December 9, 2008 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE S10825 

everyone knows I am serious about 

this—that may mean we have to work 

this weekend. I hope that is not the 

case. Today is Tuesday. But the rules 

are as they are and we may have to 

work through this. We cannot let a few 

people stop us from doing the people’s 

business. 

I think Senator MCCONNELL and I 

have the same view; we discussed it 

this morning, that we want to move 

forward making sure all parties feel 

they have been part of the process. 

There is nothing we could do that 

would be perfect. So we can only do the 

best we can; that is, to work through 

this legislation with the art of compromise. We have had to do that on 

this piece of legislation. 

So we will have to wait until the 

White House completes their meetings 

with the leadership on the Republican 

side. Hopefully, today, we can have a 

better direction as to when we can 

complete this. 

I think the seriousness of what we 

are engaged in with Detroit and the financial bailout of the banking institutions and the financial apparatus of 

this country has been very hard and 

difficult, and we need to keep moving 

forward. As everyone knows, thousands 

of jobs have been lost, and we need to 

get our country back in a position 

where we are talking about and feel 

good about the jobs that are being 

gained, not the jobs being lost. 

So having said that, Mr. President, I 

will be happy to answer any questions 

anyone has. They know how to get 

ahold of me. 

I suggest the absence of a quorum. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The 

clerk will call the roll. 

The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll. 

Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the 

quorum call be rescinded. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without 

objection, it is so ordered. 

f 

MORNING BUSINESS 

Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate now 

proceed to a period of morning business, with Senators allowed to speak 

therein for up to 10 minutes each, and 

that the morning hour expire at 4:30 

p.m. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without 

objection, it is so ordered. 

Mr. REID. Mr. President, I suggest 

the absence of a quorum. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The 

clerk will call the roll. 

The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll. 

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I ask 

unanimous consent that the order for 

the quorum call be rescinded. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. 

SANDERS). Without objection, it is so 

ordered. 

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I want 

to take the next several minutes, as we 

are getting together back in the Capitol, to discuss the possible future assistance the Federal Government 

might provide to our auto industry. 

Coming down on the train, several 

people said to me—some for and some 

against the proposal—that they were 

not comfortable with the idea of giving 

money to the auto industry, and I said 

neither am I. I am not interested in 

giving money to the auto industry any 

more than I wanted to give money to 

the financial services industry. 

I invite the people who are following 

this issue to go back in time to 1979, 

1980, when Chrysler was going through 

a difficult time, and Lee Iacocca was 

the CEO of the company then. He 

called for Federal assistance. I think at 

the time they were interested in a Federal loan to Chrysler. We weren’t interested in doing that then, but we agreed 

to provide loan guarantees so that if 

Chrysler could find financing elsewhere, the Federal Government would 

provide a backstop in the form of a 

guarantee of the loans; otherwise, 

Chrysler would not have been able to 

obtain the needed financing. We called 

on Chrysler to make some difficult decisions to reduce costs and make sure 

that in the long haul they would be 

successful and viable as a company. 

At the time, Lee Iacocca told us: If 

we could make that Chrysler K Car, 

that is our ticket to salvation and redemption and profitability. He said we 

don’t have the financial wherewithal to 

get there. The Federal Government 

agreed to provide a lifeline in the form 

of a loan guarantee. A number of 

States, including my State of Delaware, agreed to provide loans—direct 

loans in this case—to Chrysler. We negotiated a collateralized loan to Chrysler in 1980. In return for the Federal 

taxpayers taking on the risk in 1980 of 

the loan guarantees, we asked for an 

ability to participate in an upside. We 

wanted to make sure not just the 

shareholders and employees would benefit but that the taxpayers would benefit. We agreed to make loan guarantees in return for getting warrants— 

not warrants for anybody’s arrest but a 

warrant that is a financial instrument 

that can be used to turn into stock and 

provide the potential, at least, for the 

Federal taxpayer to make some positive return on this investment. 

As it turned out, when the deal was 

closed and Jimmy Carter signed the 

legislation in the early part of 1980, the 

stock for Chrysler was about $5 a share. 

Under the terms of the agreement, the 

Federal Government was able to purchase Chrysler stock for $13 a share. It 

didn’t sound like a very good deal at 

the time. Nonetheless, we had that option to buy Chrysler stock at a future 

date at $13 a share. Later, Chrysler 

built the K Car and returned to profitability. They made money and the 

value of the shares appreciated. The 

time came when the Federal Government decided to go to Chrysler and say 

we would like to use our warrants and 

buy the stock at $13 a share. Then we 

turned around and sold them for $30 a 

share after that. The difference between the $13 and the $30 we sold them 

for led to an appreciation or accumulation of about $310 million for taxpayers. The loan the State of Delaware 

made to Chrysler—the collateralized 

loan I negotiated as State treasurer— 

was paid in full. Not only did we get 

the principal back, but we made interest for the taxpayers of my State. The 

same thing occurred to the taxpayers 

of other States. Meanwhile, Chrysler 

agreed to make a number of concessions that there be a sharing of sacrifices made by labor and management 

and others to help make that company 

viable for the longer haul. Lee Iacocca 

worked for $1 a year. 

