Toyota
On Thursday, Toyota reached an agreement with the U.S. government over a decade of non-compliance with Clean Air Act reporting regulations. In accordance with the law, defects or recalls affecting vehicle emission equipment must be reported to the Environmental Protection Agency.
But, says EPA assistant administrator Susan Bodine, “[f]or a decade, Toyota failed to report mandatory information about potential defects in its cars to the EPA, keeping the agency in the dark and avoiding supervision. The EPA considers this flaw to be a serious violation of the Clean Air Act. “
Manufacturers must submit reports of emission defect information if they know of an emission defect that affects at least 25 or more vehicles (or engines) of a given model in a given model year. They must also submit voluntary emissions recall reports when initiating a recall to correct an emissions problem, as well as quarterly reports on the progress of the recall.
However, the Justice Department says that for 10 years, starting in 2005, Toyota delayed filing somewhere in the region 78 emissions defect information reports – affecting millions of vehicles over this time – throwing many of them into the lap of EPA in 2015. In addition, there were 20 recall reports (and 200 quarterly reports) that were never filed.
The DOJ says Toyota in Japan has chosen to follow a weaker emission defect reporting requirement set by the California Air Resources Council and would only file defect reports with the EPA when it also complied with the CARB.
Toyota made a deal with the government, admitting and accepting responsibility for this lost decade of reporting. As a result, it will pay a $ 180 million civil fine, the largest fine ever issued for violating this Clean Air Act requirement.