The Bush adminstration's bad acts continue to be revealed. Bloomberg reports today that many of the regulators in the US National Highway Traffic Safety Adminstration ("NHTSA") who stopped earlier investigations by the agency into Toyota problems ended up being hired by Toyota after they left government. The revolving door.
Former regulators hired by Toyota Motor Corp. helped end at least four U.S. investigations of unintended acceleration by company vehicles in the last decade, warding off possible recalls, court and government records show.
Joan Claybrook, an auto safety advocate who was head of NHTSA under Jimmy Carter blasted both Toyota and NHTSA:
"Toyota bamboozled NHTSA or NHTSA was bamboozled by itself.... I think there is going to be a lot of heat on NHTSA over this."
Regulators Hired by Toyota Helped Halt Investigations (Update2)
More, after the fold.
Christopher Tinto, vice president of regulatory affairs in Toyota’s Washington office, and Christopher Santucci, who works for Tinto, helped persuade the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to end probes including those of 2002-2003 Toyota Camrys and Solaras, court documents show. Both men joined Toyota directly from NHTSA, Tinto in 1994 and Santucci in 2003.
Bloomberg
People may be cynical and may think this is just standard practice by auto companies. Hire these regulators after they leave government to deal with NHTSA. It's apparently not:
While all automakers have employees who handle NHTSA issues, Toyota may be alone among the major companies in employing former agency staffers to do so. Spokesmen for General Motors Co., Ford Motor Co., Chrysler Group LLC and Honda Motor Co. all say their companies have no ex-NHTSA people who deal with the agency on defects.
Bloomberg
Just more left over from the Bush adminstration. When you know you can get a job afterward with an industry you regulate, even the most scrupuously ethical may become subtly biased. And the Bush adminstration was not known for hiring the most scrupuoulsy honest and ethical.
There is a lot more to this, more details, in the article in Bloomberg here.