let's talk plainly if you want to turn gm@@@@@@@@ @ @ @ @ @ @ ) we recognize tough and painful times for the auto industry especially workers and suppliers, the reverberations of detroit's troubles have reached

into every one of our districts. i look forward to the testimony and to working with you on further investigating this matter and hope future hearings will focus on the role of the president's auto task force as well. >> thank you, mr. walden. mr. dingell for opening statement please. >> mr. chairman, thank you, and i commend you for holding this hearing. this is a time of unprecedented hardship for the domestic auto industry. but i feel it is prudent that we objectively examine all aspects of general motors and chrysler restructuring plan. including how they affect dealers. although restructure of these companies is inevitable, and necessary, it means that we are going to have to achieve their long-term viability. but at the same time, are going to have to look to see how it is being done and how it is going to impact on other parts of our economy. measures must be taken to mitigate excessive hardship on

working americans especially in a time of grave national recession. in june i will be asking a frank questions of farc witnesses today. in particular i seek to determine for the record how gm and chrysler arrived at the decisions they did related to its dealer closures. a public furor over the disclosures demands truthful answers from these companies regarding these matters. it is my hope they will provide much needed insight into the decision making process whose results will affect the livelihood of many thousands of americans in all parts of the country. moreover i understand that gm and chrysler have reproached dealer closures in a market lead to similar fashion and this should again be subject to a candid discussion. finally i wish to ascertain what steps if any at all gm and chrysler have taken or will say to mitigate the impact of these

closures on dealership owners and their employees. and also on the communities where there are fair treatment is paramount to the success of any rational and a rationalization of the companies' respective a value streams. i conclude by encouraging our witness to engage in open dialogue with members of the committee about the matters that i have just mentioned. the honest disclosure of today's hearings is necessary to restoring the semblance of public trust in the plans were restructured. so thank you mr. chairman, thank you to our panel, and i yield back the balance of my time. >> thank you, mr. dingell. mr. barton. >> thank you mr. chairman. i want to thank you and chairman waxman for holding this hearing and thank you personally for agreeing to let mr. frank backer who is a dealer in my district testify and also thank you for being willing to put a statement in the record of congressman

allowed to read to isn't a member of the committee but has asked to sit on the diocese and you indicated you except unanimous consent to allow his statement into the record so i appreciate all of those courtesies. in mr. chairman, i have a prepared statement and i will submit for the record. but i want to just kind of speak extemporaneously. i see both sides of this issue, i have a gm assembly plant in my district in arlington, texas that has been in business since 1954. 2400 people that workfare. mannesmann about 250, and the uaw workers around 2200. they have been making cars and trucks in arlington, texas are over 50 years. i've got dealers all over my district about a dozen of which have received closure or

termination or failure to renew notices. and i met yesterday with the president of gm north america and also the president of chrysler. and i see the management side of this, the manufacturing of the business side of it. it's a different era and we have to make tough decisions to keep u.s. nameplate manufacturing cars and trucks in america. i understand that. in but there is another side -- there is a human side. a dealer side and we are going to hear from mr. frank that is from a water taxi, texas. he is a fourth generation gm dealer and i think a second generation the jeep dealer. his grandfather started selling chevrolet in texas in 1926. he made it to the great depression, he made it his family -- his family minute

through world war ii when you have quotas, they made it to the boom years of the '50s, they made it through the gas rationing of the '70s. boom or bust and there has been blank and tackler selling cars in texas for over 80 years and then bang he got letters on i think back. >> terminating his contract immediately or within three weeks ended gm say they weren't going to renew him. now, when the gm and chrysler people and the managers were in my office yesterday there were very sincere. they have their flip charts and they have their notebooks and they could look up and show me if i wanted to see the performance or nonperformance of all the dealers in my district. but that doesn't touch on the

human story. and again, carlyle chevrolet in texas has 40 employees. they are not at the bottom of this flow charts, and they're not at the top either, they are not at the bottom. he told me that last year he paid $1.3 million in taxes in ellis county. it employed 40 people. cells and average -- he sells an average of 50 cars and trucks a month. in good years you can double that. so he could do better, he says that. but his business that has been in his family for four generations, if we can't get chrysler and gm to take a second look, it is gone. and his son, austin, who is sitting out here, his opportunity to the american way of life as we know it is gone.

