Claire McCaskill

You have the Wage Determination Online. You guys host the wagedeterminationsonline.gov site for the Department of Labor.

The legislation that you, Senator Coburn, and others have recently introduced aimed at streamlining the collection and distribution of government information can provide an important vehicle for reassessing this model.

This hearing will come to order.

You kind of went out of your way to conclude that GM did not put cost over safety as it related to this defect.

That's not attorney-client. Attorney-client would be the discussions between you and your lawyer.

I believe her, but there's a disconnect here again, because if, in fact, your company has decided this report is factual, that Mr. Valukas did a good job of ferreting out all the facts, then why in the world wouldn't you save time in the…

We all want General Motors to succeed. There's no one in Congress that doesn't.

So macro cost-cutting could have been part of the influence, but you found no smoking gun in evidentiary documents that would indicate this was actually being discussed.

I think the security function is a little different than----

It's a weird deal. They work at GM, they work only for GM, but they're not GM employees?

The facts will be the facts.

It seems hollow, I think, to many of these victims' families that just because their loved one was at a certain age or at a certain income level, General Motors will really never feel the brunt of what punitive damages are designed to do.

The failure of his legal department is stunning.

It's really a difficult, gut-wrenching choice for a lawyer, though, which I know you appreciate based on your background.

I think there has been a blind spot here, I really do.

You have a legal obligation as General Counsel to report material events and liabilities to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Punitive damages in our system are designed to punish corporations or people for conduct that is outrageous and egregious.

I just wish that we could leave this open longer so there would be time for that issue to be litigated.

I want to make sure that everyone's clear that even if your airbag did deploy, it could depend on the facts of your case.

So what you're saying is if the pretensioners are working, that is an indication that there was not a shutdown of the electrical system or the power system that would have prevented the airbags from deploying.

So, let me make sure I understand. If the airbag did not deploy, you are eligible if you are in one of the cars on the list.

So if the airbags didn't deploy but should have, if there's any evidence that the seat belt pretensioners worked as designed, under your protocol the victim is not eligible?

Did General Motors lay out any limitations on the program's scope?

I see it as a good sign.

I felt like I was back in school studying, cross-referencing, going to the acronym table.