[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 72 (Tuesday, May 12, 2009)]
[House]
[Pages H5460-H5466]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            THE HIDDEN HAND

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 6, 2009, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. LaTourette) is recognized 
for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. LaTOURETTE. Tonight, I return to talk about an old topic and also 
to talk about something that's just happened in the last couple of 
weeks.
  The Speaker may recall that a number of weeks ago there was outrage 
at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue when it was determined that located 
within the $792 billion stimulus bill there was a provision that 
authorized $173 million in bonuses to executives at the insurance 
company AIG. At the time, a number of us thought, Well, how could that 
happen?
  It seems, just to review, Mr. Speaker, that when the stimulus package 
was considered on the other side of the Capitol in the United States 
Senate, two Senators, in a rare display of bipartisanship--Senator 
Snowe, a Republican of Maine, and Senator Wyden, a Democrat of Oregon--
authored an amendment that would have put restrictions and basically 
indicated that if you were a firm like AIG that has received billions 
and billions of dollars in bailout money, perhaps there should be some 
restrictions on executive compensation and what people should make.
  Well, a funny thing happened, however, on the way to the conference 
committee. The Snowe-Wyden language was removed and instead this 
paragraph was inserted.
  Now this paragraph, if you read it carefully, Mr. Speaker, indicates 
that rather than placing restrictions on the bonuses, it specifically 
authorizes and exempts any bonus at AIG or any other Wall Street giant 
that received billions and billions of taxpayer money. Any executive 
compensation scheme that was entered into before February 11 of this 
year, which happened to be the date that the stimulus package was 
considered, would be exempt and the bonuses would be paid.
  Now I have indicated a number of times on the floor that I know that 
a lot of people were embarrassed by that. I would suggest that that's 
what happens when you legislate in a sloppy, rushed, haphazard, 
nonpartisan fashion.
  The Speaker will recall the week of the consideration of the stimulus 
bill, the members of the Republican Party--the minority party--put 
forward sort of a novel proposition, and that was since we were talking 
about spending $792 billion in the stimulus bill, it might be a good 
idea if Members had 48 hours to read the bill, and further suggested it 
should be put on the Internet so anybody in America could take a look 
at this over a thousand pages of legislation.
  Well, that proposal passed. It came to a vote here in the House, and 
every Member who was present that day, Republican or Democrat, voted 
and agreed that that was a good idea. That we should have 48 hours to 
read the bill. That was Tuesday.
  On Thursday, apparently the majority leadership forgot about the vote 
on Tuesday. And the bill was filed about midnight on Thursday.
  The next morning--and I have apologized to my constituents that I 
didn't read the thousand pages at midnight. It didn't come to my 
attention that we had a thousand-page bill that we were going to 
consider on that Friday until I arrived at the office that morning.
  But the debate was 90 minutes and, basically, Members, both 
Republican and Democrat, had 90 minutes to digest a thousand pages and 
determine whether or not that piece of legislation deserved an up or a 
down vote.
  It was a bipartisan vote, in that every member of the Republican 
Conference voted against the stimulus bill, together with some 
Democrats. But the overriding majority of the Democratic Party voted in 
favor of it. And it passed and went on to be signed by the President of 
the United States.
  What is strange is that everyone who voted for the stimulus bill 
voted for this paragraph that authorized the bonuses to AIG. Yet, the 
next day or days

[[Page H5461]]

after the bonuses were announced, everybody was coming to the floor 
beating their chest and pulling out their hair and saying, I'm shocked. 
I can't believe it. I don't know how this happened. We want our money 
back.
  Well, nobody should have been surprised, nobody should have been 
shocked, because anyone who supported the stimulus package in the House 
or the Senate voted--the final conference report--voted to specifically 
allow AIG and anybody else that had received billions of dollars of 
taxpayer money and bailouts to receive those bailout payments.
  But people were shocked. And so they came up with--I will call them 
goofy--they came up with goofy pieces of legislation in an attempt to 
cover their political rear ends.
  And so the first one was, Let's tax those bonuses at 90 percent. 
Well, what a dumb piece of legislation that was, Mr. Speaker. So 
tomorrow we decide we're mad at somebody else. Maybe tomorrow we're mad 
at the oil companies so let's tax them at 90 percent. Day after that, 
we're really not happy with the airlines so let's tax them at 90 
percent.
  To use the Tax Code to punish a small group of people when the 
mistake was made when this paragraph was inserted in the stimulus 
package is inappropriate and, thankfully, the President of the United 
States--President Obama--expressed his opinion that it wasn't a worthy 
piece of legislation, and it has died a natural death over in the 
United States Senate, where it exactly should have.
  The next dumb idea that people came up with was, Well, I know. Let's 
not tax these bonuses at 90 percent. Let's have the United States 
Treasury--the government--tell people how much money they can make. 
What a dumb idea that is.
  So, today it's the AIG guys. Again, tomorrow, let's say that we are 
not so crazy about the amount of money that bus drivers make. Well, why 
doesn't the Department of Transportation--Secretary LaHood--just figure 
out what the bus drivers in the country should make? Another cover-
your-rear-end piece of legislation.
  So in response to all this we have been coming to the floor on a 
semiregular basis to try and determine, because even though everybody 
was outraged, no one will say how the first language was removed from 
the bill and how this paragraph was placed in the bill.
  And so we have devised a game that most Americans are familiar with--
the game of Clue. A great game, and I recommend that everyone think 
about running out to Hasbro to get either the original edition or this 
edition.
  This is the case of ``The Hidden Hand.'' And that is: Who took out 
the Snowe-Wyden amendment and who wrote that paragraph that I had 
displayed on the chart before?
  Now there are a number of suspects. We have taken some out, we have 
put some in. But if you read the news reports of the final negotiations 
on the stimulus bill, we know that it either happened in the Speaker's 
office or the conference room, and there was this shuttle diplomacy 
going back and forth as to what the final bill was going to look like.
  As a matter of fact, the distinguished chairman of the Ways and Means 
Committee, Mr. Rangel of New York, was quoted in the paper the next day 
words to the effect that, It's difficult to get stuff done when only 
three people run the institution. So we excluded a couple of weeks ago 
Chairman Rangel. He's not the hidden hand. He didn't do it.
  So, like the game of Clue, we know that it happened in the Speaker's 
office or the conference room, and we know that the weapon that was 
used was a pen. What we can't figure out and what people haven't owned 
up to at this moment in time is: Who did it? It's pretty simple. Quite 
frankly, somebody did it. The thing didn't appear from nowhere.

