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Toyota president Akio Toyoda accepted on Thursday a formal invitation to testify at a hearing to be held next Wednesday.

The House Oversight Committee sent the invitation Thursday morning. Toyoda had initially said he would not appear before the committee but would instead send North America chief Yoshimi Inaba.

But late Thursday, Toyoda released a short statement: "I have received Congressman Towns’ invitation to testify before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on February 24 and I accept. I look forward to speaking directly with Congress and the American people."

The invitation sent by Committee Chairman Edolphus Towns, D-N.Y., reads: "There appears to be growing public confusion regarding which vehicles may be affected and how people should respond. In short, the public is unsure as to what exactly the problem is, whether it is safe to drive their cars, or what they should do about it."

After Toyoda announced his acceptance, Towns released his own statement, with Ranking Member Darrell Issa, R-Calif,: "We are pleased Mr. Toyoda accepted the invitation to testify before the Committee. We believe his testimony will be helpful in understanding the actions Toyota is taking to ensure the safety of American drivers."

Earlier Thursday, the committee issued a subpoena for "all documents relating to Toyota motor vehicle safety and Toyota’s handling of alleged motor vehicle defects and related litigation" that are held by Toyota’s former U.S. counsel Dimitrios Biller.

Biller has claimed that he possesses documents that proved Toyota hid key findings of safety defects. Even before Thursday’s news, Toyota had filed an injunction to prevent Biller from making those documents public, but a Committee aide said the Committee’s subpoena overrides the state-level injunction.

"Mr. Biller is a former Toyota attorney who left the company in 2007," Toyota spokeswoman Cindy Knight said in an e-mailed statement. "He would have no knowledge about Toyota matters since that time and is not a reliable source of information."

Toyota will continue to fight Biller’s allegations, Knight said.

Mr. Toyoda has been criticized for being slow to speak up regarding the issues. The carmaker has recently faced a string of massive recalls and, only yesterday, became the subject of a second ongoing National Highway Traffic Safety Administration investigation into potential safety problems with its cars.

Also, late Thursday, the NHTSA announced it had officially opened an investigation into possible steering problems with Toyota’s Corolla compact cars.

The investigation involves reports that Corolla cars can wander or drift at highway speeds. Seven people have been injured in incidents that may have been related to the problem, according to a NHTSA report.

Toyota plans to cooperate fully in the investigation, a Toyota spokesman said.

Gene Grabowski, head of the crisis communication practice for Washington-based Levick Strategic Communications, said Toyoda "needs to be very well-prepared."

Grabowski’s firm has worked with more than a dozen witnesses called to testify on Capitol Hill, he said, and the most important thing they all must remember is to remain humble. A witness must remember that the members of Congress need to be seen helping their constituents and the best thing for a witness to do is to play his part.

"Your job in a hearing is to assist the members of Congress," he said, "and sometimes that means taking some lumps."

If Mr. Toyoda is smart, Grabowski said, he’ll come to Washington a few days early to meet privately with the Congressional members he’ll be testifying for.

"If you go in cold and they don’t know you," Grabowski said, "they’re far more likely to attack you." 

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Mexico’s benchmark local bonds are poised for the biggest annual rally in four years after underperforming regional debt in 2009 as the economy recovers and the peso gains, Stone Harbor Investment Partners said.

The yield on Mexico’s 10 percent peso bond due in December 2024 may plunge about 40 basis points, or 0.40 percentage point, in 2010, to 7.80 percent, said Pablo Cisilino, who manages $11.5 billion in emerging-market assets at Stone Harbor in New York. That would be the biggest one-year drop since 2006.

Mexican domestic debt returned 7.7 percent last year, less than the 10 percent return posted by Latin American local bonds on average, according to JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s ELMI+ index. The region’s second-largest economy will grow 2.95 percent in 2010 after contracting 7 percent last year, the most since 1932, the median forecast of 19 economists in a Bloomberg survey shows.

“People were too pessimistic on the growth outlook for Mexico and very pessimistic about the peso,” Cisilino said. “Things are changing. They’re starting to come around.”

