In this image taken with a cell phone by Jason McLane, the primary presidential aircraft, a Boeing 747 known as Air Force One when the president is aboard, flies low over New York Harbor, followed by an F-16 chase plane during a federal government photo op Monday, April 27, 2009. A low-flying Boeing 747 escorted by two fighter jets as part of a federal government photo opportunity over lower Manhattan caused a brief panic among workers near ground zero on Monday. (AP Photo/Jason McLane) (Jason Mclane - AP)

(Source: Washington Post)

NEW YORK — A Boeing 747 used by the president was escorted over lower Manhattan by two Air Force fighter jets Monday as part of a government photo opportunity, causing a brief panic among office workers near ground zero.

(Source: New York Times)

Union leaders said Sunday that they had reached an agreement with Chrysler that meets federal requirements for the automaker to receive more financing.

The deal includes Fiat, the Italian automaker with which Chrysler was ordered by the government to form an alliance before Thursday.

Neither the United Automobile Workers union nor the company released details of the tentative agreement, which would modify the union’s 2007 contract and reduce the amount of money Chrysler must pay into a new health fund for retirees.

Image: New York Times

The union plans to have its 26,000 Chrysler workers vote on the deal by Wednesday.

Chrysler said the agreement, reached during marathon negotiations over the weekend, satisfied the requirements laid out by the Obama administration for a deal by an April 30 deadline.

Even with the agreement, Chrysler is expected to seek Chapter 11 protection, in a case mapped out by the government in advance, including safeguards meant to protect worker benefits, people with knowledge of the company’s plans said Sunday night.

A new company would be set up with the best assets of Chrysler, these people said. Fiat of Italy would own 20 percent to 35 percent of the new Chrysler, they said, with the government also holding a stake. Some of the equity in the new company would also be given to Chrysler’s creditors as repayment.

These people spoke on condition of anonymity because the deals had not been finalized.

The Treasury Department has also reached an agreement with Daimler of Germany, the former owner of Chrysler, to settle tax and other claims left over from its sale of Chrysler in 2007 to Cerberus Capital Management, the private equity firm.

In order to persuade the union to back the sale to Cerberus, Daimler agreed to pay $1 billion to Chrysler if the company’s pension plans were terminated in a subsequent bankruptcy filing. Details of the Treasury’s deal with Daimler were not available.

Last week, the union reached an agreement in principle with the administration and Chrysler that would protect workers’ pensions in the event of a bankruptcy filing and provide for a change in the financing of a health care trust set up in 2007.

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(Source: CNN) 

Pontiac owners around the United States are feeling nostalgic amid reports that cash-strapped General Motors will end one of its most coveted brands.

 Pontiac models, such as the 1969 GTO, helped usher in the era of the muscle cars, enthusiasts say.

Jean Lindsay of western New York fondly recalls the muscle cars in her family’s driveway: Two 1967 GTOs.

“I had two brothers, and they each had one of these cars,” she said. “The GTO represented the suburban culture of its time, heavily laden with root beer and plain beer.”

“Those were the days of Bob’s Big Boy [hamburger restaurant], when girls wore skates. Back then we pleasantly wasted gas looking for fun. It was a social thing.”

Debuting in 1964, the Pontiac GTO is widely regarded as the original muscle car. It was a risky model in that it featured a big-block engine in an intermediate-size frame.

The GTO’s success not only buoyed GM but helped jumpstart the high-performance market for Detroit’s Big Three automakers — and ushered in the era of the vehicle as status symbol.

“It was a chick magnet, for God’s sake. Even from a girl’s standpoint,” Lindsay said.

Pontiac’s other emblematic performance car, the Firebird Trans Am, featured the outline of a firebird on the hood — the whole hood. It enjoyed a rise in popularity and brisk sales after being featured in the “Smokey and the Bandit” movie franchise beginning in the late 1970s.

But like even the most sturdy odometer, the numbers, years ago, had begun to work against Detroit.

