The decision to lift the admission ban, which had been put into effect Tuesday with a notice of summary license suspension, came after talks with hospital representatives in a process called Informal Dispute Resolution. An agreement was reached between state Health Division officials and the hospital to instead appoint a monitor to oversee patient safety at the facility.

Emerging from a meeting with Tennessee officials — the first of three meetings with state and federal delegations on Wednesday — Clarke said he wanted to lay out what GM was looking for in a new site. "I think a lot of (the discussion) was just getting an understanding," he said. "We wanted to make ourselves available to answer questions at whatever level of detail the state delegations wanted."

The debt forgiveness provision means part of the funding distributed to communities, water authorities and utilities will be in the form of a grant, which does not need to be repaid. Tennessee’s allocations from EPA are expected to be approximately $59 million for the Clean Water State Revolving Fund to fund planning, design and construction of wastewater facilities and approximately $20 million for the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund to fund planning, design and construction of drinking water facilities.