Panel for auto-dependent sectors formed

PERRYSBURG, Ohio, June 23 (UPI) -- The White House has formed a panel for workers and communities dependent on the auto industry, Vice President Joe Biden said at a meeting in Ohio.

The White House Council on Automotive Communities and Workers was created by executive order, Biden said Tuesday. This inter-agency council will work to address the issues facing the automotive industry and protect the hardest-hit communities and workers.

"The White House Council on Automotive Communities and Workers will ensure that the federal government is responding quickly and accelerating recovery efforts to those communities hardest hit," Ed Montgomery, director of the U.S. Labor Department's Recovery for Auto Communities and Workers, said in a news release. The unit helps automotive workers in their job search, training, education and support services in their communities.

The announcement came during the fifth meeting of the White House Task Force on Middle Class Families, called "Promoting American Manufacturing in the 21st Century," in Perrysburg, Ohio, a Toledo suburb.

"There are far too many valuable resources, too much valuable capital and especially too much human skill and know-how embedded in America's manufacturing sector to allow it to go to waste," Biden said.

He said the Obama administration was committed to doing "everything we can to prepare the manufacturing sector for the future and to protect families and communities hurt by recent job losses."

During the meeting, U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke announced the expansion of the National Innovation Marketplace, developed to help revitalize supply chains by giving manufacturers tools they need to move from contracting sectors to opportunities within emerging technologies.

"By expanding the National Innovation Marketplace, the Commerce Department is bringing together in one place the ideas, products and future opportunities businesses need to identify new markets, diversify and create new jobs," Locke said.