Daily volume in Mexican bonds traded in the secondary interbank market doubled to an average of 9.4 billion pesos in January’s first 14 days from the same period a year earlier, Citigroup Inc. said in a Jan. 19 report.

The peso is up 1.6 percent this year, the second-best performance against the dollar among 16 major currencies, behind South Korea’s Won, on prospects increased demand from the U.S., Mexico’s biggest export market, will help spur the recovery.

‘Strong Recovery’

The currency rose 0.6 percent to 12.8991 per U.S. dollar at 11:02 a.m. New York time. The yield on the 10 percent peso bond due in December 2024 fell four basis points, or 0.04 percentage point, to 8.18 percent, according to Banco Santander SA.

Miguel Messmacher, the chief economist at Mexico’s Finance Ministry, said in an interview Jan. 22 that there is a “very high” probability the country’s economy will grow more than 3 percent this year.

“Exports are showing a very strong recovery,” Messmacher said. “There are no doubts about the stability of external accounts in Mexico.”

Cisilino predicts the yield on Mexico’s 8.5 percent peso bonds maturing in 2018 may drop 50 basis points this year. The yield on the 2024 bonds slid 16 basis points in the past three months to 8.22 percent on Jan. 22, according to Banco Santander SA. The $135 million Stone Harbor Emerging Market Debt Fund that Cisilino helps manage returned 43 percent last year and is up 0.9 percent in 2010, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Borrowing Costs

Peso bonds may also rise because inflation is unlikely to pick up enough in the next six months for central bank Governor Agustin Carstens to raise borrowing costs, according to Alejandro Hernandez, who oversees 13.5 billion pesos ($1 billion) in fixed-income assets at Grupo Financiero Interacciones SA in Mexico City no fax payday loans.

“There could be a rally in the first half of the year” if the bank keeps its inflation forecast and the peso remains strong, Hernandez said.

Citigroup’s Mexico City-based Banamex unit, Banco Santander SA and Bank of Nova Scotia are among six banks that pushed back their forecast for interest-rate increases after Carstens, 51, said this month a stronger peso will curb inflation.

Mexican inflation has absorbed price increases “well,” Carstens said at a conference in Mexico City on Jan. 8. He said the increases are coming from the government raising taxes and state-controlled prices.

“The direct impact on prices is limited, and will be transitory and fade after a year,” Carstens said.

Rate Forecasts

Banamex revised its call for a rate rise to September from May while Santander, Spain-based Banco Santander pushed back its forecast to October from February. Toronto-based Scotiabank shifted its call to April from February. The median estimate of 21 economists in a Jan. 12 Banamex survey is for borrowing costs to start rising in July, four months later than they predicted last month.

Inflation may quicken more than the central bank forecasts, said Ricardo Aguilar, an economist at Invex Casa de Bolsa SA in Mexico City.

“I think they’ll raise forecasts,” said Aguilar, who predicts an inflation rate of 5.44 percent this year and says the bank may increase forecasts in July. “There are other goods and services that could suffer a greater impact than what the market and the bank predict.”

The central bank will probably keep its inflation forecasts unchanged in its quarterly report on Jan. 27, said Luis Flores, an economist at Ixe Grupo Financiero SA in Mexico City. Policy makers said last month the annual inflation rate may climb as high as 4.75 percent in the first three months of 2010, rising to 5 percent in the April-to-July period and 5.25 percent in the second half.

Inflation

The annual inflation rate was 4.17 percent in the first half of January.

“The idea is gaining ground little by little that the bank won’t move rates,” Flores said. “We’ll see more interest in the debt market.”

Mexico’s benchmark Bolsa stock index fell 4.4 percent to 30,830.91 last week. Cemex SAB, the largest cement maker in the Americas, declined 8.1 percent to 13.73 pesos last week. Gruma SAB, Mexico’s largest maker of corn flour for tortillas, retreated 4 percent to 27.4 pesos from 28.55.

The Mexican currency dropped 2.1 percent to 12.9744 pesos per dollar last week.

Yields on Mexico’s benchmark peso bond due 2024 rose seven basis points, or 0.07 percentage point, to 8.22 percent, according to Banco Santander SA.

