[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 13 (Thursday, February 10, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[Congressional Record: February 10, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
TWO AMERICAN STORIES
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the
gentlewoman from Maryland [Mrs. Bentley] is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mrs. BENTLEY. Mr. Speaker, two stories were reported last week in the
Washington Post that I would like to call to your attention. One is the
Nissan Motor Corp., U.S.A. buy-back offer of its flawed 1987-90
minivans, the other is about Dr. Jeffrey Wilkerson, a native of
Maryland, who discovered a lost city in Mexico.
The Nissan story is remarkable because of the people who have banded
together to seek justice for the van owners who have suffered through
four recalls and incurred financial loss with their vans. Remember this
1987-90 minivan had mechanical problems which led to excessive engine
heat, including catching fire and burning while being driven. A few
even caught fire and burned while parked.
It has been a tough job to attract Nissan's attention and that of the
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration [NHTSA]. But all of us
have persevered. From the Connecticut businessman, George Pasiakos, who
first brought documentation of the burning vans to my attention, to the
van owners, particularly those in Florida who demonstrated in the
street to attract the attention of Nissan--and the attorney generals of
21 States who, early last spring, petitioned NHTSA to buy back the vans
or conduct an independent test. Neither was done.
After working with the van owners, last spring I participated in a
hearing of the Transportation subcommittee of Appropriations in order
to ask specific questions of NHTSA. Recently, I requested a General
Accounting Office [GAO] for an investigation of NHTSA and whether or
not it adequately fulfilled its role to protect the public.
I also asked Attorney General Reno to investigate the relationship
between Nissan and NHTSA since Nissan's counsel is the former general
counsel for NHTSA. In addition, I wrote Secretary Pena to become
involved in this issue because lives were at stake. So, with the
combined efforts of public officials, private citizens, and van owners
we now have a buy back. There will be more chapters to that tale in the
future.
The second story about Dr. Jeffrey Wilkerson is particularly
thrilling because it shows what the Members of Congress can do working
together.
Dr. Wilkerson discovered an ancient port city, El Pital, in Mexico. A
Washington Post article by Todd Robberson explained that the city
flourished between A.D. 300 and 600. Its discovery is considered to be
the most important find in Mexico in over 200 years.
A veteran of over 20 years of archaeological work in Mexico, Dr.
Wilkerson's work is supported by the National Geographic Society, the
New York-based Selz Foundation and the prestigious Mexico city-based
Group of 100 of Mexico's leading scholars.
Last fall I worked with my former constituent Dr. Wilkerson by
helping him secure a permit from the Mexican Government for his work.
He has asked that I pass along his personal thank you to all those
Members of this body who signed a Dear Colleague with me to the
President of Mexico. I want to add my personal thank you to my
colleague, the distinguished majority leader, Richard Gephardt. He and
his staff quickly joined this effort recognizing the value of Dr.
Wilkerson's work.
This story is a perfect example of how Congress works and what the
members, working together, can accomplish.
It is a proud day for all of us who helped in this effort and for Dr.
Wilkerson's mother Merna Wilkerson and his two sisters, Diana and Susan
who worked with my office. This acknowledgment would not be complete
without recognizing President Salinas of Mexico for intervening to make
certain a permit was granted. Our efforts in aiding Dr. Wilkerson, both
in the U.S. Congress and President Salinas's role have truly made it
possible to add to the world's knowledge of man. It is a job well done.
Jeff Wilkerson says, Thank you.
Both of these stories reflect the efforts of Americans making our
system work for the benefit of the public. The van owners helped one
another, and Members of Congress helped Jeff. America benefited in both
stories.
Nissan Plans to Buy Back C-22 Minivans
(By Warren Brown)
Nissan Motor Corp. U.S.A. announced an unusual offer
yesterday to buy back all 33,000 of the C-22 minivans it sold
in the United States from 1987 to 1990 because they are
vulnerable to engine fires.
It is only the second time that an auto company has
volunteered to buy back all defective vehicles in a U.S.
recall, according to federal safety officials. Nissan, which
will crush the vans, said the campaign will cost $231
million.
Owners will receive from $5,000 to $7,000 for the minivans,
which originally sold for $11,000 to $18,000. The customers
also will be offered a $500 coupon good toward the down
payment on a new or used vehicle at a Nissan dealer, the
company said.
The C-22 minivans have been recalled by Nissan four times
to fix engine problems that could lead to fires.
The most recent recall, last August, involved fan belts
that could break, eventually causing engines to overheat and
possibly burst into flame.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration did not
think the fourth recall would work any better than the
previous three efforts, and the agency was hinting that it
might try to force Nissan to take back the vehicles, a
Department of Transportation source said. That approach
worked in 1981, when Italian automaker Fiat decided to buy
back 4,000 of its 1972-74 Fiat 124 sports cars and sedans
that had severe structural rust problems.
There have been 153 Nissan minivan fires in the United
States, according to Nissan and federal safety officials. But
there have been no deaths or serious injuries related to
those incidents, company and federal officials said.
