Highlights From House Hearing on G.M. Defects

As Mary Barra left the hearing room, Randy Rademaker, whose 15-year-old daughter, Amy, was killed in October 2006, said he was hoping there would be more answers to his questions.

“I heard a lot of ‘we’re investigating it,’ but I didn’t get a lot of real answers,” said Mr. Rademaker, a welder who traveled from Baldwin, Wis., to attend the hearing in Washington. “I kind of expected this.”

His daughter died in a 2005 Cobalt. The ignition was in the “accessory” position and the airbags did not deploy.

He expressed disappointment in Ms. Barra, the chief executive of G.M. “I was hoping she would just own up to it,” he said.

Mr. Rademaker said he was glad he made the trip. But sitting through hours of testimony brought back all the emotions of the crash, he said.

He said he would not be attending the Senate hearing on Wednesday.

— MATTHEW L. WALD

Four hours later, the House panel has finished grilling Ms. Barra and Mr. Friedman. The subcommittee members indicated that the investigation of the events leading up to the recall was far from over.

The panel has gathered more than 200,000 pages of documents from G.M. and 6,000 pages from the agency, and received at least some of the documents last week.

On Wednesday, Ms. Barra and Mr. Friedman will appear before a United States Senate panel on consumer protection, led by Senator Claire McCaskill, a Democrat from Missouri. Also scheduled to testify before the Senate subcommittee is Calvin L. Scovel III, the inspector general of the Department of Transportation.

— DANIELLE IVORY

During the hearing, an chain of internal emails from G.M. were discussed. They began in late September 2005, with the subject line, “no new Delta/Kappa ign switch for MY 08.”

“Delta” and “Kappa” are vehicle families; “ign” is short for ignition.

A photocopy of the document was distributed by the committee staff after it was referred to in testimony.

In the emails, an engineer, identified as John R. Hendler, discusses his involvement in the Cobalt introduction: “I was very aware of an issue with ‘inadvertent ignition offs’ due to the low mounted ignition switch in the steering column and the low efforts required to rotate the ignition.”

But the new part would cost around 90 cents and the reduction in warranty costs came to only 10 or 15 cents, he said. A change in the key shape would help, he said, and a change in the switch would have to wait another year.

Another engineer, identified as Lori Queen in the chain of emails, wrote: “I’m not sure its ok to wait. I want to discuss.”

Lori Queen Email (PDF)

Lori Queen Email (Text)

— MATTHEW L. WALD

Mr. Friedman said his agency was planning to release a tool to allow a consumer to type the VIN, or vehicle identification number, from a vehicle into the N.H.T.S.A. website to see whether it was being recalled.

— DANIELLE IVORY

William Jordan, a lawyer who represented the family of a young man who died in a Chevrolet Cobalt in 2009, credited Ms. Barra and G.M. for acknowledging at least 13 deaths and investigating what went wrong.

“I guess you could be like the folks from the cigarette manufacturers and say ‘No, what do you mean – there’s no link between smoking and cancer,” Mr. Jordan said. “Still, you have to have congressional hearings to get an apology? I understand, but they knew about this a long time ago.”

Mr. Jordan brought a case against G.M. on behalf of the family of Allen Ray Floyd, who died while driving near Loris, S.C., on July 3, 2009, after dropping off his sister and her husband at the airport. His airbags did not deploy. Mr. Floyd’s sister had lost control of the same vehicle two weeks before the accident; she had it towed.

The company contended the suit was “frivolous” because the accident occurred a week before the company’s bankruptcy agreement took effect, which meant G.M. was not liable for damages.

After G.M. threatened to come after Mr. Jordan for sanctions, the family dropped its suit.

“It’s too little, too late for all this, obviously,” Mr. Jordan said. “The question now should be, what will the penalty be? What remedies are available to Congress and/or a bankruptcy court to address what in essence was bankruptcy fraud, concealing these problems?”

— REBECCA RUIZ

Representative Gene Green cited a New York Times analysis of more than 260 complaints made to the N.H.T.S.A. since 2003 that mentioned unexpected stalling in the recalled vehicles.

The safety agency’s database contains at least four complaints from Mary Ruddy, whose 21-year-old daughter Kelly was killed on Jan. 10, 2010, while driving a 2005 Chevrolet Cobalt.

“Has N.H.T.S.A. been in contact with Ms. Ruddy?” Representative Green, a Texas Democrat, asked Mr. Friedman.

“Ms. Ruddy deserves answers,” Mr. Friedman said. “What she’s been through is a tragedy.”

