WASHINGTON (March 12, 2002)—Public Citizen President Joan Claybrook accused Office of Management and Budget official John Graham of using flawed reasoning to block the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's rule on tire pressure monitoring devices.
Mr. Graham told NHTSA that OMB would not sign off on the rule until there was some provision to include “indirect” tire monitoring devices found on cars with anti-lock braking systems.
“In your view, NHTSA must permit industry to install a marginally cheaper, but far less accurate and beneficial, type of tire pressure monitoring system,” said Mr. Claybrook, a former NHTSA administrator, in a letter to Mr. Graham.
Mr. Claybrook also accused Mr. Graham of a conflict of interest, because he took money from the auto industry as director of the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis. Mr. Graham and current NHTSA Administrator Jeffrey Runge told a congressional subcommittee Feb. 28 that they were close to a compromise on the tire pressure monitoring rule.