The letter should be placed in a sealed envelope marked “confidential.”
July, 2015
The NY Times reports:
“The transportation funding bill is the last viable chance for the current Congress to pass auto safety reform, aides on both sides say. As a result, lawmakers vied during the meeting to attach auto safety provisions to it — a common tactic for passing legislation that had otherwise stalled.
But one after another, Democratic senators’ proposals were defeated. The exception was a measure to ban rental companies from renting cars with unrepaired safety recalls. Still, a similar proposal to prevent used-car dealers from doing the same failed on a party-line vote. (The committee’s chairman, John Thune, Republican of South Dakota, said that banning used-car dealers from selling recalled cars “could have unintended consequences,” like complicating trade-ins.)
As for making it a specific crime to knowingly conceal information on safety defects, that, too, failed. Three Democrats — Claire McCaskill of Missouri, Gary Peters of Michigan and Joe Manchin of West Virginia — joined the Republican majority in blocking it.
The auto industry resisted what it said was “criminalizing the business of manufacturing” in a document that auto lobbyists circulated to lawmakers before Wednesday’s meeting. (The lack of criminal statutes has complicated efforts by federal prosecutors to bring charges against individual employees at General Motors over the cover-up of faulty ignition switches.)”
Mr. Thune tried to highlight several auto provisions that made the cut, like the increase in the civil fine maximum to $70 million, an increase in certain funding and the rental car proposal.
But most Democrats, irritated by what they said was a lack of any real negotiating, were having none of it as the meeting concluded. Senator Maria Cantwell, Democrat of Washington, said the group was “breaking a long tradition” of committee bipartisanship on safety issues.” See
For crash fatality statistics for a decade by State and Congressional district see: https://www.careforcrashvictims.com/CrashDeathMappingTools.php
