Dec. 4 (Bloomberg) -- Automakers made an urgent plea for aid as U.S. lawmakers struggled to break a deadlock over how to provide the assistance, debating options such as loans to carry the companies into early next year.

General Motors Corp. Chief Executive Rick Wagoner said his company needs an “immediate” $4 billion and $4 billion more next month. “We’re here today because we made mistakes,” Wagoner told the Senate Banking Committee today in Washington. “Forces beyond our control have pushed us to the brink.”

Lawmakers looked for ways to answer the plea. Senator Thomas Carper, a Delaware Democrat, said he is considering legislation to require banks that benefited from the federal bailout program to lend money to keep GM and Chrysler LLC running. That would give time for Congress and President-elect Barack Obama to devise a longer-term solution, Carper said.

Senator Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat, discussed the possibility of legislation that would give automakers “not a small sum” and have a designee of the president oversee the funds and help bring about changes at the automakers.

“All of us appreciate up here that inaction is unacceptable,” said Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd, a Connecticut Democrat. “We’re also not about to write a check and just hand it over.” After the hearing, Dodd told reporters, “We’ve got the makings of putting something together.”

Ronald Gettelfinger, president of the United Auto Workers union, told the panel, “We could lose General Motors by the end of this month” if Congress fails to act.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and President George W. Bush are engaged in a showdown over who will bail out the U.S. automakers and where the money will come from.

Bailout Fund

Pelosi wants to rescue the car companies by tapping a $700 billion bailout fund for the financial industry. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said a plan to use those funds doesn’t have the votes to pass. Bush and congressional Republicans are pushing to use instead some of the $25 billion for the development of fuel- efficient vehicles approved in a 2007 energy bill.

U.S. lawmakers have said they may schedule votes next week to aid automakers after hearings today and tomorrow.

Senator Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat, said today the source of the loans continues to be the main sticking point. “It’s essential that the president and the president-elect become more active,” he said.

Wagoner, Chrysler LLC Chief Executive Robert Nardelli and Ford Motor Co.’s Alan Mulally together are asking for as much as $34 billion in federal aid. “I am sorry to be asking for this support,” Wagoner told reporters before the hearing began.

No Private Jets

The three men are trying to recover from their appearance before Congress two weeks ago when they were ridiculed for arriving in Washington in separate private jets to plead for funds and left empty-handed.

They demonstrated contrition today and drew some compliments for their plans after they drove to the hearing and said they would work for $1 a year.

Even so, the senior Republican on the panel, Senator Richard Shelby of Alabama, said the automakers’ plans aren’t “serious” and have “few concrete details.”

“If you made this presentation to get a bank loan I suspect that any sensible banker would summarily dismiss your request,” Shelby said. He said earlier he still opposes a bailout.

Senator Jon Tester, a Montana Democrat, said that if Congress aids automakers now, “there is a potential we could be back here in a year, maybe less.”

Acting U.S. Comptroller General Gene Dodaro told the committee, in response to a question from Shelby, that the Federal Reserve had authority to put money into the carmakers, as it did with insurer American International Group Inc.

How to ‘Play This’

Fed officials have said they want the solution for automakers’ cash problems to come from Congress and taxpayers, not the central bank.

“Congress will have to decide how they want to play this,” said St. Louis Fed President James Bullard in a Bloomberg Television interview Dec. 2. Rescuing the auto companies “is one thing we don’t have to do,” he said.

Fed officials have an aversion to extending the too-big-to- fail doctrine beyond financial institutions. The premise of the central bank’s $85 billion rescue of AIG in September was that the insurer’s failure posed a threat to the system through its role in the derivatives market.

Other obstacles involved in lending to carmakers might be finding large pools of collateral for the Fed to loan against. Officials are also unlikely to grant bank holding company status to auto-firm subsidiaries as a potential conduit for aid to the parent. Transactions between banks and affiliates are strictly regulated by the Fed.

To contact the reporter on this story: John Hughes in Washington at Jhughes5@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: December 4, 2008 16:07 EST