fuel. Kelley contacted one of GM’s field product investigators, employees who look 

into possible recall issues, and weeks later contacted him again. He got a listless 

response. ‘‘ ‘I’ve done all I can,’ ’’ Kelley testified that the investigator told him. ‘‘ ‘I 

wanted more vehicles recalled. They shot me down.’ ’’ 


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59 

Kelley decided to escalate his campaign. In a June 17, 2002, memo addressed to 

his boss’s boss, Keith McKenzie, director of car brand quality, Kelley was direct. ‘‘It 

is my belief that General Motors is violating the law by not properly dealing with 

safety issues that are persistent and ongoing,’’ Kelley wrote. ‘‘I have spent several 

years trying to work through the system at General Motors to address these concerns with a goal of protecting our customers and stockholders.’’ McKenzie could not 

be reached for comment. 

McKenzie stonewalled, according to Kelley. Instead of dealing with the complaint, 

he said, McKenzie warned him about another GM employee who had raised safetyrelated complaints and how it had derailed his career, the court filings show. Kelley 

agreed to tone down his memo, resubmitting a version that said GM was ‘‘not properly dealing with certain safety issues.’’ He again gave the company 60 days to address them or he’d go to ‘‘the proper law enforcement agencies.’’ 

GM, in a court filing, said McKenzie reacted immediately to the memo, alerting 

his supervisor, who was ‘‘relieved but also extremely upset at [Kelley’s] method of 

communication.’’ Sixty-three days later, GM expanded the TrailBlazer recall by 

76,000 vehicles. Four days after that, Kelley said he was called into a meeting with 

McKenzie and Ron Porter, a GM lawyer, ‘‘in response to his letter of June 21.’’ 

Kelley was told he shouldn’t concern himself with defects on models other than the 

Cavalier. McKenzie told him vehicles had already been recalled and that more 

would be included in ‘‘direct response’’ to his concerns. 

It was a mixed victory: Kelley got unsafe trucks off the road, but he was transferred that fall to another role, described in his testimony as ‘‘special assignment.’’ 


717GM7.eps
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It was a GM version of purgatory. He had no job responsibilities, he claimed. In his 

new role, Kelley testified, he was instructed not to get involved with fuel-line connectors and instead was told to ‘‘come up with charts, predict warranty for the vehicle, but not find every problem that GM might have.’’ 

At home in Owosso, Kelley wrestled with taking his concerns public. After putting 

their kids to bed, Kelley and his wife would sit at their kitchen table and talk late 

into the night. Beth Kelley says she didn’t know then that GM retirees were telling 

her husband he might as well leave the company—that nobody goes against GM and 

survives. ‘‘He would say, ‘What do you think I should do?’ and, ‘Do you want to do 

this?’ ’’ she says now. ‘‘If he felt strongly enough that people could potentially die 

from the safety issue, then I didn’t have any doubt in my mind that we needed to 

do it.’’ On Jan. 9, 2003, he filed suit against GM. 

Kelley’s allegations—which predated the ignition switch problems—made a small 

splash; Beth remembers the news crawling across CNN’s ticker. What little momentum there was faded as the challenges of fighting the Nation’s largest automaker 

became apparent. GM argued for a judge to dismiss the case because Kelley did not 

have standing as a whistle-blower—the law required such a person to prove he had 

suffered for his actions, and Kelley still had a job with the company and was getting 

the same pay and benefits. 

During a deposition, GM’s outside lawyer, Peter Kellett, pressed Kelley to admit 

that raising concerns about trucks wasn’t part of his job description, as an inspector 

of cars. 

‘‘My job assignment as a GM employee is to make sure that our customers are 

safe in any way I can. That’s my understanding,’’ Kelley said. 

GM: ‘‘But was it your specific understanding that you were charged with responsibility for monitoring information relating to vehicles other than the [small cars]?’’ 

Kelley: ‘‘I felt morally responsible—’’ 

GM: ‘‘That’s not what I asked you.’’ 

Kelley: ‘‘—to fix a problem that I found in a vehicle.’’ 

GM: ‘‘Was it part of your job description?’’ 

Kelley: ‘‘No.’’ 

Kelley’s lawsuit didn’t get far. Court records show that his attorney didn’t appear 

at a hearing in April 2004, and the case was closed without a response from his 

lawyer. A later motion to reconsider was denied. Kelley’s lawyer, Rose Goff, became 

sick around this time, eventually dying of cancer. The Kelleys, who had spent more 

than $20,000 on legal fees, received a payment covering most of the cost from their 

lawyer’s insurance company because of the handling of the case, Beth says. 


717GM8.eps
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Courtesy Beth Kelley/Courtland Kelley 

Courtland Kelley sank into depression. His dark brown hair turned snow-white 

in the span of a year. Van Alstine, the neighbor, who is also Kelley’s doctor, looked 

at his friend one day with astonishment. ‘‘I clearly saw him age drastically,’’ Van 

Alstine says. ‘‘You just knew he was under a tremendous amount of stress. . . . It 

shook him to the core.’’ Kelley couldn’t sleep at night, waking in cold sweats and 

experiencing chest pains and panic attacks, friends and records say. 

His wife encouraged him to leave GM. He stayed for his family, she says. ‘‘He 

would always say, ‘You know, if I stay this amount of time, I’ll get my retirement,’ ’’ 

she says. 

‘‘Where else in that job market over the last 10 or 15 years is a person going to 

go?’’ says Van Alstine. 

At GM, Kelley has been floating from position to position, says McAleer, who was 

laid off from GM in 2004 and keeps in close contact. ‘‘He still has a job—he doesn’t 

have a career,’’ he says. ‘‘He has no possibility of a promotion.’’ 

As Kelley’s lawsuit petered out in 2004, GM was replacing the Cavalier with the 

Cobalt. Models produced from 2005 to 2007 contained the ignition switch that could 

easily slip out of the ‘‘on’’ position at the touch of a driver’s knee or simply from 

bumps in the road. Airbags failed to deploy in dozens of accidents. Amy Breen, 42, 

an Ohio preschool teacher, was killed in a 2007 crash, even though she was wearing 

her seat belt. Marie Sachse, 81, died when her Saturn Ion, which used the Cobalt’s 

ignition switch, left the road and struck a tree in Missouri in 2009. In June 2013, 

Dany Dubuc-Marquis, 23, of Quebec, lost control of his Cobalt and was pronounced 

dead at the scene. At GM, the mounting evidence caused little alarm. ‘‘Throughout 

the entire 11-year odyssey, there was no demonstrated sense of urgency, right to 

the very end,’’ Valukas, the former U.S. attorney, wrote in his report. 

It is impossible to know what might have happened differently if Kelley had remained an inspector of GM’s small cars as it moved from Cavalier to Cobalt. He 

was replaced by his employee, Oakley, who in March 2005 reviewed a memo from 

a GM engineer on the Cobalt ignition. Interviewed three times by Valukas’s team, 

Oakley told investigators that he felt pressure to describe something as a convenience issue rather than a safety problem, and cited Kelley’s ordeal. GM declined to 

make Oakley available for comment. 

Yet in one indirect way, Oakley tried to rouse concern. In a draft of a service bulletin to dealers, he included the term ‘‘stall,’’ a ‘‘hot’’ word known to attract attention. Had it actually gone out to car sellers, Federal regulators would have most 

likely seen it. But as they had with Kelley three years before, GM’s product investigators tamped down the response, striking the language. It was one of the many 

occasions in which GM engineers failed to link the ignition switch position and disabled airbags, Valukas concluded. ‘‘From beginning to end, the story of the Cobalt 

is one of numerous failures leading to tragic results for many,’’ he wrote. 


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Photograph by Patsy Lynch/Rex Features/AP Photo 

With the report out, CEO Barra was set to return to the House for more questions 

on June 18. While she has described the Valukas inquiry as thorough, she has also 

attempted to limit its implications. ‘‘In this case with these vehicles, we didn’t do 

our job,’’ Barra said in the June 5 employee town hall. ‘‘What the Valukas investigation uncovered—in this situation—is a pattern of incompetence and neglect.’’ Lawmakers may want to ask her whether the account of Courtland Kelley suggests the 

company’s problems go deeper. 

On June 16, GM recalled an additional 3.16 million U.S. vehicles, across seven 

models, bringing the total recalled this year in North America to 20 million. ‘‘This 

latest recall raises even more questions about just how pervasive safety problems 

are at GM,’’ said Fred Upton (R-Mich.), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, in a statement. ‘‘This is not just a Cobalt problem.’’ 

In response to questions from Bloomberg Businessweek, GM issued a statement 

on June 17: ‘‘We are going to reexamine Mr. Kelley’s employment claims as well as 

the safety concerns that he has, and that’s part of our redoubled effort to ensure 

customer safety.’’ 

A week after her appalled husband woke her up in the middle of the night, Beth 

Kelley is sitting in her tidy kitchen, as her son, who’s changed his mind about becoming an engineer after watching his father’s tribulations, hovers nearby. Is she 

surprised that more whistle-blowers didn’t emerge at GM? 