                              {time}  2115

  Someone had to actually say to the drafters of the document, take out 
Snowe-Wyden, and put in what's commonly been now referred to as the 
Dodd amendment. Put in the Dodd amendment.
  Now we have asked repeatedly, and we have asked everybody we can 
find, Did you do it? And no one has answered the question, I did it or 
why.
  So because we couldn't finish the game of Clue on our own, we 
embarked on another tack. About a month ago I filed what's called a 
resolution of inquiry. It was directed to the Secretary of the 
Treasury, and it basically asked the Treasury to provide to the United 
States Congress all of the documents and communications with AIG and 
others to try to figure out who the hidden hand was, how the Dodd 
amendment had got into the stimulus package.
  Well, I want to recognize a champion, somebody who's been more than 
good to his word, the chairman of the full Committee on Financial 
Services, Barney Frank of Massachusetts, after it was filed came to me 
and said, I'll do whatever you want me to do with this resolution. If 
you want me to not consider it, I won't consider it. If you want me to 
consider it, we'll consider it. And I said, I would like you to 
consider it.
  So Chairman Frank took it before the Financial Services Committee. 
Everybody would have 48 hours to read the bill. The resolution of 
inquiry was called up, and everybody on the Committee on Financial 
Services, every Republican and every Democrat voted for this resolution 
of inquiry.
  And I'm thinking to myself, Now we're going to get someplace. Now 
we're going to figure out who the hidden hand is. Now we are going to 
figure out who sought to protect the $173 million of bonuses paid to 
AIG.
  And right before we broke a couple weeks ago, Chairman Frank came to 
the floor, good to his word. He filed the report and recommended that 
the Financial Services Committee report the bill favorably to the 
House.
  Now I thought surely we would have a debate on that. Again, this 
wasn't a party-line vote. It wasn't close. It was 63-0 or 64-0. And I 
thought for sure we could get this resolved so we could go down to the 
Treasury, and the Treasury could hand over the documents and we could 
be done with the game of Clue, and we could solve whether or not it was 
the Speaker, did she want to do it? Whether it was Harry Reid, the 
majority leader in the Senate. Whether it was Mr. Geithner, who is the 
new Secretary of the Treasury. Whether it was the chief of staff to the 
President of the United States, Mr. Emanuel, because some press 
accounts indicated that before it could be removed, they had to get the 
approval of the White House. Well, who in the White House approved it? 
We've cleared Chairman Rangel, and a lot of fingers were pointed at 
Senator Dodd, the distinguished Chairman of the Senate Banking 
Committee, that perhaps he had inserted it.
  But what people have said to this moment in time, Mr. Speaker, is 
that Secretary Geithner called the head guy at AIG, and the head guy 
said, Well, we've got some legal problems with the bonuses. So we need 
to go forward.
  But nobody yet has come forward and said, I took the language out, 
and I put the language in, and here's why.
  So I was happy when Chairman Frank reported the bill. And I thought, 
I know that the distinguished leader, majority leader of the House, Mr. 
Hoyer of Maryland, is going to call that bill up. We're going to debate 
it. We're going to vote on it.
  Again, 63-0, all the Democrats, all the Republicans voted for it. I 
was sure it would sail through the House. But I've been waiting, and 
I've been waiting a month.
  I know you know this, Mr. Speaker. But legislation can only come to 
the floor here in the House of Representatives when it is authorized 
and called up by the majority leader, in this case, Mr. Hoyer of 
Maryland.
  There isn't exception to that. So I waited for the bill to be called 
up. I waited for a debate. It never happened, and so I filed, about 2 
weeks ago, a rule and today at the Speaker's desk is a discharge 
petition to discharge that rule so we can have a debate, so we can 
finally get down to brass tacks, and we can figure out who the hidden 
hand is, and we can figure out who decided that we should protect the 
AIG bonuses when these companies have gotten billions of dollars of 
bailout money and why. That's a pretty simple question.
  Now I'm optimistic--there's a meeting tomorrow at 4 o'clock with the 
Treasury Department, and they've been pretty cooperative. They're going 
to come over, and hopefully we'll be able to resolve what it is that we 
are seeking through the resolution of inquiry. I hope so.

