big three

President-elect Barack Obama released the following statement this morning on Congress’ failure to reach an agreement on a federal bailout for the “Big Three” auto manufacturers:

Well, I guess we saw this coming.
Senate Republicans last night killed efforts to grant Detroit’s automakers a $14 billion lifeline to prevent bankruptcies after compromise negotiations broke down over a provision to cut workers’ wages.
Very generally, Republicans wanted the Big Three’s union workers to cut their salary and benefit packages down to the size of [...]

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that amid news that a bid to extend a lifeline to the Big Three automakers failed in the Senate last night, the White House is considering allowing some of the $700 billion allocated for the Wall Street bailout to save the industry. A spokesman for the White House called [...]

The argument goes, if it costs more to drive, car-shoppers will opt for more efficient cars, giving the Big Three incentive to build them.

The House last night easily passed a compromise automaker bailout negotiated for days between congressional Democrats and the White House. The Democrats — who had already given in to White House demands that the $14 billion bailout cash be pulled from a previously approved $25 billion fund for retooling Detroit’s factories — also abandoned their [...]

As Congress and the White House wrangle over the conditions of a possible Detroit bailout, many Democrats want the conditional guarantee that, in return for the cash, the Big Three will drop lawsuits against California and more than a dozen other states that want to tighten tailpipe emission standards — a provision opposed by the [...]

Frustrated by decades of automaker resistance to adopting more strict fuel-efficiency standards for their vehicles, Markey and others want to make the rules part of the rescue package.

Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) offers a new angle today on the Detroit bailout, saying that he’ll support the plan only if the automakers stop trying to kill states’ efforts to tighten emission standards.
California has famously applied for an Environmental Protection Agency waiver forcing emission reductions of 30 percent by 2016. But the automakers claim the [...]

Lawmakers granted Wall Street enormous leeway in dolling out a $700 billion lifeline free from Congressional oversight. Thursday’s Senate hearing appears to foreshadow a tougher line with the Big Three.

After being rebuffed last month, chief executives of General Motors, Ford and Chrysler try again to persuade lawmakers that a government bailout is necessary.