• Rep. Lois Capps (D-Santa Barbara) recently questioned representatives of the Alliance of Auto Manufacturers and the National Automobile Dealers Association about their organizations’ opposition to bipartisan legislation she introduced to prohibit rental car companies from renting or selling any cars that have been recalled and not yet fixed.
She also questioned the administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), which supports a legislative ban on renting or selling recalled vehicles, about the need for congressional action to address the problem. Capps questioned the witnesses during a congressional hearing on broader auto safety legislation hosted by the Energy and Commerce Committee on Oct. 21.
Capps’ bill, the Raechel and Jacqueline Houck Rental Car Safety Bill (H.R. 2198), was named in honor of two young sisters from Ojai, who were killed in 2004 while driving a recalled Chrysler PT Cruiser rented from Enterprise. Capps first introduced the bill in 2012, and reintroduced an updated bipartisan version earlier this year with broad support from consumer advocates, the rental car industry, General Motors, Honda, and the Obama administration. Identical language to H.R. 2198 passed the Senate in July as part of the DRIVE Act.
Capps also entered into the record a letter from Raechel and Jacqueline’s mother Cally Houck, calling on House leaders to pass H.R. 2198.
Capps said that while federal law prohibits car dealers from selling recalled new cars, there’s no similar law to stop rental car companies from renting out dangerous recalled cars.
“This is a clear safety oversight, and one that can and must be fixed,” Capps said. She said that she introduced the bipartisan legislation in order to close that loophole.
A Change.org petition to pass the bill recently started by Raechel and Jackie’s mother was signed by nearly 150,000 people across the country.
Capps added that she was disappointed that despite that support the issue was not even mentioned in the draft bill considered that day.
This article appears in Oct 29 – Nov 4, 2015.