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Mr. LEVIN. Madam President, we will soon vote on whether to extend the Cash for Clunkers Program. Rarely has this body passed legislation that has so clearly and quickly met our goals than when it approved the first installment of money for this program earlier this summer. The program offers rebates of $3,500 to $4,500 to consumers who trade in old inefficient vehicles for new cars and trucks with higher mileage. Thousands of consumers who hope to take advantage now wonder whether they will have the opportunity.
It is important to understand the context in which we originally approved this program. Amid the most severe downturn since the Great Depression, auto sales everywhere plummeted--in the United States and around the globe, foreign manufacturers and U.S.-based companies alike. In the U.S. market, month after month automakers have reported sales that have fallen 40 percent or more from a year ago. This unprecedented decline has harmed not only the hard-working autoworkers in my home State and other States, but auto suppliers, auto dealers, and small businesses in every community in this Nation. Because the auto industry represents such a large share of this Nation's overall economic activity, as long as this sales decline continues, it will weigh down our economy, frustrating attempts to lift us out of recession.
In establishing this program, we did not establish a course. We followed a
path that had already been laid out by other nations. In Germany, France, Japan, and other nations, governments recognized the danger to their own auto industries in this time of economic crisis and they acted. Germany's Government established its own version of cash for clunkers, and in June car sales were up 40 percent over the same period a year ago. Other nations saw similar impressive increases.
After just a few days, our efforts have borne impressive results. This week Ford reported its sales increased in July from a year ago, the first year-over-year increase reported this year by any automaker. Other carmakers, foreign and domestic, saw smaller declines than in previous months. The impact has been so striking that one private economist has raised his estimate for economic growth in the third quarter of this year by more than 50 percent based solely on the success of cash for clunkers.
This program accomplished what it was intended to accomplish. In just a few days, a quarter of a million Americans traded in their old car for a new model using the credits available from this program. That is a quarter of a million American families who have more fuel-efficient transportation, a quarter of a million transactions that will pump new money into local economies, and an incalculable boost to this Nation's struggling auto industry.
The program has made significant improvements in the fuel efficiency of our Nation's vehicle fleet. According to data from the National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration, consumers using this program are buying new vehicles with an average 63 percent improvement in fuel economy over their trade-ins. More than four out of every five vehicles traded in are trucks; nearly three out of five new vehicles are cars. The average mileage improvement of 9.6 miles per gallon is more than double the program's minimum and far greater than expected.
In short, cash for clunkers has exceeded earlier projections in its ability to get older cars off the road and their damaging emissions out of our skies. Seldom have we had an opportunity to do more for our environment than we do today. Reinforcing and extending this program will get replaced hundreds of thousands more of these environmental clunkers with highly efficient new vehicles.
Some Members have proposed changes to the program by amendments. Some amendments are pending, or will be introduced, that are not related to this program. These may be well intended amendments, but it is vitally important to keep in mind the need for immediate action. The House of Representatives has sent us a bill that will keep the program running. Any amendments--any amendments--that the Senate approves will send the legislation back to the House of Representatives where action will be delayed until the House reconvenes in September. So any amendment that is adopted here is the death knell for this program. It would have to end immediately if an amendment is adopted because of the uncertainty over whether funds remain and to what extent. This program is designed to be a one-time stimulus, not a stop-and-start deal, which would make it more complex and confusing.
This situation is not new. We had a similar situation just a week or so ago. When the Senate passed a bill to restore funding to the highway trust fund, an amendment pending to that bill would have prevented the Federal Government from cutting $8.7 billion in transportation funding from several States, including my home State of Michigan. Normally, it would have been a simple decision to vote for that amendment to avoid those cuts. Michigan is in desperate need, and that amendment would seemingly protect hundreds of millions of dollars for my State. Yet I voted against the amendment. I did so because of the time-sensitive nature of the underlying bill. And many others in this body voted against an amendment for that same reason.
