UAW to TARP Oversight Panel: FOAD

The Congressional Oversight Panel, tasked with monitoring TARP expenditures, is holding hearings on the auto bailout. Even as you read, Wayne State University is home to serious CYA action. In the blue corner: the post-Rattner head of the twenty-four (now) member Presidential Task Force on Automobiles (PTFOA) Ron Bloom. Big Ron II is expected to hew even more closely to its previous proclivity for a passive/aggressive approach to GM’s non-management management. “Given the emergence of the new GM and the new Chrysler, the involvement of the Auto Task Force with the companies will now change,” Bloom told the panel [via Market Watch]. Once again, Ron proclaims that only “core governance issues including the selection of a company’s board of directors and major corporate events or transactions” will be subject to PTFOA meddling going forward. (After all, they’ve got Advertising Czar Bob Lutz to handle the little things like “crapping on advertising.”) But even though the White House is on hand to show how easy putting your best platitude forward can be, the UAW won’t be joining the testimonial fun.

The Congressional Oversight Panel isn’t happy about the non-development. “The UAW came before Congress and pleaded for billions of taxpayer assistance,” GOP member Rep. Jeb Hensarling tells the Detroit News. “Their ownership stakes in Chrysler and GM look suspicious at best and like sweetheart deals at worst. It’s outrageous they would benefit from the taxpayers’ money and then refuse to testify about it.”

Outrageous, yes. But not entirely unexpected. Hensarling said it himself . . . “Without [the UAW], the panel cannot provide meaningful oversight for $80 billion of taxpayer support rewarded to Chrysler and GM.”