Earlier this afternoon, I filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with Uncle Sam re: the Stimulus Package spending on 27,205 Chrysler, Ford and GM vehicles. What we want to know: the models purchased. Why we want to know it: is Uncle Sam spending U.S. bailout bucks to purchase vehicles made outside of the United States? And how fuel efficient are these vehicles? As saving jobs and the environment were the two rationales behind the authorization, we feel the government should reveal this information. So far the GSA, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senator Jack Reed (one of RF’s RI homies) have either ignored or flat out denied our request. So I’ve filed the FOIA request using my own name/address as follows:
Under the Freedom of Information Act, 5 U.S.C. subsection 552, I am requesting the following information:
A “vehicle-by-vehicle report including the year, manufacturer, model, and combined fuel economy for the new and replaced vehicle, along with the percent improvement for the entire procurement” identified by Agency Bureau Code (023-05), and TAFS (47-4543 2009 \ 2010).
This specific information is promised at the recovery.org GSA Program Plan site for the Energy-Efficient Federal Motor Vehicle Fleet Procurement. The procurement took place on June 1, 2009 according to the GSA Recovery Plan Weekly Financial And Activity Report for the week ending June 5, 2009. The procurement amounted to an obligation of $287,512,450. The Financial and Activity Report for the week ending June 12 reveals that “GSA is beginning to receive the new vehicles.”
Thank you.
Relevant links:
http://www.recovery.gov/?q=content/program-plan&program_id=7628
http://www.recovery.gov/sites/default/files/financial_and_activity_report_20090609GSA.xls
Good for you! It will be interesting to see if the process actually works and, if so, the results are what we’ve been led to believe.
^^^X2^^^
Oh, gosh – asking for an inconvenient truth.
Let’s see, $287,512,450 divided by 27205 = $10568.36 per ride on average. Hmmm… what can you get for that kind of money per ride?
Knowing the government, I would suspect this to be bicycle procurement (Border Patrol on Schwinns?).
God I’d love it if that’s what it turned out to be.
Either way we’re gonna learn something from this story… either the purchase was yet another political boondoggle or the FOIA is a joke.
This type of anti-American activity generally results in an IRS audit.
Did you use the GSA website FOIA contact or did you use the Federal FOIA site?
http://www.gsa.gov/Portal/gsa/ep/contentView.do?contentType=GSA_OVERVIEW&contentId=11388&noc=T
… either the purchase was yet another political boondoggle or the FOIA is a joke.
I have a feeling that both are the case.
Thank you man. It is the job of the media to keep government half-honest, and right now, very few are doing their job.
I drove by the Ford Truck plant in Louisville the other day, and they were reassembling the tooling for the Excursion. No word on whether this may be related to the U. S. Government purchase.
I assume they can buy without any added tax. I would imagine a Sebring would be under $10k at fleet prices minus taxes… in base trim in government white… perhaps 2007/2008 build?
I hope it doesn’t turn out to be some taurus and sebring. That would be terribly anti-climatic and embarrassing for the folks above who just pinned their hopes and wish on a conspiracy.
Good for you, Robert!
Let’s see them weasel their way out of this one…
Bastards!
Helping to keep people working at American-owned car companies.
Communism, pure and simple.
I’m with Shaker. Let’s all do what we can to finally collapse US auto companies! Long live Japan, Korea and Europe!
Robert, someone’s at the door…………
Bravo! I respect the “putting your money where your mouth is” aspect of this. Definitely standing by for the results. Thank you.
Edward,
Thank you for trying to find out the truth about these cars. I’m fairly sure that if you get a response, the cars will all be from American (or Italian-American) manufacturers, but I wouldn’t be surprised at all if many are built in Canada and Mexico or elsewhere.
holydonut: GSA FOIA has a handy online form. We’ve received confirmation of our request, and we’ll be hearing back by the 16th of July at the latest.
Edward: The interesting part is when they ask you how much in fees you’re willing to pay. I bet in your case the required fee will automatically be $0.01 greater than whatever you entered.
You may find out that there isn’t a global list at all at this point. The GSA probably conveyed to the individual agency the conditional approval of X cars per agency or office, and left it to the office to select the vehicle. They might have certain purchasing guidelines. This is the type of document that is likely to be available from the GSA publicly either on their website or at a “reading room”.
The GSA might eventually compile a list, but by the time they do, the list is likely to be stale.
One of the most interesting things that you might turn up is the incremental amount of vehicle spending above and beyond what would be ordinary for these agencies.
If they don’t have “mobile performance rights”, why can millions of Sirius and XM car radios access the service? How about users of mobile XM receivers like the XMP3, Pioneer Inno and Samsung Helix? I have a Samsung Helix, and I receive all of the XM channels.
For what it’s worth, I find it cheaper to carry the helix and a pay-as-you go phone than go the iPhone route. My XM subscription is $12.95/month, and I pay about $10.00 per month for cell minutes. That’s less than half of what AT&T charges for the typical iPhone data plan.