The long and short of it is that it 

worked. That was in 1980. It worked for 

over a quarter century. Chrysler has 

gotten themselves into trouble because 

they began relying more and more on 

large inefficient vehicles—SUVs, 

trucks, and relatively few fuel-efficient 

cars or fuel-efficient light trucks or 

SUVs. In the end, by this time last 

year, roughly 70 percent of what Chrysler was building was energy-inefficient 

cars. During the CAFE increases last 

year, among the companies that 

pushed back initially was Chrysler. 

They have had to begin pivoting, if you 

will, to move from a product line where 

up to 70 percent of the vehicles were 

light trucks and SUVs, relatively few 

cars, and not many very fuel efficient, 

to one where not just the light trucks 

and vans and SUVs were energy efficient but also the cars. You cannot do 

that. Chrysler cannot do it, and Ford 

and GM cannot move within a year, or 

even 2 years, from a product line that 

is woefully inefficient in terms of fuel 

economy to one that is highly efficient. 

It has taken a period of time. 

I am encouraged by the progress they 

are making at Chrysler. They are a 

couple of years out from being where 

they need to be, given the marketplace 

and what consumers are asking for. 

Meanwhile, over at Ford, about 2 

years ago, they largely redefined the 

company, including the logo, to begin a 

major transformation. Under the leadership of Bill Ford and Alan Mullaley, 

former head of Boeing, who was 

brought in to run Ford a couple years 

ago, they began a transformation not 

12 months ago but more like 2 years 

ago to move to vehicles such as the 

Focus and Fusion. They are in a better 

position now as people are buying 

fewer vehicles and are looking for energy-efficient vehicles. There is some 

neat, nifty technology and items for 

the vehicles as well, with the partnership they have worked out with Microsoft. 

Over at GM, meanwhile, GM is hopefully about to introduce, in a year or 

year and a half, what I call the most 

advertised car that has never been 

built, the Chevrolet Volt. I saw it unveiled at the Detroit Auto Show about 

a year and a half ago—a plug-in hybrid, 

flex fuel vehicle with the potential of 

getting not just 40 miles out from the 

garage in the homes in the morning, 


wwoods2 on PRODPC68 with SENATE
S10826 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE December 9, 2008 

but a potential for getting 80 to even 90 

miles per gallon by using an alternative onboard fuel system, a propulsion system, not to propel the car but 

to recharge the battery. Unfortunately, 

we have not built the battery yet. Nobody has built a battery yet that can 

do that or designed one that will work 

at minus 10 degrees Fahrenheit or 110 

degrees Fahrenheit. They have worked 

for 10 years under all kinds of conditions. Efforts are underway in many 

countries to win a race to build that 

battery. The Federal Government has 

provided a fair amount of financial 

support, investing in technology to 

make sure we get to the finish line 

ahead of our foreign competitors. It is 

an important race. GM, I think, stands 

to benefit from this, and so do the folks 

who work there and those who have 

shares with GM. So do the rest of us, 

frankly. 

Let me come back to what I said earlier, about the conversation I had with 

several people on the train coming 

from Wilmington today. They said to 

me: We didn’t like the fact that you 

gave all that money to the banks, and 

we don’t like the idea of giving all that 

money to the auto industry. If you 

look at what we have done with the financial institutions, we have, under 

the legislation, created a so-called 

TARP. Under that legislation we authorize the Treasury to invest in the 

banks, to take an equity position. With 

the moneys we have infused or invested 

into most of these banks, we bought 

preferred stock. That preferred stock 

pays initially 5 percent per year, and 

later 9 percent if it is not bought back 

by the banks. In addition, we get options, much as we did with Chrysler in 

1980, that could be converted into 

shares of stock that we can benefit 

from—not just we but the taxpayers 

can benefit from. 

The idea there was to make the investment with the possibility that if 

there is an upside or rebound by the financial institutions that asked for this 

investment, the taxpayers have the opportunity to participate in the profits, 

as we did with respect to Chrysler all 

those years ago. The money that we 

are now talking about, or will be debating, whether to make available for 

working capital for the auto companies—let me add that only Chrysler 

and GM have indicated an interest in 

drawing down this money. Ford said: 

We think we are OK. Maybe later we 

will need a line of credit. For now, we 

think we are all right. 

That is good news. So what we are 

working on is an approach where we, 

just as we invested in the financial institutions in order to get back preferred stock that pays 5 to 9 percent 

and also carries the possibility of warrants that we can turn into profit-making stock shares later, we want to do 

the same thing with our auto industry. 