She laughs. ‘‘I’m surprised there aren’t more people who stand up for what they 

believe,’’ she says. ‘‘But am I surprised that they wouldn’t go against General Motors? I suppose not.’’ 

Senator BOXER. Courtland Kelley, a third-generation loyal GM 

employee and inspector since 1983, sought to protect both GM and 

the public by bringing safety concerns to light. Instead of praise 

and gratitude, his concerns were met with retribution and inaction 

by GM. Mr. Kelley approached his supervisor and then his supervisor’s supervisor because he couldn’t get any help. He approached 

them about safety defects he noticed that weren’t even part of his 

line. He even sued GM just to get them to notice. His warnings 


717GM10.eps
63 

were ignored; his case was dismissed. To silence him, he was transferred to a job with no job responsibilities. He calls it a GM version 

of purgatory. 

On page 93 of the Valukas Report, Court Kelley’s successor is 

quoted telling investigators he was too afraid to raise safety concerns with the Cobalt after seeing Court ‘‘pushed out of the job for 

doing just that.’’ Even last year, just last year, a 2013 survey of 

GM employees showed that the employees are reluctant to report 

misconduct they observe, some fearing retaliation. 

Now, this is terrible. People died because of this. So I’m asking 

you, Ms. Barra, have you met with all the employees? Have you 

been in a room with all the employees? Have you told them that 

you value honesty, integrity and whistleblowing and how they will 

be protected by the company? 

Ms. BARRA. Senator Boxer, I absolutely have. On June 5 I had 

an employee meeting. Thousands were live in the room as I talked 

to them and shared the results of the Valukas Report, which I personally found very disturbing and troubling, and that also was 

broadcast globally. All employees had the opportunity. 

Senator BOXER. Good. 

Ms. BARRA. We have since—I have communicated through many 

other forms, written and our webpage. 

Senator BOXER. Good. I’ll stop you here and say congratulations. 

And could you send this committee, please, your speech, and also 

part of the policy of the company? I’m sure you have all these rules 

and policies. We have them in our offices. Would you send that to 

us? 

Ms. BARRA. Absolutely. 

Senator BOXER. Because I think that’s really important. 

Ms. BARRA. Sure. 

Senator BOXER. Now, I’m going to pick up on where Senator 

Ayotte was going with this article in The New York Times. 

I ask unanimous consent to place it in the record. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Without objection. 

[The information referred to follows:] 

64 

The article can be found at: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/16/business/documents-show-general-motors-kept-silent-on-fatal-crashes.html?lr=0 


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717NYT2.eps
66 


717NYT3.eps
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717NYT4.eps
68 

Senator BOXER. ‘‘Documents Showed GM Kept Silent on Fatal 

Crashes.’’ I think this is extremely disturbing because, as Senator 

Ayotte pointed out, these inquiries were called ‘‘Death Inquiries,’’ 

and what you’re saying, Mr. Millikin, even the one that was issued 

under your watch, you never saw it. Is that correct? 

Mr. MILLIKIN. That is correct, Senator. 

Senator BOXER. You never saw the death inquiry from NHTSA, 

who regulates the auto industry and safety. You never saw it. 

Mr. MILLIKIN. That is correct. 

Senator BOXER. So who is the top person who saw that? 

Mr. MILLIKIN. Pardon me? 

Senator BOXER. Who is the top person in your department who 

saw that inquiry? 

Mr. MILLIKIN. I do not know who the top person was who saw 

that, Senator. 

Senator BOXER. Mr. Valukas, did you ask about this issue in 

your report? 

Mr. VALUKAS. No, we did not ask about that. No, we did not ask 

about that issue. 

Senator BOXER. Thank you. You should have. 

I consider it a cover-up when a manufacturer does not respond 

fully and accurately to NHTSA about what it knows about deaths 

in its vehicles. This wasn’t some casual memo. And I agree, we 

should ask NHTSA back, of course. But NHTSA did its job in sending an initial inquiry, and I am shocked and stunned that at least 

on one occasion—did it even go to your shop, this inquiry? Where 

did these inquiries go to, the NHTSA inquiries, death inquiries? 

Where do they go? 

Mr. MILLIKIN. Senator, when I saw the article yesterday, it was 

all news to me. We have caused a review to be done so that the 

information can be learned and brought forward. 

Senator BOXER. OK. So you don’t know where the inquiry went. 

You don’t even know who answered it. 

Mr. MILLIKIN. Well, it goes to that department in engineering—— 

Senator BOXER. What department? 

Mr. MILLIKIN. I think it’s called—I don’t know the name of it. It 

is in the organization—Product Investigations. 

Thank you, Mary. 

Senator BOXER. And that is not—you don’t supervise them. 

Mr. MILLIKIN. I do not. 

Senator BOXER. So, Ms. Barra, who answered—who wrote all 

those answers there? 

Ms. BARRA. My understanding is that those would have been 

done by an organization that’s part of the engineering function, and 

that’s called Product Investigations. But, Senator Boxer, what I can 

tell you is now that would not happen. We—— 

Senator BOXER. Wait. Before you tell me that, I’m not done yet 

looking at this. You just can’t say now is now and forget the past, 

because people died. So you want to move on to the new GM, and 

God bless you, you’re doing a good job, but we are not going to stop. 

We have to find out what happened. 

So then it went to this office of—give me the name of the office. 

Ms. BARRA. Product Investigations. 

69 

Senator BOXER. OK. And what we know from The New York 

Times, unless there’s reason to doubt their investigative reporting, 

is that the answers, one answer was ‘‘GM opts not to respond.’’ 

Swell answer. Boy, I wish I could talk that way to my constituents 

when they want to know how I’m going to vote. 

Then you had other answers. Well, we can’t answer it because 

it’s attorney-client privilege. In another case, a similar kind of answer, we haven’t assessed the cause. 

So because I believe it is a cover-up, and because in the new GM 

you are firing people, who have you looked at in this issue, and 

who signed off on these non-answers, and have you fired them? 

Ms. BARRA. I believe I have. 

Senator BOXER. OK. Can you give us the names of the people 

and how many people, just to me? 

Ms. BARRA. I would provide that later, please? 

Senator BOXER. Yes, that’s absolutely fine. 

So now, when an inquiry comes from NHTSA, which department 

is responsible for reviewing those NHTSA inquiries? 

Ms. BARRA. It would go to Jeff Boyer, who is our Vice President 

of Global Vehicle Safety, along with his team. I will tell you that 

there will be no answers as you’ve stated. 

Senator BOXER. Good. 

Ms. BARRA. We are working very productively. We want to understand any time there is a fatality or a serious injury, or an injury, or even an issue that happened that didn’t necessarily cause 

an injury because that’s even better that we can stop it. That’s how 

we’re approaching it now. 

Senator BOXER. So you’ve given it to a Vice President now. Is 

that what you said? 

Ms. BARRA. Yes, we did, a Vice President. 

Senator BOXER. And he will also inform you of these NHTSA inquiries, I trust? 

Ms. BARRA. I believe he will because I will make sure of it, because he and I meet on a regular basis. He calls me 24/7. 

Senator BOXER. When you say ‘‘I believe he will,’’ I would love 

to hear you say it is his responsibility to take NHTSA death inquiries to me. Can you make that statement? 

Ms. BARRA. Senator Boxer, I will assure you the moment I leave 

this I will call Jeff Boyer and it will be his responsibility to bring 

those to me. 

Senator BOXER. Thank you. I’m grateful for that. Thank you. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Senator Baldwin? 

Let me give everyone—several members have asked me about 

the opportunity to ask more questions. So here’s what I’m planning 

on doing right now, just so everyone knows. I’m going to allow Senator Baldwin to do her questioning, then everyone will have finished their first round. There may be a senator that shows up that 

hadn’t questioned in the first round. Then we will adjourn at about 

12:15 to 12:20 for around 20 to 25 minutes to allow all of us to go 

down and vote. We have three things we have to vote on. We will 

come back, but you don’t need to panic because there’s another 

hearing in this room at 2 o’clock, so there is an end in sight. We 

will not be here all day. 

70 

We will come back and use the time that we have after our votes 

to allow members to ask a second round of questions. So you all 

know and so all the members know and so that the staffs that are 

here can tell members that we will come back immediately after 

the third vote and probably do another half-hour to 45 minutes. 

Senator Baldwin? 

Senator BALDWIN. Thank you. 

For those on the panel of witnesses, thank you, and I’ll explain 

quickly. I’m not a member of the Commerce Committee, but I am 

here as a guest because one of the tragedies related to the Cobalt 

ignition switch occurred in Wisconsin, taking the lives of two young 

women and seriously injuring a third young woman in October 

2006. 

