Few Revelations in Barra, NHTSA Testimony

Little new information emerged from Tuesday's two-hour grilling of General Motors Co. CEO Mary Barra by the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee about GM's 13-year delay in recalling 1.6 million faulty ignition switches.

The committee asked reasonable questions about why GM took so long to fix a switch its own engineers repeatedly said was faulty. Barra agreed that unacceptable mistakes were made. She later told reporters the company's delayed response "angers me."

She testified that answers to many of the committee's questions await the results of a probe being led by former U.S. Dept. of Justice investigator Anton Valukas. But she also told the committee it would receive "appropriate" findings from the investigation but not necessarily the entire report.

Barra repeatedly indicated that her focus is on how GM behaves now and not how the "old" GM operated in the past.

The committee asked similarly sensible questions of David Friedman, acting director of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration abut why the agency didn't order a recall sooner.

Friedman contends that GM didn't initially give the agency enough information to trigger action. He also told the committee that an early statistical analysis by NHTSA did not indicate an issue worthy of a recall, adding "I wish the connection was as direct as we now know it is."