now what i am asking, mr. chairman, is i am not asking the management of chrysler and gm to do things that don't make sound business and economic sense. but what i am asking is to show little mercy of that is the right term. every decision doesn't have to be the toughest decision you can make. you cannot bear on the side of leniency and if somebody is selling 50.5 cars a month and the goal is for them to sell 51, you don't have to cut them off at the knees. so mr. chairman, i want to hear from both sides but i really hopefully by the end of the day want to hear from the presidents of the manufacturing companies that they will go and take a second look at some of these

decisions and if there is an opportunity that makes reasonable business sense, that they will give the people that are represented today an opportunity to continue in business. because if they go out of business it is gone. and ultimately of nobody is selling cars and trucks, it doesn't matter which are manufacturing capability is -- nobody will buy. so i thought i yield back. there is another hearing going on downstairs. mr. markey subcommittee is having a transmission hearing and i got to make a statement down there to but i will be back up here for the questions and thank you for your many courtesies. >> thank you and members will move in and out. while i am adding it to, we have other members are not part of the energy and commerce committee who are not part of the subcommittee on our year. and i know there is some

legislating pending an patrick murphy from pennsylvania, not on committee but very interested. and i'm sure there will be popping in and out with legislation and in all honesty i think we have for the 35 members of congress and 430 contacted me at one other dealer to testify today. that wasn't possible, but we're going to try to get to this hearing and we welcome members and would like to watch these proceedings. but we're going to have to keep a tight timeframe on all members to have opportunity to ask questions. for those not part of committee if you have an opening statement you like to submit for the record without objection that would be accepted. and let me go one more thing. as we were preparing for this hearing, there is some concern that members -- to the confidentiality agreement or i should say dealer agreement that gm has and since chrysler is already emerged out of bankruptcy and gm is still there

there is confidentiality with the dealers and to talk with mr. walden it is our understanding that gm mr. henderson has no objection whatsoever to a dealer testified before the subcommittee about its business, circumstances are other matters involving the dealership. it is our understanding that general motors has no objection to the dealer testifying about the terms of the wind down agreement itself. and gm is proud of these agreements and the assistance and support they will provide to do is compare to what they would have received under an ordinary bankruptcy proceeding. gm does have concerns though on a confidentiality part of these wind down agreements into areas -- the amount of the wind down payments set forth in paragraph 38 and discussions with gm representatives about the wind down and out and found in that agreement. so i am cautioning members if we go and want to talk about the wind out agreement you have a right to but will not expect the

witnesses for proprietary and business reasons to get into financial amounts of things like this with the agreement. other than that we are in agreement, mr. henderson. >> that is, correct. >> mr. press, i'd guess you have no problems to make that is, correct. >> was continue with three opening statements, i will hold you to a pretty firm. next on the list would be mr. braley. >> thank you mr. chairman and ranking member walden. i thank you can tell from the interest in this hearing that is something that affects all for under 35 congressional districts and that is why i am going to segment by written statement and focus instead on the human cost of what we're here to talk about as ranking member barton was talking about. i am very fortunate one of my constituents who is the chairman of the national auto dealers association from clinton, iowa is here because he works and sells cars in the heartland and i think a lot of what we're talking about today is an explanation of how the decisions that are being made are

affecting dealers over the country. my wife's grandfather was at first ford dealer in dubuque, iowa and my uncle came home from world war ii and at the request of one of his navy bodies move to my home town of berglund, iowa and started working as a parts manager and a chevy dealership that he later purchase and worked in for 60 years. i want to talk a little bit about where we have been to get to where we are right now. because i remember those fall rollouts of a new models and the excitement that they brought to my home town. and i remember those ads that my old man and my hometown newspaper showing all of the employees of his dealership and how many years they had worked there to show the impact that his business was having on our community because of those same employees were the ones volunteering in the boy scouts and the little league and in

school activities and they were making our community a better place to live. and when you talk about these dealer closures, you are not just talking about the application of economic principles and mathematical formulations. you are talking about the impact on people's lives in every congressional district in this country. and that is why the issues we are going to be discussing today matter. that's why they matter to me, the matter to my colleagues on both sides of the aisle and a matter to the constituents we represent. because when these dealerships closed, they don't just take away the opportunity to buy and get service for your cars and trucks. they take away the life blood of these communities. and it is much broader than simply the loss of sales and service, it is part of the fabric of this country and mr. henderson and mr. press, your corporations were built on the backs of people like the

dealers use the in this room who went out there, invested@@@@@@@ affecting the dealers themselves, but millions of people who live in all of our districts who are going to be inconvenienced at the very least.