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BRIDGETON — A new Walmart Supercenter would produce an estimated $7 million a year in sales and property tax revenue beginning in 2012, the developer’s proposal says.

Bridgeton Rock Development LLC will present the number Tuesday to a government-appointed TIF Commission as part of the company’s application for up to $8 million in TIF financial benefits.

The $7 million in sales and property taxes is based on projected sales of $82.5 million and would be split among Bridgeton, the state, county and several other taxing jurisdictions. The terms of any TIF arrangement would determine how the money is allocated.

While Bridgeton officials embrace the idea, the proposal has stirred opposition in neighboring St. Ann. Officials there say a supercenter would mean the closing of a smaller, older Walmart on the border of St. Ann and Bridgeton. Ten percent or less of that store is in St. Ann, but it is St. Ann’s second-biggest source of revenue, behind a Shop ‘n Save.

St. Ann’s finances, already staggered by the decline of the Northwest Plaza, cannot take another hit, said city manager Matt Conley. He predicted layoffs of city employees would result, including a loss of police officers.

CHANGE IN TIF LAW

For years, local governments doled out tax-increment financing as a tool to encourage developers to locate in their cities. In 2007, the Missouri Legislature changed the law, taking some authority from the cities and adopting a regional countywide approach. That — combined with the downward spiral of the economy — put a lid on TIF requests.

Walmart’s proposal is only the second in St. Louis County to be considered under the new TIF law, which went into effect Jan. 1, 2008. University City recently approved a mixed-use residential and retail project.

Bridgeton officials say the amount of revenue their city would receive from the supercenter clearly would exceed the amount now realized from the current Walmart, at 10835 St. Charles Rock Road. That store originally was built entirely inside Bridgeton, but was expanded with a garden center that crossed over into St. Ann.

Bridgeton Mayor Conrad Bowers said it was safe to assume his city would gain in sales tax. "The store is going be larger, and have many more products, and the sales will be higher," he said.

Bridgeton Rock Development, an affiliate of THF Realty Inc., will make a formal presentation Tuesday to the Tax-Increment Financing Commission, made up of representatives of St. Louis County, the city and other jurisdictions.

TIF is a tax incentive that allows the developer to divert some funds that would go to taxes initially for development costs.

The developer is proposing to build a 159,000-square-foot Supercenter on about 13 acres on the south side of St guaranteed high risk personal loans. Charles Rock Road at Harmony Lane. The existing store, built in 1988, is almost 120,000 square feet — or about 40,000 square feet smaller.

THF said in a written proposal to the city that it was prepared to move immediately after getting approval. THF said it hoped to have title by this summer and open the Supercenter in the fall of 2011.

In addition to construction jobs, THF said the Supercenter would employ about 300 workers.

In September, Walmart closed another older, smaller store in Town and Country and opened a larger supercenter one mile away in neighboring Manchester. In St. Louis, a Sam’s Club was closed at the MarketPlace and reopened in adjacent Maplewood. Sam’s Club is a division of Wal-Mart Stores Inc.

NO SET POLICY

Wal-Mart officials say the company does not have a policy of closing older stores and rebuilding. In fact, the company is engaged in a large-scale remodeling program it calls "Project Impact."

Ryan Horn, senior manager of public affairs for Wal-Mart, said that Project Impact would fully remodel 80 percent of the Walmart stores in the U.S. in the next five years.

At the same time, the company’s other business strategy is to build new supercenter in some communities to modernize.

In Bridgeton, he said, the Supercenter would allow the company to "add full retail-grocery service and make it a modern Walmart. That’s the crux of it. There’s a real need for it in the Bridgeton-St. Ann area and it’s a way of better servicing our customers."

He said Wal-Mart had no intention of tearing down the existing Walmart in St. Ann and would put it on the market.

"We have a very good track record of marketing our buildings," he said.

Even if the TIF Commission recommends against the TIF request, the Bridgeton City Council could overrule it if six of eight council members agreed.

Bowers added: "In my judgment, I think that it (the supercenter) will happen because I really believe it’s good for the area, it’s good for the county. It’s not like we’re stealing this from another area; the store is in Bridgeton."

Bowers said no major development would occur at the now vacant site — formerly a Grandpa Pigeon’s and then a Value City — without financial assistance in part because of the demolition costs.