[[Page H5462]]

  If not, I really hope that the distinguished majority leader would 
call up this piece of legislation so that we can have a debate, and we 
can get on with it. And we can solve this problem that outraged the 
President of the United States, it outraged Members of Congress, it 
outraged the public. This would help us figure out how to solve the 
problem.
  Now what we hear a lot of times around here is, well, we have so many 
important things to do that you're looking backwards.
  I mean, okay. We gave away billions of dollars in TARP money. We gave 
away and authorized $173 billion, and somehow somebody in the dead of 
night inserted this language into the bill with a hidden hand. But get 
over it because we have important work to do in the House of 
Representatives. Sadly, Mr. Speaker, we have heard that a lot since the 
beginning of the 110th Congress, the last Congress.
  I will tell you, I mean, we voted today. I think every person in the 
United States needs to feel comfortable because they will not go in and 
buy a new 44 cent stamp at a post office that hasn't been named by the 
House of Representatives over the last 2 years.
  We spent a lot of time naming Federal buildings. We spent a lot of 
time naming post offices, and this happened to us last year too.
  The Speaker may remember that last summer everybody was talking about 
not AIG and bailouts, but everybody was talking about gas prices. And 
in many parts of the country, gas--for the first time in my lifetime, a 
gallon of gasoline went over $4 a gallon. At that time we asked the new 
majority party, could we have a debate and come up with an energy bill 
and relieve some of the pain that people are experiencing at the pump? 
And they said, Well, we're really too busy to get to that.
  So a lot of Republicans took to the floor during our August recess 
and talked about the fact that we needed to do something. We needed to 
do all of the above. We needed to have clean coal technology. We needed 
to look at the renewables, wind, solar, geothermal. We needed to 
determine whether or not we were going to explore for more oil and 
natural gas in the United States.
  But again, because it is the majority party that calls the tune in 
the House of Representatives. They're the only people, with some 
exceptions, that can call up legislation. That never happened.
  And they said, you know what, we're really busy, and we really don't 
have time to talk about gasoline. And a lot of us said, you know, okay, 
when gasoline was $2.22 on January 29, 2007, which was about the 
beginning of the 110th Congress when the voters--because 
we, Republicans, had done such a great job--threw us out and installed 
the Democrats as the majority party in the House of Representatives, 
gas was $2.22. And rather than talking about energy, we passed a 
resolution congratulating the University of California Santa Clara 
soccer team.

  Now, Mr. Speaker, I'm sure that every parent and every player on that 
soccer team is proud of what it is that they accomplished, but not as 
important as the pain that our constituents were beginning to feel at 
the pump.
  But you could say, hey, it's only $2.22. What's the big deal? So 
maybe it's not a crisis. Well, then on September 5 of that year, 
gasoline goes up to $2.84. And you would say, oh, you know, I'll bet 
we're going to talk about gasoline prices and the national energy 
policy. That has to be something that we're going to consider on the 
floor of the House of Representatives.
  Well, when gas hits $2.84, the most important issue that the majority 
can bring up is National Passport Month. Now I like passports. I think 
passports should be honored. But gas is creeping up to $2.84.
  Well, it begins to get a little more serious. In February of 2008 it 
hits $3.03. You know that we're going to begin talking and take this 
problem seriously. But on the day that the national average reached 
$3.03 a gallon, the most important piece of legislation that the 
majority could bring to the floor was to commend the Houston Dynamo 
soccer team for what they did.
  Now, you know, those of us in elected office know the new buzzword, 
we have to look at the soccer moms. So apparently we had to get the 
soccer moms not once, we had to get them twice because our two 
resolutions, when gas was $3.03 and when we started, they honor soccer 
folks.
  But then a big jump happens. In the spring of 2008, gas goes to $3.77 
a gallon. And you say, well, listen, you know, we're going to talk 
about gas now because my phone was ringing off the hook. I assume the 
Speaker's phone was ringing off the hook. And you know that we're going 
to have a national energy bill that we were going to discuss because 
they are honest disagreements. Some people were saying, Drill, baby, 
drill. Some people were saying conserve. All we wanted to have was a 
debate.
  So gas hits $3.77, and you know we're going to have that debate in 
the House, but not yet.
  On that day, gas hits $3.77, and the most important thing we can do 
here in the Congress is to commemorate National Train Day. Now, again, 
I think trains--we've made a big mistake in this country by not 
investing in rail transportation, passenger rail transportation. But 
when gas is $3.77, maybe we could come up with something better than 
National Train Day.
  Gas continues to climb. We're out to almost Memorial Day last year, 
where we are about this year. $3.84 a gallon. And the most important 
thing that the majority can give us is the Great Cats and Rare Canids 
Day Act. Now, I have to tell you, I know what a great cat is. Those are 
lions and tigers and things like that. But I didn't know what a canid 
was. And if you don't know, Mr. Speaker, it's a dog.
  So on that day when our constituents were paying $3.84 a gallon to 
fill up their cars, we were recognizing dogs and cats on the House 
floor.
  It continues to go up as we get to June, $4.09. It crests $4, as I 
said, for the first time in my lifetime. You know we're going to talk 
about gas in the greatest deliberative body in the world.
  But no. On that day when the national average was $4.09, we declared 
2008 the International Year of Sanitation.
  Now some of the people back in my district were not understanding 
this. They're saying, are you kidding me? We're paying $4.09 a gallon, 
and you are declaring this the International Year of Sanitation?
  But it peaks out there on June 17, 2008, $4.14 a gallon. Now clearly 
everybody in the country is screaming about energy. All you have to do 
is turn on the television and see the talking heads. They're all 
talking about energy, why is gas so expensive? Well, you know now, 
we're going to get it. Now we're going to understand. We've got to have 
a national energy debate. What direction are we going to go in to 
reduce our reliance on foreign oil? Seventy percent of the oil that we 
use in this country is brought in from other countries. Surely we're 
going to do something about that.
  And I'll bet when I take this sticky note off of June 17, the day 
that gas hits $4.14, I know we had a debate on energy that day.