The Presiding Officer will recall a 

year or so ago when we passed CAFE 

legislation. In it we passed section 136, 

which said we want to provide as much 

as $25 billion so that the auto companies can modernize their plants for the 

principal purpose of building more energy-efficient vehicles. We feel that is 

what is needed—high quality and good 

productivity. But that is one of the 

major things needed to be competitive 

in the world today: energy-efficient 

cars, trucks, vans, and so forth. 

That $25 billion is not going to be 

available, apparently, right away to go 

into plant modernization. 

The idea is to take as much as $15 

billion of that $25 billion to make 

available to Chrysler and General Motors. The idea is not to give them this 

money; the idea is to invest this money 

in ways they can use it for working 

capital to get them through the next 

several months and, in the meantime, 

to require, under the guidance of what 

has been called a czar or an oversight 

board whose job would be to act almost 

as a bankruptcy judge, to make sure 

that further savings are realized by 

both Chrysler and GM but to ensure 

there is some further givebacks not 

just from labor, not just from management, not just from bondholders, not 

just from dealers, and not just from 

lenders but all the above. It is a concept that makes sense. The idea of here 

is $15 billion, and we hope you can get 

better and repay the money down the 

line, is not what we are interested in 

doing. 

We want to improve the likelihood 

that we will get back every dime we 

lend of this $15 billion and more, if 

needed, later on. But we want to make 

sure the companies, particularly 

Chrysler, Ford, and GM, make the additional changes they need to increase 

the likelihood that they will be viable 

for a long period of time. 

I close by saying we are seeing a real 

transformation in our economy. We 

used to be a big manufacturing country. We are less so today. Some people 

say that is fine, we will be a service 

economy, we will provide financial 

services and legal services, we will 

have insurance companies, maybe we 

will grow some food to feed ourselves 

and some of the rest of the world. But 

at the end of the day, we still need to 

make things. We still need to make 

things that people here and around the 

world want to buy. 

One of the things I believe we need to 

make are cars, trucks, and vans. It has 

been that way for a long time. It needs 

to continue to be that way going forward. 

I have had the privilege of representing and working for the people of 

Delaware, gosh, since 1976, when they 

elected me their State treasurer. We 

have had two auto assembly plants in 

my State for 50, 60 years—a Chrysler 

plant and a GM plant. The Chrysler 

plant is going to close at the end of 

this month. It is painful to me, and I 

know all the people who work there, 

the retirees, all who bought their vehicles and supported the plants in ways 

large and small over the years. But the 

writing is on the wall. My fear is that 

is going to happen. 

As this happens and we see plants 

such as our plant in Newark, DE, the 

Chrysler plant, close, it is important 

we also remember the people who are 

losing their jobs there, the folks who 

have not enough experience, enough 

time to retire and be eligible for benefits. As they prepare to close the doors 

at the Chrysler plant in Newark, DE, I 

wish to make sure the folks who are 

losing their livelihood have the opportunity to be trained for other jobs in 

my State or other States that will enable them to be gainfully employed, to 

make a decent income for themselves 

and to support their families. 

One of the things we can do, in addition to providing, if you will, a loan 

guarantee or direct loan with strong 

conditions to these auto companies, is 

remember our responsibilities to those 

who are left behind and those left behind without the prospect of ever 

working again in the auto industry. 

There are some countries around the 

world—Finland comes to mind, Denmark, and a couple others—that do a 

good job. As industries grow up, mature, the nature of the job market, the 

industries in those countries change. 

Some countries around the world do a 

very good job of helping people whose 

skills for building, whether it is cars or 

buggies or buggy whips, are no longer 

appropriate—retraining people, supporting them for a period of time, giving them the social support net they 

need but then training them for jobs 

that need to be done, in this case, in 

the 21st century. 

There you have it, some thoughts. 

My hope is we will come back and have 

a robust debate for the remainder of 

this week, and before this week is over 

we will vote not to give away $15 billion to Chrysler or to GM but that we 

will vote to be willing, as we did in 

1980, to make an investment that has a 

potential upside, not just for the people 

who work in the companies, not just 

for the people who own shares of those 

companies but also for the American 

taxpayers. If we do take on this risk, 

there needs to be a reward for the taxpayers whose money is at risk. 

Mr. President, thank you for this opportunity. I suggest the absence of a 

quorum. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The 

clerk will call the roll. 

The legislative clerk proceeded to 

call the roll. 

Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, I ask 

unanimous consent that the order for 

the quorum call be rescinded. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. 

MCCASKILL). Without objection, it is so 

ordered. 

f 

TRIBUTE TO EINAR DYHRKOPP 

Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, this 

past Saturday, 1 day before the 75th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, a survivor of a different World War 

II kamikaze bombing died quietly at 

his home in Shawneetown, IL, at the 

age of 82. 


wwoods2 on PRODPC68 with SENATE