Beam me to Planet Gore !
Posted on 12/10/2008 10:02:38 PM PST by flattorney
Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) – Ranking Member, Environment and Public Works Committee:
Mr. President, Americans are once again being asked to foot the bill for yet another “urgent” bailout. In October, Congress voted for an unprecedented $700 billion bailout of Wall Street, and now much of the same alarmist rhetoric is being employed to pressure members to act quickly.
The latest bailout demand making the rounds in Washington is for the Big Three auto industry. Democrats would have you believe the proposed bailout is all about saving jobs, but, having been in Washington long enough, my instincts led me to dig deeper where I unearthed green roots hiding beneath the bailout rhetoric.
It now appears that much of what you have heard in the media about the auto bailout being about “jobs” has been misleading. In fact, there are “usual suspects” working behind the scenes to subvert the auto bailout and ultimately betray auto workers.
The facts are these:
The proposed $25 billion bailout of Detroit now appears to have been hijacked by the powerful environmental lobby.
The November 19 Wall Street Journal asks:
“When is $25 billion in taxpayer cash insufficient to bail out Detroit's auto makers?” Answer: “When the money is a tool of Congressional industrial policy to turn GM, Ford and Chrysler into agents of the Sierra Club and other green lobbies.”
According to the Wall Street Journal, the auto bailout has degenerated into a tool to “make Detroit a subsidiary of the Sierra Club.”
We hear proponents of the auto bailout endlessly say it’s about jobs.
But the truth is, this bailout appears to be about environmental lobbies taking over the U.S. auto industry.
The Wall Street Journal explains:
“In their public statements, proponents describe the bailout as an attempt to save jobs, American manufacturing and the middle-class way of life. But look closely and you can see that what's really going on is an attempt to use taxpayer money to remake Detroit in the image of the modern environmental movement. Given a choice between greens and blue-collar workers, Congress puts the greens first.”
And just how did this attempt at a green takeover of Detroit come about?
Congress approved $25 billion for Detroit earlier this year for “green retooling.” President Bush proposed to revise that $25 billion and allow it be used for Detroit’s general purposes by eliminating the green conditions.
But the Wall Street Journal reported, “Democratic leaders refused. They are insisting instead that the Bush Administration give Detroit another $25 billion in cash.”
"The Bush Administration's proposal is unacceptable," declared my colleague Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
The Wall Street Journal asked, “If the problem is so urgent, why keep the green chains on that first $25 billion? GM in particular is saying that it may have to declare bankruptcy by the end of the year without a taxpayer capital injection. Aren't jobs at stake?”
But jobs do not appear to be the overriding concern when it comes to the proposed auto bailout.
A November 13 commentary in the Chicago Sun-Times bluntly declared that Congress should “attach environmental strings to the Big Three bailout.”
“The auto industry occupies a critical position, not just in the U.S. economy, but also in the struggle to cope with climate change and the energy crisis. The government has immense leverage right now to force the Big Three to make progress on multiple fronts and should not be afraid to use it,” Andrew Leonard wrote in the Sun-Times.
“President-elect Barack Obama has spoken many times of his ambitious plans to steer the U.S. toward a future where Americans are driving fuel-efficient cars that run on renewable energy. If the government is going to bail out the auto industry, it should do so only with the explicit requirement that the Big Three accelerate down that road as fast as they can,” Leonard demanded.
One of the key “green strings” that the environmental lobby wants to impose on Detroit is making the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards more draconian.
My colleague, Democratic Senator Bill Nelson, wants conditions on the auto bailout that would mandate auto companies increase their average fuel economy to 40 miles per gallon in 10 years and then 50 miles per gallon a mere two years later in 2020. Nelson also reportedly wants requirements for an “increased production of hybrids, flex-fuel and electric vehicles,” according to Congress Daily.
My colleague, Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein, has also tied auto bailout money to increased CAFE standards. “Congress should require that the automakers shift to a new business model that focuses on hybrid, electric, and other next generation vehicle technologies,” Senator Feinstein wrote on November 14.
Senator Feinstein even expands the mandates to include costly global warming concerns by “requiring NHTSA to use the Energy Information Administration (EIA)'s most accurate gasoline price projection and consider global benefits from reducing greenhouse gas emissions when setting CAFE standards.”
The Wall Street Journal countered with a common sense alternative to increasing CAFE standards.
“If Congress wants to ease the immediate burden on Detroit, it could also ease the onerous fleet-mileage standards (CAFE rules) that force the companies to make cars domestically that are unprofitable. A mere tweak would help a lot -- for example, simply allow Detroit to meet CAFE standards by counting the cars it makes at home and abroad. This alone might save Chrysler from bankruptcy. But Congress won't budge on that simple change.”
This latest bout of environmental thuggery is not an isolated incident. The legislative goals of Democrats and their environmental allies reveal that saving jobs is not their highest priority.
President-elect Obama has pledged to grant California a global warming motivated waiver to allow the state to demand its own standards of emission reductions from new autos. This would essentially allow a state by state approach, thus creating a patchwork of regulatory compliance regimes in addition to the federal standard that would be even more costly for automobile manufacturers.