                              {time}  2130

  No. It wasn't an energy debate on that particular day. We passed the 
Monkey Safety Act. Now, Mr. Speaker, I don't know anybody that wants 
unsafe monkeys. We should want safe monkeys in the United States of 
America. But on the day that our constituents are paying $4.14 a gallon 
for gas, do you think that the most important issue facing the United 
States Congress, this august body, is the Monkey Safety Act? Well, it 
was to those who schedule the floor. So, sadly, we thought maybe people 
got it, that that probably wasn't the best use of our time when gas was 
going through the roof.
  Well, this year, Mr. Speaker, as the gentleman knows, we have had a 
big problem with unemployment. Our Nation is hurting. There are people 
that have lost their jobs, and there are people that continue to lose 
their jobs. And so on January 6, which was the opening day of this 
111th Congress, we all got together, and it is before President Obama 
took the oath of office, because we all know that that historic day was 
January 20, you have an unemployment rate that is beginning to climb. 
But as you see at the outside, by the time we get to the end, it is 
pretty significant.

[[Page H5463]]

  Well, so January 6 is the opening day of the United States Congress. 
January 20 is the day that President Obama was inaugurated, and there 
you see unemployment has inched up a little bit. You certainly can't 
blame President Obama. He was not even the President of the United 
States then, but the Congress was in session since January 6. That is 
when the new Congress started. We elected Speaker Pelosi again to be 
the Speaker of the House.
  So we get along to February 3. Again, the Congress has been working 
hard for 1 month, and you know that we are going to have some economic 
package to help alleviate the pain that is going on in this country 
with people that have lost their jobs. But on February 3, the most 
important thing that we could do here in the House was to pass a 
resolution supporting the goals and ideals of National Teen Dating. 
Now, I don't know whether that means that teens are dating nationally 
or it is a national day of teen dating, but rather than talking about 
the pain that was being experienced in communities all across the 
country, we recognized teen dating. Now, again, like with the monkeys, 
I want teen dating to be safe.
  Well, unemployment continues to rise. We get to February 10. Hundreds 
of thousands of more people lost their jobs, and on that day, the best 
we can do here in the House is to commend Sam Bradford for winning the 
Heisman Trophy. And just like the soccer moms, I'm sure that the 
Bradford family is more than pleased, and they should be. They should 
be proud of what their son has accomplished. But again, unemployment 
continues to rise, hundreds of thousands of people are losing their 
jobs, but we are too busy to talk about that. We are going to do that.
  Now, February 24, you will notice a theme here, Mr. Speaker, 
unemployment continues to go up. And I know we are going to deal with 
this situation and that we are going to find a way to help people who 
have lost their jobs. But because the United States Senate didn't enact 
the Monkey Safety Act last year, we called up the Monkey Safety Act 
again. And so for the second time in 2 years, we didn't have time to do 
an energy policy, we didn't have time to talk about unemployment, but 
we did have time in the House to pass the Monkey Safety Act not once 
but twice.
  Unemployment continues to go up on March 3. And just in case anybody 
is confused about the United States Congress' commitment to animals, we 
pass the Shark Conservation Act.
  And as unemployment continues to arc out, and I apologize for only 
going to March 12, because it has continued to rise since then, I bet 
we are going to talk about unemployment and how we help people back 
home. But on that day, we passed the resolution supporting ``Pi Day.'' 
Now, I was excited when I got the whip notice, because I thought it was 
p-i-e, pie. And I like pie a lot. But this pi is the mathematical 3.14. 
And rather than discussing a lot of things that are going on in the 
United States, we felt it was necessary and that the most important 
thing was to recognize pi and support ``Pi Day,'' and we all did, and 
we are all really happy that we did, because the country is a better 
place because we recognize pi on March 11.
  So, coming back to the game of Clue, I think that we have 
demonstrated that maybe we weren't too busy to get to the resolution of 
inquiry. Maybe we weren't too busy to figure out who put that offending 
paragraph in. Maybe we weren't too busy to explain to our constituents 
how folks on Wall Street who have sucked up billions and billions of 
taxpayer dollars that are paid into the Treasury by hardworking people 
all across the country, how through a drafting, it wasn't an oversight, 
somebody intentionally put it in there, how they rewarded these people 
with $173 million of bonuses.
  Now, all we want is for people to say, ``I did it, and here is why I 
did it,'' and then we can move on to do something else. But to indicate 
that we are too busy to get to that question I think is not okay.
  Now, Mr. Speaker, the second issue that brings me to the floor is 
last week and the week before, the country was rocked with the 
announcement of the bankruptcy filing of Chrysler. And a lot of people 
deserve credit. The President of the United States deserves credit. His 
auto task force deserves credit. The workers at the Chrysler plants 
across the country, the ownership, the employees, the white collar 
employees all deserve credit for making concessions and attempting to 
work it out. The Italian automaker Fiat had been courted. The President 
said, You have 30 days to work out a deal with Fiat or bad things are 
going to happen. Fiat stepped up to the plate. And 1 week ago 
Wednesday, and this is where, really, it is baffling to me, 1 week ago 
Wednesday, United Auto Worker members all across the country, and there 
are about 38, 39,000 of them that work for Chrysler, went to their 
local union halls to determine whether or not to ratify an agreement 
making these concessions so that the Chrysler deal could move forward 
either in or out of bankruptcy, and Fiat could purchase those assets 
out of bankruptcy if that is the way it went.
  And you may remember that there were a number of bondholders, people 
that held the paper for Chrysler, and most of them agreed to negotiate 
what it is they were owed. There were some that did not. And so the 
only route left was to go into bankruptcy, and Fiat now will purchase 
Chrysler's assets out of bankruptcy. But all of the autoworkers that 
worked for Chrysler went to the union hall and voted whether or not to 
accept these pretty big concessions, and it passed.
  As a matter of fact, I have a Chrysler facility in my district, the 
14th District of Ohio. It is the Twinsburg stamping plant. And those 
approximately 1,200 union workers went to vote on Wednesday, and 88 
percent of them voted to approve the concessions that were being asked 
of them.
  And a couple of things. The paragraph, Mr. Speaker, that is on the 
easel now behind me is, if you look at the agreement reached between 
the autoworkers and Chrysler, there was a specific provision. And as a 
matter of fact, the president of local 122 in Twinsburg, Doug Rice, 
deserves a lot of credit, because if you look at the stamping plant in 
Twinsburg, what you saw was they were stamping parts for an assembly 
facility in Newark that was not going to be utilized anymore. So 
recognizing that there may be a downturn and that people may use that 
downturn as an excuse to shutter the facility, Doug Rice specifically 
negotiated a paragraph that is labeled, ``Twinsburg Stamping Plant.'' 
And, Mr. Speaker, I will insert page 4 of the UAW agreement into the 
Record.

