Announcement by the Acting Chair
Floor Speech
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Madam Chair, I thank the gentlewoman for her leadership.
I understand that everyone has car dealerships in their districts and they are an important part of our economy, but this amendment serves one purpose and one purpose only: allowing car dealers and rental car companies to evade responsibility.
Just like rental car companies, car dealerships rent and lease vehicles regularly. And just like rental car companies, car dealerships should not be renting or leasing cars that are subject to a safety recall without first repairing the defect. These are safety recalls on cars the auto manufacturers themselves have deemed necessary to repair.
Can you imagine bringing your car to a dealer to get
a deadly Takata airbag replaced and then being given a loaner car with the same deadly Takata airbag to drive while your car is being repaired? That is the situation that this amendment would allow.
Of all those subjected to the Safe Rental Car Act, car dealerships are in the best position to fix these recalled cars quickly.
Instead of this amendment, which weakens the Senate provision, the Rules Committee should have made in order the gentlewoman's amendment expanding the provision to ensure used cars are not sold until recalls are fixed.
Whether or not renting cars is the company's primary business makes no business. A defective car is a defective car.
Rental companies and auto dealers alike have a responsibility to their customers, and we have a responsibility to ensure that consumers' lives are not put at risk.
I urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment.
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Madam Chair, in the wake of the GM and Takata recalls, it became apparent that major changes were needed to improve information sharing, enhance safety, and strengthen accountability measures. This amendment addresses some of those issues, and I urge my colleagues to support it.
Before I explain the contents of this amendment, it is important to explain what is not in the amendment.
There are no new civil penalties for companies that fail to adequately protect drivers and the public. There is no ``imminent hazard authority'' to enable NHTSA to get the most dangerous cars off the road as soon as possible. While I believe those changes are sorely needed, I knew that the Republican majority would oppose them. What is left are some of the more obvious reforms for auto safety, and there is no reasonable excuse to oppose the amendment.
This amendment would improve the functionality of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's Web site to enable better and more detailed searches, to standardize terms so that consistent problems can be identified faster, and to improve the early warning database so that consumers can determine whether a vehicle they drive or plan to drive has a history of dangerous incidents.
My amendment would also increase the amount of information provided to consumers who are purchasing or leasing used vehicles, including specific vehicle damage history and recall repair history. It would include that information in the Used Car Buyers Guide, which already must be posted on each used vehicle that is offered for sale; and it would inform consumers about the Web site, which is where they can find more information about their specific vehicle history.
The investigations into the GM and Takata failures were made more difficult by the fact that comprehensive safety records were not maintained by many manufacturers. This amendment would fix that by ensuring that those records are preserved for 20 years.
Auto manufacturers are not currently required to remedy recalled vehicles if those cars were sold more than 10 years before the recall. That makes no sense, especially when the average car on the road is more than 11 years old. This amendment would require all defects to be remedied at no cost to the car owner no matter how long the car has been owned.
With more than 30,000 deaths a year, we have a long way to go in reducing deaths and serious injuries on our roads. There are things we can and should do to enhance auto safety, and Congress has a long track record of doing just that.
For example, a bill I sponsored, which was signed into law by President Bush, established a rulemaking to require technologies that would enable drivers to see behind their vehicles. By 2018, rear cameras will be standard for all cars. That rule will prevent more than 100 deaths and many more injuries each year.
This amendment would require NHTSA to continue that progress by requiring research into technologies and then developing standards that could reduce injuries and deaths for rear seat passengers and pedestrians.
Finally, this amendment eliminates the flawed system of regional recalls. Regional recalls limit remedies to specific States. This prevents vehicles which have traveled across the country from being recalled.
Takata issued regional recalls for its airbags, but with high humidity being a factor in airbag explosions, it makes no sense that its regional recall missed, for example, Washington, D.C.--a swamp, with all due respect. While most of Takata's regional recalls were expanded nationally, not all of them were, and some drivers can't legally get their vehicles remedied free of charge. We can't allow this regional recall system to continue.
Again, these are commonsense, safety-focused provisions that would enhance consumer information, vehicle safety, and accountability.
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Madam Chairman, I rise in opposition to the gentleman's amendment, which would undermine the Obama administration's historic vehicle fuel economy and tailpipe emission standards.
The EPA and the Department of Transportation rules provide huge benefits. They help consumers save money at the pump, reduce reliance on foreign oil, and reduce the carbon pollution that threatens our climate and our health. By 2025, these rules are expected to save American families $1.7 trillion on fuel costs, cut greenhouse gas emissions by 6 billion metric tons, and reduce America's dependance on oil by more than 2 million barrels per day.
These are rules that have been an overwhelming success due in large part to the high level of coordination and participation of multiple stakeholder groups in their development. We are talking about groups like automobile manufacturers, State and local governments, the United Auto Workers, consumer groups, environmental organizations, and the public. In short, these rules are good for American consumers, manufacturers, and the environment.
The Mullin amendment would undermine the success of existing and future car rules by requiring EPA to extend any ``preference or incentive'' provided to electric vehicles to natural gas vehicles as well.
The amendment also requires EPA to go back and make retroactive changes to the tailpipe rules already on the books. Some of these rules were finalized 3 years ago, and reopening these carefully coordinated negotiations makes no sense.
The Mullin amendment would effectively say that natural gas vehicles and electric vehicles are exactly the same, but they are fundamentally different in terms of their tailpipe emissions and the miles per gallon they get on the road.
Natural gas vehicles already receive numerous incentives under the tailpipe and fuel economy rules, and natural gas vehicles are an established and functioning technology, so there is little need to incentivize them further for reasons of technological innovation. This is in contrast with electric vehicles for whom many of the current incentives are designed.
The amendment is also not justified from a climate perspective. Electric vehicles have the potential to be game changers, especially with low greenhouse gas electricity. On the other hand, natural gas vehicles continue to depend on a fossil fuel with no such game-changing potential. Also, because natural gas is already a very viable fuel for heavy-duty vehicles, additional incentives would essentially be bonuses for using a fuel that would have been used anyway. So this would dilute the heavy-duty vehicle GHG program.
The Mullin amendment would give windfall incentives to automobile manufacturers that produce natural gas vehicles, creating a loophole that will allow them to produce other dirty and less efficient vehicles and still meet their tailpipe emissions and fuel economy requirements. This sets a dangerous precedent that subverts essential rules that were developed through an open public rulemaking process, including all stakeholders, and undermines critical U.S. energy conservation policies.
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