Mark Rosekind, nominee for NHTSA Administrator.

(This story has been revised to correct the name of former NHTSA Administrator David Strickland.)

Call him “the enforcer.” Mark Rosekind, the nominee to take over as the new administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, says he’ll be getting tough when it comes to recalls and other auto industry safety lapses.

That appeared to be precisely what members of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee wanted to hear as they held a hearing on Rosekind’s appointment by President Obama. Over the last 11 months, since David Strickland left his post as NHTSA chief, the agency has come under intense fire for its handling of a series of safety issues, including the current Takata airbag recall crisis.

“I’ve been concerned with the slowness across all of the agency’s recalls,” Rosekind told the committee, adding that “NHTSA needs to be the enforcer.”

With four weeks left to go in the year, 2014 been the most active in the agency’s history, at least from a recall standpoint. With Honda and Chrysler agreeing to expand the pool of products covered by the Takata problem, about 55 million vehicles have been tagged by recalls since January first. The previous record, set in 2004, was a mere 32 million.

(Takata refuses call for nationwide airbag recall. Click Here for coverage of this week’s Capitol Hill hearings.)

NHTSA was hammered, earlier in the year, for not taking action sooner when it became apparent General Motors had delayed by as much as a decade the recall of 2.6 million vehicles equipped with faulty ignition switches. So far, 36 deaths have been directly linked to that problem, and the figure may yet grow.

In October, NHTSA took the unprecedented step of ordering the recall of 7.8 million vehicles because of potentially faulty airbags linked to four deaths. The recall specifically targeted vehicles operated in areas of high humidity where, NHTSA claimed, the airbag systems provided by Japanese supplier Takata could fail catastrophically during a crash, sending deadly shrapnel flying into the passenger compartment.

A fifth death, this one outside of the regional recall zone, led to an about-face by NHTSA which is pushing Takata to call for a national recall. The supplier this week refused that demand, though several customers, including Honda and Chrysler, expanded their own airbag recalls.

(Honda expands airbag recall despite Takata’s stand. Click Here for the latest.)

Meanwhile, the number of complaints NHTSA has received from the public about safety problems has climbed to 75,000 so far this year, up from 45,000 for all of 2013.

Sen. Claire McCaskill, a Missouri Democrat and frequent NHTSA critic, appeared to welcome Rosekind’s tough stand on safety enforcement. “If you are not feared and respected then you can’t do a good job of policing highway safety in this country and today NHTSA is not feared,” she told the nominee.

If anything, the Senate committee made it clear it was willing to give the next NHTSA chief the sort of tools needed to inspire that fear. Among other things, Connecticut Democrat Richard Blumenthal said he wants to see a big increase in the penalties the safety agency can levy against automakers who knowingly delay recalls. Currently, NHTSA can fine a maker a maximum $35 million for not reporting safety problems in a timely manner – as Honda just acknowledged it failed to do.

“If confirmed, my first focus will be on the recall defect and reporting process,” declared Rosekind.

But that is likely also going to require more funds to “connect the dots,” as the nominee put it. There are currently just nine NHTSA investigators to pore through those 75,000 safety complaints, with another 16 who can follow up in the field. Meanwhile, NHTSA’s safety investigation office has seen its staff stuck at 50, with a budget flat at a mere $10 million for the past decade.

In a year when recalls have claimed well beyond record levels, and with safety stories making almost deadly headlines, there’s unusual bipartisan support in Washington to give NHTSA and its next administrator a bigger war chest.

(Despite a record run of recalls, today’s cars are safer than ever. Click Here for that story.)