During a Senate Commerce Committee hearing on Wednesday, Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) asked President Trump's nominee to be Administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Jonathan Morrison about car regulations.
00:03Mr. Morrison, let's start with an argument in your testimony.
00:07Regulations raise car prices.
00:10This argument is not new.
00:13In fact, automakers have always fought common-sense safety regulations by saying they are too expensive.
00:22Let's look at a few examples.
00:24In 1961, the New York Times reported on the fight to require seatbelts in vehicles.
00:31The New York Times reported that, quote, car manufacturers still are adamant in their position that safety must be keyed to cost.
00:42If this contention prevails, the seatbelt will be an optional item of extra cost.
00:48Mr. Morrison, yes or no, was the government right to require seatbelts in every vehicle?
00:56Absolutely.
00:57All right, that's good.
00:59Here is a headline from April 6, 1975, titled Industry Resists Car Safety Costs.
01:06That documents how the auto industry lobbied against requiring airbags in every vehicle.
01:13Mr. Morrison, yes or no, was the government right to require airbags in every vehicle?
01:20Eventually, yes.
01:22Yes.
01:23And that brings us to today.
01:25Here's the headline from June 24, 2024.
01:29Automakers asked U.S. agency to reconsider emergency braking rule.
01:35Now, automakers are urging the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to repeal its rule issued last year requiring automatic emergency braking in new vehicles, in part based on cost.
01:54Mr. Morrison, I understand that the Trump administration is currently reviewing that automatic emergency braking rule.
02:00Given the automakers' history of opposing common-sense safety rules, do you agree that safety regulators should be skeptical of industry's arguments?
02:15I think regulators need to do their own homework and evaluate the costs.
02:20It's built into the Safety Act that one of the very important aspects of the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard is that notion of practicability, which does have cost implications.
02:28And so that is something that the agency needs to do independently.
02:31Well, here's my message to you, Mr. Morrison.
02:35The automakers have cried wolf far too many times for us to take their arguments seriously.
02:43That's the answer I wanted to hear.
02:46Are there costs to implementing these requirements?
02:49Of course.
02:49But these measures might save your daughter, your son, your father, our mother, our brother.
02:58And to me, that's worth it.
03:00And that's why we have seatbelts.
03:02That's why we have airbags.
03:04And that's why we need emergency braking in order to make sure that we protect family members who otherwise would be injured or die.
03:13Mr. Roberti, I hosted you in Massachusetts in 2018.
03:19Thank you for coming.
03:21After pipeline explosions destroyed dozens of homes and killed a young man.
03:27And you know safety saves lives, Mr. Roberti.
03:31If confirmed, will you finalize the 2023 draft rule requiring that my pipeline safety law passed in the Trump era, Pipes Act of 2020, is finalized?
03:47Yes.
03:48And Mr. Roberti, we've seen Elon Musk's doge staff come into agency after agency and sabotage our government's ability to keep the public safe, from the FAA to the National Weather Service.
04:04So, Mr. Roberti, if doge staff told you to stop enforcing regulations or to fire inspection and enforcement staff who keep our system safe, would you do it?
04:16The answer is that the critical safety positions include inspection and enforcement personnel.
04:26They are not part of any layoffs or any part of workforce reduction.
04:36And if confirmed, as I've said, having an effective, a strong, robust inspection and enforcement program is the heart of the safety mission.
04:50And I will certainly commit to that.
04:53All right.
04:53Well, again, the question of doge undermining public safety is not a hypothetical.
04:58It's already happening.
04:59We've seen it in other agencies.
05:01And we've already seen services disrupted and lives lost as a result.
05:05The only question is whether we're going to have enough courage at the agency to protect our pipeline safety agency from those doge attacks.
05:16And that will be your responsibility, Mr. Roberti, to put safety first.
