The national vehicle safety chief nominee has received unanimous approval from the Senate Commerce Committee, bringing the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration a step closer to having a permanent leader after 11 months without one.
After being approved by the Senate committee Tuesday evening, Mark Rosekind needs approval from the full Senate this week as legislators look at a spending bill, defense bill and other matters, the Detroit News reported.
Also Tuesday, a budget deal was struck to give the NHTSA an extra $11 million in funding for the 2015 budget, which brings total funding to $830 million but is still $13 million shy of what the Obama administration had wanted.
The funding is intended to "allow NHTSA to make important investments in its safety defects analysis and investigation programs and improve the agency's ability to aggressively detect trends."
One lawmaker was hopeful that the Senate will name an NHTSA leader in its last days, although approving Rosekind will likely require a unanimous vote.
"I think he'll get through," Sen. John Thune, R-South Dakota, told the Detroit News.
Speaking last week before a Senate committee, Rosekind said the federal agency overseeing automobile safety needed to act more quickly during recalls and increase maximum fines for carmakers.
"I've been concerned with the slowness across all of the agency's recalls," Rosekind told the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, as quoted by the Detroit Free Press.
David Friedman, NHTSA deputy administrator, has been standing in as the agency's chief for the last 11 months. 2014 has been a record year for repair campaigns, with automakers recalling more than 50 million vehicles in the U.S. this year.
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