Senate Says No -- Good News for Auto Makers?

The U.S. Senate effectively voted tonight against providing a bridge loan of $14 billion to GM and Chrysler.

It's backwards, but the Senate's actions might work in the auto makers' favor.

The only play available to the auto makers is for the White House to authorize money from the TARP fund to be given to the them.

If that happens. there will be few strings attached, unlike the legislation proposed by Congress, which would have forced the auto makers to give signifcant control of their companies to the government.

A deal appeared close earlier this evening when Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) submitted an alternative proposal, for which he later received high praise from Republican and Democratic Senate leaders.

The bill died when the UAW refused to agree to a demand from Senate Republicans forcing it to name a date by which it would agree to take significant pay cuts, placing it on a similar wage level to import auto makers.

Stay tuned. This story is far from over.