              Sourcing, Product and Investment Commitments


                                Sourcing

       The UAW strengthened our involvement in early product 
     sourcing decisions. Annually, the company will review its 
     five-year global assembly and powertrain cycle plan with the 
     union.
       In addition, sourcing-related activities have been 
     identified in which the UAW will participate to accomplish 
     early and direct involvement for our members.


      Current and Future Product Commitment and Future Insourcing 
                             Opportunities

       The 2007 Product Commitment and Investment Letter reflects 
     the company's plans. It is understood that additional 
     confidential dialogue has been exchanged with respect to the 
     favorable effect of a Chrysler/Fiat alliance on Chrysler's 
     operations. The effect could result in incremental product 
     loading in the company's assembly and powertrain operations.


                Union involvement and Supplier Relations

       The UAW and Chrysler agree that there are ways in which a 
     seat supplier and its union can achieve a competitive labor 
     cost structure that enables the supplier to provide a 
     competitive bid to the company.
       To advance those opportunities the union will explore a 
     variety of means to ensure a competitive, fully fringed labor 
     rate.
       During these negotiations the UAW and Chrysler agreed that 
     a fully fringed labor rate of $35 per hour for seat assembly 
     when the work is being done at a supplier is considered by 
     the company to be competitive.


                           Supplier Meetings

       The parties will continue ongoing dialogue to review the 
     supply base and review opportunities to improve the company's 
     supplier base. Discussions will include the quarterly 
     Distressed Supplier Roundtable meetings with senior 
     management from Procurement and Supply, Union Relations and 
     the National Committee, and UAW Chrysler Department 
     leadership.


                         Product Loading Review

       The UAW and Chrysler LLC will meet to review vehicle plans 
     for assembly, stamping, powertrain and components operations 
     in the United States, Canada and Mexico. The meetings also 
     provide an opportunity to discuss long-term plans for the 
     company.


                           Sourcing Addendum

       As stipulated in the 2007 CBA, the current Roundtable and 
     Powertrain meetings will

[[Page H5464]]

     continue to provide an avenue for union involvement in the 
     Chrysler product decision-making process.
     Roundtable Meeting
       The UAW-Chrysler Roundtable Meeting will continue on an 
     annual basis and will include comprehensive vehicle plans for 
     the United States, Canada and Mexico assembly, stamping, 
     powertrain and components.
     Powertrain Meeting
       The UAW-Chrysler Powertrain meeting will continue each year 
     and include a comprehensive review of the United States, 
     Canada and Mexico Powertrain Long Range Plan and Powertrain 
     Plant product loading.
       The UAW will continue to participate in the Product Team 
     Sourcing, Pre-Program Start and Program Start meetings, 
     giving us the opportunity to focus on information provided 
     throughout the Chrysler Development System process and 
     Supplier Selection Period. The National and Local Job 
     Security Operational Effectiveness and Sourcing Committees 
     provide an additional avenue for UAW input on sourcing 
     decisions.


                UAW, Chrysler and Supplier Partnerships

       The company has agreed to a quarterly meeting between the 
     UAW Vice President and Director of the UAW Chrysler 
     Department and Chrysler Purchasing Directors for commodities 
     and supplied parts, to foster partnership between the UAW, 
     Chrysler and key suppliers.


                        Twinsburg Stamping Plant

       During these discussions the company agreed to review the 
     long-term utilization plan for the Twinsburg Stamping Plant 
     and to share those plans with the UAW. The company will 
     consider investment costs and current market demand in 
     determining the plant's suitability for placing non-stamping 
     work in the facility, at tier-11 rates, to keep TSP viable.


                 fiat investment and Product Commitment

       Your UAW leadership has been in intense negotiations with 
     representatives of Fiat and Chrysler over the past several 
     months to arrive at a partnership arrangement that will 
     secure Chrysler's long-term viability. As a result of these 
     discussions, the term sheet establishing the Chrysler/Fiat 
     alliance includes a commitment from Fiat to manufacture a 
     small car in one of Chrysler's U.S. facilities.
       In addition, Fiat will share key technology with Chrysler, 
     (such as the 3.0 liter diesel and 1.4 liter gas engines) and 
     all its product platforms. This is equivalent to an 
     investment by Fiat amounting to more than $8 billion and will 
     create approximately 4,000 new UAW jobs in the United States.