Mr. Friedman added, however, that Ms. Ruddy’s contacts with N.H.T.S.A. were made through its complaints system.

“We do not necessarily respond to all of those complaints,” he said.

When Mr. Green asked whether he could confirm the more than 260 complaints about stalling in the recalled cars, Mr. Friedman said he did not have the exact number. But he said that he understood only a few were related to air bag nondeployments.

The analysis included cases in which the driver confirmed unexpected stalling in a moving car. The review did not include several complaints about fatal accidents involving nondeployed air bags, including complaints filed by Ms. Ruddy, because they were generally filed by people who were not in the cars at the time of the crashes and who would not be able to confirm whether the cars stalled.

Mr. Friedman said that the safety regulator will sometimes open an investigation into a safety defect based on one complaint, but sometimes it needs to identify a defect trend. He said no trend was identified for the Cobalt.

The safety agency in the past has opened investigations based on far less information. It opened an inquiry in 2012, for instance, on some Hyundai models because of a complaint from an owner whose ear was slightly cut when an air bag deployed. That led to last year’s recall of 190,000 vehicles.

— DANIELLE IVORY

Joseph Bersano, whose son was killed while driving a 2005 Cobalt, described his feelings of frustration as he watched from his home in Seneca, Ill., as G.M.’s chief executive and the nation’s top auto regulator testified at the House hearing.

His son Dustin Bersano, 24, died in April 2010 while driving to his job at Costco.

“It’s very frustrating to watch,” Mr. Bersano said in a telephone interview. “They’re just saying everything they’re going to do, but they should’ve done it before. They’re saying that they’ll look into it all and make sure there are no problems in the future. But that doesn’t help the problems in the past.”

While the Bersanos had contacted G.M. and considered filing a lawsuit, they never did, he said, believing that bringing a case against the auto giant would be hopeless. The black box data on the car had been inconclusive, Mr. Bersano said, but he noted that G.M. “tried to get in to see the car two or three times at the sheriff’s office, by themselves without the attorneys present.”

“How many lives could they have saved by owning up to this? They’ve known for over 10 years and they have never owned up to it.

“Dustin’s always on our mind, and the accident and this car are always on our mind. You think you get over it, but you don’t.”

— REBECCA RUIZ

Mr. Friedman is questioned in this video clip by Representative Morgan Griffith at the hearing.

Under questioning from lawmakers, Mr. Friedman, the nation’s top auto safety regulator, found himself defending the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The agency has come under increasing criticism for not investigating the ignition failure problem despite receiving hundreds of consumer complaints about the issue over the years.

Like Ms. Barra, Mr. Friedman, the agency’s acting administrator, began with an expression of sorrow. “Let me begin my testimony by saying, on behalf of everyone at N.H.T.S.A., that we are deeply saddened by the loss of life in vehicle crashes involving the G.M. ignition switch defect,” he said. Noting that a number of families of accident victims were attending the hearing, he said, “We are deeply sorry” for their loss.

Then he swiftly vowed to “hold General Motors accountable” if the company failed to provide appropriate and timely information to regulators.

As for N.H.T.S.A.’s role, he said the agency reviewed mounds of information, about consumer complaints, early warning data, special crash investigations, and manufacturer information about how air bags function, relating to the Cobalt and other small G.M. vehicles.

“Some of that information did raise concerns about airbag nondeployments,” he said in a statement that appeared to go beyond the agency’s previous assertions that it never had enough evidence to detect a potential problem.

But ultimately, he said, regulators did not have enough conclusive evidence to order a recall.

The agency continued to monitor the data, he said, and in 2010 actually found the rate of complaints on Cobalts had decreased.

“N.H.T.S.A. was concerned and engaged on this issue,” Mr. Friedman said. “This was a difficult case.”

He vowed to improve the safety agency’s practices. Still, he made clear that the agency felt G.M. was partly to blame.

“Our ability to find defects also requires automakers to act in good faith and on time,” he said.

Referring to information the company had submitted to the agency since the recall, he said, “Had this information been available earlier, it would have likely changed our approach to this issue.”

“But let me be clear,” he continued, “N.H.T.S.A. and the auto industry as a whole must improve.”

— HILARY STOUT

Under questioning, Mr. Friedman was asked whether G.M. officials had been operating “in good faith” in regard to the recall.

“We have an open investigation,” Mr. Friedman told the House panel. “If we find out that they were not, we will hold them accountable.”

Mr. Friedman said that G.M. has an April 3 deadline to produce documents for the agency’s investigation into the recall and defect.