The Wall Street Journal summed up this attempted hostile green takeover and the efforts to create an “Environmental Motor Company” this way:
“All of this shows that Democrats don't merely want to save jobs. They want an entirely different American auto industry that serves goals other than selling cars to consumers. The green lobbies have disliked Detroit for decades -- for resisting fleet mileage standards and having the audacity to make SUVs, trucks and other vehicles that people have wanted to buy but that violate modern environmental pieties. For the greens, the bailout is their main chance to remake Detroit according to their dictates.”
The Journal continued:
“The more realistic alternative to this utopian green vision is to let GM or Chrysler file for Chapter 11 like any other company that can't pay its bills. The immediate costs would be severe, but at least bankruptcy would provide the political and legal means for them to evolve into smaller, more competitive companies. Taxpayers shouldn't be asked to finance a green industrial policy promoted by lobbyists and Congressmen who know nothing about what it takes to make a car -- much less make a profit.”
Marxism at its finest! Control Control Control... Destroy Destroy - you get the point. Let the Car companies file, rebuild and run their own plants and make their own cars and be marketable - like real capitalism - they can make their own energy efficient cars just fine w/out the govt. They need to resolve the other issues like the unions first.
Sen Inhofe is one of the few good ones we have left in the Senate. As with most things, he’s speaking the truth to the issue at hand. I hope that he and enough others can put together and hold a filibuster on this mess. I’m regretful that they did do it on the TARP legislation.
It won't happen.
If/when the big 2 (GM & Chrys.) go for the strings-laden bailout "loans", they become officially out-of-the running for my considerations.
When Nancy Pelosi dictates car specifications, I'd rather not participate.
Interestingly, if this actually happens, any of us with SUVs might see a sudden appreciation in value.
If what Americans want to buy isn't available new, then the used market will skyrocket accordingly.
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Many Republicans and RINOs didn't have the guts to vote No, like Inhofe did. More info on this subject is located here:
FlAttorney’s FR “Straight Talk” U.S. Senator James Mountain “Jim” Inhofe
TAB
The idiot voters are going to find out very quickly the degree of economic destruction they voted for.
>>I have absolutely no intention of obediently buying a >>Democrat-”engineered” green car.
It may be that or get a bike.
>>Interestingly, if this actually happens, any of us with >>SUVs might see a sudden appreciation in value.
They will be banned or limited by GPS monitoring to a certain number of miles per year.
>>If what Americans want to buy isn’t available new, then >>the used market will skyrocket accordingly.
They will be crushed.
Sounds implausible? Ask people in Oregon and California.
Good thing that they seem to have their hands full right now...
The only member to stand on the floor of the Senate and call Bill Clinton a traitor.
yitbos
Ask the people in UK.
And Kalifornication, not yet broke, has plans to double the pollution restrictions on trucks.
yitbos
GM/Ford/Chrysler CEOs Henry “Nostrildamus” Waxman and Nancy “Stretch Limo” Pelosi have ways of making you buy the shitty go carts they are selling.
Try a federal gas tax of $9 per gallon.
You’ll buy the crap they tell you and shut up and like it. It’s for the chilruns and the planet.
Yes, glopping on a load of enviro-inspired smog control junk along with whatever else their Leninist minds cook up, yes, that’ll send sales through the roof! I can’t wait!
I’m not seeing how we’ll be competitive. The USSR had (has?) decades of Government-Will-Build-Your-Car-For-You experience on us. And if China enters the market, well, face it, they’ve been slapping together Mao-mobiles for a while, too. Now, instead of GM and Ford competing against Toyota, they’ll be going head-to-head with Lada and Chery!
Actually, if the environmentalists had their way, GM’s fiercest competition would be with Huffy and Schwinn.
They will be banned or limited by GPS monitoring to a certain number of miles per year.
Or, more likely, carbon rationing. You get your carbon ration card and can use it wherever you want -- heating your home, heating your hot water, driving to work, flying to Grandma's, going skiing, whatever. But, when you use it up, you have to wait until the first of the month to replenish it. Or buy at black market rates.
What a pure crap world the Dems have in store for us. It will be indistinguishable from Soviet Russian in a few decades.
You are politicizing the process of selecting a vehicle for purchase!
I am not criticizing you. You bring up a whole new aspect to this situation. GM's Wagoner could very well say at a Hearing, "Senator, if we take the bankruptcy government money route, Freedom Loving Americans will no longer buy our automobiles, as an expression of their hatred of socialism."
Dems in Congress politicize vehicle production - the American consumer politicizes vehicle purchase.
"For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction."
Wow! GM needs to think about this!!!!
When the “Big-3” get their bailout ... that will be the last day I consider purchasing an American build car/truck.
Indeed, this should be a consideration.
To take a step back, and look at a historical view...
There are many America-first conservatives, just like me, who have a long record of buying American cars to keep Americans working and keep Yankee dollars (mostly) home.
And, this American purchase out of loyalty is, as well, a political decision.
However, my allegiance to the American worker is not as high as my reluctance to aid and abet the UAW-Democrat Axis of Corruption.
I'll tag this with a somewhat related observation.
Most of my liberal friends have never had any such loyalty, and with little exception, they ALL drive foreign cars. It's truly a peer pressure thing with them.
So when GM and Chrysler strike a deal with the UAW and Democrat "devils", they have just disenfranchised their principle demographic support.
Their billions in bailout won't last long without customers.
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