(Updated with more detail in the first six paragraphs and in the 14th through 17th paragraphs.)
By Josh Mitchell and Corey Boles Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- Senate negotiators were meeting Thursday afternoon in a last-ditch effort to keep alive a proposal to rescue the U.S. auto industry.
The meetings involved Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., and Sen. Robert Corker, R-Tenn. Aides to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and United Auto Workers union officials were also believed to be participating in the talks.
The meeting on Capitol Hill came on a day when Republican opposition in the Senate threatened to derail a $14 billion aid package passed by the House Wednesday night.
Top Republicans in the Senate vowed to oppose the House-approved bill without significant changes.
"This proposal isn't nearly tough enough," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., told colleagues, calling for stricter measures to ensure reform at General Motors Corp. (GM), Ford Motor Co. (F) and Chrysler LLC.
The opposition by McConnell and other Republicans raised doubts about whether Democrats could marshal the 60 votes needed to ensure passage of the aid package.
But Senate Democrats pushed ahead with plans for a vote as soon as Thursday afternoon. "We have danced this tune long enough," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., told colleagues Thursday morning.
If the bill were defeated or stalled by procedural delays, the U.S. House could be forced to accept changes to the bill to ensure passage in the Senate, where Republicans have floated alternative proposals. The time frame is tight, with GM and Chrysler in danger of running short of cash before the end of the year and Congress soon entering a holiday recess.
Early debate on the Senate floor Thursday indicated serious obstacles remain before auto allies can muster the votes needed to ensure passage. The package passed the House on a 237-to-170 vote Wednesday night, with Democrats providing most of the support.
Several Republican senators assailed the House bill for giving too much authority to a presidential designee known as an auto "czar" to oversee the industry's restructuring.
The House bill is "based on a concept that the bureaucracy can run the free-enterprise system better than the free-enterprise system can, and it doesn't work," Sen. James Inhofe, R-Ok., said on the Senate floor.
Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., said the presidential designee would inevitably be influenced by politics.
"A bailout would invite all sorts of meddling by lawmakers to have the companies carry out their own sort of pet policies," adding that a bankruptcy judge would be the appropriate authority to oversee the auto makers' restructuring.
Others said the bill's language was too vague to ensure fundamental reforms by the companies.
Sen. David Vitter, R-La., renewed his pledge to use "every tool" available to block the proposal "because so much is at stake, because we need to get it right."
"This package doesn't demand the fundamental core restructuring that is absolutely necessary for these companies to survive," Vitter said.
McConnell indicated he would support a proposal by Sen. Robert Corker, R-Tenn. Under that proposal, the car companies would get immediate assistance under the conditions they work with creditors to reduce their debt by two-thirds and with the United Auto Workers union to bring labor costs in line with those of foreign auto makers. If a March 15 deadline weren't met, the companies would be required to file for bankruptcy protection.
"The Corker proposal would make many much-needed and dramatic improvements to the underlying bill," McConnell said.
Corker said union leaders and car-company executives have expressed openness to those conditions, and the process would have the same effect as a reorganization in bankruptcy court.
Other Republicans voiced support for the Corker proposal.
Sen. James Inhofe, R-Ok., said a bankruptcy filing may yet be the best option.
"As undesirable as bankruptcy is, I don't know of any other way you can actually force the tough negotiations that have to take place" to restructure the companies, he said.
The House bill was forged over five days of negotiations among top presidential aides and the Democratic congressional leadership. But congressional Republicans have complained they were left out of the process and expressed serious opposition.
Auto allies suggest they may need 12 to 15 Republican votes in the Senate to overcome procedural objections that would endanger the proposal.
-By Josh Mitchell, Dow Jones Newswires; 202-862-6637; joshua.mitchell@dowjones.com
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Publié le 11 Décembre 2008 Copyright © 2008 Dowjones