As Congresswoman Lois Capps runs out the end of her term, she’s remaining steady behind some of the pet issues adopted in the last few years.
Her office took up consumer safety in new and rental cars after a 2011 fatal accident in Ojai.
In early September, Capps, and Sen. Barbara Boxer sent Fiat Chrysler a letter requesting support for the “Raechel and Jacqueline Houck Safe Rental Car Act,” which Capps said was, “legislation that would protect American consumers by prohibiting rental car companies from renting or selling vehicles under a safety recall.”
Their letter called the company’s lack of support “particularly troubling” after the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration recently announced it is imposing a record $105 million fine and vehicle buyback requirement on the company for its failure to adequately fix recalled vehicles or notify vehicle owners in a timely manner.
In a recent hearing, the highway administration said Fiat Chrysler violated the Motor Safety Act by repeatedly failing to notify consumers of recalls, failing to complete recall repairs in a timely fashion and failing to provide proper notification of recall details to NHTSA.
NHTSA is requiring Fiat Chrysler to pay a $70 million penalty and spend $20 million on meeting recall performance requirements. First introduced in 2011 and later passed by the Senate Commerce Committee in 2013 and 2015, and by the full Senate in July as part of the DRIVE ACT, the bill is named after Raechel and Jacqueline Houck, two sisters who were killed driving a rented Chrysler PT Cruiser that had been recalled for a power steering defect.