I wanted, Ms. Barra, to call your attention to an article on June 

19, 2005 in The New York Times. An auto reviewer who was doing 

a companion article on the Cobalt, Jeff Sabatini, described encountering the now-familiar phenomenon of the Cobalt’s ignition moving to Accessory and cutting off the engine. That article, which is 

entitled ‘‘Making a Case for Ignitions That Don’t Need Keys,’’ includes a statement from GM’s spokesman, Alan Adler, about the 

engine shutoff problem. 

In reading it, Mr. Adler downplayed the issue, saying ‘‘the Cobalt 

is still controllable’’ when the power to the engine is cut, and ‘‘the 

engine can be restarted after shifting to Neutral.’’ He went on to 

say that GM did not consider the situation a safety issue. 

Aside from the fact that his answer was completely unsatisfactory, Mr. Adler’s statement demonstrates that someone at GM 

knew about the defect back in 2005, before the tragedy that occurred in the State of Wisconsin in 2006. 

Who at GM directed Mr. Adler to make the statement about the 

Cobalt engine cutoff? Because I’m assuming—and this is an assumption on my part—that in his role as spokesman, that it 

wouldn’t include an expertise on the engineering. So he had to 

have information. He had to be directed either by an engineer or 

an executive to make this statement that this was not a safety 

issue. So I’m wondering who at GM made that determination that 

this was not a safety issue. 

Ms. BARRA. Senator Baldwin, as was uncovered in Anton 

Valukas’ report, early on with this issue they didn’t understand the 

connection of the stalling and of the switch, that it meant that the 

airbag didn’t deploy. So this was misclassified at the very beginning as more of a customer annoyance, clearly the wrong thing. 

They didn’t understand that connection. 

At that time across the industry, stalling on its own—remember, 

you can stall if you pop the clutch, you can stall if you run out of 

gas. So the overall stalling aspect wasn’t considered safety. I will 

tell you it is now, and any time there’s a stalling issue where we 

identify that there’s a defect in the vehicle that causes the stalling—in this case it would have been the ignition switch—we are 

treating it as a safety issue. In fact, we treat stalls as a safety 

issue until we understand what has happened. 

So that was a broader view at that time. I can’t tell you who told 

Mr. Adler that. I can’t tell you who did that, but I can tell you it 

71 

was a broad understanding across the industry beyond GM at that 

time. 

Senator BALDWIN. Who can tell me who counseled Mr. Adler before he made these statements on behalf of GM? 

Ms. BARRA. I can look to see if I can find out. 

Mr. VALUKAS. There was a discussion, including a discussion 

within lawyers of GM’s legal staff, around the time of the Cleveland Plain Dealer article, and there had previously been discussion 

within some of the engineering committees, as to whether the stalling did or did not exist and whether this issue with regard to the 

stall did or did not constitute a safety issue, and the conclusion was 

reached that it did not. When the first PRTS report of a Cobalt 

stall was opened, there was an individual engineer who made that 

initial decision to categorize the problem as a customer convenience 

issue, the committees accepted that assessment, and that decision 

then became the way that they approached it. 

So there was an engineer involved in the first instance who said 

this did not appear to be a safety issue, this appears to be an issue 

involving customer convenience, and it went on through and committees accepted it as it went forward. 

Senator MCCASKILL. I’m curious. Was the lawyer that was involved in that, was that Mr. Kemp? 

Mr. VALUKAS. Yes, and Elizabeth Zatina was also involved in 

that issue. 

Senator MCCASKILL. OK. 

Mr. VALUKAS. May I correct something I said before? I don’t want 

to leave something—— 

Senator MCCASKILL. Absolutely. 

Mr. VALUKAS. I’m sorry. I was asked whether or not we had 

looked at those death reports. We did look at those death reports, 

as Senator Boxer had asked. We reviewed those, but we reviewed 

those for purposes of seeing whether it was information in there 

which would reflect on why and how this took so long. We did not 

review them for some other purpose. 

Senator MCCASKILL. OK. 

I’m going to now ask a question for Senator Rockefeller, and then 

we will adjourn until the votes are over, and we’ll come back. 

Senator Rockefeller could not be here today, and so I am going 

to try to paraphrase his question for him, and I’m going to change 

it a little bit because there has been some testimony that would 

have impacted it that he hadn’t heard. So I’m putting that on the 

record so the Chairman knows why I am changing slightly his 

question. 

Ms. Barra, Senator Rockefeller has two West Virginia constituents, Mr. Sam Spencer and Mrs. Belinda Spencer, who tragically 

lost their son Leslie in a crash along U.S. 460 in a 2007 Chevy Cobalt, one of the models subject to your recall because of the defective engine switch. 

According to Mr. and Mrs. Spencer, the facts point to Leslie’s Cobalt losing power because of the defective ignition switch and the 

airbag not deploying upon impact. However, for reasons still unknown, the airbag eventually deployed after the initial deadly impact. Consequently, as we heard earlier—this is where I’m changing it slightly—it’s my understanding according to Mr. Feinberg’s 

72 

testimony that under those circumstances a claim can, in fact, be 

made. But it is not clear, I think, to victims out there this scenario, 

that there may not have been an initial deployment upon impact 

but maybe a deployment after the fact. Mr. Feinberg did testify 

that somebody should file a claim in those situations, but Senator 

Rockefeller’s question is that you have consistently stated in public 

that GM will do all it can. You have repeatedly told Congress that 

the new GM will do the right thing. 

If they are correct, if their son did in fact tragically lose his life 

because it lost power because of a defective ignition switch, will you 

pledge to do everything you can to allow the Spencers and victims 

under similar circumstances to seek financial redress from your 

compensation fund? Will you amend the terms of the compensation 

fund if that’s what it takes? That’s his question. 

Ms. BARRA. So, first of all, I’ve been very clear that I would like 

the compensation program that Mr. Feinberg is administering to 

reach every person who might have been impacted in this case by 

these ignition switches. So as Mr. Feinberg said, I would encourage 

the Spencer family to submit a claim. 

There has been extensive rigor that has gone on in the protocol 

for months that was worked. So I’m very confident in the protocol 

the way it stands today, so I do not plan to amend it. But I still 

believe within that protocol there are technical issues that need to 

be understood in the Spencer case, and I encourage them to submit 

a claim. 

Senator MCCASKILL. OK. 

We will now adjourn and go vote, and we should be back here 

in about, hopefully, 20 to 25 minutes. As soon as the third vote 

opens, because your folks will understand this who are with you, 

when the third vote opens I will vote immediately and come directly back here. So within five minutes after they call the third 

vote, I’ll be here. 

[Recess.] 

Senator MCCASKILL. Thank you all very much. I appreciate your 

understanding. As much as I was tapping my foot over there, I 

couldn’t get them to roll the votes as quickly as I would have liked, 

so I appreciate it very much. 

Ms. Barra, when you were here before, you were very forthcoming about the facts were going to be the facts. In fact, I think 

the direct quote was ‘‘the facts will be the facts.’’ 

My question to you today, have you accepted the Valukas Report 

as factual? 

Ms. BARRA. Yes. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Is there anything in it that you think is erroneous or misstates the facts in any way? 

Ms. BARRA. I think overall the Valukas Report characterizes and 

captures what happened, and that’s what we’ve dealt with, and 

that’s why we’re going to implement all of the recommendations 

that were made. 

Senator MCCASKILL. So my question to you, Mr. Millikin, if the 

CEO has just said on the record that this report is factual, why has 

General Motors refused to stipulate to the Valukas Report as factual in bankruptcy court? 

73 

Mr. MILLIKIN. Senator Boxer—excuse me. Senator McCaskill, I’m 

not aware of our position on that in bankruptcy court, but I can 

tell you that that issue is associated probably with the attorney-client privilege issues that are present in that proceeding, and on 

that basis they are probably taking that position. But I’m not familiar with the position that you’re talking about in bankruptcy 

court on that issue. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Who would be? That is obviously an important legal decision that has been made by your company, and 

you’re the lawyer in charge. This is obviously—I don’t know that 

you could have any more high-profile litigation than the bankruptcy proceedings right now as to what did and didn’t happen 

when bankruptcy occurred as it relates to representations that 

were made. 

So if you don’t know, who does know? 

Mr. MILLIKIN. Senator, I’m familiar with that particular piece of 

litigation and I’ve been working with the lawyers on it in terms of 

making sure that we’re making the arguments that need to be 

made to deal with the economic loss claims that are part of that 

litigation. Just on that particular point, I don’t know the answer 

that you’re asking for. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Do you understand it’s a big one? 

Mr. MILLIKIN. I’ll be happy to get that answer and come back 

with it. 

Senator MCCASKILL. That would be terrific, because this is a big 

question. 

Mr. MILLIKIN. Yes, it is. 

Senator MCCASKILL. If we are, in fact—and I will tell you I believe, Ms. Barra—I keep saying Beara instead of Barra. I’m sorry. 

You’re probably used to it, aren’t you? 

I believe her, but there’s a disconnect here again, because if, in 

fact, your company has decided this report is factual, that Mr. 

