President Obama's Auto Task Force Meets
February 20, 2009
WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama's newly established automotive task force met for the first time Friday morning to consider the latest requests for as much as $21.6 billion for new government loans by General Motors and Chrysler and review the companies' viability plans submitted to the U.S. Treasury Tuesday.
The panel, still reviewing the hundreds of pages of documents submitted by GM and Chrysler, was not expected to make any decisions at its first session. Still, the panel does have substantial power to make critical decisions, including if GM and Chrysler should receive more loans, if they should file for bankruptcy or if they should merge. They can approve or reject any major transaction of the companies of $100 million or more. And they can recall the loans.
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and National Economic Council Director Lawrence Summers co-chair the task force. Ron Bloom, a former investment banker now a special assistant to the United Steelworkers, was named a special adviser to the Treasury to work with the task force.
Others not officially appointed to the task force but reportedly working with the panel, according to various media reports, are: Brian Deese, deputy economic policy director for Obama's election campaign, sources told Bloomberg News, and Alan Krueger, a Princeton University economist, who will be an adviser, the Detroit News reported. Krueger worked as chief economist for the Labor Department during the Clinton administration and is known for his 2007 book What Makes a Terrorist: Economics and the Roots of Terrorism.
Still others on the panel represent various government departments including Labor, Transportation, Commerce and Energy, the White House Office of Energy and Environment, the Council of Economic Advisers and the Environmental Protection Agency.
While President Obama himself was not scheduled to be at the meeting, he has been briefed on the reports. At a news conference in Ottawa, Canada, where GM and Chrysler are also seeking government loans, President Obama said that he's "deeply concerned about the current state of the North American auto industry.
"One thing we know for certain is that there's going to have to be a significant restructuring of that industry," he said.
Robert Gibbs, White House press secretary, told reporters: "It is clear that going forward, more will be required from everyone involved -- creditors, suppliers, dealers, labor and auto executives themselves -- to ensure the viability of these companies going forward."
Posted by Michelle Krebs at 10:39 AM under Business , Chrysler , GM | Comments (0) | digg this | Seed Newsvine
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