Lawmaker: GM may pick small-car plant this week

DETROIT — A Michigan congressman says General Motors Corp. could decide as early as this week where it will build a new line of small cars.

Rep. Gary Peters, whose district includes one of the three factories in the running, presented letters to GM Tuesday signed by 20,000 people hoping the automaker will choose its Orion Township plant near Pontiac. Elizabeth Lowery, GM’s vice president of environment, energy and safety policy, accepted the letters at GM’s downtown Detroit headquarters.

GM has said it will announce by the end of June which one of its existing factories in Spring Hill, Tenn.; Janesville, Wis.; and Orion Township will make the car. The Orion Township and Spring Hill plants are scheduled to go on standby later this year, while Janesville is already closed.

GM says building the subcompact at one of the plants will preserve about 1,200 jobs. In addition, Peters said a parts stamping plant in Pontiac could reopen to supply the assembly plant, keeping another 1,000 people employed.

“This is a big decision for Southeast Michigan,” said Peters, a Democrat whose district has been hit hard by auto industry layoffs and factory closures.

Tony Medrano of Auburn Hills, a worker at the Orion plant, helped deliver the letters and said they could make a difference to GM “just to show that there’s real people, real situations, every walk of life,” he said.

Peters said the state of Michigan and Orion Township have submitted incentive packages to entice GM. Wisconsin and Tennessee also have made similar proposals.

GM spokeswoman Sherrie Childers Arb would say only that a team of GM officials is working on the site selection and the company plans to make a decision by June 30.

The automaker had said in documents submitted to Congress that it planned to produce up to 51,000 subcompacts per year in China and ship them to the U.S. starting in 2011, when GM plans to start selling the Chevrolet Spark here.

But in May, after the United Auto Workers union approved contract concessions, the company said it would build the three-door hatchback in the U.S. The Spark has a 1.2-liter turbocharged engine is about the size of a Honda Fit or Toyota Yaris. It is set to go on sale in Europe next year.