Valukas did a good job of ferreting out all the facts, then why in 

the world wouldn’t you save time in the bankruptcy court by acknowledging that? 

Mr. MILLIKIN. Senator, if my understanding is correct, then it’s 

related to the attorney-client privilege. 

Senator MCCASKILL. I don’t understand what you mean. 

Mr. MILLIKIN. I don’t know the issue. I’m telling you I’m assuming that that position may be associated with that. 

Senator MCCASKILL. I can’t imagine how, evidentiary-wise. When 

somebody asks for a stipulation, the issue is your company has decided through its lawyer to say they will not stipulate to the 

Valukas Report being factual. 

Mr. MILLIKIN. Senator—— 

Senator MCCASKILL. That’s not attorney-client. Attorney-client 

would be the discussions between you and your lawyer. The position you’ve taken in the proceeding would not be subject to attorney-client, unless you’re saying that the advice you’ve been given 

is something you don’t want to share because it would violate the 

privilege? 

Mr. MILLIKIN. No. What I’m saying, Senator, and I committed to 

you to find out exactly what the answer is and to come back to you. 

74 

Senator MCCASKILL. OK. And who in your company is monitoring this? When Mr. Holliday took the deposition when the bombshell dropped, he called a lawyer on your staff that day. As I said 

in a previous hearing, the first thing he did was call somebody that 

worked for you, Mr. Millikin, and that lawyer was over at his hotel 

room that night picking up those pictures. 

Mr. MILLIKIN. That’s correct. 

Senator MCCASKILL. OK. So who is that person in the bankruptcy? Who is the person that is—if something happens in bankruptcy court, I assume you have outside counsel for the bankruptcy 

proceedings. 

Mr. MILLIKIN. Yes, we do. 

Senator MCCASKILL. And who is that outside counsel reporting 

to directly? 

Mr. MILLIKIN. He’s reporting in to Mr. Michael Gruskin. 

Senator MCCASKILL. OK. And where is Michael Gruskin on this 

chart? Is he below Lucy Clark Dougherty? 

Mr. MILLIKIN. Mr. Gruskin is a direct report to me. 

Senator MCCASKILL. OK. And what is his title? 

Mr. MILLIKIN. He handles general—I’ve split the litigation function since this occurred into two parts. 

Senator MCCASKILL. I see. 

Mr. MILLIKIN. One is product litigation, one is general litigation. 

Senator MCCASKILL. OK. 

Mr. MILLIKIN. Michael Gruskin has general litigation. 

Senator MCCASKILL. OK. So Mr. Gruskin has never discussed 

with you whether or not to stipulate that the Valukas Report is 

factual in bankruptcy? You’ve never had that discussion? 

Mr. MILLIKIN. That is not an issue that I remember having a 

conversation with Mr. Gruskin on. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Wow. Not good. OK. It will be important for 

us to find out why you are hesitating to stipulate that the report 

is factual. 

The NHTSA answers on the death inquiries, who signs off on 

those in the legal department? The answers where they said GM 

refused—I’m sure there is no way they are sending information— 

your company is not sending information to NHTSA about somebody in legal signing off on it; correct? 

Mr. MILLIKIN. Senator, again, I’ll have to get the answer to that 

and get back to you because that’s handled by Product Investigations, as Ms. Barra indicated. 

Senator MCCASKILL. OK. But isn’t there a lawyer that would 

look at it? Product Investigations doesn’t get to make that final call 

on language. 

Mr. MILLIKIN. There could well be. I don’t know that for a fact. 

Senator MCCASKILL. OK. I would like to know what part of the 

legal department signs off on the responses to NHTSA inquiries, 

particularly the death inquiries. 

Mr. MILLIKIN. I will get back to you. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Who was it that gave Product Investigations 

the authority and sign-off to say we won’t answer this question? 

Mr. MILLIKIN. I understand. 

Senator MCCASKILL. OK. Second, the technical service bulletins, 

there was certainly in the Valukas Report a lot of information 

75 

about not using the word ‘‘stall,’’ that there was some fear that 

‘‘stall’’ would bring in regulators and it would catch the attention 

of NHTSA. I’m assuming technical service bulletins, the language 

of those are also run by the legal department. 

Mr. MILLIKIN. I would assume so. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Do you know who in your legal department 

does that? 

Mr. MILLIKIN. I know who does it today. It’s done under the supervision of Lucy Clark Dougherty working with Jeff Boyer and his 

organization. 

Senator MCCASKILL. OK. I would like to know who did it when 

the word went out that they couldn’t use the word ‘‘stall’’ in a technical service bulletin. 

Mr. MILLIKIN. OK. I will get that information and get back to 

you. 

Senator MCCASKILL. OK. 

Mr. Valukas, one of the things that was interesting to me is the 

DeGiorgio situation. This is how old I am. When I tried to explain 

to my staff that Mr. DeGiorgio reminded me of the character in Hogan’s Heroes, ‘‘I know nothing,’’ nobody on my staff even got it because none of them had ever heard of Hogan’s Heroes. 

Mr. VALUKAS. I get it. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Hopefully you’ve heard of Hogan’s Heroes. 

Mr. VALUKAS. I have. 

Senator MCCASKILL. It is astounding to me that Mr. DeGiorgio 

has refused to acknowledge all of the involvement he had in changing this switch. But it was interesting to me you said there was 

no evidence that Mr. DeGiorgio ever told anyone else about switching out the part and not changing the number. But then you went 

on to say there were e-mails that were copied to other engineers. 

Mr. VALUKAS. Correct. 

Senator MCCASKILL. But your report didn’t go any further about 

the other engineers that were copied. Could you briefly, because 

I’m over my time—my colleagues are here now—could you briefly 

explain if you can remember? And if not, I would like to get it for 

the record, who were the engineers that were copied on e-mails 

that showed that this part had been changed? 

Mr. VALUKAS. Yes. Let me give it to you briefly, and then I’ll give 

it much more detailed since there is a time issue here, and I’m 

happy to submit that. 

In the report, page 102, there is a footnote 417 which focuses on 

this issue. Very briefly, what took place is there was an e-mail of 

June 2, 2006 which comes from Delphi. There are 30 people on that 

e-mail. Six of them were associated with General Motors. 

The e-mail related to changes that were taking place. Most of the 

changes they’re talking about were in the circuit board. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Right. 

Mr. VALUKAS. We sought out the individuals who were on there. 

They were, as best we can tell—we don’t know that all of them 

were, but we think they were all involved with electrical issues for 

the switch on the Ion. None of them had any knowledge—strike 

that. The individual we talked to said this meant nothing to him 

about the change in the detent in the switch. He was focused on 

the issue of the electrical issues that were involved here for the 

76 

Ion. We were not able to reach the other four GM individuals on 

the e-mail. They were long retired and we couldn’t find them, but 

best we can tell from our information, they were not at all involved 

in the process of investigating the stalls or airbag non-deployment, 

stalls in particular, that issue at all. 

Senator MCCASKILL. So this was just an issue that the people 

that were copied had no understanding of the significance of that 

information in the e-mail. 

Mr. VALUKAS. Short and sweet, that is what we understand to 

be the case. But I’ll get you the detail. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Thank you. 

Mr. VALUKAS. It’s relatively complicated, but that’s the answer. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Thank you very much. 

Senator Klobuchar? 

Senator KLOBUCHAR. Thank you very much, Madam Chairman. 

Thank you, everyone. 

Mr. Valukas, your report demonstrated very clearly that the ignition switch issue was viewed internally at GM as a customer convenience issue, and as a result it just didn’t have that kind of urgency to fix it. From your report—this is a quote—‘‘not one of the 

Committees considering a fix for the switch, which were filled with 

engineers and business people whose job was to understand how 

GM’s cars were built and how different systems of the cars interact, ever reclassified the problem from one of customer convenience 

to one of safety or demonstrated any sense of urgency in their efforts to fix the switch.’’ 

Do you want to elaborate on that? 

Mr. VALUKAS. What took place back then, we’re talking 2004, 

2005, 2006 period of time where they knew, in fact, that they knew 

the switches weren’t—that the cars were, in fact, stalling. They 

knew at the time of one of the press events that that was taking 

place, and they had The New York Times article and other articles 

which were calling that to their attention. But what happened in 

connection with this, an engineer looked at this when the first 

PRTS was opened and did not categorize the stall as a safety issue. 

Having made that decision, that’s where they went in connection 

with that. 

But when we went back and asked the individuals in that committee, those committees, did you know that the airbag wouldn’t 

deploy if it went into the Accessory, and the answer was no, we 

didn’t know that. And the question then became, well, had you 

known this, would you have responded differently, and the answer 

was yes. 

So what we found was that people who were in this silo looking 

at the switch were not covering the issue of the deployment, which 

was in another silo, if you will. So those who were making the decision did not focus on that issue and claimed not to know about that 

issue. 

Senator KLOBUCHAR. And somehow that state trooper saw the 

issues together. 