.. because on the one hand, we see these profitable dealerships in our districts. on the other hand, we see the need for consolidation and for saving money but we don't quite understand how closing those profitable dealerships works escially given the human implications and that's why we're concerned and that's why we're having this hearing.

i think that our constituents deserve an explanation. i want to mention one other thing really briefly that's not the subject of this hearing, mr. chairman, but it might be worth some further investigation. as part of the administration's bankruptcy plans, they are putting all of the product liability court claims into the bankruptcy court, which is going to wipe out the claims of victims who have -- who have had defective products. and talk about leaner and meaner. this is something that is going to hurt millions of americans who have been injured by these cars and who don't have some kind of a fund set up through the bankruptcy. now, in the past when the government has helped companies like gm and chrysler through their bankruptcy plans, like with the asbestos, we sat up a fund to compensate victims but here there's no fund, whatsoever, that's been set up

to compensate victims. and i think this committee needs to look at this and i also think the administration needs to revisit their policy of not setting up this kind of fund. thank you very much, mr. chairman. and i yield back. >> thank you, ms. degette. mr. green from texas opening statement, please. 3 minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. like my colleagues i'd like my full statement placed in the record. >> without objection. >> i'm glad you're holding this hearing because it's one of the biggest hearings we've had in our district in a long time. i guess the problem i have is the lack of transparency on how the decisions were made. and i think that's hopefully the witnesses today will make some discussion -- or provide that to us. i didn't vote for the t.a.r.p. bill last fall, either time. one of the reasons is i thought it was more of a bailout of wall street, not main street. and now we're seeing what's happening on main street 'cause our dealerships are on main street in our area. and i'll give you a great example.

the houston market where i'm from already lost three large volume chevrolet dealerships and yet knaap chevrolet close to the central business district which opened on december 6th, 1941, the day before pearl harbor today received their letter and their appeal was denied. it's the only chevy dealership in the downtown area. in fact, it's the only one inside what we call 610 loop and there are only two inside beltway 8 which is miles and miles away. so now people in my district who live in the inner city will have to definitely go to the suburbs to have their car serviced or to buy a vehicle. more than 4,000 people live in the core of downtown houston and 74,000 people live within a two-mile radius and rapidly growing population of 400,000 live within that 5-mile raidiasious and 140,000 live in downtown houston and hundreds of

thousands of students in downtown campus. and knaap chevrolet was one of the highest profitability in the top 20% for many years. i guess that's frustrating how that decision was made. people working in downtown houston could drop their cars off and trucks and get serviced and then they would shuttle them back and forth and again, on wednesday of this week, knaap chevrolet received the denial of their appeal for no reasons at all, nothing -- just your appeal was denied. we're losing a lot of high-paying jobs. we have a lot of high-paying jobs in downtown houston. i don't know why it is. and that comes from someone who buys chevrolet and gm products. i drive chevy trucks. i'm kind of texas that way and i will continue to buy them and i'm glad they're made in mr. barton's district. i know the witnesses won't be able to answer individually why that happened, but when you lose in the last year we've lost three huge chevy dealerships in the houston market, why we would go in and pick one of the oldest and the only one within the

inner city to close, it just kind of boggles my mind. and so with that, mr. chairman, i'll yield back my time and i appreciate you calling this hearing. and like other members, i'm getting ready to go down to the transmission hearing down in the room below us but i'll be back. thank you. >> thanks, mr. green. mr. doyle for an opening statement, please. 3 minutes. >> thanks, mr. chairman. thanks for holding this hearing and i want to thank you personally for allowing jim goalic from goalic jeep chrysler a constituent of mine and someone in my district for allowing him to testify today. i didn't have a prepared statement, mr. chairman. i just want to make a few comments. my friend joe barton says maybe we're in a new era and i fear that maybe he's right, you know, growing up in pittsburgh, i've had the privilege of representing pittsburgh, pennsylvania, and the turtle creek in congress. we're blue collar kids. our dads and grandfathers made the steel that go into a lot of the steel in your cars.

we look after one another from pittsburgh. we buy from our own. we were taught never to buy foreign cars where i grew up. the thought never would occur to us. we buy american and we buy from the people we know. i remember mr. gatti had the local pharmacy on the corner. he's long gone. there's no more family pharmacies left. it's all the big box stores. mr. tamerello had the hardware store when i grew up. no more family hardware stores, now it's home depot, wal-mart. we always had our car dealerships, jim's family has been in business at the same location since 1935. an institution in the turtle creek valley. i wouldn't buy a jeep from anyone else beside the gollaks. i don't care their showroom isn't fancy. i don't care that it's not the newest most modern-looking place or they don't have a giant

