About 150 auto dealers from around the country fanned out across Capitol Hill today in a last-ditch effort to get lawmakers to try to slow planned cuts by General Motors and Chrysler LLC.
The campaign seeks to get lawmakers to contact the Obama administration to persuade officials to decelerate GM's and Chrysler's plans to eliminate dealers, according to a statement from the group today."A rapid cut of dealers is a bad idea," John McEleney, chairman of the National Automobile Dealers Association, said in a statement.
The dealers' group is not trying to change the number of cuts planned, NADA spokesman David Hyatt said in an interview.
"This is not a call against consolidation," Hyatt said. "We're raising concerns about the timetable."
The lobbying effort was supplemented this week by an advertising blitz in six newspapers that cost more than $100,000, an NADA spokesman said.
GM CEO Fritz Henderson said the automaker is starting this week to notify dealers due to be eliminated under the company's plan to slash 40 percent of its 6,200 stores by the end of next year.
GM spokesman Greg Martin acknowledged today that the company accelerated planned dealer cuts under pressure from the Obama administration.
But Chrysler said it alone has planned any possible dealer cuts, which are to be announced in the next few days.
"The administration has been informed about the process, but they've had no input," Chrysler spokeswoman Carrie McElwee said today. "They've not been told how many dealers may be cut or who."
The NADA spokesman expressed skepticism about Chrysler's statement.
"If we didn't believe that the Obama task force was pushing for the dealer cuts, we wouldn't be on the Hill today," Hyatt said.
Stephen Wade, a dealer on NADA's executive committee, said he met today with Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, to seek a reduction both in planned cuts and a way to slow them down.
Wade, who is from St. George, Utah, said he didn't specifically ask Hatch to intercede with the task force.
The senator said "he was willing to help in any way possible," Wade said.
One dealer, Todd Snell, of Mankato, Minn., said he is meeting today with seven congressmen from his home state.
He emphasized to lawmakers that dealers should be represented on the administration's task force, which is overseen by the Treasury Department, Snell said.
"We absolutely feel left out of the process," he said. "We should have been out here a week ago."
Most of the dealers were flown in last night and put up at the Hilton or Crowne Plaza hotels in McLean, Va., said Hyatt, the NADA spokesman. They also had dinner last night at the Hilton.
"This isn't something we budgeted for because it came up at the last minute, but we see it as serious and important and needed," the spokesman said.
An administration spokeswoman declined to say immediately whether it had gotten any calls from lawmakers today on the dealer issue.
A GM official said the company had been contacted today by one lawmaker.
A Chrysler spokesman declined to comment