Mr. VALUKAS. Yes. 

Senator KLOBUCHAR. I just found that interesting. 

So, Ms. Barra, going forward now, what is going to be the process 

when these things are considered, or are there still going to be 

77 

these silos when something is viewed as a customer convenience 

issue versus a safety issue? 

Ms. BARRA. Absolutely not. First of all, we’ve put in much more 

rigor on how issues are analyzed. The heart of it, though, is with 

the Product Integrity organization and the fact that in addition to 

the group of people that are responsible to do parts and design individual parts, they then will be—the parts coming together will be 

integrated into the Product Integrity organization, and they will 

look at it from a systems perspective, and they were specifically designed around all the safety systems in the vehicle, and we’re actually bringing in outside groups, for instance from aerospace, to look 

at the way we designed the Product Integrity organization to assure that we have state-of-the-art or the most modern possible to 

make sure that these types of issues won’t happen again, and we’ll 

really be looking at how the system operates, especially as it relates to safety. 

Senator KLOBUCHAR. And then is there going to be some kind of 

a metric used to decide what is customer convenience or where it 

goes? How is that going to work? 

Ms. BARRA. I would say there is going to be much more rigor in 

all of the safety systems in the vehicle, and those individuals will 

have I’ll say the ability to change someone else’s opinion. If someone on the parts side says no, I think this is customer convenience, 

those who truly understand from a systems perspective will be the 

ones who make the call and they will override if someone else has 

a different opinion. So I think it’s going to be the very knowledgeable people that we’re putting in on the systems engineering to 

know that. 

We’re also, though, looking at the systems, and that responsibility won’t cut across a couple of different folks. It will be more 

in one group so they understand the whole way the system operates. 

Senator KLOBUCHAR. Very good. 

Mr. Valukas, another thing from your report. It points to an instance in September 2005 when a team of engineers considered replacing the switch after reports of ‘‘moving stalls’’ but was rejected 

because, as the engineer whom you interviewed told you, it was rejected as being too expensive and not resulting in offsetting 

changes in savings on warranty costs. 

Do you find that throughout that period, 11 years, when confronted with replacing the ignition switch, the employees used the 

acceptable business case as the most important metric? 

Mr. VALUKAS. Yes, for the period of time that the problem was 

considered a ‘‘customer convenience’’ issue. What happens in that 

context is that once you’ve characterized it as non-safety or customer convenience, then cost becomes an issue, and the issue becomes will this solution solve the problem completely, and how 

much will it cost. And during this point, that was the consideration, will it solve the problem completely—they didn’t know that 

would be the case—and how much was it going to cost. Had they 

elevated it to a safety issue, those considerations would not have 

been in play. 

Senator KLOBUCHAR. And I assume, Ms. Barra, the answer 

would be similar to what we talked about earlier? 

78 

Ms. BARRA. Yes, definitely. Once it’s in safety, we just look at 

what it takes to fix the issue. Cost doesn’t come into the equation. 

Senator KLOBUCHAR. OK. And then one last question. We talked 

earlier in the first round of questions just about the GM nod and 

the change of culture and what you’ve been working on. Just one 

last question along those same lines about transparency. 

I think we all know that has been a major focus here, to respond 

to inquiries, to work with NHTSA. My colleagues have raised a 

number of instances where things weren’t forwarded. And to work 

with Congress by being here today—that’s a good thing—in an 

open and transparent way to ensure we improve vehicle safety. 

Could you, last, just talk about the steps that you’ve taken so far 

to ensure that you’re fulfilling this commitment to process more 

transparency? And then what other things do you think you can do 

in the future? 

Ms. BARRA. Sure. Well, again, from a transparency perspective, 

a couple of categories. One, the way we do the work across the company, and that would very much be looking at the integration of 

the car as we do it with Product Integrity. So there will be transparency in the way the systems operate and much more rigor in 

the validation of those systems. 

As we work with NHTSA, again with the appointment of Jeff 

Boyer, who is the Vice President of Safety, he will be working in 

a much more cooperative way, already is, to make sure when 

NHTSA has an inquiry we’re very responsive to it. 

I would also say the way that we’re working with our data analytics, that as pieces of information come in, whether they come in 

from our plants, from warranty data, out in the field from our dealers, directly from customers, there’s a tremendous amount of information now through social media, through legal claims, we are 

working and have data analytics tools to mine that data so there 

won’t be information in one place that isn’t known across the company. 

So those are just three examples. And then probably the most 

powerful, because it’s people, is making sure people understand our 

expectations, and I’ve already had employees call me personally to 

raise an issue. We’ve turned it around in 24 hours. In addition to 

the engineer responsible talking to the employee, I’ve called them 

back and said are you comfortable with your answer. That type of 

behavior I think demonstrates to all of our engineers and all of our 

employees that we want to listen to them and take their issues seriously. 

Senator KLOBUCHAR. Thank you very much. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Senator Blumenthal? 

Senator BLUMENTHAL. Thank you very much, Senator. 

I think you can fairly gather that this committee is listening 

with a fair amount of incredulity to the contention that the General 

Counsel of this company had no knowledge about this defect or 

about the concealment of the defect and the deceit of the Federal 

Government and of its customers before February of this year. And 

you’ve provided answers that I think for me are unsatisfactory on 

waiving the bankruptcy shield, disclosing documents, making employees available, and opening the secret settlements. 

79 

I want to ask you about a specific person whose life was changed, 

and she’s still alive. Her name is Candice Anderson. As you know, 

she pled guilty to criminally negligent homicide after a car she was 

driving crashed and killed Jean Erickson, and she was found to 

have traces of a drug in her system. We now know that the crash 

was due to not anything she did. It was due to a defective ignition 

switch. 

She still has that conviction on her record. She has borne the 

feelings of guilt and suffering for years thinking she was responsible. 

I’d like to ask you, Mr. Millikin, will you recommend to Ms. 

Barra that GM join me and others, including the former prosecutor, in calling on the Governor of Texas to pardon Ms. Anderson? 

Mr. MILLIKIN. I will recommend to Ms. Barra that General Motors cooperate with any governmental agency that is taking a look 

at the circumstances behind that conviction and what needs to be 

done with that conviction. 

Senator BLUMENTHAL. Ms. Barra, will you recommend to the 

Governor of Texas that he pardon Ms. Anderson? 

Ms. BARRA. I think we will provide information to support that 

decision, but I don’t think it’s something that is appropriate for me 

to do. I don’t have all the facts of the case. 

Senator BLUMENTHAL. You know, with all due respect—and I’m 

sympathetic to what you’re trying to do in changing the culture at 

GM, and I cannot say enough good things about your workers and 

about the company. But I think that that answer really is unworthy of GM. I hope you’ll think more about it, because this is a 

young woman whose life has really been changed as a result of a 

perversion of the justice process, as a result of GM knowing and 

concealing that she was innocent. GM allowed an innocent person 

to be convicted of a serious crime. 

We’ve been talking here about the GM nod. I have a feeling what 

we’re getting here is the GM salute—someone else is responsible, 

someone else should take the job of doing the right thing. So I hope 

you’ll reconsider. I’m not taking this answer as necessarily final, 

and I hope we’ll have a chance to talk some more about it. 

Let me ask you about, Ms. Barra, about expanding compensation. I mentioned at the opening that there have been a number 

of recalls. I think the number is 8 million cars with defective ignition switches which the company acknowledged caused deaths and 

injuries. Will those deaths and injuries be included in the compensation fund? 

Ms. BARRA. There are very distinct differences between the population that is included in the compensation program that is being 

administered by Kenneth Feinberg as it relates to very specific 

issues, a series of mistakes that were made over a long period of 

time in what I’ll call the Cobalt family of vehicles. So a very specific set of facts. 

On the other vehicles, I would say quite the contrary. We went 

aggressively and proactively and looked at each of the systems as 

it relates to how they worked and recommended in some cases, 

even with no field data, and did testing, by the way—first of all, 

we did testing to understand what people put on their key rings. 

80 

Ninety-nine percent of the population puts 0.6 pounds at the highest level. 

Senator BLUMENTHAL. I apologize for interrupting. I understand 

that there are technical distinctions between the two ignition 

switches. But isn’t it true that, regardless of the distinctions in the 

so-called population group, ignition switches failed in all of those 

models? 

Ms. BARRA. No. I would say there are very different facts related 

to what happened in the Cobalt ignition switch situation versus the 

actions we’ve taken, very different. 

Senator BLUMENTHAL. If you could supplement that response 

with more technical detail, I’d appreciate it. 

Let me ask you one more question. I appreciate your response to 

Senator Markey on what seemed to be your support for legislation 

on expanding accountability and information going to NHTSA. I 

wonder if you would agree with me that corporate officials who conceal or hide dangerous defects that can cause deaths or injuries 

ought to be held criminally culpable. 

Ms. BARRA. I don’t support that concept. I think that there are 

many other avenues where those types of issues are already dealt 

with, so I don’t support the change. 

