Rick Wagoner chairman of General Motors Corp. will make the case for up to $50 billion in federal loans to the auto industry at a U.S. Senate energy summit. The summit will be on September 12 and was pushed by a bipartisan group of senators hoping to break a logjam around energy in Congress. The Democrats and Republican Party have hammered each other over who’s to blame for rising energy prices and what should be done to relieve them.

Group of senators unveiled an energy bill in July that included $7.5 billion in loans for automakers and parts suppliers to retool. Six other senators have signed on as supporters and Senate leaders approved the idea of an energy summit.

The maker of automotive parts and building climate-control system, Johnson Controls Inc. said it will pare production and cut an unspecified number of jobs and resulting in costs of as much as $500 million. Johnson Control Inc. also said it expects to complete most of the cost-reduction effort by early 2010.

The Chrysler LLC has been demonstrating plug-in hybrid prototypes to some dealers that are further developed than those previously shown by the automaker. The vehicles are being developed by Chrysler’s Envi unit and which the automaker created last year to create electric vehicles and other advanced propulsion technologies, said Chrysler Vice Chairman and President Jim Press.

The Big Three Detroit carmakers reported hefty double digit declines from a year ago and Japan’s Toyota and Honda saw single digit losses while Nissan bucked the trend with an increase in sales. Automakers saw another painful slide in US sales this August with the consumers cautious amid a weak economy. According to research firm Autodata, the total new car sales amounted to 1.249 million units, or an adjusted annual pace 13.72 million down a whopping 15.5 percent from a year ago.

According to industry source Detroit auto companies are preparing to launch a campaign for assistance next week and the goal is to have Congress approve at least 25 billion dollars in loans by the end of September. Peter Morici economist at the University of Maryland said “It is a bad time for the industry, even for those companies that are competitive.” “I don’t expect thing to improve much because the economic conditions are slowing further people don’t have any money for big purchases.”

GM’s sales were notably better than the consensus forecast for a 29 percent drop, and were arguably aided by the employee discount program said Himanshu Patel at JP Morgan Securities . Reported August that General Motors US sales slumped 20.4 percent from a year ago to 308,817 vehicles and although it pointed out that sales were up a significant 31 percent from a month earlier.

August US sales slid 26.6 percent from a year ago, citing a weak economy and sluggish demand for large trucks and sport utility vehicles said Ford Motor Co. and Ford also cited higher demand for fuel efficient small cars and SUVs but this was offset by other factors. The company said “the impact of a weak economy and lower demand for larger trucks and SUV’s resulted in double digit sales declines for Ford and the auto industry.”