"The point is Wal-Mart is going to build a Supercenter and I’m pleased they want to be in Bridgeton and at a site that needs to be redeveloped," Bowers said. "As far as I’m concerned it’s the correct use of a TIF."

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DETROIT–The race to build alternative energy vehicles moved up a notch Monday when Toyota Motor Corp. revealed a hybrid compact for the first time that could move into production within three to five years.

In unveiling a lime green FT-CH "dedicated hybrid," at the less splashy than usual North American International Auto Show, Toyota revealed it also plans to boost its gas-electric fleet with eight new models during the next few years – and none of them will be next-generation versions of current vehicles. The company now has seven hybrids in showrooms.

Toyota, which surpassed General Motors as the auto industry’s world leader last year, said it plans to hit one million in annual worldwide hybrid sales early this decade. Most of those sales will come in North America, where consumers, because of climbing gas prices and climate-change concerns, are starting to shift to smaller, fuel-efficient vehicles that are less damaging to the environment.

Toyota officials said the Japanese automaker’s assault on the alternative energy car market will include the development of a family of vehicles around the Prius, the company’s flagship hybrid model. The Prius, the world’s first hybrid, reached sales of more than two million during the past decade.

Ray Tanguay, a managing officer for parent Toyota and chief executive officer of the company’s Canadian manufacturing operations, said the FT-CH is under consideration for production in Japan in the three- to five-year range.

"It’s a fair expectation," he said.

Tanguay said Toyota is targeting young buyers, or what some company officials call the "8-bit generation," after the microprocessor technology that dominated the budding home video game industry during the 1980s. Pricing would be below the Prius, which now has a base manufacturer’s suggested retail price of about $27,000.

Toyota said the vehicle is lighter and more fuel efficient than the Prius. It is 22 inches shorter than the mid-size Prius but can still seat five people comfortably, the company noted in promotional material.

Prius sales improved marginally in Canada last year to 4,610 despite a sharp decline in the overall market.

Toyota, which struggled like other major automakers because of the world recession last year, wants to offer a variety of hybrid choices, including plug-in models by 2012 and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles in 2015.

"We must re-imagine the automobile, a century after its invention, with powertrains that greatly reduce or even eliminate the use of conventional petroleum fuels," said Toyota Canada president Yoichi Tomihara. "The electrification of the automobile is just one of many alternatives and the most successful example of this to date has been the gas-electric hybrid."

However, Toyota and other automakers have acknowledged they face major a challenge to reduce the cost of hybrids and full electric vehicles to make them more affordable and practical to consumers because of battery costs, travel range and charging infrastructure.

Some other automakers promoted their hybrid and electric capabilities at the show. Fiat, Chrysler’s new partner, showed an electric Fiat 500 subcompact, for example, but the company did not disclose any timing for production.

The 22nd annual show’s media preview did not feature the splashy presentations that dominated the event in the past. Instead, companies showed smaller vehicles with an emphasis on fuel economy.

More politicians toured the event since the U.S. and Canadian governments have become shareholders in GM and Chrysler, which got taxpayer loans to stay alive last year.

"It’s not an auto show any more," said veteran industry watcher Dennis DesRosiers. "It’s a political spin show … the industry has to show governments they’re listening."

He said in the U.S., several automakers are working on costly technology to improve fuel economy without downsizing autos because Americans won’t buy enough smaller vehicles.

"The question is will there be enough volume because of the higher prices," he said. "It may take a decade before those prices come down enough."

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After a day of rumors, Apple Inc. confirmed late Friday that it has bought online music service Lala.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Palo Alto-based Lala’s backers include Boston-based Bain Capital Ventures, New York-based Warner Music Group and Bellevue, Wash.-based Ignition Partners.

Lala lets users listen to any song once without paying and pay 10 cents to be able to stream the music online, or 89 cents for most songs that can be played on a portable music player.

Cupertino-based Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), by contrast, charges 99 cents for most songs through the iTunes store.

Apple isn’t saying what it will do with Lala.