Senator BLUMENTHAL. Do you support legislation which I proposed with Senator Graham that would provide for a public interest standard before any settlements are sealed, as those involved 

in this defective ignition switch were done? 

Ms. BARRA. I would have to understand the legislation a lot more 

to be able to answer that question. 

Senator BLUMENTHAL. Thank you. 

Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Senator Markey? 

Senator MARKEY. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

Mr. O’Neal, documents show that in 2001 Delphi engineers drew 

up two designs for the GM ignition switch, two designs. The main 

difference between the two designs was that the one that failed 

dramatically, the 2006 switch, had a spring that was shorter and 

less stiff than the other one, and it was that spring that caused the 

switch to fail to meet GM’s specifications and caused the key to so 

easily turn the engine off. 

Why was the weaker spring used in the actual vehicle rather 

than the stronger one, which was clearly available simultaneously 

in 2001? 

Mr. O’NEAL. Senator, our investigation into that portion of the 

evolution of that switch actually supports what Mr. Valukas also 

uncovered in that the original specifications were sort of a target, 

and then as the switch evolved from a developmental standpoint 

Mr. Ray DeGiorgio also wanted a switch that had a certain tactile 

feel, and by that I mean it would feel a certain way, a smoothness 

as you moved it from one position to another. I believe the description of that desired feel was to be more European-like. In order to 

achieve that feel, that is where the softer spring comes into play, 

and as a result of that the torque was lower. 

Senator MARKEY. Did Delphi produce or review a cost estimate 

that compared the cost of the two switch designs? 

81 

Mr. O’NEAL. I don’t recall, but I would think the cost involved 

to switch from one to the other would be insignificant. 

Senator MARKEY. Could you provide that information to us? 

Mr. O’NEAL. Sure. 

Senator MARKEY. Now, in 2006, when GM was starting to acknowledge that it had a problem, it changed the ignition switch design to this version, and this switch turned out to consist of the 

identical stronger spring design that was not used in 2001 but 

available in 2001. Was Delphi involved in the design discussions 

with GM in this later period of time, and did you suggest the one 

over the other? That is, the one that was accepted over this one 

that was rejected in the earlier time period. 

Mr. O’NEAL. Obviously, we were involved or the change could not 

have been made. I mean, clearly that’s there. Our investigation 

shows that the GM team was extremely concerned about warranty, 

customer satisfaction and quality issues. They actually approached 

the Delphi side to ask if there was anything that could be done in 

order to raise perhaps the torque level to improve some of those 

issues, not safety related but quality. And then obviously what 

came out was a solution set that we have today. 

Senator MARKEY. So do you have documentation back in that 

earlier period of time as to why one was chosen over the other? 

And if you have that, you’re saying that it was the ease of use that 

ultimately led to the selection of the one that did not work as opposed to the one that—— 

Mr. O’NEAL. Well, I don’t think the selection of the detent plunger and the spring that was in play from the initial was in question. 

It was selected, and it was approved by General Motors. So, yes, 

we do have that, and I think Mr. Valukas’ report supports that. 

Senator MARKEY. So did you recommend one of the—did you recommend the one that was selected in 2006 over the one that ultimately was used in 2010 that has been working? Back in 2001, did 

you at Delphi make that recommendation to GM? 

Mr. O’NEAL. That development is a mutual give-and-take between the supplier and the car manufacturer. 

Senator MARKEY. I appreciate that. But what did Delphi recommend at the time? 

Mr. O’NEAL. Obviously, at the end of the day what we ended up 

with is what we all agreed to go do in order to meet the requirements that the switch was asked to meet. 

Senator MARKEY. Again, I think it’s important for us to have that 

as part of the record here, and whatever you could provide to us 

from that earlier decisionmaking period would be very helpful to 

us. 

Mr. O’NEAL. Thank you. 

Senator MARKEY. Madam Chair, I would just like to thank you 

again for also focusing on NHTSA. The NHTSA Administrator told 

The New York Times just yesterday that it was GM that stood in 

the way of safety; and, of course, we all agree that GM deserves 

much of the blame. But while Ms. Barra and Mr. Valukas have described the GM nod, which was said to occur when everyone in a 

meeting all nodded their heads but then did nothing to solve the 

safety problems, what we have at NHTSA is the NHTSA shrug. 

NHTSA didn’t think that reports of cars stalling posed a safety 

82 

problem. NHTSA ignored its own contractors’ reports linking the 

ignition switch defect to fatal accidents in which airbags didn’t deploy. NHTSA paid no attention to documents it requested from GM 

that spelled out exactly what was causing these crashes. And 

NHTSA completely failed to notice the high numbers of consumer 

complaints and other reports about GM’s vehicles that were submitted to its data bases. NHTSA was also repeatedly warned, and 

NHTSA also just shrugged in response. 

So we do have a GM nod; we also have simultaneously a NHTSA 

shrug. I think the whole story ultimately has to get out there, and 

I thank you for your pursuit of the truth. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Thank you. Thank you, Senator Markey. 

Mr. Millikin, maybe you can explain. I’m curious about ESIS. 

Mr. MILLIKIN. I’m sorry, Senator, there was some background 

noise, I couldn’t hear you. 

Senator MCCASKILL. I’m curious about ESIS, this company that 

administers claims for you. 

Mr. MILLIKIN. Yes? 

Senator MCCASKILL. It’s a weird deal. They work at GM, they 

work only for GM, but they’re not GM employees? 

Mr. MILLIKIN. No, they’re not. 

Senator MCCASKILL. And why is that? Why is there that structure? They don’t work for anybody else in the world but you. They 

are a captured company. Are they a subsidiary of your company? 

Mr. MILLIKIN. Not to my knowledge. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Are they a subsidiary? 

Ms. BARRA. Not that I’m aware of. 

Senator MCCASKILL. So the people that are on the front lines 

gathering the information and handling these claims as they come 

in—I’m trying to understand for what business purpose would you 

want them to be separate from your company if they are completely 

captured by your company and doing nothing but a GM function. 

Mr. MILLIKIN. So they have been doing product investigations for 

us for quite some time. They’ve been doing a very good job for us 

for quite some time. I’m not familiar with the initial set-up for 

them. I do know that there are people whose names I am familiar 

with who I’ve talked with our product litigators about who say they 

do a very good job. 

It’s not unusual to see use of outside suppliers to take on functions inside General Motors. For a long time, for example, we had 

outsourced, as they call it, our security function, and they did it because they felt that someone else could probably—— 

Senator MCCASKILL. I think the security function is a little different than—— 

Mr. MILLIKIN. No, I’m just saying—— 

Senator MCCASKILL. I understand. I understand the point you’re 

making. If you can provide any illumination for the record as to 

why that business model makes sense for your company. It’s unusual to have the frontline claims people, in my experience—and 

I used to do legal work on behalf of insurance companies, and obviously they have a whole lot of claims people, and typically—I’m just 

curious as to why. I thought that was interesting. 

Mr. Valukas, you made a couple of conclusions, one in the House 

hearing and one in your report, that I thought—I’m very familiar 

83 

with your report. I felt like I was back in school studying, crossreferencing, going to the acronym table. I did think it was thorough. I did think it was complete. But a couple of conclusions are 

interesting to me. 

One is that you said that—you kind of went out of your way to 

conclude that GM did not put cost over safety as it related to this 

defect, and I think the facts in your report are inconclusive in that 

regard. All you had to go on to say that is what the people that 

you interviewed told you, and these were the same people that you 

have called out for indifference, incompetence, lack of urgency. Is 

there something I’m missing here that you base that conclusion on? 

Mr. VALUKAS. Yes, and if I can be helpful in this regard. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Sure. 

Mr. VALUKAS. My experience as a former prosecutor, as an individual who is a litigator, is that people’s recollections are what people’s recollections are, and sometimes they change over time when 

considering where they are at a given point. So I focused and we 

focused initially and throughout on that 41 million documents that 

we were reviewing and that we were pulling out and looked at that 

for purposes of saying, OK, don’t tell me what you’re telling me 

now, I’d like to know what you were thinking and doing then. 

And as we reviewed those documents and reviewed those documents very carefully on this issue, do we have evidence on these 

issues where someone was sending an e-mail or writing a memo or 

doing an analysis which says, well, I’d like to deal with this problem but it costs too much, and so I’m not going to deal with this 

problem, so where you would have cost over safety, and we looked 

at that issue in a number of different ways. 

So the witnesses testified to what the witnesses testified to or 

told us, and you have that in the report, but the documents do not 

reflect a cost-over-safety matter. 

Senator MCCASKILL. I understand. 

Mr. VALUKAS. That being said—— 

Senator MCCASKILL. That makes sense. 

Mr. VALUKAS.—we also call out the fact that there was enormous 

cost-cutting taking place at GM during that period of time. Engineers were being doubled up with additional information. People 

who were assigned to safety things were taking on two and three 

assignments where there had been one before. And we could not 

say with certainty that that wouldn’t have had some impact. 