The Nissan buyback program will work this way:
An owner of 1987-90 C-22 minivan must take the vehicle and
the title to a Nissan dealer. The buyback price will be based
on retail prices listed in the January 1994 issue of the
National Automobile Dealers Association Official Used Car
Guide. Washington area residents are advised to check the
Eastern Edition of the guide.
For owners who reject the offer, Nissan said, the dealer
will reinspect their vans to ensure that the fourth recall
repair was done properly. Nissan has promised other services
to these customers, including roadside assistance, towing,
loaner car services and 100,000-mile warranties.
Fewer than 300 of the 1990 C-22 minivans were sold in the
United States and owners of those cars presumably can expect
the highest buyback prices, Nissan officials said.
In August Nissan initiated a ``cash for equivalent repair
value program.'' Under the program, C-22 minivan owners could
have chosen a recall repair or the cash value of that repair.
An estimated 1,000 C-22 minivan owners chose the cash payout.
However, the cash value of a repair is not necessarily the
same as the cash value of the minivan.
Some people who took the cash value of that repair might be
eligible for more money, Nissan spokesman Mark Adams said.
``Let's say the cash-equivalent value of the repair was
$4,000, but that the cash-value of the minivan was $6,000.
That customer would still be eligible for a $2,000 check,''
Adams said.
``There has never been a buyback program of this scope or
magnitude,'' said William A. Boehly, associate administrator
of NHTSA for enforcement. Boehly said the agency had been
monitoring Nissan's progress with the fourth recall and had
expressed to the company ``that we were hopeful that they
would take further action.''
Nissan officials said they acted because their customers
were becoming angry.
``We felt that it would be easier to keep our customers
happy than it would be to try to win them back,'' a Nissan
official said. Nissan U.S.A. vice president and general
manager Earl Hesterberg said, ``Keeping our customers
satisfied is our first priority. That's why we decided to
offer this program.''
____
[From the Washington Post, Feb. 3, 1994]
Mounds May Yield Vast Lost City
(By Tod Robberson)
El Pital, Mexico.--An American archaeologist in this remote
village on the Gulf of Mexico says that he has located the
site of an ancient port city that is believed to have
flourished more than 1,500 years ago, possibly having served
as the largest coastal urban center in North America during
its life span.
Although no ground has been broken on the 150 earthen
pyramids and other structures at the site, it already is
yielding surface artifacts and data indicating that it once
served as a key political, cultural and trading center
contemporary with the city of Teotihuacan, whose pyramids--up
to 200 feet high--still stand near present-day Mexico City.
Archaeologists long have suspected something lay under the
dense vegetation at El Pital, about 60 miles northwest of
Veracruz. Now the first scientific survey has depicted it as
a lost city whose size and coastal location help fill a
longstanding gap in the understanding of trade and migration
among pre-Columbian civilizations in this part of Mexico.
They say the site, unlike other more fortress-like inland
cities, appears to have had a distinct function as a center
of commerce and food production. This suggests the ancient
people who lived here had a more sophisticated social and
economic structure than was previously known for the time
period--at the dawn of the Mayan civilization some 500 miles
to the southeast and 1,000 years before the Aztecs built
their society around what is now Mexico City.
Thousands of people, possibly more than 20,000, may have
inhabited the city and its suburbs at its peak of activity
between A.D. 300 and 600.
In addition, scientists are investigating its probable use
as a conduit for seagoing trade with pre-Columbian Indian
civilizations as far north as the upper Mississippi River,
and they say it may have been responsible for the
introduction of crops such as corn into the north.
Archaeologists say they believe certain crops arrived in
the Mississippi Valley, along with some native rituals and
cultural practices, around the same period as when the El
Pital site flourished, but they have never been able to
determine whence they came. They say El Pital could yield
some important clues.
Preliminary data are being gathered at the site by a team
of archaeologists headed by S. Jeffrey K. Wilkerson, a
Maryland native who has lived and worked here in the Gulf
Coast state of Veracruz for more than 20 years.
``The impression we're getting is that this will turn out
to be the largest urban center on the Gulf Coast for this
time period,'' Wilkerson said while touring the site, named
after a village that now sits atop some of the ruins. ``I
think this was the major terminus of a cultural corridor
leading from Teotihuacan to the gulf. This is something of a
missing link.''
The core city, its suburbs and satellite communities
measure at least 24 miles long and 12 miles wide, with some
of its earth-and-stone pyramids reaching heights of 130 feet.
Despite its massive size, the site is virtually invisible at
ground level because of thick banana plantations and orange
groves that now cover the area.
From a nearby highway, only the tops of three or four cone-
shaped mounds are visible above the banana palms. Residents
of El Pital--including a family whose house sits atop one
earthen building--said they do not believe the mounds are
pyramids or any other type of ancient structure, but rather
are strange, natural lumps that inexplicably have shot up
from the otherwise flat coastal plain.
Wilkerson said no known geological phenomenon could have
produced the smooth faces and honed edges of the mounts.
Earth and stones--hundreds of thousands of tons--were carried
by hand to build the city, he said.
