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Obama Aims to Allay Auto Lobby Concern on Korea Trade

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Bloomberg - By Edwin Chen, Julianna Goldman - Nov. 21 (News Report) - President Barack Obama said he is committed to pushing through a free trade agreement with South Korea that has been stalled by the U.S. auto lobby and unions, who argue it doesn’t do enough to open up Korean markets. Obama’s joint press conference in Seoul today with South Korean counterpart Lee Myung Bak was a last chance on his four- nation Asia trip to show he opposes protectionism. The accord has been held up in Congress, where lawmakers are demanding wider access for Chrysler Group LLC, Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Co. Lee said today he is willing to reopen talks on the auto industry.

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GM Plans to Repay U.S. Loan

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Wall Street Journal - By John D. Stoll - Nov. 16 (News Report) - General Motors Co. plans to begin paying back a $6.7 billion loan it owes the U.S. government starting late this year, putting it on track to potentially repay the entire note by the middle of 2011, said a person familiar with the matter. But in a move that could be controversial and risky, the car maker plans to use other money it received from the government to pay back the borrowing.

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Buffett Bigs Big on Railroads, Buying Burlington Northern

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By Michael J. del la Merced, Andrew Ross Sorkin - Nov. 04 (News Report) - America’s best-known investor, Warren E. Buffett, is making his biggest bet yet on the nation’s economic future by buying, of all things, a railroad.

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Ford Earns $997 Million, Projects Solid 2011 Profit

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Bloomberg - By Keith Naughton - Nov. 02 (News Report) - Ford Motor Co., the only major U.S. automaker to avoid bankruptcy, posted net income of $997 million in the third quarter and its first operating profit since early 2008. Ford said it expects to be “solidly profitable” in 2011.

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Positive Train Control Stalled Even After Deadly Nudge

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Miller-McCune - By Joan Trossman Bien - Oct. 06 (Special Report) - Positive Train Control technology that adheres to the simple premise that there should only be one train to one track is still years away from full implementation in the U.S.

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Intercity Bus Service Increasingly Popular

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Miller-McCune - By Sara Barbour - Sep. 15 (Special Report) - With lower fuel emissions than planes, downtown access to rival trains and lower prices than either alternative, could buses be the future of intercity travel?

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Hudson Crash Bares Friction Between Safety Board and F.A.A. - NYTimes.com

Fri, 14 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Al Baker - Aug. 14 (News Report) - In 2007, the agency, the National Transportation Safety Board, told the Federal Aviation Administration that it wanted to require air-tour operators to track complaints about pilot performance. This year, it said instruments to track a flight’s vital signs — flight data recorders — should be customary in helicopters and other tour aircraft, to aid in investigating fatal accidents.

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Senate Hearing Examines Pilots’ Living Conditions

Thu, 06 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Sholnn Freeman - Aug. 06 (News Report) - A Senate aviation panel on Thursday questioned executives from Continental Airlines and Colgan Air about the living conditions of pilots, including what one senator described as food-stamp-level pay and the controversial industry housing known as crash pads.

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Conservative group offers to sell endorsement for $2M

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The Politico - By Mike Allen - Jul. 17 (News Report) - The American Conservative Union asked FedEx for a $2 million check in return for the group’s endorsement in a bitter legislative dispute, then flipped and sided with UPS after FedEx refused to pay. In return for the $2 million, ACU offered a range of

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Chamber of Commerce Urges Lawmakers to Raise the Gas Tax

Wed, 15 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Alec MacGillis - Jul. 15 (Opinion) - On the same day as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce was attacking President Obama and congressional Democrats over a tax-hiking plan to pay for health care reform, its leader urged the same people to have the courage to raise taxes on another front: the federal gasoline levy that pays for our highways

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Volatile Swings in Oil Prices Hobble Industry

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Jad Mouawad - Jul. 06 (News Report) - The extreme volatility that has gripped oil markets for the last 18 months has shown no signs of slowing down, with oil prices more than doubling since the beginning of the year despite an exceptionally weak economy.

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Americas | How Texas manure ethanol plan fell flat

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

BBC News - By Jamie Coomarasamy Washington correspondent, BBC News - Jun. 23 (News Report) - There are some things that don't change in Hereford, Texas. The country music that's played on the local radio station and the brown plastic bull, which welcomes you to town, above the slogan "Hereford, Beef Capital of the World". But one thing has appeared on the skyline since I was last in the panhandle three-and-a-half years ago - the gleaming, silver silos of the Panda ethanol plant.

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Should the Airbus Be Grounded?

Sat, 20 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Consortium News - By William John Cox - Jun. 20 (Special Report) - Not including losses attributable to terrorism, rebellion or military action, Airbuses have been involved in 23 fatal crashes causing the deaths of 2,584 passengers, crew members and people on the ground. In addition, there have been five nonfatal accidents causing 21 serious injuries. While the overall number of accidents and fatalities are not disproportionate to the crash experience of Boeing aircraft, three of the Airbus crashes involved a separation of the composite vertical stabilizer (tail fin) from the fuselage. Five hundred, or one in five of the Airbus deaths, including 228 from Air France Flight 447, resulted from these three crashes.

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Senators fly high on taxpayers' dime

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The Politico - By Abby Phillip - Jun. 11 (Special Report) - Sens. John Cornyn and Chuck Schumer each spent more than $140,000 in taxpayer money on travel in the first half of the fiscal year — roughly 10 times as much as some of their thriftier colleagues.

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Northwest's biofuel boom goes bust ?

