John McCain upsetting Automakers
One hand, Barack Obama is making some automakers happy with his potential funding for energy technology and then you have John McCain who is making automakers very unhappy with his thoughts and ideas of the way things should be going forward. Detnew.com says that one idea of John McCain is that he approves the request by California and other states to set their own standards for greenhouse gases from cars. Obama approved this idea as well. Automakers are up in arms over this because it will potentially cost them alot of money to have to make cars for each states’ own standards. The automakers, such as, Troy Clarke, GM’s president of North American Operations said that a single national standard would “be very helpful in our eyes.” The problem is that California would likely require cars to get an average of 43 mpg by 2016, which would be very difficult to achieve as well as very much opposed by automakers. Last year, Congress passed a law stating that automakers needed to have their cars get 35 mpg by 2020. According to Clarke, this will not be “a chip shot” and “difficult to reach.”
Also, John McCain has said that he will not “bail out” American automakers that are struggling to stay afloat while they transition from trucks and SUVs to smaller cars. Automakers around the country have struggled to stay out of the red and the stock market is showing this. Auto stocks have plunged in recent times with more problems still out there. John McCain does not feel that the Federal Government would help out these companies or any company in America today.
The going is rough for U.S. automakers these days, and I certainly think that they feel as though they need government funding and help to get back on top, hoping that the new President, whomever it may be, will do just that and help them out.