Obama Auto Advisers Wrap Up Meetings In Detroit
10 März 2009 - 1:33AM
Dow Jones News
Advisers to President Barack Obama got a close look of the
operations of General Motors Corp. (GM) and Chrysler LLC on Monday,
touring plants and test-driving cars. They then delivered a
sobering message to the company's top executives, calling for a
"fundamental restructuring" of the industry, an Obama
Administration official said.
The day marked the first time that members of Obama's
auto-industry task force traveled to Detroit as part of their
review of the companies, and it followed weeks of meetings in
Washington involving industry officials and elected lawmakers. The
task force, led by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and White
House economic adviser Lawrence Summers, is reviewing requests from
GM and Chrsyler for nearly $22 billion in new loans, and officials
have characterized the meetings as part of broad fact-gathering
effort.
Monday's meetings were expected to involve two outside advisers
who are serving on the task force, Ron Bloom and Steven Rattner,
according to people with knowledge of the meetings. The task force
members met with senior management at GM and Chrsyler after a
morning meeting with Ron Gettelfinger, president of the United Auto
Workers, and other union leaders, the administration official
said.
The task force members test-drove GM's Chevrolet Volt and a
fuel-cell concept car and toured the assembly line of the Dodge Ram
pickup, the official said. They then told the companies' executives
that Obama understands the urgency of the industry's crisis and
plans to help, but that a fundamental restructuring is needed, the
official said. The administration's auto team will continue to meet
with stakeholders of the companies, acting with urgency but
performing a deliberate review, the official said.
GM spokesman Tom Wilkinson characterized the meeting as "purely
a fact-finding and learning meeting," and said the company planned
to continue to work with the administration.
At Chrysler's truck assembly plant in Warren, task force members
met with Chrysler CEO Robert Nardelli, Chief Financial Officer Ron
Kolka, and other company officials.
The company said in a statement it's "fully engaged" with the
administration "during this process of ensuring the industry's
viability going forward." Officials declined to comment
further.
-By Josh Mitchell, Dow Jones Newswires; 202-862-6637;
joshua.mitchell@dowjones.com
(Jeff Bennett and Sharon Terlep contributed to this story.)