Senator MCCASKILL. So macro cost-cutting could have been part 

of the influence, but you found no smoking gun in evidentiary documents that would indicate this was actually being discussed. 

Mr. VALUKAS. Yes, and in no testimony. In fact, in the testimony, 

people absolutely disclaimed that. They said that was not the way 

they were doing business. 

Senator MCCASKILL. OK. The other thing that jumped out in the 

report that I found astounding was the recall on power steering. In 

2010, General Motors did a recall on a power steering defect, and 

what was interesting about that was that, of course, you did not 

consider a recall for stalling problems with the faulty ignition. According to the report, GM did not consider the loss of power steering a safety problem. You internally noted that power steering was 

normally a customer satisfaction issue. Cobalt was handled in a 

84 

different manner based on GM’s desire to obtain a quick resolution 

and closure of the government investigation. So all NHTSA had to 

do was write a letter saying they were going to look into the power 

steering defect, and you guys recalled. You did the recall on the 

power steering defect. 

Alan Adler, GM’s manager for safety communications, remembered that GM had initially been planning to characterize electric 

power steering as a customer satisfaction issue, but as a result of 

the Congressional scrutiny of Toyota and the unintended acceleration issues, it was agreed that GM should issue the recall before 

the hearing so ‘‘we would not get mentioned and dragged into the 

Senate.’’ 

That’s concerning to me, Ms. Barra, because it looks like there 

was a quick reaction when NHTSA threatened combined with Congressional action against another manufacturer that got the result 

that was so desperately needed on this ignition switch. One of the 

tragic ironies is that one of the young women that was seriously 

injured in one of these accidents, her car had been taken in for the 

power steering recall and it was fixed for the power steering. But, 

of course, there was no recall for the ignition switch. So had the 

same urgency been around the stalling and the engine turning off 

and the ignition switch issue—have you figured out why structurally there was such a quick response on something that you 

typically wouldn’t have quickly responded to, and do you really feel 

that you’ve gotten a handle on changing that in the culture? 

Ms. BARRA. I think the Valukas Report captures and you’ve stated largely the reasons. And also if you look, then, at the data 

around the power steering, it clearly led to support that. I would 

say I do feel that we’ve gotten around that very much so, and I 

think I have data to support that with the recalls that we’ve done, 

because when you look at the fact that in some cases, of the 29 million vehicles that we’ve recalled this year, with 58 recalls, in some 

cases we’ve recalled vehicles that have no field incidents because 

when we went back and looked from a systems engineering perspective did it meet what it needed to meet, if it didn’t, even if 

there was no field data, we’ve made the recall. 

Senator MCCASKILL. That’s great, that’s great. I appreciate that. 

Senator Klobuchar? 

Senator KLOBUCHAR. Thanks. I just had one last question on the 

recalls. 

If you could just go through again how you’re doing those recalls. 

I think we’re all aware there have been a large number of recalls, 

and I’ve been trying to focus in this second round of questioning 

just about how things are going to change in the future. I think we 

all know that this was a tragedy and that the justice issues and 

the compensation issues are going to be key for the victims, but key 

for those victims’ families and consumers is the changes that are 

going to be made going forward, and I think we can learn as much 

from the changes that are being made as we can from the past. 

I want to know just exactly, beyond even the power steering 

issue, just how you’re doing these recalls differently and how that 

will continue in the future. 

Ms. BARRA. Well, first off, I would say we’re dedicated to creating 

and designing and validating vehicles that won’t need recalls beVerDate Nov 24 2008 06:18 Sep 15, 2015 Jkt 075679 PO 00000 Frm 00088 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 S:\GPO\DOCS\95995.TXT JACKIE
85 

cause they will be designed well, and that’s the work and the validation work and the systems engineering focus. So, point one. 

But if indeed we get data from any number of sources that I’ve 

already shared, that data is being processed much more quickly for 

us to look at and say is there an issue that affects a safety system 

that requires a recall. I would also say that Jeff Boyer, who runs 

this process, our head of Global Product Development, sits on that 

committee. I get an agenda for that before the meeting occurs so 

I’m completely aware, along with our General Counsel, our CFO, 

and our President. So this is now at the top of the company, and 

we’re demonstrating we’re focused on safety. We’re mining the 

data. And again, as we see issues, we’re going to be quick to respond, as we’ve demonstrated. 

Senator KLOBUCHAR. I was just at one of your dealerships looking at—well, getting my 15-year-old Saturn tuned up a little bit. 

But there was a lot of action at those dealers, and I know a lot of 

people are bringing their car because this was one that had repairs. 

So I can see that people are bringing them in, that these cars are 

getting repaired. And again, just like everyone else, we hope that 

the next versions of these cars you won’t have to do it again. So, 

thank you very much. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Senator Blumenthal? 

Senator BLUMENTHAL. Thank you. 

I was interested in your response on the testimony and the documents which seemed to support GM’s contention on putting profits 

ahead of safety, Mr. Valukas, and I was interested in it because it 

would seem to be in GM’s interest to make public those documents. 

Is that so? 

Mr. VALUKAS. I’m sorry, Senator. I have a little problem with the 

hearing on the right side. If you could just repeat the last question, 

I’d appreciate it. 

Senator BLUMENTHAL. Sure. I’ll try to restate it, and I hope my 

time will not be subtracted. 

Mr. VALUKAS. It’s my fault. 

Senator MCCASKILL. You have all the time you want. 

Senator KLOBUCHAR. You appear to be the last person. 

Senator MCCASKILL. We have to vote again in 4 minutes. 

[Laughter.] 

Senator BLUMENTHAL. It would appear to be in GM’s interest to 

make public some of those documents and testimony that underlie 

your report. Is that correct? You just made reference in your response to Senator McCaskill, and I thought here’s an example of 

transparency actually working in GM’s interest. 

Mr. VALUKAS. Senator, I can’t respond to that question. My responsibility was the Board asked me to write this report, to gather 

up the facts. I believe we did what we were asked to do. The issue 

of how it will be disclosed or what should be disclosed resides with 

the client. I don’t have that authority. 

Senator BLUMENTHAL. Thank you. 

May I ask you, Ms. Barra, will GM know about applications to 

the fund at the time they’re made? How much knowledge will GM 

have of what the applications are, what the awards are, in real 

time, so to speak? 

86 

Ms. BARRA. Mr. Feinberg is completely independent as he administers this. I don’t know his procedure, if anything will be shared. 

But it is his sole discretion if anything is shared and when he 

chooses to do that. 

Senator BLUMENTHAL. Will it be his discretion alone as to whether applicants are given time to postpone their decisions until after 

the Department of Justice concludes its investigation? In other 

words, will applicants be given the choice to wait until they know 

what the full story is out of the Department of Justice investigation? 

Ms. BARRA. I think with the fund we’ve been very clear on the 

timeline associated with it, that claims will begin to be accepted on 

August 1, and that period for applications will end at the end of 

the year, and then he will evaluate and make decisions. 

Senator BLUMENTHAL. But he has not, at least so far as I’m 

aware, definitively stated whether then applicants can postpone 

the decision as to whether to accept the offer from the fund or 

bring private litigation. 

Ms. BARRA. I don’t know the time-frame in his process of how 

long a person, once they have what his decision is, I don’t know the 

time-frame on that. 

Senator BLUMENTHAL. That would be his decision? 

Ms. BARRA. That will be I think what’s called out. I just don’t 

have it in front of me. 

Senator BLUMENTHAL. And if it’s not part of the protocol now, it 

would be within his discretion? 

Ms. BARRA. Again, I don’t plan to change any part of the protocol. I haven’t reviewed this aspect, but I think the protocol is very 

well defined, and it’s going to stand. 

Senator BLUMENTHAL. And let me ask Mr. O’Neal, if I may, can 

you do anything to accelerate the production of these replacement 

parts that go into the vehicles to repair them? 

Mr. O’NEAL. We have worked extremely hard to do exactly what 

you said. We’re up to a million complete at this stage, and it looks 

like the 2 million mark will be clipped right around the end of August, and there’s very little more we can do because of where we 

started. I don’t think we can do more between now and August on 

the 2 million—— 

Senator BLUMENTHAL. If GM were to pay more or invest more, 

you’re saying there’s nothing you can do? 

Mr. O’NEAL. No, I don’t think it’s a money issue. It’s just there’s 

only so much you can get accomplished in a short period of time 

to ramp up from nothing, literally nothing, to a million. I think it’s 

the fastest we can go, but we’ll go back and look at it again. Mary 

and I have talked a few times about this and things have improved 

considerably from when we started talking, probably by several 

months, as a matter of fact. So we’ll look at it again. I understand 

the need to get it done as soon as possible. 

