"Senators Take Auto Agency to Task Over G.M. Recall",

The nation’s top auto regulator faced withering criticism across Capitol Hill on Tuesday over its failure to identify a deadly defect in General Motors cars — even as its top official tried again and again to shift the blame back to the automaker...Lawmakers from both parties accused the agency, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, of overlooking evidence that could have saved lives and of deferring to the auto industry rather than standing up to it...The agency was ”more interested in singing ‘Kumbaya’ with the manufacturers than being a cop on the beat,” said Senator Claire McCaskill, the subcommittee’s chairwoman...[Senators said] that the agency failed to use its full authority over automakers and that it did not figure out defect trends that consumers themselves had alerted the agency to...“You want to obfuscate responsibility, rather than take responsibility,” Ms. McCaskill, a Missouri Democrat, said, her voice rising. “We’ve all said shame on G.M.” She added, “You’ve got to take some responsibility that this isn’t being handled correctly.”...The hearing was held on the same day that a House committee released its own report scrutinizing the agency’s performance on the G.M. ignition issue. That inquiry found many of the same problems for which Mr. Friedman chastised G.M., including that the safety agency repeatedly overlooked information that would have allowed it to detect the ignition flaw as early as 2007.