Pension bill lifts Big Three

The Detriot News

Last year, General Motors Corp. began one of its most intensive lobbying efforts in recent memory to derail a crippling proposal that could have forced the struggling automaker to make billions of dollars in accelerated pension payments.

Two issues were of greatest concern to GM and other automakers: one was the use of "credit balances," which for tax purposes allow companies to make advance payments to their pension plans -- as GM, Ford Motor Co. and DaimlerChrysler AG's Chrysler Group have done -- and forgo payments in lean years.

The second was whether companies with poor credit ratings would be forced to make faster payments on long-term pension obligations. Both GM and Ford debt have been cut to junk status.

GM's aggressive strategy included e-mails, phone calls and countless meetings on Capitol Hill. GM's chief lobbyist, Ken W. Cole, met with legislators to lay out the dire consequences of separate pension reform proposals that passed the House and Senate last fall.

"For more than a year they've blocked and tackled and did all the fundamentals to make sure members were aware of how this bill would negatively impact them," said U.S. Rep. Dave Camp, R-Midland, who was one of the key negotiators of a compromise pension bill that the House passed Friday. "GM was fully deployed on this one."

Look who've for Enron-style accounting practices.You'll want to read the whole article.