WASHINGTON — Auto executives would face the threat of imprisonment and millions of dollars in civil fines for misleading vehicle-safety regulators under legislation making its way through the U.S. Congress, reported The Wall Street Journal.

The proposal from a Senate committee has emerged as one of the most contentious provisions of bills in the House and the Senate that respond to issues raised by the Toyota Motor Corp. safety recalls.

Lawmakers say that executives need to be held accountable for safety lapses and that the provision would force auto makers to be more forthright about potential car defects. But auto-industry officials say it would turn executives into public scapegoats while failing to address the underlying causes of safety problems.

A provision pushed by Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John D. Rockefeller (D., W.Va.) would require a company’s senior executive in the U.S. to sign off on all documents submitted to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration as part of a defect investigation.

The executive would be fined up to $10 million in civil fines for submitting information that is deemed false or misleading. He or she would also face imprisonment of up to 12 months, beyond criminal penalties outlined in other laws.

During February and March hearings on the Toyota recalls, members of Congress voiced frustration that recall decisions were made by Toyota executives in Japan rather than the U.S. Some lawmakers suggested that car companies designate someone in the U.S. responsible for all safety decisions.

Joan Claybrook, a consumer-safety advocate who has helped write the vehicle-safety bills and supports the provision, said that putting such pressure on top executives would force them to establish a culture of honesty and accuracy.

“You want to have personal responsibility. That’s the only thing that’s really going to change the way these companies behave,” said Claybrook, a former NHTSA chief.

Auto-industry officials say it is unrealistic to expect senior executives to know the veracity of all information provided to the NHTSA, covering thousands of documents that involve the participation of many employees.

The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, the industry’s main trade group, has also voiced concerns that the Rockefeller bill would treat domestic and foreign auto makers differently. The top U.S. official at domestic car companies is typically the chief executive, while at foreign auto makers, it’s generally someone with much less power.

In a letter to the Senate Commerce Committee, Dave McCurdy, the auto alliance’s president, urged the approach of House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D., Calif.), whose bill would target company safety officials in the U.S.

“It is more appropriate for these certifications made by company safety experts who have full knowledge of the issues, rather than by corporate officers,” wrote McCurdy, whose group represents both foreign and domestic auto makers.

A spokeswoman for Rockefeller didn’t respond to a request for comment Tuesday.

The House and Senate bills have cleared committees and could face a full vote of each chamber this summer.

WASHINGTON – Despite strong opposition from the White House, the Senate voted Monday to help auto dealers escape oversight from a new consumer watchdog agency, reported The Detroit News.

By a 60-30 vote, the Senate approved a nonbinding motion that urges Senate negotiators to exempt auto dealers from the supervision of the proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency. The agency is a key part of the Obama administration’s overall plans to overhaul financial regulations.

Both Michigan senators, Carl Levin, D-Detroit, and Debbie Stabenow, D-Lansing, voted against the motion. But many prominent Democrats voted for it, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass.

On Friday, the Senate approved a massive overhaul of the nation’s financial system. The overhaul creates a Consumer Financial Protection Agency, whose oversight powers would include auto lending.

Auto dealers failed to get a vote on an amendment, proposed by Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., exempting them. But in exchange, the Senate agreed to a vote Monday on his request urging Senate negotiators, who will work with the House in reaching a compromise version of the financial overhaul legislation, to exempt dealers.

Auto dealers lobbied Congress for months, and more than 250 dealers were on Capitol Hill last week, attempting to convince undecided senators to exempt them from additional federal oversight.

The nation’s 18,000 dealers are one of the most politically powerful forces on Capitol Hill. Since 1990, dealers have donated $25 million to members of Congress.

A version of the House financial overhaul approved in December exempted the auto dealers. The motion approved Monday urges the Senate to go along with the House version.

Negotiators could still opt to keep the Senate language, although Monday’s vote will make it more difficult. They want to send a bill to President Barack Obama for his signature by July 4.

Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., chairman of the Banking Committee, said after the vote he would oppose adding “carve-outs” and “loopholes” — a clear reference to the auto dealers provision.

Auto dealers contend they weren’t responsible for Wall Street excesses and are already heavily regulated by state and federal laws. They argue new onerous regulations could make lending more expensive and prevent some people from getting auto loans.

In a letter to the Treasury Department, Clifford Stanley, an undersecretary of Defense, raised concerns about the impact that “unscrupulous practices” of some auto dealers have on military families.

The White House says the bill is aimed at bad-apple dealers.

WASHINGTON – A Senate proposal to exempt car dealers from oversight by a proposed consumer protection agency has been changed to add a requirement that military families’ complaints about dealers be monitored and shared by the new agency, Automotive News reported.