The highway trust fund was on the verge of running out of money, and the bill that we were voting on restored funding to keep it solvent through September. With the House of Representatives about to adjourn a week or so ago, any Senate amendment to that bill would have required that it be sent back to the House of Representatives, likely killing the bill. I, and many others here, decided not to risk letting the highway trust fund run out of funds. So what did we do? We voted for the bill, but we voted against an amendment, even though that amendment would have helped our States. What we did instead is we pledged to seek passage of that amendment at a later date to a different legislative vehicle. I opposed every amendment to that bill, as did a majority of our colleagues.
That is the situation we are in now. If we want this program to continue, we have but one choice. We have to vote for it, but we also must vote against all of the amendments that are pending to it, even though those amendments may be attractive standing on their own and in ordinary circumstances. It is going to be difficult for some to vote against these amendments. I understand that. But the issue is going to be, do you want the Cash for Clunkers Program to continue? If any amendment passes, it is the end of that program.
I yield the floor.
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Mr. LEVIN. First, let my thank my friend from Oklahoma for raising some of these questions which are entitled to be debated. We are not alone in having a Cash for Clunkers Program. Other countries, including Germany, have had these programs. So we are not designing something from scratch. All auto-producing countries that I know of in the world are fighting to have an auto industry come out at the end of this recession.
Unless we take action in a number of ways, that is not going to happen. So the Cash for Clunkers Program is based on a similar type of program in other countries, including Germany, where it has been very successful.
It is not my intent--to answer the other part of his question--it is surely not my intent that this program continue beyond this extension. No one can give an assurance as to what is going to happen in the future with this body or other Members of this body or, indeed, with myself. But it is not my intent that this be a continued program beyond this extension. The reason it was so essential that we have this extension is it was such a successful program. It sold out so quickly, we think our success actually overwhelmed us.
I don't believe, as the Senator from Oklahoma does, that people were buying forward. I think maybe the opposite happened. By the way, I think people may have been waiting until there was this kind of incentive because people are in desperate economic shape. Perhaps some of the people who knew there was going to be such a program may have held back in buying a vehicle.
But also the other prong of this program, besides the economic boost it gives to the economy overall, is the environmental part. That is the part which the Senator's amendment does not address. It is intended to get clunkers off the road, not just to get an economic stimulus into the auto area for sales of vehicles that benefit not just producers but car dealers and suppliers, but there is also a huge environmental benefit which has not only proven itself, but done much better than anybody could have expected.
That is ignored by the Senator's amendment, because keeping those cars on the road, as the Senator would do, denies the environmental benefit of the Cash for Clunkers Program. That is another reason I would oppose the Senator's amendment.
Mr. COBURN. Is it not true that the average plants were down for 10 weeks?
Mr. LEVIN. I do not know the number.
Mr. COBURN. Maybe 10 weeks. I know Chrysler was down longer than that. The fact is, when I drive by the auto dealers, and when I check the statistics with NHTSA, inventories are low.
So we are going to put $2 billion back out, when inventories are at half the level on the car lots of what they normally are. So if, in fact, you pass this, you might ought to spread it out over a period of time so the factories can get the cars to the dealers because that is a significant worrisome part on a lot of my dealers--that if you bring it back now, and you bring it back, we are not going to have the cars to sell them.
I did make a note before, I say to the chairman. He is my chairman. I get along with him great. I have great admiration for him. I am glad Oklahoma does not have any car manufacturing plants right now. I can tell you that. But I did make a point that it takes 153 billion BTUs to make a Toyota Prius. You have to drive that car, on average, 2 years before you are ever at break-even.
So if you take a used car--and this program does not apply to used cars, right? It applies only to new cars. If you take a used car and compare it to a car of similar size, you are at least 2 1/2 years before you ever get the first benefit, in terms of green, 2 1/2 years.
So we may see a difference in those, but in terms of BTUs consumed, it is 2 1/2 years before you see the first change in terms of carbon footprint under this program. Ultimately, I would admit to you there is a carbon benefit to it.
