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Airbag Maker to Testify; Interview with Sen. Bill Nelson; Sister of Airbag Victim Speaks; McConnell Responds to Immigration Policy; Drones Causing Pilot Problems in the Air

Aired November 20, 2014 - 09:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: The controversy surrounding air bag maker Takata shifts to Capitol Hill today as a company official is set to testify at a Senate Commerce Committee hearing. Takata, which supplies one in five airbags globally, is under intense scrutiny after the Center for Auto Safety says at least four U.S. drivers have died after their airbags exploded and hit them with shrapnel.

Right now, you're looking at live pictures from Capitol Hill where we're waiting for the sister of someone who died in a 2003 Arizona accident. She is expected to speak ahead of that hearing. She'll be joined by Senators Edward Markey and Richard Blumenthal, who claim her sister could be the fifth U.S. driver killed because of these defective air bags.

Florida Senator Bill Nelson will chair today's hearings. He joins me now from Washington.

Good morning, sir.

SEN. BILL NELSON (D), FLORIDA: Good morning, Carol.

COSTELLO: Good morning. Thank you for being with me.

You say it's not just Takata that's at fault here. That the National High Traffic Safety Administration, which has now asked for a nationwide expansion of the recall of vehicles with the airbags, hasn't been aggressive enough. Can you expound on that for us?

NELSON: Yes, ma'am. We should, at the very least, expect our federal regulators to really be all over this. And there is now evidence that Takata knew this was a problem 10 years ago. Well, I would expect that an aggressive federal regulator would be on top of that. They keep expanding these recalls. It's something upwards of 10 million now. I've heard figures that over a 10-year period it may be as many as 100 million airbags.

COSTELLO: Wow, that's just - that's -- so executives from Takata will be speaking at today's hearing, and I would assume federal officials will be speaking as well. What do you hope to find out?

NELSON: Well, I want to find out why they didn't come forward. They changed along about 2000, the year 2000, they changed to this new compound, ammonium nitrate, and it decomposes over time. And particularly you get into warm and muggy weather, then when it explodes, which it's supposed to inflate the airbag, it explodes with such force that it shreds the metal part of the steering wheel, and that becomes like a hand grenade, sending shrapnel into the passenger or into the poor driver right there in front of the steering wheel.

COSTELLO: Oh, my goodness. So why just limit this recall to warmer states, because supposedly this only happens in warm states with high humidity. But as we know, you can drive all over the country and it's cold in some places where you drive. So why wasn't the recall - a nationwide recall put immediately into place?

NELSON: That's a major mistake. They called it a regional recall. They have since corrected that, but that shows there's something that's rotten in Denmark, Mr. Federal Regulator. If they say a regional recall, because we're a mobile society, our cars go all over the country, and, oh, by the way, it gets muggy in the north during the summer.

COSTELLO: Sir -- and we're going to dip into that hearing momentarily. It's going to begin in the 10:00 Eastern hour. But I'd like to ask you about something else and shift gears a little bit.

NELSON: Sure.

COSTELLO: President Obama is set to announce he'll take executive action on immigration tonight. Many Republicans say the president is overstepping his bounds. Some even calling him an emperor. What do you think?

NELSON: I think he should have done it long ago. He has the legal authority. I think he will be very careful to tailor his executive order to make sure that he has the legal authority. Remember, we passed a comprehensive immigration bill a couple of years ago in the Senate, bipartisan, overwhelming vote. You just can't get some of the reactionaries in the other house to move. It's time to bring us into the 21st century and to act fair toward our people and also to help get the economy continue to move.

COSTELLO: Well, a question for you, because people are quite tired of the gridlock in Washington.

NELSON: Yes, ma'am.

COSTELLO: So next year Republicans will take control of the Senate. By the president taking this executive action, doesn't it make it tougher for you, as a Democrat, to function in a Republican-controlled Congress?

NELSON: Not at all. I mean anything on the president is an improvement. Look at the gridlock we have now, excessive partisanship, excessive ideological rigidity. It's been hard to build consensus from the middle on anything. So if the president will advance this on executive order, maybe we can start to get some progress.

