A Letter to Colorado Senator Ken Salazar

Don’t Give Detroit a Blank Check

Senator Salazar,

I shook your hand recently during your rural tour visit to Buena Vista, Colorado. You seem like a man of integrity who listens to his constituents. So please here me on this point: don’t give a blank check to the American auto industry. I must say that I am surprised at the enthusiasm with which Democratic lawmakers across the board are supporting proposals to advance $25 Billion in taxpayer money to Detroit automakers. While I am sensitive to the risks that an auto industry collapse poses and the impact such a collapse would have on thousands of workers’ lives, these companies do not deserve to be bailed out.

I am the proud owner of a Japanese Toyota Prius. I am 24 with a baby on the way, and I am committed to saving our planet and curbing global warming. So I have watched with scorn as GM and others have clung white-knuckled to their SUVs while spending billions on marketing campaigns claiming that these dinosaurs are green.

And now that this plainly myopic business strategy has American automakers scrambling, they want a bailout. As Thomas L. Friedman said recently in an excellent column in the New York Times, “We have to subsidize Detroit so that it will innovate? What business were you people in other than innovation?”

Senator, I am no economist. Many experts seem to agree that a total collapse of the American auto industry would be devastating. But if you must give them aid, make sure it’s not the kind of package that would have Detroit executives cheering. In fact, executives like GM’s vice chairman Bob Lutz, who calls global warming a “crock” and claims hybrids make “no economic sense,” deserve no place in Detroit. Drive a hard bargain. Do what Paul Ingrassia of the Wall Street Journal suggests:

“In return for any direct government aid,” he wrote, “the board and the management [of G.M.] should go. Shareholders should lose their paltry remaining equity. And a government-appointed receiver — someone hard-nosed and nonpolitical — should have broad power to revamp G.M. with a viable business plan and return it to a private operation as soon as possible. That will mean tearing up existing contracts with unions, dealers and suppliers, closing some operations and selling others and downsizing the company … Giving G.M. a blank check — which the company and the United Auto Workers union badly want, and which Washington will be tempted to grant — would be an enormous mistake.”

And as Friedman suggests, demand that these companies get their acts together around fuel-efficiency. If GM is not committed to creating an extensive fleet of vehicles that break at least 35 or 40 miles per gallon immediately, then they deserve to go under. My hope is that the Democratic party will usher in a new age of environmental stewardship. If Democrats push a blank check for Detroit through congress, you all will be off to a seriously bad start.

Respectfully,

Dustin Urban