Some House Republicans say the Obama administration cut General Motors self-serving slack on a safety hazard. Officials at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration deny it. But even if the agency didn't shirk its regulatory duty on the Chevrolet Volt, with the federal government now owning more than a quarter of GM, the suspicion of a conflict of interest is inevitable.

President Barack Obama proudly pointed out in his State of the Union speech that while "on the day I took office, our auto industry was on the verge of collapse," GM is now "back on top as the world's No. 1 automaker." He also hailed Chrysler for growing "faster in the U.S. than any other car company" and Ford for "investing billions in U.S. plants and factories."

The president left out the fact that Ford, unlike GM and Chrysler, took no help from a federal bailout that began under President George W. Bush.

Nor did Obama mention those electric-powered Volt battery fires, which weren't revealed by the NHTSA until two months ago.

Agency administrator David Strickland told a House oversight committee that his agency "pulled no punches" on the Volt, adding that he would feel safe driving one with his "mom, wife and baby sister" as passengers.

GM Chairman Daniel F. Akerson offered the panel this bitter lament: "Although we loaded the Volt with state-of-the-art safety features, we did not engineer the Volt to be a political punching bag."

Maybe Akerson and Strickland are right, and the Volt doesn't represent a higher fire-safety risk that gas-run cars. But the NHTSA's five-month delay in making those test fires public does represent, at the least, troubling timing.

And beyond the auto-safety issue, when big government owns a big chunk of a big business, there's a heightened risk of Washington playing marketplace favorites - particularly in an election year.

- The Post and Courier of Charleston, S.C.