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Several senators on the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, which held a hearing Tuesday to investigate Toyota's safety issues and recall, have connections to the Japanese automaker.
Here is a look at the committee's ties to Toyota and other automakers:
_Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va.: The Senate's lead Toyota investigator has known Toyota's founding family for decades and credits himself with helping to persuade the company to build a factory in his state. He walked through fields with Toyota executives scouting locations and has said that by the time Toyota picked Buffalo, W.Va., "I felt like a full-fledged member of that site selection team."
_Former committee staffer David L. Strickland: Now heads the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, whose actions on Toyota safety issues are part of Rockefeller's inquiry. A Republican senator asked Strickland at his confirmation hearing whether he could disagree with Rockefeller, his former boss. Strickland said that when he was at the committee, Rockefeller signed his paychecks and what the senator said went, but that in his NHTSA role he could disagree with Rockefeller.
_Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss.: Helped attract a Toyota factory to Blue Springs, Miss., an area he represented as a congressman, and steered federal money to the project. After Toyota announced the site in 2007, Wicker called it "a new era in manufacturing excellence in Northeast Mississippi." Toyota announced in late 2008 that it would delay production at the plant, where it planned to make the Prius hybrid. Wicker has said he is confident that after Toyota spent millions on the factory, it won't walk away from it and will start building cars there when the economy improves. Wicker has commuted from a Virginia condo to the Senate in a Toyota Paseo, saying, "It may be the rattiest car in the entire U.S. Senate." Wicker said at the hearing it is important to ensure vehicles are safe but at the same time "to be mindful that there are thousands of American jobs at stake."
_Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, the committee's top Republican: Has taken credit for helping persuade Toyota to build a factory in San Antonio and met with the head of Toyota's site selection team while it considered Texas. But when the automaker held a news conference to announce it had picked the state, Hutchison wasn't informed: "We didn't know. ... I read it in the newspaper. We're going to find out why we didn't know," her spokesman said at the time. At the groundbreaking, Hutchison promised to help ensure "Toyota gets the best railroad rates possible as we build on this important partnership." Hutchison received $2,500 in January for her campaign for governor from a Texas Toyota dealership's general manager.
Here is a look at the committee's ties to Toyota and other automakers:
_Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va.: The Senate's lead Toyota investigator has known Toyota's founding family for decades and credits himself with helping to persuade the company to build a factory in his state. He walked through fields with Toyota executives scouting locations and has said that by the time Toyota picked Buffalo, W.Va., "I felt like a full-fledged member of that site selection team."
_Former committee staffer David L. Strickland: Now heads the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, whose actions on Toyota safety issues are part of Rockefeller's inquiry. A Republican senator asked Strickland at his confirmation hearing whether he could disagree with Rockefeller, his former boss. Strickland said that when he was at the committee, Rockefeller signed his paychecks and what the senator said went, but that in his NHTSA role he could disagree with Rockefeller.
_Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss.: Helped attract a Toyota factory to Blue Springs, Miss., an area he represented as a congressman, and steered federal money to the project. After Toyota announced the site in 2007, Wicker called it "a new era in manufacturing excellence in Northeast Mississippi." Toyota announced in late 2008 that it would delay production at the plant, where it planned to make the Prius hybrid. Wicker has said he is confident that after Toyota spent millions on the factory, it won't walk away from it and will start building cars there when the economy improves. Wicker has commuted from a Virginia condo to the Senate in a Toyota Paseo, saying, "It may be the rattiest car in the entire U.S. Senate." Wicker said at the hearing it is important to ensure vehicles are safe but at the same time "to be mindful that there are thousands of American jobs at stake."
_Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, the committee's top Republican: Has taken credit for helping persuade Toyota to build a factory in San Antonio and met with the head of Toyota's site selection team while it considered Texas. But when the automaker held a news conference to announce it had picked the state, Hutchison wasn't informed: "We didn't know. ... I read it in the newspaper. We're going to find out why we didn't know," her spokesman said at the time. At the groundbreaking, Hutchison promised to help ensure "Toyota gets the best railroad rates possible as we build on this important partnership." Hutchison received $2,500 in January for her campaign for governor from a Texas Toyota dealership's general manager.
