The Detroit Free Press finally offers us a timeline on when GM, Ford and Chrysler might get their share of $25b worth of federal low-interest loans. While congressional funding will most probably slip through this week, cash-in-hand is a whole ‘nother matter. “The Bush administration must still write the rules that will govern how the loans will be handed out, and the U.S. Department of Energy has said the process may not be done by the end of the year. After Congress set up a loan guarantee program to develop clean energy sources in August 2005, the DOE took more than two years to write the rules for it, and no money has been lent yet. With a new administration taking a couple of months to fill key jobs and restart the work, auto executives worry that without quick action on the rules, they would not see any money from the loans until mid-2009 at the earliest.” To his credit, The Freep’s Justin Hyde spells it out. “Given the estimates of slow auto sales through 2010, that kind of delay could make Detroit’s troubles look more like Wall Street’s.”