COSTELLO: Senator Bill Nelson, thank you so much. I appreciate your being with us this morning.

NELSON: Thank you, ma'am.

COSTELLO: I'm back in a minute.

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COSTELLO: And you're looking at a live picture from Capitol Hill, where the Senate's top Republican, Mitch McConnell, is about to respond to President Obama's planned overhaul of immigration laws. That's actually to the left of your screen. Of course, as you know, the president will announce the reforms tonight in a prime time address. He plans to bypass Congress, using executive power, a move that has enraged Republicans as they prepare to take over Congress with the most dominant majority in decades.

Also, this morning, on the other side of your screen, we're waiting for the sister, and that must be her, her sister died in a 2003 Arizona accident. She's just about to speak. It was because of these - the airbags made by Takata. Let's listen.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Sibling was a passenger in an '04 Subaru Impreza WRX that was involved in a multi-vehicle accident in Phoenix where the airbag deployed. Her name is Charlene, but we called her Tigger. This is Tigger. She was the only one injured in the accident.

Tigger graduated from Buena Vista University with degrees in political science and history. She was a 4.0 student and on the dean's list. After college graduation, she joined Teach for America, which took her to Phoenix. Earlier that year, she had earned her Master's degree from Arizona State and was honored with an award from TFA for teaching special needs children.

She was passionate about rock climbing, global politics, and while she spent a semester abroad studying in London, she also has lucky enough to work in the British House of Parliament. Tigger aspired to be the first woman president of the United States. But all of that changed.

As a result of the car accident, she sustained severe head trauma, was unconscious and was on life support. Because of the severity of the neuro trauma, she could not tolerate any sort of stimuli. We were not allowed to touch her and we were not allowed to talk to her. The doctors kept asking us what had hit her in the head. Something had to have hit her hard enough to cause such significant damage.

On November 6th, she stopped climbing mountains here and began climbing the mountains in heaven. She was 24 years old.

Since that time, whenever anyone has asked either my mother or myself how she died, our response has never wavered, has never changed. It has always been that we say it was from the airbag. The airbag is what killed my sister.

A search on the Subaru recall site shows that the car that she was a passenger in has yet to be recalled, although models in humid states have been. Phoenix is non-humid, and given the severity of my sister's injuries, we obviously don't believe humidity had anything to do with it. We firmly believed that what was intended to save lives actually took Tigger's life. And that's why I'm here today to do what can to ensure that this does not happen again, that another family does not have to experience what we have. This should never have happened, and it should never happen again.

Thank you.

COSTELLO: All right, we just heard that moving testimony. You heard about the death of her sister, Tigger, very moving. In just a short time, that Takata executive is set to testify as a Senate Commerce Committee hearing. That will commence shortly. Of course, we'll keep you posted. We'll be monitoring that.

But I want to take you to the full Senate right now, to the Senate floor, where the Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, is now responding to President Obama's pending executive order concerning immigration in this country. Let's listen.

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R), KENTUCKY: -- on this very issue. Votes one by one. Well, Mr. President, as somebody who well understands just how difficult the work of changing minds and votes can be, I couldn't agree more with the president's statement. Americans accept that democracy's blessings are only made possible by the constraints it imposes, both its legal contours and those imposed by popular election.

We accept democracy's messiness. We accept that we may not always get all of what we want exactly when we want it. And based on more of what the president said in Miami, this is something he seemed to understand as well. He was talking about immigration that day, and here's something else he said on that topic, I know that some wish that I could just bypass Congress and change the law myself, but that's not how a democracy works. Indeed, Mr. President, it isn't.

All of which makes the president's planned executive action on immigration even more jarring. If it the president truly follows through on this attempt to impose his will unilaterally, he will have issued a rebuke to his own stated view of democracy and he will have contradicted his past statements on this very issue. The instances of President Obama saying that he does not have the power to do the kinds of things he now plans to do are almost too numerous to list. He tried to suggest otherwise last weekend, but a prominent fact-checker penned the spin as Pinocchio-laden. Pinocchio-laden, and clarified that the president has been asked specifically about the sorts of actions that he is contemplating now, the president's previous answer seemed to be unequivocal, he lacked the legal authority to act, according to the president himself.

