LAST AUTO NEWS – WASHINGTON AUTO SHOW: BALANCE OF POWER SHIFTING FROM DETROIT TO D.C.
Last Auto News –
A army aggregate at the doors of the Walter E. Washington Convention Center bygone about 2 pm, bustling with apprehension as the bedfellow arrived. He entered to a annular of acclaim from a aggregate accumulation of industry leaders, and fabricated his way through the Washington Auto Appearance followed by a assemblage of journalists, walking through the aside clicks of dozens of cameras.
A bedrock star? An actor? An industry titan?
No. It was Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood.
The antithesis of ability in the auto industry has confused from Detroit to Washington.
The Washington Post reports, “Until actual recently, the accord amid automakers and policymakers went something like this: The industry asserted its position, and leaders in Washington abundantly acquiesced.” Today, however, “politicians and lobbyists say” there “has been a bit-by-bit abrasion of the auto industry’s ascendancy in Washington and in accompaniment legislatures.” The automakers, now in debt to the federal government for billions of dollars, are in Washington this anniversary announcement their articles “as they accessory up to appeal for billions more.”
But, the Post says, the industry’s “rock-solid abutment in Congress has beat away, as abounding associates say they accept been again addled by the companies’ promises of ameliorate and complaints that new initiatives would spell banking ruin.”
The Detroit News letters that an “unusual amount of top admiral accessory the appearance reflects the top antecedence the Obama administering is agreement on automotive issues.”
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson and Carol Browner, White House coordinator for altitude and activity policy, abutting LaHood in a bout of the appearance yesterday. Former Secretary of Accompaniment Colin Powell toured as well, led through the displays alone by GM Vice Admiral of Global Design Ed Wellburn.
Edmunds’ Blooming Car Advisor explains, “The auto industry gets a abundant befalling to antechamber some key aldermanic and administering admiral this anniversary as the Washington auto appearance gets underway, and by all accounts industry admiral aren’t missing a step.”
They’re absorption heavily on blooming cars, announcement their latest amalgam and electric cars in an accomplishment to argue policymakers that Detroit is assuredly acknowledgment the alarm to body added fuel-efficient cars. The industry’s lobbying efforts, the Post notes, now focus on “asking Congress to canyon laws that will activation consumers to buy such vehicles.
It’s a abolitionist change for an industry that already acclimated its ascendancy to anticipate fuel-efficiency laws from passing. “Has the industry absent its ability to say no?” Dave McCurdy, admiral of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, asked the Post. “The industry is saying, ‘Yes, however. . . . Yes, let’s plan it out.’ It’s a altered starting point in the discussion. The attributes of the industry has changed.”
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