Tire Backlash Turning Tide for Auto Safety
WASHINGTON — Transportation Secretary Rodney Slater on Thursday endorsed criminal penalties for auto makers or suppliers who knowingly sell vehicles or parts with dangerous defects, a policy reversal that adds to a tide of anti-industry hostility in the wake of the Firestone tire recall.
A bad month for Bridgestone/Firestone Inc. and Ford Motor Co. is turning into a bad year for the U.S. auto industry: After two decades in which auto makers have generally had their way in Washington, the balance of power now seems to be shifting in favor of federal auto safety regulators.
Congress is rapidly moving to grant new powers to regulators at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and the industry seems to have been caught unprepared.
“This is a big moment for product safety,” said Sally Greenberg, a lawyer and lobbyist for Consumers Union, which publishes Consumer Reports. “I walk the halls of Congress and, I can tell you, it is usually very hard to get attention for product safety.”
Slater’s embrace of criminal sanctions flies in the face of three decades of Transportation Department policy based on a belief that threats of jail would inhibit auto companies from coming forward to report defects.
“In cases of egregious circumstances, criminal penalties for those who clearly and willfully violate the law are appropriate,” Slater told a House Commerce Committee panel beginning work on legislation that could be sent to the floor next week.
A Senate bill containing criminal penalties was unanimously approved in committee Wednesday. Lawmakers of both parties say they want to send a bill to President Clinton before they adjourn next month.
Although criminal sanctions are the most controversial issue in the congressional legislation, other provisions could have a greater practical impact. These range from new requirements for companies to report warranty claims and lawsuits to a mandate for much more extensive tire testing that could include used ones as well.
Another telling sign of change was this week’s defeat of an effort in the Senate to block a vehicle rollover rating system that NHTSA wants to provide for consumers.
Sport-utility vehicles like the Ford Explorer are more likely to tip over because of their high centers of gravity. More than 9,500 people a year die as a result of rollovers, and this type of crash accounts for 60% of the drivers and passengers who die in SUVs.
Last week, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) served notice that he would do battle against a provision in the Transportation Department funding bill that would have denied money for rollover ratings. On Wednesday, word went out that Sen. Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.) had agreed to remove the funding restriction. Written by Shelby, the restriction was also supported by the industry.
In the House, Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) said Thursday that he wants to go even further on the rollover issue. Markey said he wants to require NHTSA to devise a driving test for rating vehicles. The ratings the agency initially plans to use are based on a mathematical formula that takes into account a vehicle’s height and width--not on actual vehicle performance on a test track.
One reason the Republican-led Congress is so eagerly taking up the auto safety issue is the fact that control of the House is up for grabs this year and that the recall of 6.5 million Firestone tires is likely to continue up to and beyond election day.
No lawmaker with any responsibility over auto safety wants to risk an attack ad showing a family in a tire-related wreck.
“Before we leave, Congress is not going to be assured that all the recalled tires have been replaced,” said Rep. W.J. “Billy” Tauzin (R-La.), who is leading the House investigation. “Americans will still be riding on tires that are essentially time bombs. It is imperative for Congress to get this [the legislation] done now.”
Adding to the auto industry’s problems on Capitol Hill is that some members of Congress have been touched personally by the tire failures. Last week, Sen. Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) told of the death of a friend in a crash involving the Firestone tires. Thursday, Rep. Barbara Cubin (R-Wyo.) described how a tire on the family’s Ford Explorer blew out while her son was driving.
“Nobody is entirely sure whether or not the tire’s tread separated or what the particular cause was,” Cubin told Commerce Committee colleagues. “But the fact of the matter is the tire failed. My son was lucky. He survived, and my family is thankful for that. Other families haven’t been so fortunate.”
Chuck Hurley, a senior spokesman for the National Safety Council and a veteran of many auto safety debates, said he hasn’t seen Congress so motivated in years.
“This is a perfect media story,” Hurley said. “There is a pattern of fatal injuries. There was less than forthright reporting of the pattern. The federal safety agency wasn’t as quick as it should have been. Congress is riveted in its attention to this issue.”
Hurley lamented that Congress isn’t as likely to get worked up about a national seat belt law “that would save 1,000 times more lives,” he said.
As the tire controversy escalated, the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers--which represents most major companies--mounted a low-key response that stressed voluntary cooperation with regulators and good corporate citizenship.
Last Friday, the alliance announced that its members would voluntarily report any foreign recalls and safety campaigns to U.S. regulators, which Ford and Firestone had failed to do.
But alliance members met Wednesday and agreed to mount a strenuous campaign against criminal penalties.
“Defects are subjective, based on judgment,” said Josephine S. Cooper, the group’s president. “The government shouldn’t criminalize subjective measures.”
The Senate bill calls for prison terms of up to 15 years for a deliberate safety violation that leads to a death.
The manufacturers alliance also said it is concerned that new reporting requirements for data on safety-related incidents, customer claims, warranty adjustments, lawsuits and other information would clog the system and keep vital information from reaching federal regulators.
“In the haste to further protect consumers from potential safety defects, Congress should be wary of producing legislation with defects,” Cooper said.
But Transportation Secretary Slater said other agencies under his department have criminal penalty authority, including the Federal Aviation Administration, the Federal Railroad Administration, the Coast Guard, the federal truck safety agency and an agency that regulates transportation of hazardous materials. Still other agencies outside the Transportation Department also have criminal penalty authority, including the Food and Drug Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency.
Slater said he would work with Congress to fashion sanctions that would apply only to “egregious, knowing, willful violations.”
Tauzin said one option is to provide some form of automatic protection from criminal prosecution to companies that voluntarily report a problem.
A lengthy hearing Thursday on Firestone’s and Ford’s testing of the recalled tires left many lawmakers feeling that Congress must take a stronger hand.
Firestone said that tests designed to push tires to the breaking point were being misinterpreted by Congress as indications of a safety problem. And Ford said there was “nothing devious” in the fact that it tested the tires on a specially equipped pickup truck and not a Ford Explorer.
But some lawmakers found the explanations unsatisfactory.
“You had it both ways,” Rep. Bill Luther (D-Minn.) told Firestone executives. “On the one hand, you didn’t pay attention to these tests. And when you did get information coming in about problems, you sent it to the accounting department.”