As one example, President Obama said last year that executive action was not an option, not an option, because he would be ignoring the law. There's a path to get this done, he said, and that is through Congress. He's right. The action he's proposed would ignore the law, would reject the voice of the voters and would impose new unfairness an law-abiding immigrants, all without solving the problem. In fact, his action is more likely to make it even worse. We've already seen the consequences of Deferred Action for Childhood

Arrivals, or DACA, this most recent action in this area. It was a factor in encouraging young people to risk their lives on a perilous journey some would never have even contemplated and some would never complete. The effects of this action could be just as tragic.

Just as the Affordable Care Act had little to do with making healthcare more affordable, slapping the term immigration reform on something doesn't make it actually immigration reform. And just as with Obamacare, the action the president is proposing isn't about solutions, it isn't about compassion; it seems to be about what a political party thinks would make for good politics. It seems to be what a president thinks would be good for his legacy.

Those are not the motivations that should be driving such sweeping action and I think the president will come to regret the chapter history writes if he does move forward.

Because the plan he's presenting is more than just, as the president himself acknowledged, an overreach, it's also unfair. What does the president have to say to the countless aspiring immigrants who spent literally years waiting patiently in line? To the people who played by all the rules? Where is his compassion for them? What does the president have to say to the millions of Americans who still can't find work in this economy? The president can't reach across the aisle to secure a serious jobs plan for them, but he's willing to put everything he's got into one executive action? Where is the justice? Where is the justice in that?

There's a larger point, too, Mr. President. Some people seem to have forgotten this already, but we just had an election. Before that election, the president told us about his plan to act unilaterally on immigration. He reminded us that his policies were on the ballot. And then the people spoke -- and the president doesn't have to like the result, but he has the duty to respect it.

The American people clearly sent a message. Nobody missed it. They said they want to see us working together. They said they want to see more serious ideas pass through Congress. What they didn't say they wanted to see was the president side-stepping the very representatives they just elected. That's why so many Kentuckians have been calling my office in opposition to this plan. I know phones have continued to ring off the hook all week and they're off across Capitol Hill.

Our constituents want to be heard. President Obama needs to listen to their voices. If nothing else, perhaps the president will at least consider the views of Democratic senators and members of Congress who have urged him not to do this. These Democrats understand the consequences of a president from a different political party citing this precedent in the future.

Either way, he needs to understand something. If President Obama acts in defiance of the people and imposes his will on the country, Congress will act. We're considering a variety of options. But make no mistake, make no mistake, when the newly-elected representatives of the people take their seats, they will act. Look, as the president has said, democracy is hard. Imposing his will

unilaterally may seem tempting. It may serve him politically in the short-term, but he knows it will make an already broken system even more broken. And he knows this is not how democracy supposed to work because he told us so himself.

COSTELLO: Now keep in mind, we don't know exactly what's in the president's plans just yet. The president won't announce that until later tonight, 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time, but the president says he will announce those reforms. He plans to bypass Congress using executive power.

He sort of teased his speech tonight in a Facebook post yesterday, a Facebook post that gathered 1.5 million views on Facebook in its first four hours. So people are very interested in this.

You heard Mitch McConnell say that Congress is considering options if President Obama goes through with his executive action. He did not list what those options are. Of course, some believe there could be a government shutdown; other Republicans say absolutely not.

We'll talk much more about this after a break.

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COSTELLO: As if pilots don't have enough to worry about, now drones are invading their air space and potentially endangering everyone on board the plane. Listen to this exchange between a pilot of a packed Virgin Atlantic flight and air traffic control at JFK Airport in New York Sunday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Kennedy (INAUDIBLE) at least two miles south of you, at about 2,000 feet, there was something reported below, maybe a drone.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE). Visual contact of something at about 3,000 feet.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Any idea what it might be?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's flashing light on it. (INAUDIBLE) airborn vehicle.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Maybe a balloon, maybe a drone. But we got two aircraft now reporting it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK, maybe it was a UFO.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm not saying nothing.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You mean, it's a radio controlled aircraft?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: From what I understand, we REALLY don't know what it is. Bright white lights and some anti-collision lights on it. (END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Disturbing, right? That plane did manage to land safely at JFK, but get this -- two other pilots trying to land at JFK reported the very same problem. Also on Sunday, the crew of a Delta flight observed a similar drone flying at about 3,000 feet and within several feet of the aircraft. And just yesterday, the pilot of a Jetblue flight spotted a drone flying at about 400 feet.