Under the new proposal, filed by Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., the proposed agency’s military liaison office would coordinate with the federal agencies that now oversee dealers to ensure that these complaints are addressed.

But under the Brownback plan, investigations of these complaints and the devising of rules affecting dealers would remain with the current oversight agencies — the Federal Reserve and Federal Trade Commission.

“The addition was made to address concerns raised by some military groups,” Brownback spokeswoman Becky Ogilvie said today.

Bailey Wood, a National Automobile Dealers Association spokesman, said the changes in the proposal would still “prevent a new agency from adding an additional layer of rules over dealers.”

The Military Officers Association of America, which has opposed the Brownback amendment, said it continues to do so even after the change.

“Senator Brownback’s change fails to provide any additional protections for servicemembers and their families from unscrupulous dealers and places responsibility directly onto the troop to identify fraud and avoid being taken advantage of,” said association spokesman Michael F. Hayden, a retired Air Force colonel.

The Senate vote on the amendment is expected to be close, and it is unclear how many votes will be swayed by the changes.

The U.S. Treasury Department has been leading a coalition of military, banking, consumer and civil rights groups against the Brownback amendment. The agency declined to comment today.

WASHINGTON — Congressional Democrats may scale back some provisions of an auto-safety bill after carmakers criticized the measure for mandating rapid and costly rollouts of new technology and eliminating their right to question government-imposed vehicle recalls, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Proposals unveiled in the House and Senate this month would require fundamental changes to the design of cars in the next few years, including modifications to gas-pedal configurations and new requirements for crash-data recorders and back-up brake technology.

The bills also would remove a cap on civil fines for safety lapses by car makers and would empower the top U.S. vehicle-safety regulator to unilaterally order a vehicle recall.

Consumer advocates said those provisions were needed to prevent a repeat of the problems that led Toyota Motor Corp. to recall more than 8.5 million vehicles globally since last fall for defects related to sudden acceleration and other safety issues. Toyota also agreed to pay more than $16 million to settle charges by the Department of Transportation that it tried to hide the defects from regulators.

But industry representatives told lawmakers at a House hearing last week that the mandates for new technology came with unrealistic deadlines.

They also objected that the bills would give too much power to regulators while impinging industry’s rights to appeal decisions.

An aide to House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D., Calif.), a chief author of the legislation, said lawmakers are modifying the bill to reflect concerns raised by the industry and other interests. The aide said a new version would be unveiled shortly.

Dave McCurdy, president of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, a trade group that includes the three Detroit car makers and Toyota, said the legislation as drafted preempted a more technical study by engineers of how technology such as event-data recorders, known as “black boxes,” and other systems might work.

The bill proposed that some new features be installed starting within three years of the bill’s passage. Auto makers are typically given at least five years to implement major changes to cars so that they can design them in to new models and avoid expensive retooling of existing vehicles.

Dan Ryan, government and safety affairs manager for Mazda Motor Corp.’s U.S. unit, said the proposal’s most troubling facet is the one calling for a pedal-placement standard to prevent obstruction of accelerator pedals by objects such as floor mats.

The Waxman bill calls for the standard to be implemented in vehicles made as early as the 2014 model year.

“Depending on how that got done, it could really mandate a complete overhaul of the foot box, where the pedals are, how things work. It’s potentially huge,” Ryan said. “This is one where you might have to redesign the whole car.”

WASHINGTON — Legislation introduced Wednesday in Congress would make it harder for U.S. vehicle-safety regulators to become lobbyists for auto makers, a key issue raised by the Toyota Motor Corp. safety recalls, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The bill, introduced by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D., Calif.), would prohibit auto-safety regulators from working for car companies in any job that required contact with their former agency for three years after leaving their government jobs.

The proposal responds to lawmakers’ concerns that Toyota employed former auto-safety regulators who directly dealt with their previous employer, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, on issues relating to vehicle defects.

Transportation Department officials have said they have found no ethics violations in dealings between Toyota lobbyists and regulators relating to the company’s recall of 8 million vehicles globally for gas-pedal and sudden-acceleration issues.

But some consumer advocates, along with Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, have said they are troubled by the prospect of a “cozy relationship” between car-industry lobbyists and their former colleagues at NHTSA, and have called for tighter ethics laws.

“I am deeply concerned about the all-too-cozy relationship between former NHTSA officials and the auto industry,” said Boxer, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee chairwoman. “My legislation would address this ‘revolving door’ by preventing auto makers from having undue influence on agency decisions.”

Under her bill, individual violators would face fines of $55,000, and manufacturers would face a civil fine of $100,000. Those penalties are in place for current ethics laws.