{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.mccaskill.senate.gov/media-center/latest-headlines/auto-safety-nominee-wants-finer-data-tools", "Auto Safety Nominee Wants Finer Data Tools", "2014-12-03", "2014", "2014-12", "Democrat", "House", "MO", "Claire McCaskill", "M001170", "www.mccaskill.senate.gov", null, null, "legacy", "Auto Safety Nominee Wants Finer Data Tools \r\n                \r\n            \r\n            \r\n                Wednesday, December 3, 2014\r\n            \r\n            \n\t\n\r\n            \r\n            \r\n                  \r\n                    By:\u00a0\r\n                    Matthew L. Wald\r\n                \r\n            \r\n            \r\n                \r\n                \r\n                \r\n            WASHINGTON \u2014 President Obama\u2019s choice to lead the nation\u2019s top auto safety agency told a Senate committee on Wednesday that the agency, long criticized for failing to spot defects in cars, now faces so many consumer complaints that it has trouble keeping up.\r\n\u201cWe\u2019re not even talking about connecting the dots, we\u2019re just talking about the overload of having that many,\u201d said Mark R. Rosekind, at a confirmation hearing before the Senate Commerce Committee. The number of annual complaints made to the\u00a0National Highway Traffic Safety Administration\u00a0has recently jumped to 75,000 from 45,000, or about 60 percent, he said, with only nine people to analyze them. And there are only 16 field investigators, he said.\r\nBut Dr. Rosekind added that the problem was not just the number of data analysts, and he pointed to other industries that may offer innovative ways to interpret the data. For example, he said that aerospace and\u00a0food safety\u00a0organizations have well-developed ways for spotting problems among masses of data; government needs to take advantage of advanced technology like that, he said.\r\nDr. Rosekind\u2019s nomination comes at a time of uncertainty and turmoil at the agency, which has been without a permanent leader for nearly a year. The safety agency faces an internal review of its operations by the Transportation Department, its parent agency, as well as an investigation by that department\u2019s inspector general.\r\nAt the same time, the auto industry has increasingly become engulfed in a safety crisis, spurred by revelations that General Motors failed for more than a decade to a disclose a dangerous defect in millions of older cars that it has now linked to 36 deaths. More than 50 million vehicles \u2014 a record number \u2014 have been recalled in the United States this year.\r\nDr. Rosekind, a psychologist who is a member of the National Transportation Safety Board, which analyzes accidents and makes recommendations, received a mostly friendly response from both Democrats and Republicans.\r\nBut several lawmakers took the opportunity to urge Dr. Rosekind, if he is confirmed, to take a harder line with automakers and their suppliers.\r\n\u201cThese companies are way more afraid of a civil lawsuit than they are of N.H.T.S.A,\u201d said Senator Claire McCaskill, the Missouri Democrat who presided over the hearing. \u201cI think it\u2019s really important that you keep that at the top of your list in terms of priorities. If you are not feared and respected, then you cannot do a good job.\u201d\r\nShe added, \u201cI don\u2019t think N.H.T.S.A. is either feared or respected at this point.\u201d\r\nShe pointed to the refusal of the Takata Corporation, an airbag manufacturer, to expand a recall that has been limited to certain geographic areas to the rest of the nation, despite the urgings of the safety agency.\r\nWhile there was no apparent opposition to Dr. Rosekind\u2019s nomination, it was not clear whether the Senate would act before the session ends. But the ranking Republican member of the committee, John Thune of South Dakota, reiterated his criticism of the White House for leaving the post vacant for so long.\r\nThe highway safety agency\u2019s last permanent administrator, David L. Strickland, a former Senate committee staff member, quit nearly a year ago to take a job with a Washington law firm, part of a flow of government officials\u00a0into the private sector, where they do work for the companies they formerly regulated.\r\nWhen Mr. Strickland left, in January,\u00a0David J. Friedman\u00a0took over as acting administrator, only eight months after he arrived at the agency, and served in that job until August of this year. Before coming into government service, he had worked on fuel economy and safety issues at an environmental group, the Union of Concerned Scientists.\r\nDr. Rosekind\u2019s opening statement mostly discussed auto safety, which has been the subject of multiple congressional hearings.\r\nHe told the committee that safety was \u201ca very personal priority for me since my earliest days,\u201d because his father, a San Francisco police officer, was killed in the line of duty by a driver who ran a red light.\r\n\u201cThrough this single and profound event in my own life, I share in the individual and personal stories of so many people who have been affected by preventable tragedy on our roadways,\u201d he said.\r\nDr. Rosekind has been one of the five members of the National Transportation Safety Board since June 2010. Before that, he had his own consulting company, Alertness Solutions, for 12 years, and before that, he was the director of the fatigue countermeasures program at NASA\u2019s Ames Research Center. A psychologist trained at Stanford and Yale, he completed a two-year postdoctoral fellowship program in sleep and chronobiology at Brown University\u2019s Alpert Medical School.\r\nOne issue frequently confronting the National Transportation Safety Board, and on which Dr. Rosekind has often shown expertise in public hearings, is how automatic systems can present information to a human operator. With the approach of automotive collision-warning systems and even self-driving cars, N.H.T.S.A. will face those issues, too. Already it is trying to position itself\u00a0to regulate electronics\u00a0in cars that could distract drivers.\r\nThe N.T.S.B. is an independent agency, with no regulatory authority, and Dr. Rosekind had no administrative responsibilities. The agency that Dr. Rosekind has been nominated to head, which has an annual budget of about $800 million, sets various standards for cars and highways.\r\n            \r\n             \r\n            \r\n            \n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\tPrint\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\tEmail\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t  \n\t\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\tTweet", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.mccaskill.senate.gov/media-center/latest-headlines/auto-safety-nominee-wants-finer-data-tools"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.8531471248716116, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}