  So this paragraph indicates that during these discussions, and this 
was Wednesday again when they were asked to vote on it, Chrysler agreed 
to review the long-term utilization plan. The company will consider 
investment costs and current market demand in determining the plant's 
suitability for placing nonstamping work at the facility at tier 2 
rates to keep the stamping plant viable. So what the people at 122 
think that their president negotiated, and he did, was a provision 
that, okay, we have tough times here in Twinsburg, but now the company 
has agreed that we are going to look at ways to bring other work to 
Twinsburg.
  So they went to vote 1 week ago Wednesday, and 88 percent of local 
122 voted to approve the contract. Well, then sadly for those folks, 
the sun came up 1 week ago Thursday, and my day was a lot like the day 
of other Members of Congress who have Chrysler facilities in their 
district. The first thing that happened was that we had a conference 
call, if you wanted to participate, with President Obama's automobile 
task force. And on the phone was Ron Bloom, who is the head of it, 
Larry Summers, who is the President's financial adviser, and maybe a 
couple more. And Members of Congress, Governors and other people who 
were interested were in on the call.
  The notes that I took contemporaneously with that telephone call, it 
began with, ``This is a good day for Chrysler and the people that work 
there.'' They went on to describe how the bankruptcy was going to work 
and basically what I described before, that because some of these 
bondholders wouldn't come to the table, we had to go the bankruptcy 
route, but the good news was, on the other side, Fiat was going to 
purchase Chrysler out of bankruptcy and we were going to move on.
  I thought I--I know that I understood that that meant that the plants 
were going to stay open. We did hear that there was going to be some 
idling, which they said at 1 o'clock, when you talk to Chrysler, 
Chrysler will tell you what the idling is, but no indication of plant 
closures, no indication of job losses, and so we moved on.
  So then at noon, at the White House, and it is a pretty famous 
picture now, the President of the United States, President Obama, made 
the announcement at 12 o'clock 1 week ago Thursday about Chrysler. And 
like many Americans, and certainly many people who work at Chrysler, 
this is what the President of the United States said on April 30 of 
this year at the White House: ``No one should be confused about what a 
bankruptcy process means. It will not disrupt the lives of the people 
who work at Chrysler or live in communities that depend on it.''
  Now, that is a pretty clear observation. I understood it. And then at 
1 o'clock, the former CEO of Chrysler, Mr. Nardelli, had another 
conference call in which anybody who had questions or wanted to hear 
from the head of Chrysler could participate in that conference call. 
And you could ask questions. I asked a question about the supply chain, 
would the suppliers be paid?
  The first question during that call came from the Governor of the 
State of Michigan, Mrs. Granholm, and I thought that she asked a really 
great question. She said that when the President made this 
announcement, he said, it is a great day, words to that effect, we are 
going to be able to save 30,000 jobs. And Governor Granholm asked Mr. 
Nardelli, This is great work, nicely done. We are very proud of you, 
but I just want to ask a question. I want to make sure that when the 
President of the United States said 30,000 jobs, he wasn't speaking in 
code, because there are about 39,000 people that work for the Chrysler 
car company in the United States of America. And after a lot of 
discussion about how many people were worldwide and all this other 
business, no, the President wasn't speaking in code. The jobs are safe. 
The plants are safe.
  Now, I left that phone call feeling pretty good. And as a matter of 
fact, I called my communications director and I said, Hey, put out a 
press release praising President Obama, praising his task force, and 
praising all the people that made sacrifices at Chrysler, because this 
was a pretty good day. No plants are closing. Nobody is losing their 
jobs, and we are going to move on.
  Let me just go back to that phone call and express the 
disappointment, because I know that the folks at Chrysler are under a 
great deal of pressure today. But that phone call, when we got on the 
phone call, you had to agree and understand that the phone call was 
being taped. And so what I just referenced about Governor Granholm 
would have been tape-recorded on that telephone call.
  We also had a Democratic Member of Congress on the phone from 
Wisconsin, and it was Representative Gwen Moore of Milwaukee. She asked 
directly about the future of the Kenosha, Wisconsin, engine plant which 
employs 800 people. But for some reason, and Mr. Nardelli now says that 
he made a mistake and he confused Kenosha with another plant in 
Trenton, but in responding to Congresswoman Moore, he said, I 
mistakenly conveyed the status of the Phoenix investment in Trenton, 
Michigan. It is not even in the same State. I thought Trenton was in 
Wisconsin. So you have got Kenosha, Wisconsin, and you got Trenton, 
Michigan.
  The facts that I described were accurate, and he basically told 
Congresswoman Moore they loved the plant, everything was good, 
everything was going to be okay. And like my folks in Twinsburg, Ohio, 
I assumed that the 800 autoworkers in Kenosha, Wisconsin, that went to 
the ballot box to determine whether or not they would voluntarily 
reduce their compensation and benefits thought that meant they would 
continue to have jobs.

                              {time}  2145

  But that turned out not to be the case. Later that afternoon, buried 
in the voluminous bankruptcy filing by Chrysler, which was anticipated, 
was the fact that the first five, and then erstwhile reporters dug out 
eight Chrysler plants across the country were scheduled to be closed on 
a sliding schedule. In the case of Twinsburg in 2010, and roughly 9,000 
auto workers who worked for Chrysler were going to be out of jobs and 
their plants were going to be closed.
  Imagine my surprise, among other people, and the fellow from Chrysler 
called and apologized. He said, We are

