Rental car companies urge lawmakers to free up credit

Enterprise Rent-A-Car has joined its competitors in the rental car industry, urging Congress to use TARP program funds to free up commercial credit so that they can continue purchasing vehicles for their fleets. Rental car companies are the biggest car buyers in America.

The Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) of the U.S. Treasury is a part of the government’s $700 billion bailout program of loans for financial institutions.

“The freezing up of these lines of credit has in many cases crippled viable businesses that are simply unable to borrow the funds needed to run their day-to-day operations,” Enterprise told employees in an internal communication.

It continued: “While that is not that the case for Enterprise, it is clearly a deep concern for some of our competitors… Our company did, however, agree to be part of the industry-sponsored request to ensure that any consideration under the TARP program be allocated fairly…”

Rental car giants, including Alamo, Avis, Dollar Thrifty, Hertz and National asked lawmakers for assistance in a letter sent to Congress in December. Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., added this request in the form of an amendment to the TARP reform bill this month, which has been passed by the House of Representatives but still requires approval by the Senate.

“This is not a bailout,” stressed Pat Farrell, the vice president of communications and corporate responsibility at Enterprise Rent-A-Car.

Thanks to www.bizjournals.com for the above quotes, for more information on this article please visit their website.

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