Sun, 07 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

OregonLive.com - By Scott Learn, The Oregonian - Jun. 07 (News Report) - The biofuel downturn has been a national phenomenon, Van't Hof noted. Oregon's plants are likely to be restructured under Chapter 11 proceedings or sold, not shuttered. And the federal plans for more biofuel use in coming years leave Oregon in a good position to capitalize as the industry grows, he said.

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New Era in Autos as GM Set for Bankruptcy

Mon, 01 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Wall Street Journal - By Kevin Helliker, Neil King Jr., John D. Stoll - Jun. 01 (News Analysis) - The question now facing 56,000 auto workers, 3,600 GM dealers and the Obama administration: Will it work?

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Car Crazy

Thu, 28 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Wall Street Journal - May. 28 (Editorial) - At the end of his Rose Garden explanation yesterday of the new U.S. fuel-efficiency standards, President Obama remarked on the good that can be accomplished when we are "working together." The President may be getting ahead of himself. Watching the unlikely coalition arrayed behind him as Mr. Obama committed the U.S. to an astonishing passenger-car mileage average of 39 miles per gallon by 2016, it looks truer to say we are merely standing together in this adventure, for better or worse. Mr. Obama's fleet-mileage partners yesterday included the two auto companies that have fallen into his arms, Chrysler and GM, still-independent Ford, the major foreign manufacturers, United Auto Workers chief Ron Gettelfinger, and beaming representatives from the Sierra Club, Environmental Defense Fund and the Union of Concerned Scientists. All that's left to arrive at the President's new destination for the American way of driving are huge, unanswered questions about technology, financing and the marketability of cars that will be small and expensive.

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Electric cars are coming!

Wed, 20 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Salon - By Katharine Mieszkowski - May. 20 (Special Report) - On Tuesday, when President Obama proposed the first nationwide regulation of greenhouse gases, which would set limits on tailpipe emissions for cars and trucks, he jacked up the buzz about electric cars. The new regulation requires new cars and light trucks to get on average 35.5 miles per gallon by 2016, which is almost 40 percent more fuel-efficient than the requirements today. Automakers, which have kicked and screamed for generations about increasing fuel efficiency, stood politely by Obama, having to suck it up, as their fortunes now depend on the government. In good part, they will attempt to meet the goal with a flashy new line of cars powered by the electrical outlet in your garage.

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As Political Winds Shift, Detroit Charts New Course

Wed, 20 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By John M. Broder, Micheline Maynard - May. 20 (News Analysis) - The auto industry is flat on its back, with Chrysler in bankruptcy, General Motors close to it, and both companies taking billions of dollars in federal money. Foreign automakers are getting help from their own governments. Climate change legislation is barreling down the track, and Congress showed last fall that it had no appetite to side with Detroit any more.

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America refuses airspace to Air France jet citing No-Fly rules

Mon, 27 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

DigitalJournal.com - By Michael Cosgrove - Apr. 27 (News Analysis) - The reason given was the presence on board of Ospina, a Monde Diplomatique correspondent. He has written many articles criticising the Columbian Government of President Alvaro Uribe and United States’ involvement in Latin American affairs.

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California's proposed Low Carbon Fuel Standard

Mon, 20 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Los Angeles Times - Apr. 20 (Editorial) - The goal of the Low Carbon Fuel Standard is to lower the "carbon intensity" of fuels sold in California 10% by 2020. It does this by using complexformulas to score each type of fuel based on its life-cycle emissions; carbon intensity is calculated by comparing the amount of greenhouse gases emitted by a fuel over its life cycle with the amount of energy it produces. Starting in 2011, companies that sell fuel in California will have to lower the overall carbon intensity of their various fuels at a rate that will increase every year until 2020, or else buy credits from companies that sell cleaner fuels.

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Spain's Bullet Train Changes Nation -- and Fast

Mon, 20 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Wall Street Journal - By Thomas Catan - Apr. 20 (News Report) - ... AVE's backers say high-speed rail can only be economical if the state bears much of the construction costs. But they say the benefits -- lower greenhouse-gas emissions, less road congestion and, in Spain's case, greater social cohesion and economic mobility -- make it worthwhile.

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Should Free-Wheeling be Free? One Oregon Lawmaker Says No.

Fri, 10 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

triplepundit.com - Apr. 10 (Opinion) - Oregonians love their bikes—and for good reason. Portland and Eugene are among the most progressive cities in the nation when it comes to biking infrastructure (bike lanes, bike racks, etc.). But Oregon representative Wayne Krieger has introduced a bill that would mean this infrastructure would no longer be freely available to two-wheeling citizens. They'd have to pay to ride.

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GM says Volt isn't dead yet, despite panel's bleak report

Wed, 08 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

McClatchy - By Renee Schoof - Apr. 08 (News Report) - President Barack Obama's auto task force last week said in an assessment of General Motors' viability that it was a full generation behind Toyota in "green powertrain development" and that "while the Volt holds promise, it is currently projected to be much more expensive than its gasoline-fueled peers and will likely need substantial reductions in manufacturing cost in order to become commercially viable."

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Pulp Nonfiction

Fri, 03 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The Nation - Apr. 03 (News Analysis) - Thanks to an obscure tax provision, the United States government stands to pay out as much as $8 billion this year to the ten largest paper companies. And get this: even though the money comes from a transportation bill whose manifest intent was to reduce dependence on fossil fuel, paper mills are adding diesel fuel to a process that requires none in order to qualify for the tax credit.

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