Mountain View-based Google Inc paperless payday loans. (NASDAQ:GOOG) provided a big boost to Lala’s traffic in November when it started directing music searches to the company’s site when users were looking for songs. But that also appeared to tax Lala’s capacity with previous users complaining of the service slowing down.

Palo Alto-based Facebook Inc. also began allowing its users to purchase songs as gifts to send to their friends on the social network.

But the New Yorks Times reported Friday night that the Apple deal was triggered when Lala executives determined that they could not make a profit in the near term and approached the iTunes owner.

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The first official holiday retail weekend closes with Cyber Monday, a day that didn't exist before online stores.

Some argue that it's a recent tradition whose days are numbered, but Apple Inc. and major retailers are doing their part to keep it alive with special deals.

Cyber Monday was born back when not many Americans had high-speed Internet access at home and large numbers of them logged in for their online holiday shopping at the office on the Monday after Thanksgiving.

But an estimated 60 percent of U.S. homes now have broadband access to the Web, according to research firm Strategy Analytics, meaning fewer have to do their online shopping at work.

And a report from Neilsen earlier this month showed the number of people in the U.S. who plan to shop online has dropped this year to 63 percent, down 10 points from two years ago. The number of people who said they will do no online shopping rose to 7 percent from 1 percent in that same time frame.

But retailers are still offering special online deals Monday, including an offer from Cupertino-based Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) of free shipping on any item purchased for more than $50.

Palo Alto-based Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE:HPQ) is offering steep discounts on some PCs as well as free shipping on orders that cost more than $59.99. HP, however, didn't actually wait to launch its Cyber Monday specials on the first day of the work week, launching its specials on Sunday and making them good until Wednesday.

Other major online retailers offering Cyber Monday specials are Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN), Best Buy and Wal-Mart.

The National Retail Federation has launched a Web site that aggregates all of the special offers in one place in an effort to promote the unofficial shopping holiday. It can be accessed here.

While the NRF says the number of shoppers who say they will buy something online at work this season has dropped (68.8 million in 2009 vs. 72.8 million in 2008), the number of retailers making Cyber Monday promotions has gone up (87.7 percent this year vs. 83.7 percent last year.).

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Dow Chemical Co said on Monday it would begin selling a new rooftop shingle next year that converts sunlight into electricity — and could generate $5 billion in revenue by 2015 for the company.

The new solar shingles can be integrated into rooftops with standard asphalt shingles, Dow said, and will be introduced in 2010 before a wider roll-out in 2011.

“We’re looking at this one product that could generate $5 billion in revenue by 2015 and $10 billion by 2020,” Jane Palmieri, managing director of Dow Solar Solutions, told Reuters in an interview.

The shingle will use thin-film cells of copper indium gallium diselenide (CIGS), a photovoltaic material that typically is more efficient at turning sunlight into electricity than traditional polysilicon cells.

Dow is using CIGS cells that operate at higher than 10 percent efficiency, below the efficiencies for the top polysilicon cells — but would cost 10 to 15 percent less on a per watt basis.

Dow Solar Solutions said it expects “an enthusiastic response” from roofing contractors for the new shingles, since they require no specialized skills or knowledge of solar systems to install.

The new product is the latest advance in “Building Integrated Photovoltaic” (BIPV) systems, in which power-generating systems are built directly into the traditional materials used to construct buildings.

BIPV systems are currently limited mostly to roofing tiles, which operate at lower efficiencies than solar panels and have so far been too expensive to gain wide acceptance.

Dow’s shingle will be about 30 to 40 percent cheaper than current BIPV systems.

The Dow shingles can be installed in about 10 hours, compared with 22 to 30 hours for traditional solar panels, reducing the installation costs that make up more than 50 percent of total system prices.

The product will be rolled out in North America through partnerships with home builders such as Lennar Corp and Pulte Homes Inc before marketing is expanded, Palmieri said.

Dow received $20 million in funding from the U.S. Department of Energy to help develop its BIPV products.

The company also produces fluids used in concentrated solar systems, in which sunlight is used to generate heat that produces steam to power a turbine.

In addition, it supplies materials used to help manufacture photovoltaic panels and increase their efficiency.

Dow shares were up 4.4 percent at $24.67 on the New York Stock Exchange in afternoon trading.