``It talks about a lot of power, power to compel people to
live in a concentrated area when the natural tendency would
be to spread out,'' he explained. ``There was the power to
compel people to move lots of earth and build all of this,
and the power to manage food production to feed everyone who
lived here. Whoever directed it may not have been very well-
liked by his people.''
Even to the untrained eye, the site's importance as a large
urban center is unmistakable. On a tour with Wilkerson amid
heavy rains, hundreds of artifact fragments, potsherds and
even slivers of human bone bubbled to the surface atop the
pyramids.
On the surface, Wilkerson's team has found scores of items,
including ceremonial sculptures, a sun-god plaque and a foot-
long, leaf-shaped flint knife possibly used for human
sacrifices. Beneath a canopy of banana palms at one section
of the site, thousands of pieces of hand-worked pottery--some
believed to date back hundreds of years before the time of
Christ--litter the ground like discarded cigarette butts
after a rock concert.
Farm tractors and an AT&T telephone crew digging in the
area also are churning up relics daily.
``For us, this is like an archaeological orgasm,'' said
Ramon Mariaca, a visiting archaeology student from Mexico
City's Iberoamerican University. ``I doubt I will ever
investigate another site like this in my lifetime.''
According to Wilkerson, preliminary studies indicate a
2,500- to 3,000-year human chronology around El Pital.
Located nine miles west of the Gulf of Mexico, El Pital is
directly linked to the ocean by two slow-moving rivers, the
Tres Bocas to the north and the Nautla to the south,
perfectly situating it for waterborne commerce along the Gulf
Coast.
To test his theory that it served as an ancient port,
Wilkerson traveled both rivers by raft and said they were
easily navigable with oars in both directions. He described
``gateway structures'' at strategic junctures along both
rivers that could have served as toll stations or other
control points for boat traffic serving the city.
``You didn't even need to walk to it. You could take your
canoe right up to the site,'' he said. ``It is quite possible
the city controlled coastal trade at a time we know the
Mesoamerican civilization was reaching its zenith,'' said
George Stuart, director of archaeological projects at the
National Geographic Society in Washington. ``Any time you
find a huge ruin, unknown and undug, it adds another part to
the larger mosaic. This is of far more than routine
importance.''
National Geographic, the New York-based Selz Foundation and
the Mexico City-based Group of 100 have provided funding and
support for Wilkerson's work, which he is conducting under
authorization from the Mexican government's National
Institute of Anthropology and History.
Wilkerson received permission from the Mexican institute to
investigate El Pital only after a long controversy in 1992
that led to his expulsion from another archaeological site
farther inland along the Nautla River. Supporters of
Wilkerson had accused the Mexican institute of plagiarizing
his work and distributing confidential information he had
submitted as part of an application to investigate the
previous site.
The controversy occurred just as Mexico was launching its
lobbying campaign for U.S. congressional ratification of the
North American Free Trade Agreement, and it prompted an
outcry from members of Congress who claimed that Mexico could
not be trusted to safeguard intelligence property rights.
President Carlos Salinas de Gortari intervened and ordered
the institute to grant Wilkerson a permit. But instead of
giving him access to his original site, it assigned him to
the area of El Pital, which was not regarded as having major
archaeological significance.
Wilkerson said he knew as far back as the 1960s that some
ancient mounds existed at El Pital, but he was unaware of its
full significance when the Mexican government assigned him
the site until he began surveying the extent of the ruins.
``Did I know that it was this large, this extensive, this
important? No, absolutely not,'' he said.
Wilkerson said El Pital almost certainly predated the gulf
region's other major pre-Columbian city at El Tajin, 36 miles
inland to the north, and ``smothered it'' in terms of size
and geographical importance.
Although El Pital was contemporary with early Maya cities
500 miles to the east, the inhabitants of El Pital probably
were not Mayan, Wilkerson said. No conclusive data have
surfaced to pinpoint their ethnicity, but evidence exists
they were indigenous speakers of the Huastec language or
migrants speaking the Nahua language commonly found in the
civilization of Teotihuacan.
El Pital also appears to have been contemporary with
Teotihuacan, which arose early in the 1st millenium and
dominated the Valley of Mexico for roughly 750 years.
Aside from the rich archaeological yield expected from the
study of El Pital, scientists said they hope to answer
another critical question: Why would a site of such
importance fade out of existence the way it did?
Wilkerson and Betty J. Meggers, head of the Latin America
archaeology section at the Smithsonian Institution, are
investigating the possibility that a catastrophic series of
floods led to the city's downfall.
Meggers is studying archaeological effects of ``El Nino,''
the periodic, violent weather fluctuation brought about by
sudden shifts of warm water currents into the eastern Pacific
Ocean that can cause heavy flooding. She hopes to investigate
El Pital as part of a study of a phenomenon called ``mega-
Nino,'' which theoretically occurs every 500 years and can
disrupt weather patterns for decades.
Wilkerson said an ability to pinpoint a mega-Nino can help
scientists predict the arrival of future cycles. ``This is
what I feel is of major importance about the site, that the
past tells us about the present,'' he said.
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