In February, GM announced the end of the Saturn and Hummer lines while casting a ray of hope for Pontiac enthusiasts by saying that the brand would survive but be scaled back to a niche product.

But as a potential bankruptcy filing looms on June 1, the automaker has reportedly studied closing down the Pontiac brand. In the midst of pressure from the Obama administration to present a restructuring plan that shows the company’s long-term viability, the automaker recently released a statement to downplay fears that brands Americans have patronized for generations are on the chopping block.

“General Motors has not announced any changes to its long-term viability plan or to the future status of any of its brands,” the automaker said Friday in a statement on its Web site.

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(Source: NY Times)

Ethanol producers reacted with dismay to California’s approval of the nation’s first low-carbon fuel standard, which will require the state’s mix of fuels to be 10 percent lower in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020.

In a 9-1 vote late Thursday, the state’s Air Resources Board approved the measure (seebackground here).“The drive to force the market toward greater use of alternative fuels will be a boon to the state’s economy and public health — it reduces air pollution, creates new jobs and continues California’s leadership in the fight against global warming,” said the California board’s chairman, Mary D. Nichols, in a statement.

But the ethanol industry is concerned that the regulations give a poor emissions score to their corn-based product, in some cases ranking it as a bigger emitter than petroleum.

“This was a poor decision, based on shaky science, not only for California, but for the nation,” said General Wesley Clark, who co-chairs the pro-ethanol group Growth Energy, in a statement.

The decision, he added, “puts another road block in moving away from dependence on fossil fuels and stifles development of the emerging cellulosic industry.”

Note: Late last night, TransportGooru made detailed post (shown below), immediately following the Calif. Air Resources Board announcement on the adoption of this standard. 

California adopts first-in-the-world regulation to minimize the amount of carbon in fuel

(Source: Autoblog & The Detroit News)

It’s looking increasingly likely that the United States will soon have its own Cash-for-Clunkers program. According to The Detroit News, two bills are currently competing for Congressional votes, and while they would both offer sizable rewards for turning in older vehicles, they vary in what new cars and trucks would qualify for the program.

One bill, sponsored by Rep. Betty Sutton (D-Ohio) would give the largest voucher – up to $5,000 – to purchasers of new vehicles made in the United States. Slightly smaller amounts would be granted for other vehicles made in the rest of North America, and no cash would be granted for the purchase of foreign-made cars. All cars would need to manage at least 27 mpg to qualify, and trucks would need to hit at least 24 mpg.
 
The other bill, sponsored by Rep. Steve Israel (D-New York), would offer up to $4,500 for the purchase of a new vehicle, assuming that the vehicle being traded-in gets 18 mpg or less, and the new vehicle’s fuel efficiency is at least 25% better than average for its class. No distinction would be made based on the vehicle’s country of origin.

Both would require the scrapping of older vehicles to remove them from the roadways and both would give drivers the option of trading in an old car for a bus or subway pass.

In addition to promoting energy efficiency, the idea is to boost new car sales and get vehicles on the roads with updated safety features.

The program could cost as much as $4 billion and help retire at least 1 million older vehicles. Senior congressional aides and members of the Obama auto task force met earlier this month in search of the best way to pay for and structure it.

Toyota spokesman Charles Ing said his company wants legislation to apply to all fuel efficient vehicles and adhere to U.S. obligations under the World Trade Organization.

(Source: CBS, LA Times, SF Chronicle)

California took aim today at the oil industry and its effect on global warming, adopting the world’s first regulation to limit greenhouse gas emissions from the fuel that runs cars and trucks.

Photo: AP/Rich Pedroncelli via CBS

The regulation requires producers, refiners and importers of gasoline and diesel to reduce the carbon intensity of their fuel by 10% over the next decade. And it launches the state on an ambitious path toward ratcheting down its overall heat-trapping emissions by 80% by mid-century — a level that scientists deem necessary to avoid drastic disruption to the global climate.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger praised the regulation immediately after the vote.

