WASHINGTON — Republican lawmakers from the Chattanooga area mostly criticized the White House’s $17.4 billion auto industry bailout package announced Friday, saying it’s too weak and lacking in specific, firm benchmarks that would make the domestic Big Three competitive.

Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., who had demanded a concrete timeline on wage and benefit concessions from the United Auto Workers in last week’s failed congressional negotiations, said the White House plan is too “open to interpretation.”

“The best solution would have been definite terms, within a finite time period, committed to law, that protected taxpayers,” Sen. Corker said.

The White House plan, which would give $13.4 billion in immediate emergency loans to General Motors and Chrysler, followed by $4 billion later, requires the companies to restructure their debt and get the UAW to agree to make their wages competitive with those of foreign automakers with plants here. But those requirements are nonbinding.

“We are left to hope that the next administration has the will to enforce the tough concessions necessary to make these companies viable for the long term,” Sen. Corker said. “Unfortunately, it is clear that stakeholders are already working to undo those tough concessions.”

The loans will come from the $700 billion Wall Street bailout, officially called the Troubled Assets Relief Program, or TARP.

Rep. Lincoln Davis, D-Tenn., defended the need for federal aid to the domestic automakers. He disputed critics of the bailout that call it a political payback to unions, saying there are millions of jobs, both union and nonunion, related to the auto industry that are at stake if the Big Three fail.

He cited his district’s 143 supplier plants that employ 49,000 workers, most nonunion.

“To me, assistance, in the form of a bridge loan requiring repayment with interest, is about making sure my district, and the hundreds of districts in a similar predicament, do not continue to experience an exodus of badly needed jobs,” he said.

Mike O’Rourke, president of UAW Local 1853 at the GM plant in Spring Hill, Tenn., could not be reached for comment.

Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., also was among the Republican chorus criticizing the White House plan. He had written a letter to President Bush earlier this week, urging him not to tap into the Wall Street rescue plan for emergency loans to domestic automakers.

“I believe it is wrong to make the American taxpayers an unsecured creditor to the automakers,” Sen. Isakson said.

Rep. Zach Wamp, R-Tenn., said the TARP has been poorly managed by the Bush administration.

“There are few safeguards in place to make sure that this money will bring about the critical reforms the Detroit automakers must make to ensure their long-term viability and competitiveness,” he said.

Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., said he would have preferred to see a compromise package emerge out of last week’s congressional negotiations, but “the plan announced (Friday) could begin to address the underlying problems if it is strictly enforced.”