[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 7]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page 10004]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




   THE DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION AND THE NATIONAL HIGHWAY SAFETY 
                             ADMINISTRATION

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. VIRGINIA FOXX

                           of north carolina

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, June 18, 2015

  Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, the Department of Transportation and the 
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) recently 
announced a sweeping recall that encourages consumers to replace 
airbags installed in millions of vehicles on the roads of our nation.
  The companies that manufacture the parts that go into the vehicles 
American families use in their daily lives have a responsibility to 
ensure their products meet the highest possible standards. Americans 
deserve the confidence of knowing safety features will perform their 
mission effectively.
  Government, for its part, also has a responsibility. Its job is to 
ensure there is accountability in the development and implementation of 
these mechanisms, and to apply the laws of our country fairly and 
judiciously in carrying out its mandate.
  As the recall is implemented, the safety of American drivers and 
passengers must be our highest priority. We must ensure there is 
accountability for failures in the system. But we also must ensure that 
the recall process does not devolve into a scorched-earth campaign that 
wrecks a vital industry, destroys jobs, and ultimately makes Americans 
less safe.
  The loss of any life in conjunction with a product failure is tragic 
and unacceptable. As a representative of TK Holdings stated in recent 
testimony before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, ``it is 
unacceptable to us and incompatible with our safety mission for even 
one of our products to fail to perform as intended and to put people at 
risk.''
  This is a higher standard than the federal government itself embraced 
nearly a quarter-century ago, when it mandated that all cars and light 
trucks sold in the United States be equipped with self-deploying 
driver-side airbags.
  The federal airbag mandate was adopted by Congress in 1991 amid 
concerns by some experts that the airbags themselves could pose a 
danger to drivers and passengers in certain situations. Our colleagues, 
who authored the law, were aware of these concerns, but determined that 
the benefits far outweighed the risks.
  Over time, their assessment has been proven correct. Thousands of 
lives have been saved by the presence of airbags as a standard feature 
in our vehicles.
  Every life is precious. And the reality is that millions of airbags 
and other safety products produced by Takata--including those made by 
the many hard-working Americans employed by the company and its 
subsidiaries here in the United States--have inflated successfully and 
worked as intended. Thousands of Americans owe their lives to this 
success.
  Correcting the problems identified with some of the airbags produced 
by Takata starts with recognizing this, and acknowledging the need for 
prudence in the manner in which the federal government responds to the 
problems that have been brought tragically to light.
  We also should recognize that, in thinking about safety, we need to 
look beyond airbags to the broader question of how to protect drivers 
on the road and how to encourage them to drive more safely. As NHTSA 
itself recently recognized, ``[o]nly a small percentage (approximately 
2%) of the annual highway fatalities is directly attributable to 
vehicle factors (some design issues, some owner maintenance issues, 
some defect issues). Rather, 94 percent of highway fatalities are 
related to various human factors, including driver actions, such as 
speeding, distraction, impaired driving, and not wearing a seatbelt.''
  No one questions the need for accountability in this case. My concern 
is with potential unintended effects of going too far in an effort to 
ensure accountability, as well as potentially getting distracted from 
the larger issue of how to encourage our constituents to drive more 
safely and responsibly.
  In this instance, pushing Takata too hard financially, for example, 
will not save a single American life. To the contrary, it will make it 
harder to ensure safe airbags are installed in every vehicle that needs 
one and potentially put lives at risk. Moreover, doing so could 
significantly disrupt the auto sector, which depends on the company for 
airbags, seat belts, and other safety features that are essential for 
protecting lives.
  Let me put this in perspective.
  Takata's Highland Industries, headquartered in Kernersville, North 
Carolina, in my congressional district, is one of the largest suppliers 
of fabric for the North American airbag market. My talented, hard-
working constituents at Highland Industries take pride in their work, 
which has played a direct role over the years in saving thousands of 
American lives. In addition to helping save the lives of individuals in 
an accident, they produced the fabrics that have safely gotten 
astronauts into space, including to the moon and back. Indeed, the flag 
planted on the moon is made of fabric that was produced by these hard-
working Americans in my congressional district.
  Destroying the jobs of my constituents in the name of safety will not 
make American drivers and passengers safer. It will ultimately make 
them less safe.
  We all mourn the American citizens who lost their lives tragically in 
accidents in which an airbag did not perform as intended. Their legacy 
should be a better and stronger system of airbag safety in the United 
States, through the development of even more advanced airbags and other 
safety features. We owe it to their families to put political agendas 
and posturing aside and work together to achieve that goal.

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