David J. Friedman, the acting administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, said that G.M. did not provide the critical information needed to help the agency identify the ignition defect.

In his prepared testimony, Mr. Friedman said the agency’s top priority now is the recall. “We need to ensure that G.M. gets the vehicles fixed quickly and that it is doing all it can to keep consumers at risk informed and to identify all vehicles that may have a defective ignition switch.”

He said the next priority was to pursue an investigation into whether G.M. met its responsibilities to report and address the defect under federal law, and to hold the company accountable.

He said that the third priority was to examine the agency’s efforts “to understand what took place and to determine how to continue to improve our efforts.”

Through all the discussion, debate and questioning since the recall was announced, it has never been established when Mary Barra knew about the faulty ignition switch in the Cobalt and other vehicles. G.M.’s own chronology shows the issue was widely known in certain parts of the company for years. Ms. Barra, who has worked there since 1980 and held a variety of senior positions before becoming C.E.O. in January, said during the hearing that she did not know of the problem until Jan. 31 of this year.

“I was not aware that there was this issue until the recall was introduced on Jan. 31,” she said, referring to the day that the company decided to issue a recall. “I did know in December that there was an issue with the Cobalt. I did not know it was an ignition issue.”

Meanwhile, Representative Kathy Castor, a Florida Democrat, cited a 2005 article in The New York Times, which described the problem of intermittent stalling in the Chevrolet Cobalt.

At the time, Alan Adler, a G.M. spokesman, said that the automaker did not consider the situation a safety issue, according to the article.

“When this happens, the Cobalt is still controllable,” he said. “The engine can be restarted after shifting to neutral. Ignition systems are designed to have on and off positions, and practically any vehicle can have power to a running engine cut off by inadvertently bumping the ignition from the run to accessory or off position.”

When asked about the 2005 article and G.M.’s response at the time — characterized by Representative Castor as, “No big deal, engines cut out all the time” — Ms. Barra said she did not have a recollection of the article.

— HILARY STOUT AND DANIELLE IVORY

Toward the end of her testimony, Ms. Barra came under close questioning from Representative Gregg Harper, a Republican from Mississippi, about an internal G.M. e-mail that was not released by the committee. He quoted from the email, saying it said that improving the switch would cost 90 cents, but it would save only 10 to 15 cents per switch in warranty costs to the company, and thus there was no “business case” for the change.

“That is not something that I find acceptable,’’ she replied. In case of a safety defect, she said, considering a business case was “not appropriate.”

“This is not the type of behavior we want in our company today, in our engineers today,’’ she said.

“How does cost figure into safety decisions?” Mr. Harper asked.

“They don’t,’’ said Ms. Barra, taking off her glasses. “If there is a safety issue, if there is a safety defect identified, we go and fix the vehicle, fix the part, fix the system,’’ she insisted. “It’s not acceptable to have a cost put on a safety issue.’’

There was much talk of culture, and it came up in her reply here. “I think in the past we had more of a cost culture and we’re going to a safety culture that focuses on customers and quality,’’ she said.

— MATTHEW L. WALD

Representative Tim Murphy, the subcommittee’s chairman, asked Ms. Barra if G.M. withheld information about the ignition switch problem before its bankruptcy deal.

“I personally did not withhold any information,” Ms. Barra said. “I cannot speak for every single person.”

— DANIELLE IVORY

Representative Paul Tonko, a Democrat from New York, asked if Ms. Barra would make the full report from G.M.’s internal investigation available to the committee.

“We will make the appropriate findings available,” Ms. Barra replied.

“Not the full report?” Representative Tonko said.

Ms. Barra said she did not know whether there would be a report or if there would be findings. Representative Tonko clarified, asking if the full information from the investigation would be made available. Ms. Barra responded by saying that she was committed to making the “appropriate” information available.

“In other words, there’s no commitment to share the full report,” Representative Tonko said.

— DANIELLE IVORY

As Ms. Barra fielded questions from lawmakers Tuesday afternoon, G.M. released its monthly sales figures for March. The automaker had delayed the announcement, originally scheduled for 9:30 a.m. on Tuesday, citing a computer systems issue.

G.M. reported that its retail sales last month were up 7 percent from the prior year, though multiple recalls of its vehicles have been announced since Feb. 13. Still, other automakers like Ford reported gains in small-car market share, appearing to have reaped the benefits of G.M.’s recall.

“Chances are there will be more of a negative impact on G.M.’s sales in April,” said Jesse Toprak, chief analyst for Cars.com, “when consumers will have more awareness of the expanded recalls.”