floor. what they have is service. they know you when you come in. you don't have to have -- they don't take that little piece of paperback to the manager and say i'll try to get you a better deal and go through that whole dog and pony show they pull with these big places. they give you a good price up front and they take care of you. that's why i buy jeeps there. i wouldn't think of going anywhere else. i raise my family on dodge caravans. my wife susan and i -- we have four children. that car took care of our family for years. i owned a budget of them. got it from another local family dealership. we're losing that. we're losing that in this country. this idea that you can buy from people you know and trust, that you know will take care of you. you don't have to guess they will take care of you you know they will get take care of you. that's why i buy the cars that i buy. jim told me he met his quota plus every year since he's been in business. he started out 1945 a hudson dealer and then it was jeep

eagle, you know, then jeep chrysler when chrysler come through. you can't take people like this -- you just can't replace people like this. i can't imagine myself -- i've never bought a foreign car but i can't imagine myself ever buying a jeep again if the golics aren't in business in pittsburgh. i don't understand how they're costing you money. i think they are a revenue stream for you guys. and if some reason this has to happen, i want to know why you're not taking care of people who spent 70 years and generations selling your cars and as you tell them that they don't have a business anymore, that you're not doing something to help these guys out in the transition. so i have lots of questions, mr. chairman. i'm just glad that you're holding this hearing today so that i can ask them. >> thank you, mr. doyle. ms. sutton from ohio, please. >> thank you, chairman stupak, for holding the hearing and thank you very much for inviting one of my constituent dealers, ellen spitzer to testify here

today. mr. spitzer is losing seven of his dealerships. in addition there are two other chrysler dealerships in my district that are being eliminated. across ohio 47 chrysler dealerships are being eliminated in the ohio auto dealers association estimates and 130 gm dealerships may be cut. the impacts of these decisions on families and local economies will be substantial. and we heard from the distinguished gentleman from pennsylvania and i associate myself with his remarks. on average 43 people work at a dealership in ohio where the average pay is $44,000 a year. with these closings, millions of dollars of income will disappear with the jobs and those jobs are lost on top of the 2,000 auto manufacturing jobs that will be eliminated by the closing of the chrysler twinsburg plant, the gm mansfield metal center plant and gm's power train unit in parma. these dealers and their

employees, they're not merely statistics. they have families. they have mortgages. and dare i have say they have car payments. and in the time that i've been in congress we've been fighting. we've been fighting hard to try to keep those jobs in america. because if people do not have good jobs in the united states, they're not going to have any money to buy things. and they can't be consumers. and over the last few months along with my colleagues, many of them in this room we've been working on the consumer assistance to recycle and save act known as the cars act which passed earlier this week. and through the cars act manufacturers -- it's going to help manufacturers and it's going to help auto related jobs throughout the country while improving the environment and helping consumers. but again, it's called the cars act but it's really not about cars. it's about people. it's about the people who produce those cars. and our job here -- the actions that we've been taking and it's

really important to understand have not been taken just to preserve the brands of gm and chrysler. it's been preserved -- it's to preserve the jobs, the jobs that our families and our friends and our neighbors and our communities depend upon for their tax base, to fund their police and their fire and their schools and their other city services. it's about people. and the impact of the decisions that have been made have been extreme and they've been decimating to many. now, we've been trying to get answers in trying to understand the rationale that has been undertaken to come to these decisions. and i think you've heard it here today, that we don't get it. we don't understand it. and we want to know why if you're trying to sell more cars, why having less sales people to do it, who have been committed to do it for years and decades

on end will result in more sales? that just doesn't seem logical to many of us here or logical to many of the people who are out there in our communities about to become jobless or who have become jobless because of the decisions that have been taken. so i'm interested in hearing about that. and i'm also interested in making sure and hearing the commitment, hopefully, from the companies, about how we're going to keep the market share that is of cars that are being sold in the united states from the companies, at its present level or increase it. so that we're not selling more cars from gm or chrysler that are imported because again we haven't been taking these actions to save the brands. we've been taking these actions to save our manufacturing base, strengthen our nation, and to preserve the jobs of so many that are in our districts and across the country.

and i yield back. >> thank you, ms. sutton. and the cars act that she mentioned is cash for clunkers as we call it. she was the lead author, as well as myself and mr. dingell. in fact, it went through the committee. we website to the floor and we had votes on the floor this week and we got it passed. it's actually now in conference so the cash for clunkers, hopefully, next week we can have that done. so this committee has always been supportive of the auto industry, no doubt about that. last but not least, mr. welch from vermont opening statement, 3 minutes, please. >> thank you, mr. chairman. and mr. walden i really appreciate you calling this hearing. i'm going to be reat the pettive. the reason i'm going to be repetitive, this is a catastrophe for every community where we have car dealers that have been doing a good job and you guys know it. i mean, mike doyle was talking about the family dealerships. i was talking to the