Now, the FAA says a U.S. passenger jet nearly collided with a drone in the skies over Tallahassee, Florida, back in March. So clearly, this is becoming a big problem.

CNN's Rachel Crane joins me now. One of the most disturbing aspects about this is you can't figure out whose drone it is.

RACHEL CRANE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Right. That's the problem. I spoke with officials at the FAA earlier this morning and they were talking about how this is really the big question here. How do you identify who the operators of these drones are when they don't have to be registered to the owner themselves?

So visually when you look at the drone, there's no way to identify who's actually operating it. Now, in the case of the two drones that nearly hit the NYPD helicopter in September, they were actually able to track those drones, follow the drones back to the operators, and that's how those two people were caught. But unfortunately, yes, it's incredibly difficult to find the operators of these drones.

COSTELLO: So did the FAA tell you they're going to do something about this? Try to figure out a way to identify these drones?

CRANE: They're trying. They're working with law enforcement officials, they're questioning the pilots, the passengers. They certainly are trying to get to the bottom of this, but it is incredibly difficult. So they said that they will be informing us with the case in the coming days.

COSTELLO: I understand. Rachel Crane, thank you so much.

CRANE: Thank you.

COSTELLO: I want to bring in CNN aviation analyst Mary Schiavo now. She's also the former Inspector General of the Department of Transportation. Good morning. Glad to see you back.

MARY SCHIAVO, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Good morning. Good morning.

COSTELLO: Just listening to that chatter, the pilot had absolutely no idea what that thing was. Like he threw up his hands and said maybe it's a UFO.

SCHIAVO: Well, in fact, it probably was. It was an unmanned flying object. And about the only thing the people can agree on is that the FAA is really behind the curve here, the learning curve. These things have been around for years. You know, a lot of us hobbyists have been flying them literally for well over five or ten years. And they're just everywhere.

I don't think the FAA truly realized how many there were, how available they are. You can buy an unmanned aircraft system anywhere from $100 to $10 million. And they're just so prevalent and so many people have them, and the FAA always looked at them as sort of a hobbyist enterprise. And it took Congress in 2012 to tell the FAA, look, you're going to let these things be flown up to 400 feet and as long as you're five miles away from an airport.

So the ones at JFK were most likely breaking what laws do exist, but the FAA was --

(CROSSTALK)

COSTELLO: One of the drones, Mary -- one of the drones was flying at 3,000 feet.

SCHIAVO: Right. That is against the current laws that we have. We don't have many. The FAA was supposed to promulgate them. Literally they missed the deadline. Congress called upon them to do that.

But at 3,000 feet, no. You have to be -- you're under FAA regulation. The current laws say you've got to be at 400 feet and below and five miles away from an airport, not in controlled air space. So they were violating. And if found, they can be prosecuted by the FAA.

COSTELLO: OK. So let me throw this at you, because it seems like common sense to me. Why sell a drone to just an amateur flier that could fly at 3,000 feet?

SCHIAVO: Ah, that's an excellent question. Right now, because it's not illegal. It's allowed. The pilots of drones right now don't have to be licensed. They don't have to have the radio telephone communications operations.

The technical capability far outstripped our regulators, and the FAA's vision in all of this -- Europe's way ahead of us. Amazon will be delivering packages by drones someday, and because we were so behind -- so far behind on regulating, this is legal now. Remember, it's legal unless you pass laws to regulate it. And they just haven't passed the law. States have stepped in and done it, but not the feds.

COSTELLO: All right, Mary Schiavo, thank you for your insight. I appreciate it.

SCHIAVO: Thank you.

COSTELLO: You're welcome.

The next hour of CNN NEWSROOM after a break.

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