• Wall Street Journal, Tuesday, February 23, 2010 10:37 AM

Jim Lentz, Toyota's president of U.S. sales, will tell the House Energy and Commerce Committee this morning that the company acknowledges and regrets poor communication about safety problems both within the company and with regulators and consumers, Joseph B. White reports.

At the same time, according to the text of his statement released beforehand, Lentz will deny that electronic faults are behind sudden acceleration incidents as committee chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and subcommittee chairman Bart Stupak (D- Mich.) suggested in a letter to the company released yesterday. Lentz will say that the problem is entirely due to mechanical problems covered by its recall, setting up the possibility of camera-friendly congressional fireworks in this election year.

In addition, Toyota has received subpoenas from a federal grand jury in the Southern District of New York and the Securities and Exchange Commission, it says. Also, the Department of Transportation is investigating whether it violated rules governing disclosure of safety problems, and the company faces numerous lawsuits.

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