Congress will decide this week whether or not to infuse Detroit automakers with $25 billion in additional loan guarantees. It appears such a bailout is likely to go through, so the question remains: What reasonable conditions should Washington impose on its investment?
If Washington is going to give yet another loan-guarantee bailout to Detroit automakers, then the price should include requiring the car manufacturers to drop their four-year-long legal assault against global warming laws in California and three other states (Vermont, Rhode Island and New Mexico), as well as a requirement to develop and deliver hybrids, clean diesels and other highly fuel-efficient vehicles.
As an investor gambling with billions in increasingly scarce taxpayer dollars, Congress is well within its rights to insist that every penny of the $25 billion in new loan guarantees that Detroit is seeking be targeted to building the cars of tomorrow, not the gas-guzzling dinosaurs of yesterday.
And if taxpayers are going to be put at risk by guaranteeing new loans, then any such new help should be conditioned on the U.S. car companies ending their campaign to frustrate state-level efforts to clean up car and light-truck emissions that cause global warming.
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