(Reporting by Matt Daily, editing by Dave Zimmerman and Gerald E. McCormick)

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Canwest Global Communications Corp. is denying a published report that it is putting its big-city daily newspapers across the country on the auction block and one of its senior executives has lined up financial backers to make a bid.

"The papers are not for sale," said Canwest spokesman John Douglas in a phone interview.

"The papers are part of the Canwest company and this story is pure speculation."

He was referring to a report today by Canwest (TSX: CGS) rival The Globe and Mail that said Paul Godfrey, CEO of Canwest's National Post daily in Toronto, has been approached by private equity funds that want to buy some or all of the Winnipeg media company's papers.

While the newspaper assets aren't officially up for sale at this point, the news report, which cites unidentified sources, said that they're expected to hit the auction block within two months.

Godfrey had little to say about the report, when contacted by The Canadian Press.

"As far as I'm concerned… I'm employed at Canwest and I'm loyal to Canwest," Godfrey said. "I have nothing further to say than that."

Godfrey, the businessman who orchestrated a buyout of the former Toronto Sun Publishing Corp and helped bring major league baseball to Toronto, has been known for taking an unconventional, but successful, approach to reworking the media landscape.

He took the reins at the National Post in January after leaving his role as president and CEO of the Toronto Blue Jays.

"Godfrey knows newspapers, and he also knows how to take newspaper chains private and then break them up and sell the assets, restructure them and make them insanely profitable again," said Duncan Stewart, director of research and analysis at DSam Consulting.

"From that perspective this makes a lot of sense."

A major sale of the Canwest papers would make the company look much like it did 20 years ago before it purchased the group of prominent big city publications like the Ottawa Citizen, the Calgary Herald, and both Vancouver dailies.

Back then, Canwest focused primarily on its broadcast television assets, run through Global TV.

Canwest's bought the former Southam chain nearly a decade ago for more than $3 billion at the top of the market. Those same assets would fetch far less than that now with the North American newspaper industry facing rough economic times, continued losses and industry-wide consolidation.

DBRS senior vice-president Chris Diceman said a sale of the newspapers wouldn't impact the D-rating that the ratings agency has on Canwest's debt.

He estimates that Canwest could sell its newspapers division, which excludes the National Post, for between $800 million to $1 billion – which is four to five times the company's annual earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, a non-standardized accounting tool used by most companies.

"A recapitalization, or a sale that would likely lead to cents on the dollar, would not put (Canwest) back in a position of rectifying that default," he said lowest fee payday loans.

Diceman added that the newspaper division at current market prices would probably only bring in enough money to pay Canwest's secured creditors, which leaves little or no remaining cash for subordinated noteholders.

But selling the newspapers could still be a pivotal move in rescuing a company which has been struggling to repay $2.5 billion owed to its creditors.

Canwest has managed to restructure its operations and finances without seeking court protection from creditors, even though it has defaulted on debt payments.

To survive, the company has been reselling pieces of the business to show lenders that it's making progress on reworking its operations.

Most recently it sold off its majority stake in Australian broadcaster Ten Network Holdings, in addition to past sales of its E!-branded TV stations and U.S. political magazine The New Republic.

"Like the Ten Network sale, this would represent a significant contribution to the bottom line which would offset their debtload, and give them the financial breathing room they so desperately seek at this point in time," said Carmi Levy, an analyst at AR Communications Inc.

"If it comes to fruition, it will be another significant step in Canwest's journey toward, if not financial freedom, then at least financial survival."

Levy said that Godfrey has a solid track record with media companies, which would likely help him secure support from the financial community.

"He understands the business from the inside and out, both journlaistically as well as financially," Levy added.

"He is well-respected by both of those constituent groups, which is absolutely critical here. The last thing Canwest wants is to simply spin off these assets and then watch them spin into oblivion."

Despite the denial of a sale from Canwest representatives, the company's shares closed the session dramatically higher than they have been for months.

Canwest shares ended at 27 cents, up 6.5 cents or more than 30 per cent, amid heavy trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange. Earlier, the stock hit 30 cents, which was the highest intraday price since May 21.

