The Treasury Department has ended its year-old program to guarantee payments to auto suppliers, officials said Monday. The program was to ensure that General Motors and Chrysler received the parts and components they needed to manufacture vehicles, and to see that suppliers had access to credit from lenders.
The program ended early this month without fanfare. The Treasury Department had signaled earlier this year that it planned to end it sometime in April.
It initially was set at $5 billion, but was shrunk in July to $3.5 billion, at the automakers' request. They said they no longer needed to maintain their prebankruptcy supply capacity, credit markets had opened up, and suppliers' access to capital had improved.
GM was allocated $2.5 billion and Chrysler $1 billion.
GM spokesman Alan Adler said the program was to "help suppliers who were concerned about getting paid by GM during its bankruptcy."
Adler said approximately 350 to 400 GM suppliers participated, representing about $1 billion in payments.
Some 20 GM suppliers remained on the program until it ended.
"The program expired April 1. Those suppliers needed to seek other funding sources," Adler said.
Treasury officials repeatedly have rejected appeals from the auto supply sector for direct aid to assist a broader portion of the supplier industry.