Dems, White House Work On Auto Bailout Bill

WASHINGTON -- Congressional Democrats and the White House are trying to resolve remaining differences over a $15 billion rescue for Detroit automakers.

The Bush administration said the measure doesn't do enough to ensure that only viable companies would get longer-term federal help.

President George W. Bush, in an interview with ABC's "Nightline," said it's "hard to tell" if an agreement is imminent.

The package, which calls for a "car czar" to oversee industry restructuring, is expected to come to a vote as early as Wednesday. The overseer could recall the loans as early as February if the carmakers weren't doing enough to reinvent themselves and become viable. And if the Big Three didn't come up with suitable restructuring plans by the end of March, the "car czar" would have to submit his own blueprint to Congress for a government-mandated overhaul.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the idea is to create a viable auto industry and that will require concessions from management, labor, creditors and others.

The speaker puts it this way: "We call this a barbershop. Everybody's getting a haircut."

Michigan Democratic Sen. Carl Levin, who's a key ally of the auto industry, said getting enough Republicans to back the bill could be an uphill climb.

Still, the White House said a preliminary look at the draft didn't appear to contain strict enough conditions to ensure that long-term financing would be available only to companies that could survive, according to officials who would comment on the continuing negotiations only on condition of anonymity.

The crux of the White House's concern is that there may not be enough clear, immediate protection for taxpayers if a company is not meeting its own promises for long-term viability after review by the president's overseer. The latest proposal suggests Congress may have to get involved again in a few months and pass a law to force a company to stick to its own plan - a potentially unwieldy political step.

Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., the House Financial Services Committee chairman who is leading negotiations on the measure, said he was optimistic that the differences could be resolved.

"There are a couple of specific issues to be negotiated. I think they can be worked out," Frank said Monday afternoon.

In the latest gauge of public opinion, people were split about evenly over providing federal money to keep the car companies functioning.

Forty-five percent approved and 44 percent were opposed, according to a CBS News poll released Monday. Nearly six in 10 Democrats favored the aid, while nearly the same share of Republicans opposed it.

About seven in 10 said the government should have a say in managing the companies if taxpayers provide assistance, and nearly as many said requiring more alternative fuel vehicles should be a condition of such aid. Fifty-six percent blamed management for the companies' problems, double the number who blamed uncontrollable economic problems.

Under the plan, the carmakers' could get emergency loans right away. Then the overseer would write guidelines, due on the first of the year, for restructuring the Big Three.

In testimony before Congress last week, General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC, which have said they are weeks from collapse, made it clear they would need a total of $14 billion to $15 billion to survive through early 2009. Ford Motor Co. has said it has enough money to stay afloat unless one of the other Big Three goes under or the economy deteriorates more sharply.

While the measure would put an administration official selected by Bush in charge of setting terms for restructuring, the decision about whether the terms were being met would not be made until Obama had been sworn in. Some Democrats were pushing to name Kenneth Feinberg, the lawyer who oversaw the federal Sept. 11 victims' compensation fund, to the post, but top congressional officials said there had been no discussion of that.