G.M. did not refer to the recall in its release, instead pointing to improved weather and economic conditions as responsible for its upward sales trend.

“Our dealers continue to work hard to exceed people’s expectations for customer care, whether they are shopping for one of our award-winning new products or coming in to have their vehicle serviced,” said Kurt McNeil, United States vice president for sales operations, in a statement.

— REBECCA RUIZ

“Is the company responsible? The new G.M. — is it responsible?” asked Representative Jan Schakowsky, a Democrat from Illinois.

“We are going to work very hard to do the right thing for our customers,” Ms. Barra said. She also said the automaker had legal responsibilities, as well as moral responsibilities.

Ms. Barra also said G.M. would look at “people issues,” presumably whether anyone will lose a job over the recall, later in the investigation process.

— DANIELLE IVORY

Under further questioning, Ms. Barra held open the possibility that G.M. could waive protection granted in its bankruptcy agreement that absolves it of legal liability for all accidents that occurred before July 10, 2009, the date the company emerged from bankruptcy.

“That’s why we hired Mr. Feinberg,” she said, referring to Kenneth Feinberg, the lawyer who has overseen funds for victims in other cases. “He will assess what are the next steps. We recognize we have civic responsibilities as well as legal responsibilities.”

She said the first meeting with him will take place on Friday and the deliberations will take 30 to 60 days.

— HILARY STOUT

Henry Waxman of California, the senior Democrat on the Energy and Commerce Committee, pointed out in a letter on Monday that even after G.M. beefed up the switch, in 2006, the new switch did not meet its specification for the minimum level of force required to turn the key. He asked Ms. Barra about it during this afternoon’s hearing.

Her reply touched on the meaning of specifications. “Just because a piece does not meet specifications does not necessarily mean it is a defective part,’’ she said.

But she said that for the new parts, which will be installed beginning April 7, “we will do 100 percent end-of-line testing.’’

Mr. Waxman noted that Ms. Barra took her job “at an inopportune time,” long after the period in which the red flags were missed.

Frequently in her responses, she deferred to an internal G.M. investigation and said she simply did not know.

That prompted the subcommittee chairman, Tim Murphy of Pennsylvania, to ask if she had reviewed all the documents that G.M. had delivered to the lawmakers. “No, I did not; there’s over 200,000 pages,’’ she pointed out.

She spoke a few minutes after Michael C. Burgess, Republican of Texas, made a related point. “With over 200,000 documents that have been produced, lack of information was not the problem,’’ he said. “Instead, it is this committee’s duty to figure out why the data was there but the analysis was egregiously off the mark.’

— MATTHEW L. WALD

In her opening statement and testimony, Ms. Barra has been trying to keep her remarks focused on what the company is doing now to address the problem rather than review what went wrong in the past.

Under questioning, Ms. Barra is responding with a lot of I-don’t-knows to inquiries from lawmakers that refer to documents that G.M. itself submitted to the committee.

At the end of another round of questions, she admitted that she had not reviewed all of the documents that were submitted. “No, I did not. It was over 200,000 pages,” she said.

— HILARY STOUT

In response to questions from lawmakers, Ms. Barra acknowledged that one part of G.M. was not talking to the other parts of the company, which may have resulted in the slow response to ignition-related safety defects in Chevrolet Cobalts and other small cars.

“There was information in one part of the company and another part of the company didn’t have access to that,” Ms. Barra said. “We have fixed that.”

— DANIELLE IVORY

Under questioning, Ms. Barra sought to distinguish between the cost-driven culture of the pre-bankruptcy G.M. and the “new G.M.” To statements that the company decided not to fix the faulty switch because it was too expensive to be a wise business decision, she said: “I find that statement to be very disturbing. If that was the reason the decision was made, that was unacceptable. That was not the way we do business in today’s G.M.”

Today, she continued, “we do not look at the cost associated” with a safety problem, “we look at the speed with which we can fix the issue.”

“In general we’ve moved from a cost culture after the bankruptcy to a customer culture,” she said.

— HILARY STOUT

“Our employees & I are determined to set a new standard,” @GM CEO Barra names Feinberg to evaluate #GMrecall response //t.co/OwEAmICmwE

— General Motors (@GM) 1 Apr 14

Responding to growing demands from the public and consumer groups that G.M. establish a fund to compensate accident victims and their families, Ms. Barra said the company had retained Kenneth Feinberg to study options for G.M. He is the lawyer who oversaw similar funds in the BP oil spill, the 9/11 terrorist attack, the Boston Marathon bombings and other disasters.