[[Page H5465]]

sorry to have communicated that in that way. We wish we could have done 
it in another way.
  I said, Listen, who knew that these plants were going to be closed? 
If you were an auto worker in Twinsburg, Ohio, why would you vote for a 
contract that meant you wouldn't have a job? Why would you vote for a 
contract that meant that you weren't going to have a job any more? It 
didn't make sense.
  Although the apologies are nice, we have a situation where 39,000 
auto workers went into the ballot box believing that by approving this 
new contract and these concessions, they were going to save the company 
and they were going to save their jobs.
  So I issued a second release saying that is not what I heard on the 
conference calls, it is not what I heard from Chrysler, it is not what 
I heard from the President's Auto Task Force, and it is not what I 
heard the President of the United States say on Thursday.
  Well, the first response to my local newspaper, Cleveland Plain 
Dealer, was that I was confused. And so I immediately went out and I 
bought one of those new Miracle Ears, and I now have the Miracle Ear so 
I can understand things a little more clearly than I did before. But I 
began checking with other people on the call, and their recollections 
were the same as mine.
  I called Chrysler and said, You know what, I don't think I 
misunderstood, but I know this telephone call was taped because your 
contractor said at the beginning of the call the call is going to be 
taped, and if you don't want to be on a taped call, hang up and don't 
participate in the call.
  I said to really prove this, Why don't you just give me the tape. And 
then I said, Well, okay, not the tape, give me the transcript.
  They called back. They said there is a transcript; the lawyers have 
to figure out whether or not you can have the transcript. This was last 
Wednesday. And today, I got kind of a terse letter that has a question 
that was asked by a representative of my Governor, Governor Strickland, 
on the phone call, and they have been kind enough to give me those two 
paragraphs, but no transcript, no observations, no words that I know 
that they have that were spoken by Governor Granholm, no words that 
were spoken by Representative Gwen Moore of Wisconsin either.
  So I have to tell you, it is a difficult conversation that we are 
having.
  The mayor of Twinsburg, Kathy Procop, who is a wonderful mayor, sent 
Mr. Bloom, the head of the President's Auto Task Force, a note; and I 
have to tell you, he was very prompt in responding to her on May 6 and 
basically she was saying, I don't understand. I don't understand how we 
went from Twinsburg is open and people popping champagne corks 
celebrating to Twinsburg is now closed. So Mr. Bloom in the operative 
section of the letter, which is the second full paragraph, writes: 
While the original February 17 plan submitted by Chrysler was not 
deemed viable by the task force, the more recently proposed Fiat-
Chrysler alliance plan has been approved. This plan included the same 
plant closure schedule as the one originally proposed by Chrysler, and 
the President's comments were meant to convey the message that the 
bankruptcy of Chrysler had in no way changed these plans.
  So when the President spoke at noon a week ago Thursday and said no 
one should be confused about a bankruptcy or what the process means, it 
will not disrupt the lives of people who work at Chrysler or live in 
communities who depend on it, it is kind of like in baseball where they 
put an asterisk next to the record, that ``except.'' I mean, it would 
have been a simple thing for him to go on to say except for the eight 
plants that have been identified but not revealed to anybody in the 
February 17 plan which we rejected. Then everybody would have 
understood. Everybody would have known.
  But when the leader of the Free World stands up and says, It is not 
going to disrupt the lives of people who work for Chrysler or the 
communities that depend on it, I can just tell you, Mr. Speaker, that 
1,200 people work at the Twinsburg stamping plant. It is disrupting 
every one of their lives. And the city of Twinsburg, where it is 
located, the Chrysler plant is 13 percent of their tax base. And it is 
clearly not only the pain of individual families and individual 
employees, but it is clearly going to affect the schools, the police 
department, the fire service, the garbage pickup. So I have trouble 
accepting this paragraph from Mr. Bloom that the President was just 
saying, Listen, no lives are going to be disrupted unless we have 
already determined you are going to get the ax.
  The problem with that is they all point to this document that was 
rejected by the President's Auto Task Force that was filed on February 
17. The problem with that argument, and when people were saying I was 
confused, it was a simple misunderstanding, we went out and I read and 
my staff read the agreement, or the proposal, that was filed by 
Chrysler on February 17 that was rejected.
  Nowhere in this document, nowhere in the 177 pages is there any 
indication that the stamping plant in Twinsburg was going to be closed; 
that the plant in Kenosha was going to be closed; that the plant in 
Fenton, Missouri, was going to be closed; that the plant in Sterling 
Heights, Michigan, was going to be closed.
  So I guess when people say that the workers who voted for the 
contract and then were told the next day that they were going to lose 
their jobs should have known, the only way they could have known, 
because everybody says we didn't make it public, we couldn't make it 
public, the only people who would have known are people with ESP, 
people who can read the minds of the President's task force and the 
minds of people at Chrysler, because clearly nobody else could have 
contemplated that these 9,000 people who voted in good faith to ratify 
a contract that reduced their benefits, reduced their pay, could have 
said, Listen, I'm voting to end my job. As a matter of fact, the 
president of Local 122 who I mentioned earlier, Mr. Rice, will be here 
this week. But in conversations with me on the telephone he said, Look, 
we are shocked. I specifically negotiated this paragraph into the UAW-
Chrysler agreement that said that we were going to bring more work to 
Twinsburg. So to go from voting for an agreement that you think will 
not only preserve your job, and you are getting additional work, to not 
having a job, I don't understand why people are surprised that people 
are surprised.
  So, clearly, Mr. Speaker, we have a problem. So in the spirit of the 
theme, since we have almost concluded The Case of the Hidden Hand as to 
how the AIG bonuses got into the stimulus package, we have developed 
Clue, The Travel Edition. And this is one that you can play in a car 
with your kids. It is called The Travel Edition because we are talking 
about Chrysler. In this case we don't have a pen. The perpetrator 
didn't alter the stimulus package with a pen. Instead, he or she used 
an ax. They basically used that ax to stop the employment of 9,000 
people who work in this country making automobiles.

