The Wall Street Journal reports today that the Big 3 automakers are promising greener cars as part of their bid to receive billions in government bailouts. Most aggressive is Ford, which plans to accelerate plans for a battery-electric van and sedan by 2011. The company, which says it may not even have to use the loan, expects a plug-in electric vehicle to come off the assembly line the following year.

Altogether, Chrysler, Ford, and GM are asking for a $34 billion line of credit, up from the $25 billion they requested last month. Ford and Chrysler are also asking for a combined $11 billion from the Department of Energy for the development of fuel-efficient vehicles.

In addition to the promise of each carmaker's CEO to work for $1 a year, Ford and GM will be driving to Washington in hybrids and E85 vehicles when they make another round of appeals later this week. This move is almost certainly a result of their getting scorched by Congressional leaders over their use of private jets in their previous meeting in DC.

It seems very unlikely that Congress will simply turn its back on the Big 3. The question is how many green strings Washington will attach to the funds. Detroit has resisted cleaner cars for decades and now government has the leverage to make dead certain that the next generation of vehicles is renewable, pluggable and electric. It's an opportunity that can't be missed.