HispanicBusiness

A House committee Wednesday morning unveiled a report raising questions about a federal agency's timing in releasing information about a fire in a Chevrolet Volt.

The report from the House Oversight Committee comes as a subcommittee holds a hearing this morning on the subject of the Volt fires and the surrounding investigation. General Motors CEO Dan Akerson is among those set to testify.

"The delayed public notification of serious safety concerns relating to the Chevy Volt raises significant concerns regarding the unnatural relationship between General Motors (GM), Chrysler and the Obama Administration," the report said.

As the subcommittee hearing got under way, Rep. Mike Kelly, a Pennsylvania Republican and auto dealer, blamed what he considered "a lack of trust" on NHTSA, saying GM acted appropriately but only after the agency informed it of the Volt fire that occurred three weeks after it was crash tested.

"I have no problem with General Motors because General Motors acted very quickly once your agency let them know what happened," Kelly said. "This happened to a car you folks tested. Whose best interest were you acting in? It certainly wasn't the American public."

Kelly noted that Bloomberg News -- not NHTSA -- first reported the fire in November.

In response, NHTSA Administrator David Strickland said his agency acted on the data it found -- and there were no real-world incidents it found like the one in the crash-tested vehicle. He said the agency acted out of an abundance of caution to protect the public by opening the investigation, not the opposite.

U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan, the Ohio Republican who chairs the subcommittee, peppered Strickland with questions, demanding to know why he didn't disclose the fact of the June fire when safety concerns about the Volt were raised with him during an October hearing.

"Why didn't you tell us?" he asked.

But Strickland said there simply wasn't a conclusion to be made at that point and that it takes months for his agency to gather enough data to determine if a formal investigation should be opened. In this case, that didn't happen until another fire occurred.

"We were still in the process of figuring out the root cause," Strickland said, in some cases struggling to get his answer out as the chairman interrupted with more questioning. "It was six months of preliminary fact finding for us to get to the point where we thought we should open a formal investigation."

The agency had a difficult time re-creating the fire and determining its cause, which turned out to be leakage from the battery compartment. GM has since announced retrofits and changes that are intended to ensure it doesn't happen again, even in severe crashes like those NHTSA uses to test vehicles.

Strickland said his agency is under strict rules, however, not to "disclose anything to the public" until there is a finding that it represents "a reasonable risk to safety." He said his agency receives more than 40,000 safety complaints a year.

But Kelly, the Pennsylvania Republican, said his concern is about the taxpayer funding for GM and federal and state subsidies for people who buy the vehicle and whether that played a role in slow-pedaling the facts of the fire.

"It comes down to taxpayer dollars being used to subsidize a product," Kelly said. "Your agency dropped the ball on this, sir."

President Obama ran GM and Chrysler through structured bankruptcies as part of a government investment to prop up the companies. The report by committee staff raised questions about the release of information about a fire last June a crash-tested Volt five months after the incident -- timing which the report said coincided with the administration's unveiling new, higher fuel economy standards for autos.

"Clearly, it would be inappropriate if NHTSA (the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) had stayed silent on the Volt battery's safety risks in exchange for GM's cooperation on the rule-making," the report said, referring to the new fuel standards.

NHTSA opened a formal investigation following another fire in a crash-tested Volt but has since closed it, after GM took steps to reduce the likelihood of future fires by improving on the safety design around the hybrid electric car's lithium ion battery.

"No driver has experienced such an incident under real world conditions," Akerson said in prepared testimony. "Throughout the first 11 months of 2011, Volt owners accumulated more than 20 million miles without any incident similar to NHTSA's test results."

"The Volt is safe," he added. "It's a marvelous machine."

The report can be read here: http://oversight.house.gov/images/stories/Reports/OGR_Staff_Report_-_Volt_Batt ery_Fire_-_Updated.pdf