GREENING OF AMERICA: Obama Set To Allow States To Regulate Auto Emissions, Raise Fuel Efficiency
NEW YORK TIMES: President Obama on Monday will direct federal regulators to move swiftly to grant California and 13 other states the right to set strict automobile emissions and fuel efficiency standards, two administration officials said Sunday evening. The directive makes good on an Obama campaign pledge and marks a sharp reversal from Bush administration policy.
Granting California and the other states the right to regulate tailpipe emissions is one of the most dramatic actions Mr. Obama can take to quickly put his stamp on environmental policy. The presidential orders will require 
automobile manufacturers to begin producing and selling cars and trucks that get higher mileage than the national standard, and on a faster phase-in schedule. The auto companies had lobbied hard against the regulations and challenged them in court.
Mr. Obama will use the announcement of his latest directive to bolster the impression of a sharp break from the Bush era on all fronts. It follows his decisions last week to close the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, tighten limits on interrogation tactics by CIA officers, order plans to withdraw combat forces from Iraq and reverse Mr. Bush’s financing restrictions on groups that provide or discuss abortion overseas.
Beyond the California waiver, officials said, Mr. Obama will announce that he is moving forward with nationwide regulations requiring the automobile industry to increase fuel efficiency standards, rules that the Bush administration decided at the last minute not to issue. He will also order federal departments and agencies to find new ways to save energy and be more environmentally friendly. And he will highlight the elements in his economic plan intended to create new jobs around renewable energy. MORE
RUN DMC: On Reading Rainbow
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Phawker.com's
January 26th, 2009 at 1:09 am
All great news. Have you heard any word of closing Bagram in Afghanistan? It’s the setting of the murder in the documentary TAXI TO THE DARKSIDE and is often mentioned as “the Other Guantanamo”. There have been reports that there are plans to enlarge the facility.
January 26th, 2009 at 3:53 am
Last I heard they were investing zillions to make a more brutally modern prison to replace it. In related news, Abu Ghraib has reopened under a new name. Same management, though. So caveat emptor, as Mike Brady used to say. Or maybe he used to say ‘don’t play ball in the house.’ Or maybe that was Carol. Well, one thing is for certain she was NO fan of the word ‘stinker.’ Kinda odd, if you think about it.
You might find this interesting:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8450
Re: this….
“We are grateful to the Washington Post, the New York Times, Time magazine, and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost forty years. It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subject to the bright lights of publicity during these years. But the world is now more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government which will never again know war, but only peace and prosperity for the whole of humanity. The supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national auto-determination practiced in the past centuries.” — David Rockefeller, 1991, Addressing the Bilderberg Group