Posted: Monday, March 12, 2007 7:00 pm
WASHINGTON — Domestic and foreign, management and labor, the U.S. auto industry will present a rare united front to Congress today to battle against sharply higher fuel efficiency rules for cars and trucks that could cost $114 billion.
It may not be enough to prevail.
The appearance before a subcommittee of Michigan Rep. John Dingell’s House Energy and Commerce Committee appears to be the first time that the leaders of General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co., the Chrysler Group and the U.S. arm of Toyota Motor Corp., along with the head of the UAW, have testified together to Congress.
All the automakers have said that they consider President George W. Bush’s goal of 4 percent annual increases in efficiency standards too high. While Ford, Chrysler and Toyota will say they could abide unspecified increases as long as they’re set by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration instead of Congress, GM will contend the whole system is flawed, and call for new approaches.
But those arguments have few backers on Capitol Hill, as global warming and energy independence concerns have made raising fuel economy standards a top priority for many lawmakers.
Congress hasn’t increased the standards for passenger cars since they were established in 1974 at 27.5 mpg, when Detroit automakers warned such rules would force them to sell vehicles no larger than Ford Pintos and Chevy Novas.
Those late on mortgages up; foreclosures hit high
WASHINGTON — Late mortgage payments shot up to a 3½-year high in the final quarter of last year and new foreclosures surged to a record high as borrowers with tarnished credit histories had trouble keeping up with their monthly payments.
The Mortgage Bankers Association, in its quarterly snapshot of the mortgage market released Tuesday, reported that the percentage of payments that were 30 or more days past due for all loans tracked jumped to 4.95 percent in the October-to-December quarter.
That marked a sharp rise from the third-quarter’s delinquency rate of 4.67 percent and was the worst showing since the spring of 2003, when the late-payment rate climbed to 4.97 percent.
The percentage of mortgages that started the foreclosure process in the final quarter of last year rose to 0.54 percent, a record high.
Viacom files $1 billion suit against YouTube
NEW YORK — MTV owner Viacom Inc. sued the popular video-sharing site YouTube and its corporate parent, Google Inc., on Tuesday, seeking more than $1 billion in damages on claims of widespread copyright infringement.
Viacom claims that YouTube has displayed more than 160,000 unauthorized video clips from its cable networks, which also include Comedy Central, VH1 and Nickelodeon.
Last month Viacom demanded that YouTube remove more than 100,000 unauthorized clips after several months of talks between the companies broke down.
YouTube said at the time that it would comply with the request, but Viacom said YouTube has avoided taking the initiative to curtail copyright infringement on its site, instead shifting the burden and costs of monitoring the video-sharing site for unauthorized clips onto the “victims of its infringement.”
—From wire reports