Senator BLUMENTHAL. Because I am hearing from dealers, who 

are hearing from consumers, and the dealers say they’re having 

trouble, at least in Connecticut, and I think it’s probably elsewhere, 

in really getting the parts they need as quickly as they would like 

to do. I understand you’ve got to make the machine tools. There 

87 

isn’t a magic wand here. But if you could tell us whether, in fact, 

there are steps you can take, I would appreciate it. 

Mr. O’NEAL. Again, we’ll go back and look at it. But right now 

the commitment is to exceed the 2 million by the end of August. 

Senator BLUMENTHAL. And I just want to make a final question 

to Ms. Barra. On those issues where Mr. Millikin has said he has 

recommendations—for example, the bankruptcy shield issue—I 

hope you will reconsider, as I hope you will on the Candice Anderson issue, the responses that we’ve heard here. I know that you are 

making valiant efforts to overcome these problems, and I think consumers appreciate the numbers of recalls, the frankness and candor that those recalls demonstrate, and my hope is that the new 

GM won’t be hiding behind the old GM’s bankruptcy on giving 

those pre-2009 customers the opportunity to go to court and have 

a choice between what the fund may give them and what they 

could obtain in court, and also others who have been damaged economically. 

So I thank you very much for being here today and all of the witnesses for your testimony here. Thank you. 

Senator MCCASKILL. I want to thank all the witnesses—Mr. 

Millikin, Ms. Barra, Mr. O’Neal, and Mr. Valukas. Thank you for 

your patience. This has not been short, and I know this is not your 

first visit, and I have a feeling you’re not looking forward to another invitation anytime soon. 

Ms. BARRA. That is correct. 

Senator MCCASKILL. I knew I could speak for you in that regard. 

But it is important, I think, and the fact that you acknowledged 

our role in this and that you respected it is important. We all want 

General Motors to succeed. There’s no one in Congress that doesn’t. 

This is an American company that all of us are very proud of, and 

those of us who helped save General Motors with votes during the 

crisis are very proud of what the American automobile industry 

has in fact accomplished since those days. 

You’ve got a big problem still ahead of you, and we will continue 

to be asking questions and do follow-ups on this hearing. But know 

we appreciate the efforts you’re making, and we will look forward 

to checking in with you after we have a further visit with NHTSA 

and making sure that all of those systems are working the way 

they should so that we have the right oversight on an ongoing basis 

so we’re never dealing with this again. 

Thank you all very much. 

Ms. BARRA. Thank you. 

[Whereupon, at 1:47 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.] 

(89) 

1This document was provided to the Senate Commerce Committee on June 16, 2014, Bates 

Number SC–007284, SC-007305. 2This document was provided to the Senate Commerce Committee on May 9, 2014, Bates 

Number SC–001213 and SC-001214. 

A P P E N D I X 

DELPHI AUTOMOTIVE PLC 

Troy, MI, July 29, 2014 

Senator EDWARD J. MARKEY, 

218 Russell Senate Office Building, 

Washington, DC. 

Dear Senator Markey: 

This letter provides the requested follow-up to your questions to me at the 

July 17, 2014 Senate Subcommittee Hearing. 

Question # 1: What was the cost difference between the switch using the longer 

Catera spring and the switch using the shorter Delta spring? 

As I noted, the cost difference between the two springs was insignificant; in fact, 

less than a penny (in 2006 the Catera spring cost $0.0225 each and the Delta spring 

cost $0.0302 each). 

Question # 2: Can Delphi provide additional documentation as to why the Delta 

spring was chosen for the switch in 2002 and the extent to which ‘‘ease-of-use’’ was 

the underlying reason? 

There are several documents related to the ignition switch that discuss the importance of ‘‘ease-of-use’’ and ‘‘feel.’’ The Component Technical Specification dated 

March 22, 2001 includes specifications related to ‘‘ease-of-use’’ or ‘‘feel,’’ which it indicates are subject to GM Engineering approval. An excerpt is attached at Tab #01.1

Section 3.2.2.3 of the Component Technical Specification states in part: 

3.2.2.3 Tactile Characteristics 

Refer to the Force Displacement Curve(s). Final switch tactile feel is subject to 

GM Engineering approval. Switch efforts shall be smooth with clearly defined 

detents. The switch shall not be damaged when the maximum allowable torque 

is applied to the actuator, clockwise or counterclockwise. All functionally 

detented switches must operate without noticeable friction or binding. 

The supplier shall maintain GM approved master samples for comparison 

throughout the life of the program. 

The Component Technical Specification is discussed in the Valukas Report, an excerpt of which is attached at Tab #02. According to the Valukas Report, Mr. 

DeGiorgio explained that after the Component Technical Specification was issued on 

March 22, 2001, ‘‘the switch was still subject to ‘fine-tuning’ based on input from 

the vehicle program team as well as GM’s ‘TALC’ engineers, who reviewed vehicle 

components for touch, appearance, lighting, and color.’’ (See Valukas Report (Tab # 

02) pages 39–40). 

As I stated, the design incorporating the Delta Spring was approved by General 

Motors. This approval came at the end of a collaborative design process during 

which multiple versions of the spring, along with other component parts for the ignition switch, were considered and tested. During that process, GM requested samples 

of the switch for review by its TALC Group. One such request is attached at Tab 

#03.2 (See Bates Number SC–001223, Item 27). An e-mail exchange in February 

2002 between GM and Delphi representatives discusses the reasons why the design 

incorporating the Delta spring ultimately was chosen, including that the design 

matched the ‘‘detent feel’’ of the samples reviewed by GM’s TALC group, as Mr. 

90 

3This document was provided to the Senate Commerce Committee on April 28, 2014, Bates 

Number SEN–000002. 4This document was provided to the Senate Commerce Committee on April 28, 2014, Bates 

Number GMHEC000138906. 

DeGiorgio had previously directed. The e-mail exchange is attached at Tab #04.3

Relevant excerpts from the e-mail exchange state: 

Previously you had directed us to match the Talc samples for detent feel on 

Delta. During the PDT 2–13–02 you directed us to 15 N–mm+/–2 N–mm. The 

Epsilon is currently meeting that requirement. Delta can be increased to this 

new requirement, but there are several things we all need to be prepared for. 

1. Possible damages (cracking) during durability to rotors due to increased 

forces at the driver tip required to rotate through the detent positions. 

2. Possible premature (less than 3x life) wear-out of the detent with an extremely heavy feel resulting. 

3. Possible impact on electrical functions (PCB wearout) as the spring loads are 

substantially larger than those previously tested. These loads act along the 

same axis as the contact forces. (See Bates Number SEN–000003 (Tab # 04)). 

The Talc samples were 9.6 N-cm. The new production intent version of the 

switch has 9.5 N-cm. We feel this is a match of the TALC switch. We can revise 

this again but we all need to be aware of the impacts in timing, cost, and possible other issues that might be created when we are this close to PPAP. 

If we are trying to improve the ‘‘feel’’ of the switch through the column, please 

remember that we have no control over how the lock cylinder and related parts 

impact the ‘‘feel’’ of the switch. We will be happy to make any changes you need 

in order to improve the system as a whole given cost and timing. (See Bates 

Number SEN–000002 (Tab # 04)). 

In this same exchange, Mr. DeGiorgio directed Delphi not to make further 

changes to the switch. (See Bates Number SEN–000002 (Tab # 04)). 

In addition to this documentation, Mr. DeGiorgio also testified in an April 29, 

2013 deposition in the Melton product liability case as to the importance of ‘‘easeof-use’’ and ‘‘feel’’ in the switch design. An excerpt is attached at Tab # 05.4 On 

pages 46–47 of the transcript, Mr. DeGiorgio stated: 

One of the criticisms—I shouldn’t say criticisms. One of the customer complaints we have had in the—and previous to this was we had cheap feeling 

switches, they were cheap feeling, they were higher effort, and the intent of this 

design was to provide a smooth actuation, provide a high feeling of a robust design. That was the intent. 

. . . the intent was to make the transition to go from run to off with relative 

ease. 

Please let me know if you have any further questions. 

Sincerely, 

RODNEY O’NEAL, 

Chief Executive Officer and President, 

Delphi Automotive PLC. 

Attachments 

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DELPHI

Troy, MI, July 29, 2014 

Senator RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, 

724 Hart Senate Office Building, 

Washington, DC. 

Dear Senator Blumenthal: 

This letter provides the requested follow-up to your question to me at the July 17, 

2014 Senate Subcommittee Hearing. 

During my testimony, I stated that Delphi has manufactured over one million replacement switches and is scheduled to manufacture two million by the end of August 2014. You asked if Delphi could increase its production with additional funding. I told you I would investigate and let you know. 

Delphi has again reviewed the lead-time required for additional equipment and 

tools to immediately increase the manufacturing output for the replacement switches, and we have concluded that it is not feasible to increase capacity prior to August 

31, 2014, the date by which we have committed to produce two millions switches. 

Please let me know if you have any further questions. 

Sincerely, 

RODNEY O’NEAL, 

CEO & President, 

Delphi. 

Æ