mr. ratner appeared before our committee in a closed door meeting and he said it would cost more to retool the chrysler engine plant in kenosha, wisconsin, and he felt that in light of that, they're better off just moving those jobs to mexico. with all the taxpayer money that chrysler has received, i don't understand in spite of his statement why we would move these jobs to mexico. doesn't it make better sense to utilize the retooling fund that is available for something just such as this, to retool that factory in keshnosha so we can keep those jobs here in the united states? >> let me try to respond to that, senator. first, i want to deal with a process point. i think clearly, the company did a poor job of communicating with local elected officials and community folks about the kenosha decision and i believe the ceo has apologized for that. it was not proper and i hope we won't have a repeat of that in terms of the communication. in terms of the substance of the decision, again, what i hope mr. ratner said because i believe these are the facts, is that chrysler made a decision a couple y

mr. ratner said, 'cause i believe these are the facts, is that chrysler made a decision a couple of years ago to build two new engine plants, one in the u.s. and one in mexico. and by the time of this matter coming before us, hundreds of millions of dollars had already been spent on the plant in mexico. and also hundreds of millions of dollars in a plant in the u.s. so for us to go in and overturn that, number one, it would violated the principle that the president has insisted upon that we not interfere in the day-to-day management decisions and number two, just as a business matter, it would -- it would require walking away from hundreds of millions of dollars of invested capital. so i think the reality is for reasons of both principle and practical business, this simply isn't a decision that can be revisited. that is certainly a terrible event for the folks in kenosha and there's no way to make it a good event. the only thing i can say is i think in fairness, the alternative was a liquidation of chrysler that would have been far worse for everybody concerned but certainly we appreciate