The company is controlled by the Asper family through their special voting shares, though they're expected to lose that status as part of the restructuring process.

Canwest has also outsourced some of its advertising production work done in Calgary and Regina to a company with operations in India and the Philippines. The company also inked a distribution contract with Quebecor Inc. (TSX:QBR.A, TSX:QBR.B), publisher of the Sun Media papers, which has one carrier delivering competing newspapers in some cities.

On Thursday, the National Post announced a deal to share content with the publicly funded Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Most of the news content under the agreement would only be republished on their websites.

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To work force trainer Dan Andrews, the plans for a new Sheet Metal Workers Local 36 headquarters represent a logical extension of the heating and air conditioning industry’s commitment to sustainable energy.

The union, which represents workers in the heating and air conditioning industry, announced plans this week to renovate and move into a former manufacturing plant at the intersection of Chouteau and Jefferson avenues in south St. Louis late next year.

Upon completion, the $15 million headquarters will draw a portion its power from solar panels and windmills and use some recycled rainwater to flush toilets.

Part of the building’s roof will be covered with vegetation.

Andrews said the building — once the home of Missouri Boiler — will showcase what the heating and air conditioning industry has long preached about energy efficiency.

"If you look close enough, we’ve been doing this a long time," said Andrews, recalling his first training in the installation of low energy heating and air conditioning systems nearly 30 years ago. "But we never really looked at it as green."

The 50,000 square feet set aside for instruction at Local 36’s new headquarters, Andrews said, will take training to the next step with large "mock-ups" of the intricate heating and a/c systems used in today’s homes and offices.

The new training facility, he added, will also emphasize the processes heating and a/c specialists have adopted to audit home and office energy use.

Local 36 represents 3,200 sheet metal workers.

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Only 12 percent of U.S. homeowners eligible for loan modifications under the Obama administration’s housing rescue plan have had their mortgages reworked, and millions more foreclosures are coming, the Treasury Department said on Wednesday.

A Treasury report showed 360,165 people had their monthly payments reduced through August, up from 235,247 through July, but a senior Treasury official conceded much more must be done to soften the impact of a severe and prolonged housing crisis.

“The recent crisis in the housing sector has devastated families and communities across the country and is at the center of our financial crisis and economic downturn,” Michael Barr, assistant Treasury secretary for financial institutions, told a House Financial Services subcommittee.

Treasury has begun releasing monthly reports on the loan modification program, called the Home Affordable Modification Program, or HAMP, that it launched in February. At the time, it was suggested that millions of Americans might be able to get some relief through negotiations with their mortgage lenders.

But the program, which pays cash incentives to mortgage servicers to reduce monthly payments to 31 percent of a borrower’s income, is off to a relatively slow start.

In July, Treasury said that just 9 percent of the estimated number of homeowners eligible had had their payments reduced, so August’s 12 percent total represents only modest progress.

Barr said that Treasury was on track to achieve 500,000 trial modifications by November 1. The modification becomes permanent once a borrower makes three reduced monthly payments free credit report online.

Barr said that “even if HAMP is a total success, we should still expect millions of foreclosures” as administration and industry efforts continue to stabilize a crisis-stricken housing sector.

BANKRUPTCY REVISION BILL THREATENED

Lawmakers expressed frustration at the slow progress as unemployment-driven foreclosures rise and threatened to revive so-called “cram-down” legislation that would allow bankruptcy judges to reduce mortgage loan amounts owed.

“I am disappointed at the pace of this program,” said Rep. Barney Frank, chairman of the Financial Services Committee.

The House last year passed a cram-down bill but it was defeated in the Senate, which at the time had a narrower Democratic majority.

“The best lobbyists we have for getting bankruptcy legislation passed are the servicers who are not doing a very good job of modifying mortgages,” said Frank. “If they do not improve their performance, then they improve the chances of that legislation.”

Barr said President Barack Obama supports the idea of allowing bankruptcy judges to alter mortgage terms, but “the first and best answer has got to be ‘let’s figure out a way of keeping people in their home with a modification’ and that’s where we’re focused.”

A Federal Reserve economist, however, said that an effective plan to mitigate foreclosures must deal with rising unemployed borrowers. 

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