Mr. LEVIN. In response to the Senator, I think that same point is true with the purchase of any new car.
Mr. COBURN. Yes, it is true.
Mr. LEVIN. But the faster we get the more fuel-efficient cars, the better environmental impact we are going to have, even though there is that time period, obviously, when there is a carbon footprint that results from the production of the new car.
But you get to that 2 1/2 years faster then if you buy that new car now than if you buy it a year from now or 2 years from now.
Mr. COBURN. Well, 2 years from now, it is going to have 4 or 5 miles better mileage.
Mr. LEVIN. It may. We do not know that.
Mr. COBURN. I yield back the remainder of my time.
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Mr. LEVIN. Madam President, the Isakson amendment is an example of an amendment which is not only well intended but an amendment that I happen to favor and have favored on a number of occasions on this floor.
One of the problems, though, is it is very clear we have a choice before us. We are either going to have an extension of the Cash for Clunkers Program, with passage of the House bill without any changes in it, or it is going to die. Passage of the Isakson amendment is not only well intended, but as good an amendment as it is, it will defeat both. We cannot get the Isakson amendment passed into law by adopting it here. It would be added to a bill which is going to go nowhere except to a House which has been adjourned. And we cannot keep this Cash for Clunkers Program going unless we adopt the House bill today.
If we leave without adopting the House bill or amending the House bill, it is the end of the most successful program we have seen in the stimulus package. That is the choice. So adopting the Isakson amendment does not get us where Senator Isakson wants us to get, and it destroys the Cash for Clunkers Program extension.
It has been a highly successful program, probably the most successful of any of the stimulus packages, at least to date. We are put in a position--a number of us--of voting against these amendments, amendments, for instance, as well intended as is the Harkin amendment.
Voting against an amendment such as that is difficult, we know that, but we did it a week ago. We had to do it when the highway trust fund came up. We had to vote against an amendment which most of us, I believe, favored, which would have produced money for our States, in order to have a bill passed without any amendment so that we could get it done because the House was about to adjourn. So we were put in that position. It is not unusual around here that we are put in this position. It is a fact of life around here. It is not hard to explain back home why we had to do this.
So if we favor the cash for clunkers extension, we have to vote against every amendment. There cannot be a change. There cannot be a period, a comma, a word, a paragraph changed in the House bill. If there is, it is the death knell for this very successful program.
So I hope we will vote against all amendments. Some of them are very difficult to vote against. Some of the amendments we may have voted for before, including the Isakson amendment. Some like the amendment of Senator Harkin, which is such a well-intended amendment. It has other complications to it, by the way, which would require it being modified, I believe, if it were going to have the effect that is intended, which would require regulations to be adopted, and that would take so long in any event that holding up the cash for clunkers bill for that to happen would also be the death knell for this bill that is so valuable.
So I yield the floor.
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Mr. LEVIN. Reserving the right to object, and I will object for reasons I have discussed with Senator Harkin, any amendment to this bill will end the bill. It is a death knell for the bill. The modification also would have another delay even if it didn't kill the bill, even if it were passed and the House were able to adopt it. It requires regulations to be adopted which would take time. It would be a stopping and starting of the program. It would create a great deal of confusion.
This is an extremely well-intended amendment. I give Senator Harkin a lot of credit for what he is aiming to do, but it cannot achieve its purpose the way it is drafted. The way it would be modified would take a significant period of time to be modified. It would result in a stop-and-start situation of the Cash for Clunkers Program. So, reluctantly, I object.
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Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, this is another well-intended amendment. It is an amendment, indeed, that many of us have voted for in a slightly different form in a different place. However, it would represent the death knell for this program. So if you believe the Cash for Clunkers Program is a successful program and should be extended, this amendment needs to be defeated and raised at a different point.
We will not get the Isakson amendment into law by adopting it. All we will do is stop the Cash for Clunkers Program from continuing. That seems to me to be the choice, which is a fundamental one. I hope we defeat the Isakson amendment.
Mr. President, I yield back the remainder of my time.
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