Toyota probe fueled by politics as well as safety, critics say

[celeb_2006]

Toyota Probe Fueled by Politics as Well as Safety, Critics Say - Bloomberg.com

Feb. 23 (Bloomberg) -- “Gangster government targets Toyota,” said the headline on a Washington Examiner editorial.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood was behaving like “one of the brand managers” for General Motors Co. and Chrysler Group LLC, “running around ripping Toyota to shreds,” Rush Limbaugh said on his radio show.

The governors of four states with Toyota plants wrote to House lawmakers to complain about the federal government’s “disturbing statements and hasty actions.”

For some critics, U.S. scrutiny of Toyota Motor Corp.’s handling of vehicle defects is motivated by more than safety concerns. They say the government may be beating up on Toyota partly because of the federal stakes in GM and Chrysler.

“Here’s another reason you don’t want the government in the car business,” Indiana Republican Mitch Daniels, one of the governors who signed the protesting letter, said in an interview. “It sure has given every impression of the government discriminating against its direct competitor.”

The U.S. owns 61 percent of Detroit-based GM, the biggest U.S. car company, after bailing out the automaker with $49.9 billion in aid. Auburn Hills, Michigan-based Chrysler received $14.3 billion, giving the U.S. a 10 percent stake.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, part of the Transportation Department, is investigating reports of unintended acceleration and brake problems in Toyota cars and trucks that have caused the recall of more than 8 million vehicles on five continents.

Three Hearings

The Toyota probe takes center stage in Washington today, with the first of three scheduled congressional hearings. The House Energy and Commerce Committee, headed by California Democrat Henry Waxman, holds today’s session. LaHood and Jim Lentz, Toyota’s U.S. sales unit president, are among the scheduled witnesses.

Akio Toyoda, president of Toyota City, Japan-based Toyota, which last year passed GM as the world’s biggest automaker, is due to testify tomorrow before a separate House committee. A Senate panel will have a hearing on March 2.

Critics may be justified in wondering about the politics behind the controversy, said Chester Spatt, a finance professor at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh and a former chief economist for the Securities and Exchange Commission.

“There’s definitely a problem,” Spatt said in an interview. “In a private context, people would be talking about all kinds of conflicts.”

Administration officials dismiss the notion that the government’s stakes in GM and Chrysler are influencing the investigation.

Safety Only

“We take auto safety very seriously and base all decisions for investigations on the merits of the data regardless of who manufactures the vehicle,” LaHood spokeswoman Olivia Alair said in an e-mail responding to the conflict-of-interest suggestions. Of the agency’s 44 open investigations, 39 involve automakers other than Toyota, she said.

Bill Burton, the White House deputy press secretary, and Meg Reilly, a spokeswoman for the Treasury Department officials who oversee the GM and Chrysler stakes, also said the ownership issue plays no role in the investigation.

The U.S. can juggle its interests, particularly considering that the GM and Chrysler stakes don’t give it the kind of economic motivations that a private owner would have, said Julian Zelizer, a Princeton University professor of history and public affairs in Princeton, New Jersey.

The government “took over GM not simply as a business venture, but to shore up the economy,” Zelizer said. “A lot of Toyota is in the U.S. now. They want Toyota to be healthy as well.”

‘Witch Hunting’

Toyota defenders see cause for concern. In their Feb. 10 letter to Waxman and three other members of the House committees holding hearings, the governors of Kentucky, Indiana, Mississippi and Alabama said the federal government has an “obvious conflict.”

“There seems to be a degree of witch-hunting,” Indiana’s Daniels said in the interview.

Members of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and United Auto Workers union protested Jan. 27 outside Japan’s embassy in Washington, calling Toyota a “danger to America.” The demonstrators chanted that the company took U.S. money in the so-called cash for clunkers rebate program while producing “damaged cars.”

“Certainly the labor unions would love to have the non- unionized Toyota be over-enforced,” Representative Darrell Issa, a California Republican, said in an interview. “But it’s really their turn in the barrel,” he said of Toyota.

Ford Scrutiny

Issa, the senior Republican on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which holds tomorrow’s hearing, said Ford Motor Co. “was just as much in scrutiny” for defects about a decade ago.

George Lusby, county executive for Scott County, Kentucky, where Toyota has a plant that had to halt production because of a sales decline linked to the recalls, said past government responses to defects by automakers including Ford were more subdued.

“All of a sudden a Japanese company is having a problem, and it’s like this thing is the most dangerous thing that ever was,” Lusby said in an interview.

The Washington Examiner, a free daily newspaper in the nation’s capital, weighed in with its “gangster government” editorial on Feb. 4, taking lawmakers and “a chorus of Naderite auto safety nannies” to task.

Founded by Anschutz

The newspaper was founded by Denver billionaire Philip Anschutz, who has contributed almost $150,000 to Republican candidates and state or national organizations since 2008, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington group that monitors campaign finance.

Radio host Limbaugh said GM and Chrysler are “essentially owned by Obama, owned by the federal government,” according to the Feb. 4 page for his show’s Web site. “So here’s one of the branch managers, Ray LaHood, running around ripping Toyota to shreds.”