— HILARY STOUT

Photo

Almost none of Ms. Barra’s opening remarks were devoted to the 13-year period before the recall, during which the company was grappling internally with the ignition switch problem. Instead, she focused exclusively on what the company is currently doing to handle the problem and “rebuild trust with our customers.”

She said the company had empowered dealers to offer free rental or loaner cars to owners of the recalled vehicles to drive until their cars are fixed. So far, she said, nearly 13,000 loaner vehicles have been offered. She also said dealers were authorized to offer cash allowances to help people buy or lease a new car.

“As I’ve reminded our employees, getting the cars repaired is only the first step. Giving customers the best support possible throughout this process is how we will be judged,” she said.

— HILARY STOUT

Mary T. Barra, G.M.’s chief executive, who assumed the top post a month before the recall was announced, began her testimony by saying she could not answer the question foremost on the committee’s agenda.

“Sitting here today, I cannot tell you why it took years for a safety defect to be announced for this program,” she told the panel. “But I can tell you that we will find out.”

She added: “It came to light on my watch and I will be fully responsible.”

She then did what she has done repeatedly over the past several weeks: apologized.

Vowing that the company “will do the right thing,” Ms. Barra said: “That begins with my sincere apologies to everyone who has been affected by this recall, especially families and friends of those who lost their lives or were injured. I am deeply sorry.”

Earlier in the day Ms. Barra was reported to have teared up during a meeting with family members of fatal accident victims Monday night. In reading her opening statement Tuesday afternoon, she was firm and unemotional.

— HILARY STOUT

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“It’s déjà vu all over again,” said Representative Fred Upton, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and Republican of Michigan, in his opening statement.

In 2000, Mr. Upton led a subcommittee that investigated the rollovers of Ford Explorers with Firestone tires, which was a problem that followed years of complaints and was tied to 271 deaths.

In response to the Firestone episode, Congress passed the Tread Act, a law that required automakers to report complaints of defects to safety regulators to make it easier to spot trends.

And yet, Mr. Upton said, complaints filed to safety regulators and G.M., citing problems in the recalled vehicles, go back “at least a decade.”

A video Mr. Upton uploaded onto YouTube of his testimony and questioning of Ms. Barra.

— DANIELLE IVORY

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In her opening statement, Representative Diana DeGette, the senior Democrat on the subcommittee, held up an ignition switch, with one key in the slot and another dangling from a ring. “I just want to show how easy it is to turn this key,’’ she said, turning her wrist. A stronger spring, she said, would have cost another 57 cents.

She showed off her “mom key chain,” which appeared to have keys and remote control fobs for several cars. Heavy key chains could make it more likely for the key to twist in the ignition.

— MATTHEW L. WALD

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In his opening statement, Representative Tim Murphy, a Republican from Pennsylvania, and chairman of the House oversight subcommittee, outlined a now-familiar rear-view-mirror picture of missed red flags. He asked some broader questions:

“For both G.M. and N.H.T.S.A.: Are people talking to one another? Do G.M. and N.H.T.S.A. have a culture where people don’t pass information up and down the chain of command?”

“To borrow a phrase, ‘What we have here is a failure to communicate’ — and the results are deadly,’’ he said. The answer, he said, was “to fix a culture within a business and government regulator that has led to these problems.”

— MATTHEW L. WALD

Families of the victims of the GM Ignition switch problems posting pictures prior to the @HouseCommerce hearing. //t.co/UYl3MOvNFN

— Jon Kelley (@cspanJon) 1 Apr 14

In the back of the crowded hearing room, victims’ families propped up photos of their loved ones on an ornamental railing. The display looked a bit like a shrine at the scene of a big fire or other mass tragedy.

Pictures of drivers killed in their GM vehicles line the back wall of today’s hearing. #backchannel //t.co/vS7mZAaKep

— Ross Jones (@RossJones7) 1 Apr 14

At three minutes after 2 p.m., Mary T. Barra entered the hearing room. She sat down and Tim Murphy, Republican of Pennsylvania and chairman of the Oversight and Investigation Subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, gaveled the hearing to order.

— MATTHEW L. WALD

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Hours before the hearing started, families of some of the victims of crashes attributed to the ignition failures with Cobalts and other G.M. cars gathered outside the Capitol with their own message for the automaker: tell owners to park those cars now.

Their pleas were echoed by several members of Congress who are pushing for legislative action to toughen disclosure laws about automotive safety defects. Bill Vlasic of The Times has a report on the event.