“California’s first-in-the-world low carbon fuel standard will not only reduce global warming pollution – it will reward innovation, expand consumer choice and encourage the private investment we need to transform our energy infrastructure,” Schwarzenegger said in a statement.

At the all-day public hearing prior to the vote, backers of corn-based ethanol criticized the regulation because it counts – as part of the carbon intensity – the indirect effects of manufacturing the fuel. With corn-based ethanol, that means counting the impact of creating new crop land when existing land is converted to growing corn for fuel instead of food.

Backers of the regulation applauded in the auditorium after the vote.

(Source: Autoblog, Telegraph UK) 

After weeks of dithering, the Government announced a car scrappage scheme in yesterday’s Budget.  Anyone with a car registered after July 31, 1999 will get a cash incentive of £2,000 to trade in their old vehicle for a brand new one.

However, only £1,000 will come from the Government, with the remaining £1,000 coming from car firms; the motor industry had hoped that the Government would foot the entire £2,000 bill.

Participants will be able to buy any new vehicle, including small vans, rather than just low pollution models. Motorists taking advantage of the scheme must have owned the car for at least one year; it will also have to be taxed, insured and have a current MoT in order to qualify.

About £300 million has been set aside to fund the scheme, to be launched in mid-May. About 300,000 consumers are expected to benefit until the scheme ends in March 2010, unless funding runs out before then.

In the below video, you can hear Mr. Tony Whitehorn, Managing Director of Hyundai UK, welcoming Chancellor Alistair Darling’s ‘cash for bangers’ scheme announcement in the Budget.

(Source: San Jose Mercury news & Calif. ARB)

SACRAMENTO—California air regulators are taking another step to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, considering first-in-the nation standards to require the use of so-called low-carbon fuels.

The California Air Resources Board, which will debate the standards Thursday, considers the regulation a framework for a potential national policy advocated by President Barack Obama on the campaign trail last year. Democrats have included a goal for low-carbon fuels in the latest climate bill they have introduced in Congress.

“We see this as a model for the rest of the country and the world to follow,” said Air Resources Board member Dan Sperling, a transportation expert and professor at the University of California, Davis.

 The proposed regulation calls for reducing the carbon content in California’s transportation fuels 10 percent by 2020, but representatives of the petroleum and ethanol industries are objecting to how the state proposes to achieve that.

California oil producers and refiners are skeptical that cleaner fuels and vehicles powered by hydrogen and natural gas will be available in time to meet the new standards. They are asking the Air Resources Board to delay a decision until next year.

“This is the most transforming fuel regulation we’ve ever done,” said Kathy Rehis-Boyd, executive vice president of the Western States Petroleum Association. “We think there’s still more homework to do on this. There’s a lot of uncertainty.”

“We have a long history of what I call ‘fuel du jour’ approaches,” Sperling said. “What we need is a broad policy framework that doesn’t pick winners.”

The Air Resources Board is not just targeting the emissions of the fuel once it is burned in a vehicle. It also wants to account for all carbon emissions related to the production of the fuel.

For example, refineries could choose to stop buying a heavy crude oil extracted from Canadian oil sands, which takes more energy to convert into gasoline. But accounting for emissions during the entire production cycle of a fuel also would discourage certain fuels from being used in California.

Corn-based ethanol, for example, burns cleanly in a car engine. But making it can take a heavy toll on the environment: Massive tracts of land must be cleared, which requires fuel-powered tractors, then coal- or natural gas-fired plants convert the corn into fuel and petroleum is used to transport the end product to distant markets.

(Source: Washington Post)

Top officials at Chrysler Financial turned away a $750 million government loan because executives didn’t want to abide by new federal limits on pay, sources familiar with the matter say.

(Source: The Transport Politic)

Proposal reveals a little – and a lot – about how the administration wants to proceed with its rail programs

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