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Lawmakers focus on Toyota despite GM recall

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As Congress held its third set of hearings on the Toyota recall Tuesday, the General Motors recall of 1.3 million vehicles went largely unnoticed on Capitol Hill.

GM recalled several Chevy and Pontiac models after receiving more than 1,000 complaints of failed power steering at low speeds.

Asked whether the GM recall merits an investigation, Lauren Bean, spokesman for Congressman Burgess, the ranking Republican on the Oversight Subcommittee under the House Energy and Commerce Committe, said: “I think my boss would hope so.”

“This is the same thing we’re having hearings about now with Toyota — it seems like the right thing to do would be to investigate,” Bean said.

A spokesman for Rep. Darrell Issa, California Republican and ranking member on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform disagreed.

“GM and Toyota are two totally different issues,” said Kurt Bardella. “The issue with Toyota was whether or not the regulators ignored issues and repeated complaints. GM voluntarily issued a recall today, and there has been no evidence of cover-ups or wrongdoing,”

“If something like that were to surface we would certainly look into it,” he said. “What GM did today was perfectly fine,” Bardella said.

The House Oversight committee last week received testimony from Toyota president Akio Toyoda and investigations are ongoing. Toyota was accused of being slow to address complaints.

Congress today took testimony from Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, who said he was considering mandating new braking technology that would override the type of unintentional acceleration that has occurred in many Toyota models.

Meanwhile, the main House Oversight Committee said it has plans to continue its investigation into the mishandling of the Toyota acceleration issue.

“We want NHTSA officials and former Bush administration officials who were in office when many decisions on Toyota were made, to come before us, among others,” Bardella said.

No one gave any indication that GM would become a target of investigation.



Contact Aleksandra at: ak[at]dailycaller[dot]com.