WASHINGTON — Normal Motors CEO Mary Barra met with two key U.S. senators on Thursday because the automaker pushes for laws to hurry deployment of self-driving autos on U.S. roads.

Barra met with Senate Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., and Sen. Gary Peters, a fellow Democrat and a Commerce Committee member, the corporate confirmed.

Congress has been stymied for greater than six years over laws to ease laws that will permit for the deployment of hundreds of autonomous autos.

“We should act to make sure U.S. producers can compete with international locations like China, create jobs right here and enhance roadway security,” stated Peters, who represents Michigan, the place GM is predicated. He added that Barra mentioned with the lawmakers “the way forward for mobility — together with autonomous autos.”

GM and its self-driving expertise unit, Cruise, in February 2022 disclosed that they’d petitioned the Nationwide Freeway Site visitors Security Administration for permission to deploy as much as 2,500 self-driving autos yearly with out steering wheels, mirrors, flip alerts or windshield wipers.

GM needs to deploy its Origin automobile, which has subway-like doorways and no steering wheels. GM says autos would require passengers to buckle seat belts previous to autonomous rides. The NHTSA opened the petition for public remark in July however has not acted on it.

In 2017, the Home of Representatives handed by voice vote laws to hurry the adoption of self-driving automobiles, bar states from setting efficiency requirements and develop the variety of autos that could possibly be deployed with exemptions, however the invoice by no means handed the U.S. Senate.

Cruise in 2021 urged President Joe Biden to again self-driving automobile laws, saying the nation risked lagging behind China.

In December, the NHTSA opened a security probe into the autonomous driving system in autos produced by Cruise after stories of two accidents in rear-end crashes. NHTSA stated it acquired notices of incidents by which self-driving Cruise autos “might interact in inappropriately arduous braking or change into immobilized.”

Cruise stated in December it was cooperating within the investigation, noting it had “pushed practically 700,000 absolutely autonomous miles in a particularly advanced city atmosphere with zero life-threatening accidents or fatalities.”