Subject: Congress Prepares Firestone Hearing (guru)
Date: Mon, 04 Sep 2000 072148 -0500
From: Roy Beavers
To: guru
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Hi everybody:
Many of you (in the States), I'm sure, have been following the fast
developing "tire-gate" story. It is reported in the message below.....
Congress is going to hold hearings. Many hearings, it seems. Every
committee chairman who can remotely connect the issue to his committee's
mission is planning to hold hearings.
The story has shared the headlines over this holiday weekend with the
earthquake in California. 6.5 million tires have already been recalled
by the Bridgestone/Firestone manufacturer (Japanese owned). And some
1,400 complaints, including fatalities, have been reported....
What a difference from the cell phone (or power line) EMF hazards issue!!
In the end, there is clearly much more at stake in the EMF hazards cases.
**More lives, more human misery, more $$$$$$$.**
But the EMF "recall" alarms that are needed ... to alert our society about
the EMF hazards ... are not even on the "radar screen" of the public's consciousness....
The government knows. Larry King knows. Many in the press know.
The industry knows!!! Notice that the crucial question which keeps
reappearing in this tire-gate story -- as in the earlier "gate" stories --
is: What did the manufacturers know and when did they know it???.....
For us, the question is: What needs to be done to make the hazards of electromagnetic
radiation -- literally **exploding** in our environment
-- a matter of public/governmental concern at least on a par with the
tires of our BIG$$$$$ opulent automobiles???
Cheerio......
Roy Beavers (EMFguru)
roy@emfguru.com
It is better to light a single candle
than to curse the darkness..
WEBSITE: http://emfguru.com
People are more important than profit$$
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News Article: Congress Prepares Firestone Hearing
By NEDRA PICKLER, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - Congress opens hearings this week aimed at
determining when Bridgestone/Firestone Inc. and its customer
knew about tire problems that have been linked to 88
deaths in U.S. accidents and more overseas.
The case was not attracting much attention when lawmakers went
on summer break a month ago, but the resulting media coverage,
recall of 6.5 million tires and government scrutiny in the United
States and abroad have made the issue one of the hottest on Capitol
Hill with at least three hearings planned.
"This thing is just getting uglier by the minute," said Ken
Johnson, spokesman for Rep. Billy Tauzin, R-La., who will preside
over one of the hearings. "It's turning into sort of a
tire-gate."
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has received
more than 1,400 complaints of tread loss, blowouts and other
defects on Firestone tires, many of which are standard equipment on
light trucks and SUVs made by Ford Motor Co.
Lawmakers say they will explore when Bridgestone/Firestone Inc.
and Ford knew about the defects, which reportedly date back at
least 10 years.
"There's a lot that we don't know concerning the extent of the
problem and what needs to be done to make sure this doesn't happen
in this future," said Rep. Bart Gordon, D-Tenn.
Consumer advocates have been critical of NHTSA for not getting
involved in the case until this year. Ford has been criticized for
recalling the tires in 16 foreign countries without taking action
in the United States. And Bridgestone/Firestone Inc. has come under
fire for limiting the recall to a fraction of the allegedly
defective tires.
All three sides are expected to use the hearing to defend their
actions.
Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., has scheduled a Wednesday morning
hearing of his Senate Appropriations transportation subcommittee
that will focus on funding issues. Some have said that NHTSA needs
a bigger budget to investigate defects cases and authority to
impose bigger fines when companies withhold information.
Tauzin called a Wednesday afternoon hearing with two House
Commerce subcommittees, where testimony is expected from Ford chief
executive Jac Nasser, Bridgestone Corp. CEO Masatoshi Ono, NHTSA
Administrator Sue Bailey and other safety advocates.
And GOP Sen. John McCain of Arizona, chairman of the Senate
Commerce Committee, will hold a hearing on Sept. 12.
Bailey, who became head of NHTSA just two weeks ago, said she
hopes the hearings show that her agency acted quickly.
"Once those numbers doubled this spring, they were very
responsive and initiated an investigation," she said.
Last week, NHTSA updated the number of reported deaths from 62
and issued a consumer advisory that said an additional 1.4 million
tires could be dangerous and should be replaced. Agency officials
said the action came after Bridgestone/Firestone refused to expand
the recall.
"As you can see we are moving swiftly and are being
attentive," Bailey said Friday when the advisory was issued.
Ford's Nasser originally declined to testify at the hearings,
but quickly changed his mind after coming under fire.
Ford and Firestone have been heavily lobbying lawmakers during
the last two weeks to make their case. Ford has a much stronger
presence on Capitol Hill with a large staff of lobbyists, while
Firestone had to quickly hire a lobbying firm.
The Venezuelan Congress is also holding hearings on the case.
The country's consumer protection agency has recommended that Ford
and Firestone be held criminally responsible for 46 deaths in that
country.
Ford recalled Firestone tires on its vehicles in Venezuela, as
well as other countries in the Middle East, Asia and South America,
beginning a year before the Firestone's recall in the United
States.
Ford has said it didn't notify U.S. officials of the foreign
recalls because it felt the problems were due to driving conditions
and high temperatures that are not common in the United States.
Transportation Secretary Rodney Slater said U.S. officials
should have been told about the recalls in other countries.
"We should have been informed. Unfortunately we were not," he
said Sunday on ABC's "This Week."
Democratic officials have said they will question whether
replacement workers hired during a Bridgestone/Firestone strike in
the mid-1990s were properly trained and affected product quality.
Johnson said there will be many issues explored in the hearings,
but there is one basic goal.
"When all said and done," he said, "we want to make sure that
these types of tragedies never occur again."
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Reprinted with permission of Roy Beavers, http://www.emfguru.com