Posted on 06/18/2014 9:14:28 AM PDT by jazusamo
House lawmakers told General Motors CEO Mary Barra on Wednesday that they were not satisfied with her company’s own probe into the slow recall of defective, deadly vehicles.
"I want to be clear today that our investigation does continue,” Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.), said.
Barra was returning to Capitol Hill for the first time since releasing an internal review that found GM had a pattern of " incompetence and neglect
" that led to its failure to recall more than two million defective cars made from the mid-2000’s until earlier this year.
GM fired 15 people after the release of the report, but lawmakers on the House panel said they were far from appeased by GM’s internal reporting.
“The system failed, people died and it could have been prevented,” Upton said.
GM has been under fire with lawmakers in both parties since the company announced at the end of January that it was recalling cars that were found to have a dangerous ignition switch flaw that caused them to shut off abruptly or disable their airbags.
The cars were mostly models that GM no longer makes such as the Chevrolet Cobalt and the Saturn Ion. The defective ignition switches have been linked to accidents that have caused 13 deaths, going back to 2005.
Barra again told lawmakers on the panel that she was sorry for the losses of the victims. She said she “will not rest” until the problems that led to the recall failure are addressed.
“I know some of you are wondering about my commitment to solve the deep underlying cultural problems uncovered in this report,” she said. “The answer is I will not rest until these problems are resolved. As I told our employees, I am not afraid of the truth.”
Democrats on the panel were as unforgiving as their GOP counterparts, however.
“These switches were bad from the start. These switches never should have been installed,” said Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.), who again brandished one of the faulty auto parts during her remarks.
DeGette told Barra that the fact that GM executives were cleared by its internal report is "nothing to be proud of."
She added that lawmakers should “get to work on legislation” to address the findings of its own investigation of the GM recalls.
Barra sought to reassure lawmakers that her company was already making changes to its handling of potential mechanical issues.
“This report makes a series of recommendations in eight main areas,” she said. “I have committed the company to act on all of the recommendations, and we are moving forward on many of them already.”
Lawmakers on the House panel Wednesday were hardly convinced, however.
“In many ways the facts surrounding what finally resulted in the GM recall are far more troubling than a cover-up,” Rep. Tim Murphy (R-Pa.) said. “GM engineers and attorneys who were given the facts — including reports on stalls and airbag malfunctions — and who were tasked with figuring out what went wrong — didn’t connect the dots. That’s because they were either incompetent or intentionally indifferent.”
The author of GM's recall report, former U.S. Attorney Anton Valukas, defended the process under which he and his firm crafted the internal document.
"Jenner & Block was given unfettered access to GM witnesses and documents and was asked for an unvarnished account," Valukas said. "We interviewed more than 230 witnesses and collected more than 41 million documents."
Valukas added that he "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."
Lawmakers said they did not consider the GM probe the end of the recall investigation, however.
“After reading Mr. Valukas’ report and conducting this investigation, I still have questions about whether GM employees knowingly withheld information during previous liability lawsuits — information that could have led to an earlier recall and prevented some of these tragedies from occurring,” Murphy said.
GM bondholders want more from Lawmakers. Just sayin’.
Agreed, and the mostly Republican dealers who lost their dealerships.
“Barra again told lawmakers on the panel that she was sorry for the losses of the victims. She said she “will not rest” until the problems that led to the recall failure are addressed.”
Eric Shinseki in a skirt!
Mark
Yep, GM did a good job keeping the lid on this before the bailout and during 0bama/Akerson Government Motors reign, it busted wide open when 0bama control ended.
That GM did their own investigation and the entire senior level of executives were found to be innocent is a sad joke
A new class action suit was just filed claiming customers who purchased new GM products are now loosing 500 to 2500 on their trade ins because of the bad switch cover up. GM is of course denying it
I won't be owning another GM product in my life, if a company won't own up to their mistakes and this is what it takes to get compensated, I don't need their products.
Yep, just read about that class action suit.
There’s also attorneys filing lawsuits that claim there are many more deaths and hundreds of injuries from from the switch problem.
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