Japanese media also have voiced suspicions. In a Feb. 5 commentary, the Nikkei, Japan’s top-selling financial newspaper, said U.S. elections coming in November may have contributed to the government and Congress taking “a hard-line stance” on Toyota.

“The fact that the Japanese auto giant has sharply increased its market share in the U.S., while General Motors and Chrysler headed for bankruptcy, provoked a strong reaction to its vehicle problems,” the Nikkei said.

‘Protectionist’ Policies

“It appears that the U.S. is moving toward more protectionist trade policies,” Junko Nishioka, chief economist at RBS Securities Japan Ltd. in Tokyo, said in an interview. “My hope is that Toyota’s recalls won’t accelerate that trend and make the U.S. more defensive.”

Before the recall controversy, Toyota indicated it was cognizant of a “changing political environment” in the U.S., according to a company document dated last July on operations of the automaker’s Washington office.

The document, as provided to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, listed an “Activist Administration & Congress” and “Massive government support for Detroit automakers” as “Toyota Challenges.”

“We’re focused on upcoming hearings,” said Ed Lewis, a Toyota spokesman in Washington, when asked whether a conflict of interest may be influencing the investigation.

‘Calmer Heads’

“We need to let calmer heads prevail,” said Representative Shelley Moore Capito, a West Virginia Republican whose district has a Toyota engine and transmission plant.

“I don’t think it serves anybody to unreasonably gang up on Toyota and try to take them down for other reasons, besides the fact of getting the straight information out,” Capito said in an interview.

“The Toyota that I know is a high-quality, good-paying company,” she said. “Obviously there is a problem, and they’re trying to fix it.”

[Grimmlok]

I always thought this recall thing was a huge overblown ridiculous deal.. how many recalls have shitty american car companies had in the last 10 years alone? Dozens!

Now toyota has ONE and everybody is losing their minds?

[gas_chick]

Obvious campaign by Chrysler and the lot to make Toyota look like shit.

[Just Kill Me]

Houston News - Wild Rides - page 1

Fatal Houston crash leads to lawsuit against Toyota | Houston & Texas News | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle

Regarding the California trooper Toyota refused to acknowledge the problem with the vehicle which is why legal action is being taken.

Ford has trucks that will set your garage on fire.

Toyota has majorly fucked up here, it is way more than a "oh it's the floormat" thing.

[Grimmlok]

so it's not the floormat?

[McJag]

I always thought this recall thing was a huge overblown ridiculous deal.. how many recalls have shitty american car companies had in the last 10 years alone? Dozens!

Now toyota has ONE and everybody is losing their minds?

Grimm, this one is far more serious. One car here with 4 adults having just left church, went into a pond at a high rate of speed. None survived. Toyota has now been caught red handed bragging about the money they saved by not fixing it properly. If you drive a Toyota with a push button starter, you are at risk. This is a biggie.
Oh-not floormat at all. The car in the pond here was found to have the floormat neatly rolled up-in the trunk.

[Brookie]

Oh gee, and here I thought the Toyota probe was fueled by owners and their passengers being maimed, injured and killed by the vehicles the company sells. Excuse me.

[MohandasKGanja]

I always wondered what was in those free "Washington Examiner" newspapers that they keep leaving at the end of my driveway (shrink-wrapped in plastic that is too much trouble to open). A BestBuy advertisement looks more substantial.

[B.C.]

So far, Toyota has recalled 7.475 million vehicles for supposed sticky pedals and floor mats. But those vehicles - and millions more on the road - have the electronic throttle control system at issue in the company's own report in 2005.

Docs: Toyota Surges Related to Electronics - CBS News

In a CBS News exclusive, Sharyl Attkison reports that some of Toyota's surging vehicles were due to computer/electronic issues - something the company has known since 2005 and publicly denied..

Did Toyota Hide Problem? - CBS News Video

[greysfang]

So Toyota is starting to spin to counteract the gubment's posturing. The gubment will lose because Toyota has way more money to waste on this bs.

[kingcap72]

Everything in Washington is fueled by politics.

[Brookie]

It's the electronics, stupid.

Japanese auto makers are notorious for telling you only half the story about anything they're working on or anything they've done, and they'll only tell you what they want you to know. They will do ANYTHING to save face - including lying to their customers and the US Government. [/Ford retiree]

[B.C.]

Everything in Washington is fueled by politics.

The Toyota vehicles are fueled by a faulty throttle, no if's ands or buts about that, they built them. Time for Toyota to man up, stop lying, and blaming anyone but themselves.

[Brookie]

The Toyota vehicles are fueled by a faulty throttle, no if's ands or buts about that, they built them. Time for Toyota to man up, stop lying, and blaming anyone but themselves.

Zackly. They're starting to resemble the Russian Olympic athletes.

"WAAAAAAAAAA! I di'int do nuffin'! THEY did it!! WAAAAAAA!"

[kingcap72]

The Toyota vehicles are fueled by a faulty throttle, no if's ands or buts about that, they built them. Time for Toyota to man up, stop lying, and blaming anyone but themselves.

I'm not defending Toyota or their shitty cars. My point was that everything in Washington is fueled by politics or has some political element/angle to it. That's just the way things have been for years.