  And as you see around the edge, of course in the top right you 
recognize the President of the United States, President Obama; and his 
economic adviser, Mr. Lawrence Summers; Robert Nardelli, the former CEO 
of Chrysler; Mr. Geithner, the Secretary of the Treasury; and Ron Bloom 
who was the head of President's task force. I also, just for the 
benefit of the Speaker, I put a picture of President George W. Bush up 
there, and you may ask why did I put President Bush up there, and I 
would just tell you there are some people in this country who blame 
President Bush for everything, and so we wanted to make sure that we 
had him as a potential suspect.
  But, again, in this group, and I really don't think it was the 
President of the United States, President Obama, but in this group 
between the President's Automobile Task Force and Mr. Nardelli and 
others at Chrysler, somebody knew, and I would suggest more than 
somebody knew, that the bankruptcy filing which was going to be filed a 
week ago Thursday afternoon had a provision in it to cease the 
livelihood over time of eight Chrysler plants employing about 9,000 
people. The only problem with that is they forgot to tell the 9,000 
people. They forgot to tell the people who were thinking that they were 
being good employees, good Americans, and agreeing voluntarily to a 
reduction in the amount of money they make, but the trade-off was 
Chrysler was going to survive and they would have jobs.

[[Page H5466]]

  So hopefully at the 4 p.m. meeting tomorrow with the Department of 
the Treasury, we will solve the Case of the Hidden Hand and figure out 
how the AIG bonuses were protected. We now embark on a new mission, and 
that is where, we go the ax, we got the weapon out of the way, we just 
need to identify what room it took place in and which one of these 
gentlemen, and I would remove the 43rd and 44th President of the United 
States who knew, and why didn't you tell anybody? And why did you let 
9,000 people vote to end their jobs?
  Now, we are going to continue to ask Chrysler for a copy of that 
telephone call from 1 p.m. in the afternoon. We are going to, if 
necessary, file another resolution of inquiry directed at the White 
House. But we will, I think, get to the bottom of this.
  Again, Mr. Speaker, I know, sadly, that what we will hear is, Let's 
look forward; let's talk about rebuilding. Let's talk about doing 
wonderful things.
  But before you can look forward, you need to look back and you need 
to find out what happened to these 9,000 hardworking Americans that 
have manufactured American-made cars in some cases for many, many 
years.
  But I fear based upon our debate on energy prices and gasoline prices 
last summer, and based upon our experience with the AIG bonuses this 
year, that we will again be told we are too busy. We have post offices 
to name. We have to honor pi, 3.14, the mathematical formula.
  This is my last chart and the last observations I will make. This 
chart indicates the number of people who work for Chrysler who have 
lost their jobs from January 12 of this year to this week.
  And so in January, 4,000 people at Chrysler lost their jobs. Again, 
rather than figuring this thing out, we passed a resolution here in the 
House of Representatives honoring the life of Claiborne Pell who was a 
wonderful and great former United States Senator; but we didn't talk 
about Chrysler.
  Then in February, and by then about 9,500 people from Chrysler have 
lost their jobs. And for a reprise, a surprise revisit, we again, 
because the Senate apparently didn't take it up last year, we again 
passed supporting the goals and ideals of national teen dating. So 
while people are losing their jobs at Chrysler by the thousands, at 
least teen dating has been covered here in the Congress.
  We get to the middle of March, and you are now up to about 11,000 
people at Chrysler have lost their jobs all across the country, and the 
Monkey Safety Act makes a return appearance. This time there was a 
tragic accident where a pet monkey attacked a woman and really injured 
her, and so I don't make light of the fact that she will need serious 
medical attention and the Monkey Act is probably a decent piece of 
legislation, but when you have 11,000 Chrysler workers out of work, 
what are we doing passing the Monkey Safety Act again?

                              {time}  2200

  In April, we got up to about 13,000 jobs, and, you know, we'll do 
something for Chrysler, but the Great Cats and Rare Canids Act comes 
back to the floor. And, again, when 13,000 people are out of work, we 
talk about cats and dogs.
  But then it gets up to 16,000, and, you know, just like with gas 
prices, just like with the AIG bonuses, I know that the United States 
Congress will not sit still while 16,000 of their countrymen have lost 
their jobs. But the most important piece of legislation that the 
majority can schedule on the day that 16,000 people were now unemployed 
at Chrysler, we awarded a Gold Medal to Arnold Palmer, the golfer. Now, 
I think Arnold Palmer is a great American. I think Arnold Palmer 
deserved the Gold Medal. I don't know, when you have 16,000 Chrysler 
workers out of work, why that's the most important issue that the 
majority can bring to the table.
  And now this week, that number is up to 18,000. That 18,000 does not 
include the 9,000 people that voted the other day to terminate their 
jobs. But, again, we have a repeat, 18,000 people at Chrysler out of 
work, and the most important issue on the House floor, National Train 
Day.
  Madam Speaker, we are not too busy to do this, as these charts 
clearly indicate, and the 9,000 workers and the people in communities 
all across America that will now see their tax bases decrease, people 
out of work, deserve to know which one of these gentlemen, or do we 
have to add another suspect, which one of these gentlemen knew, as they 
sent those people into the polling place to approve a concession 
contract, which one of these people knew that they were going to 
terminate their jobs, close their plants, and decimate their 
communities.
  So, Madam Speaker, I look forward to returning to another day and 
continuing the adventure of Clue, the Travel Edition. I thank the 
Speaker for her courtesy.

                          ____________________