good obama, bad obama

Good Pres. Obama: EPA directed to create even higher fuel economy standards:

U.S. EPA and the Department of Transportation will start work on rules for passenger cars and light-duty trucks, which would go into effect for model year 2017 and take off where the last set of rules ends. The two agencies would also expand the program to include medium- and heavy-duty trucks for the first time, beginning with model year 2014 and running through 2018. The agencies hope to finalize the truck rules by 2012.

The memorandum also directs EPA to reduce non-greenhouse gas pollutants from motor vehicles, including nitrous oxide, particulates and sulfur dioxide, and for the Energy Department to help boost development of electric vehicle infrastructure.

The announcement comes roughly a year after Obama brokered a compromise among automakers, environmentalists and states to clear the way for a first-ever federal greenhouse gas emissions standard for passenger cars and trucks that was finalized last month. That rule will also ramp up the fuel economy of the nation's passenger fleet to 35.5 mpg by 2016, four years ahead of the schedule Congress laid out in a 2007 energy law.

While the presidential memorandum instructs EPA and DOT to work toward model year 2025, by law, the administration can only set fuel economy rules for five model years at a time, making at least two separate rulemakings likely. Federal regulators are required to issue rules at least 18 months before the model year being regulated hits dealer showrooms, meaning the 2017 standards would not have to be finalized until April 2015.

Bad Pres. Obama: Obama Administration moves Right of Bush Administration on privatizing public housing:

The Obama Administration's move to the right is about to give conservatives a victory they could not have anticipated, even under Bush. HUD, under Obama, submitted legislation called PETRA to Congress that would result in the privatization of all public housing in America.

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The banks and developers make a fortune, with the taxpayers paying for it. The public loses its public housing property. The impoverished tenants lose their apartments, or have their rents go way up if they are forced into the private market. Homelessness increases. Government gets smaller. The banks and developers win. It is a Bank Bonanza! The poor and the public lose.

And a precedent is set. The government can privatize any public property: Schools, libraries, national parks, federal buildings - just as has begun to happen in California, where the right-wing governor has started to auction off state property and has even suggested selling off the Supreme Court building.