Senate leader presses colleagues on ‘clunkers’

Threatens to stop Senate from scattering for summer break

Associated press


WASHINGTON - Pressing colleagues to replenish the “cash-for-clunkers” program, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid warned lawmakers they might miss their August vacation takeoff plans Friday if they don’t quickly pass the $2 billion measure.

“If we don’t work something out on the cash for clunkers,” Reid said from the Senate floor Wednesday morning, he would file motions to close debate. Under Senate procedure, that could mean votes on both Friday and Saturday, when lawmakers would otherwise be scattering for their coveted summer break.

“We all acknowledge there’s a significant majority that want to move forward with this legislation,” said Reid, D-Nev.

It was the senatorial version of a parents’ warning to bickering children: Work it out, or the car will be turned around instantly.

There was every indication that lawmakers would extend the popular program, which offers car buyers rebates of up to $4,500 for trading in their gas-guzzlers for new, higher-mileage models.

Reid had said on Tuesday that he had the votes to pass a $2 billion extension already approved by the House, the amount President Barack Obama says is necessary to meet a surging demand that would otherwise deplete the program by Friday. He said Wednesday there are estimates that as many as 300,000 vehicles have been bought under the program.

Many Republicans oppose the plan — and some Democrats have concerns as well. But none was predicting that any senator would block or delay a vote.

“The matter will be completed,” said Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

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The funding would triple the cost of $1 billion rebate program and give as many as a half-million more Americans the chance to grab the new car incentives through September.

Car companies have credited the clunkers program with driving up sales in late July. Most consumers are buying smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles under the program, according to a list of the top-10 selling cars released by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

The list includes Honda Civics, Toyota Corollas and Dodge Calibers. The Toyota Prius hybrid, which gets 46 miles per gallon, according to EPA estimates, is the fourth-best-selling car. There is one SUV on the list, the Ford Escape, which also comes in a hybrid model that can get up to 32 miles per gallon. With the exception of the Prius, which is built in Japan, most of the top-selling vehicles on the list are built in North America. The Hyundai Elantra, the 8th top-selling vehicle, is built in South Korea, and the Honda Fit, the 9th top-selling vehicle, is made in Japan.

Senate passage would send the legislation to the White House for Obama’s signature and assure consumers there will be no interruption in the program that has led to packed car dealerships nationwide.

Republicans still were seeking a chance to amend the House version. Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., said Republicans were considering a range of amendments that included placing a financial cap on the program or a date by when it must end, along with requests that it not drive up the federal deficit. He said it was still under discussion among Senate leaders.

Democratic Sens. Tom Harkin of Iowa and Patrick Leahy of Vermont also voiced concerns but opposition to extending the program had been dissipating all week.

The legislation would transfer $2 billion from an economic stimulus account that had been set aside to subsidize renewable energy. The new money would carry the program through September, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said.




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Freed journalists arrive in U.S. from North Korea

BURBANK, California (CNN) -- Two American journalists, detained in North Korea since March, were reunited with their families early Wednesday in California, hugging their husbands as they walked off a private plane.


Families reunite Wednesday with Euna Lee and Laura Ling at the Bob Hope Airport in Burbank.

1 of 3 Euna Lee bowed as she walked down the steps, and Laura Ling raised her fists into the air. The women hugged their husbands first, then Lee's 4-year-old daughter, Hannah -- who has not seen her mother since March and who clung tightly to her.

Former President Clinton helped secure their release in a brief trip Tuesday to Pyongyang. He walked off the plane minutes later.

The aircraft touched down shortly before 6 a.m. (9 a.m. ET) Wednesday amid tight security at Bob Hope Airport in Burbank outside Los Angeles.

The aircraft will be brought into a hangar, where the journalists are scheduled to take part in a scheduled news conference.

North Korea pardoned Ling, 32, and Lee, 36, on Tuesday after Clinton's brief trip to Pyongyang.

The women were arrested in March while reporting from the border between North Korea and China. They were sentenced in June to 12 years of hard labor on charges of entering the country illegally to conduct a smear campaign.

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Clinton made the trip after the women's families asked him to travel to the communist country and seek their release, a senior administration official said Tuesday. Watch Ling's father express his gratitude »

Former Vice President Al Gore made the same appeal to Clinton. The two journalists are employed by Gore's California-based media company, Current TV.

Gore -- who was Clinton's vice president -- spoke at the arrival ceremony Wednesday.

Doug Ling, Laura Ling's father, reacted to the news of his daughter's release outside his home in Carmichael, California, saying it was "one of the best days in my life."

"I figured, sooner or later, they'd be back," he said.

In Los Angeles, family friend Welly Yang said the Lings had "done everything they could, while respecting the North Korean government, to try and get Laura home."

He predicted that Ling would remain a journalist. "Despite this terrifying experience, I can't imagine that Laura would give up her passion to tell stories that otherwise wouldn't be heard."

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressed her relief that the two women were released. She spoke from Nairobi, Kenya, where she is taking part in a multination visit to Africa.

"I spoke to my husband on the airplane, and everything went well. We are extremely excited that they will be reunited soon when they touch down in California," she said. "It is just a good day to be able to see this happen."

In July, Ling and Lee spoke to their families and told them the North Koreans were willing to grant them amnesty if a high-level envoy, such as former President Clinton, were willing to travel to Pyongyang, the administration official said.

The official spoke to reporters Tuesday night about the events leading up to Clinton's trip on condition of anonymity.

North Korea said that Clinton "expressed words of sincere apology to Kim Jong Il" for the journalists' actions, but the administration official said he knew nothing about an apology.

He said Clinton met for three hours and 15 minutes with the North Korean leader but said he did not know what issues were discussed. But he said that Clinton's views on a verifiable denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula are well-known.

North Korea's state-run Korea Central News Agency said Clinton conveyed a message from President Obama "expressing profound thanks for this and reflecting views on ways of improving the relations between the two countries."

But White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters in Washington before the announced agreement that Clinton was not carrying any message from Obama.

Gibbs added the former president last spoke with Obama during a White House visit in March. He described Clinton's trip as a "solely private mission to secure the release of two Americans."

Clinton's mission came as the United States and its allies in the region are seeking to persuade North Korea to return to the stalled nuclear disarmament talks.

North Korea conducted its second nuclear bomb test in May and has held several missile tests since. The United Nations has responded to those tests by increasing sanctions on the nation.


North Korea and the United States, on opposite sides in the 1950-1953 Korean War, had no regular contacts before a 1994 crisis over North Korea's nuclear program. North Korea agreed then to halt the development of nuclear weapons but abandoned that accord and withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 2003.

Clinton had considered visiting North Korea in 2000, near the end of his second term as president. His secretary of state, Madeleine Albright, had gone to Pyongyang in 2000 to meet with Kim. She was the last high-ranking American official to do so before this week.