Feb
18
Written by:
Brian
2/18/2010 6:27 AM
FEBRUARY 17, 2010, 10:05 P.M. ET
Politicians Rally to Toyota's Side
Lawmakers Worried About Jobs Wonder Whether U.S. Is Being Overzealous
By NEIL KING JR.
Nearly 1,900 people work at the Toyota Motor Corp. truck factory that skirts Rep. Henry Cuellar's district in South Texas. The San Antonio Democrat also sits on a House committee that is digging into the car maker's safety problems, with hearings planned for next week.
All of which explains why Texas Gov. Rick Perry called Mr. Cuellar last week to put in a plug for Toyota.
"He said, 'Hey, Henry, will you please look at the other side of the issue? They have been a good company...Let's not pummel Toyota,"' Mr. Cuellar said of the conversation, which Gov. Perry's office confirmed.
Toyota's travails are raising similar calls for restraint elsewhere as lawmakers fret over potential job losses and defend the Japanese car maker against what some see as unfair scrutiny from U.S. regulators.
A number of prominent Republicans are going so far as to question the motives surrounding the federal safety probe. In a sign of how much the political landscape has shifted since the Japan-bashing of 20 years ago, a group of governors are siding with Toyota in the safety probe, while subtly jabbing at the safety records of U.S. car companies.
Their stance reflects lingering unease among conservatives over the government ownership stakes in General Motors Co. and Chrysler Group LLC, but also how entrenched foreign-owned car makers now are in much of the heartland.
Governors Mitch Daniels of Indiana, Haley Barbour of Mississippi, Steve Beshear of Kentucky and Bob Riley of Alabama—all Republicans—jumped into the fray with a letter last week to key congressional chairmen.
In the letter, sent to the heads of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce as well as the House oversight committee, the governors described Toyota as a victim of an overly aggressive press and said the company had responded to its safety problems in a more "emphatic manner" than any other car company under scrutiny by the Department of Transportation.
The governors then questioned whether federal regulators could be fair toward Toyota, considering the government's "obvious conflict of interest because of its huge financial stakes" in GM and Chrysler.
Mr. Daniels "was making an appeal for basic fairness," said the governor's spokeswoman.
Gov. Perry sent his own letter Tuesday to Rep. Joe Barton, a fellow Texan and the ranking Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which plans to hold Toyota hearings Tuesday. Gov. Perry lamented that "negative news [on Toyota] is being encouraged by plaintiffs' trial lawyers, union activists and those interested in cutting into Toyota's market share."
Administration officials reject the suggestion there is any conflict in their oversight of Toyota. "We take auto safety very seriously and base all decisions for investigations on the merits of the data regardless of who manufactures the vehicle," said Olivia Alair, spokeswoman for Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood.
Toyota has major car-assembly and engine plants in Indiana, Kentucky, Alabama and Texas, as well as in West Virginia, employing close to 18,000 people combined. The company has temporarily halted a $1.3 billion Prius factory in Mississippi that is meant to employ 2,000 workers.
U.S. Toyota officials insist they had no hand in the governors' missive, but they did applaud it afterward. Toyota officials also have been reaching out to lawmakers like Mr. Cuellar, who are worried that a sustained dent to Toyota's reputation could hurt jobs in their districts.
"I am concerned about the safety issue but at the same time I want to make sure that we balance this with jobs at a company that's been good for the United States," said Mr. Cuellar, the lone Texan on the House oversight committee, which plans to take on the Toyota recalls at a hearing Wednesday.
In Japan, some Toyota executives have privately questioned whether the U.S. government's majority ownership of GM has colored the Toyota investigation. GM is Toyota's largest competitor, both in the U.S. and overseas. One senior Japanese auto executive in the U.S. described the probe as "60% political," and asked whether federal regulators were "trying to help GM by vilifying Toyota."
Toyota's troubles have caused discomfort in congressional offices with ties to the auto maker. When Ford Motor Co. was embroiled in a recall furor a decade ago over Explorer rollovers, the Senate Commerce Committee—then chaired by Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain—swiftly launched an investigation and called top Ford executives to testify.
The current committee chairman, West Virginia Sen. Jay Rockefeller, has proceeded more cautiously in the case of Toyota, a company he spent years luring to his state. The auto giant has invested over $1 billion in West Virginia since 1995, and employs almost 1,200 people. The Democratic senator has a page on his Web site devoted to Toyota's role in the state.
The committee's staff is now gathering materials on safety complaints from both Toyota and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Sen. Rockefeller plans to hold a hearing on the matter March 2.
In a statement, his office said the senator's "primary focus has been on passenger safety and how well our monitoring and recall procedures work to protect passengers." At the same time, the statement praised how Toyota was "making every effort to minimize the impact on its U.S. work force."
—Norihiko Shirouzu contributed to this article.
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