Richard Blumenthal

Would you agree with me that there is more than sufficient reason to believe that NHTSA was not furnished with enough information by the auto manufacturers about these defective products?

I want to know that you will recommend to the Secretary of Transportation that you will order the automobile manufacturers to use replacement parts.

What steps have you taken to improve the assembly of the inflator?

I hope you will cooperate.

I hope you won't take anything I am going to say personally.

I take your comments about going after the automobile manufacturers and pushing them.

I hope that your companies will join in supporting the legislation that I have introduced, sunshine-in-litigation legislation, that would prevent these kinds of settlements that contributed to the problem.

The details were. And the devil and the death was in the details here. Don't you agree?

Takata does not require all of its inflators to pass USCAR-24 specifications.

Well, don't you agree, as the current acting administrator, that $35 million, $300 million, may be inadequate for some cases, as this one, where people have died as a result of failing to report sufficient information?

You have the power to order them to break exclusivity agreements, to share proprietary information.

My time has expired, but I just want to finish by making the request that, by the beginning of next week, you come back to this committee in writing, after consulting with the Secretary, about how quickly you will have a determination as…

I am also calling on the Secretary of Transportation to immediately accelerate the replacement process, looking forward.

NHTSA is far too important for that to happen, and I want to work with NHTSA and my colleagues on solutions to that.

I am very troubled by the New York Times article that alleges that there may have been a cover-up.

If that information had been made public, more people would know about this deadly defective airbag and fewer people would have been killed.

Today, I am proud to stand with Senator Thune, Senator Nelson, and Senator McCaskill on introducing legislation that would bring this information forward faster by rewarding whistleblowers.

I have called on the President to do this for months now. We will review this nominee.

They are in your doors. They are using your services and they are committing suicide at a higher rate.

I do not know what more to say because my time has expired.

For every veteran suffering from this despondency, despair, depression, every day is like a lifetime.

I want to pursue the line of questioning that Senator Johanns began because I think it is absolutely critical.

We need to do more to try to prevent those wait times, increase the quality of care.

The focus should be on improving mental health.

The experience each of us has had with these problems has been heart-breaking and riveting.