Like dirtier urban air? You've LOVE Obama

That's the latest olive branch semi-conservative President Barack Obama is extending to Big Oil and its ilk.

In the name of being more "business friendly" (but less lungs friendly) and eliminate allegedly "too burdensome" regulations, Team Obama wants to eliminate urban gas station vapor-trapping regulations.

Yep, those bellows on fuel nozzles at big city gas stations, already in place for a decade or more in larger urban areas, could be gone.

Here's the nugget:

The Environmental Protection Agency will eliminate requirements in some states for vapor recovery systems at gas stations, which are "redundant" because of improved air pollution controls in vehicles, saving $67 million annually.

Last time I checked, fuel pumps don't drive anywhere. Last time I checked, we'd added millions of new drivers to the road since the first vapor-control devices were required. Last time I checked, putting any additional petrochemical vapors in the air would not just be an air pollution problem but might add to global warming particulates, at least indirectly.

More proof that Obama's not even a neoliberal? Where his not-at-all liberal "tipping point" guru is presenting this:

Cass Sunstein, the White House regulatory chief, planned to describe the changes later Thursday morning in remarks to the conservative American Enterprise Institute.

Meanwhile, the intensely political Obama is clearly trying to have his neolib cake with conservative frosting, and eat it politically, too:
Most proposals announced Thursday are not final and will be updated to reflect public comment, the White House said. That process is expected to last into the summer, said lobbyists who had been told about the plan.
So, he'll see how loud environmentalists scream versus how much pre-informed lobbyists contribute to his campaign. Got it?

Now, you people who say "Ooohhhh, we could get a Republican president if all good liberals don't vote for Obama"? What do we have right now?

UGH on Sunstein for SCOTUS

I had no idea that he was being promoted as a "favorite of the left" to replace John Paul Stevens. Peter Baker should know better, even though he obviously doesn't.

Meanwhile, Glenn Greenwald shows all the different ways in which Baker is wrong to call Sunstein a liberal.

If the Wall Street Journal likes Cass Sunstein ...

Perhaps real progressives should be wary of Obama tapping him to be administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. On its editorial page, the Journal calls him "a regulator with promise."

It then claims: "Sunstein, a professor at Harvard Law School, is no conservative -- far from it." Well, if by that, the Journalistas mean he's a wide-eyed 1960s radical, far from it. He's somewhere in the amorphous bounds of Democratic Party-neoliberalism and nothing else.

And, although the Journal wants to see him do battle with Carol Browner, my fear is that before that, he'll be doing tag-team work with Larry Summers.

Washington Monthly undercuts its own ‘Vote Obama, Vote SCOTUS’ article

And ignores evidence that undercuts the story even further

Stephanie Mencimer directly says, especially when viewed through the lens of business law, Obama will point Stephen Breyer-type Supreme Court justices.

In other words, on economic issues, he’s a Bill Clinton neolib, campaign rhetoric aside.

And, Obama’s legal mentor, Cass Sunstein, is centrist more than liberal. Remember, both were at the University of Chicago, whose economics program has been ground zero for much of the economic thinking that got us into the current mess in the first place.

Some difference.

On other legal issues, one of course should also note these several points:

First, contradicting her claim about a strong difference on church-state issues, Obama is already on record as supporting the expansion of many parts of Bush’s faith-based initiatives program.

Second, on presidential power and power grabs:
• Obama is a "FISA 45 percenter" (the percent of Dems who voted Yes on the FISA bill);
• Obama hasn't exactly been Russ Feingold on decrying presidential signing statements.

All of this says that Obama’s vaunted “constitutional law scholar” credibility, under closer examination, isn’t really what it would seem to be at first glance.

Turley fears Obama sellout on Bush investigations

Jonathan Turley thinks Democrats in general and Barack Obama in particular will give Republican illegalities a pass if/when they’re in power next year.

Judging by a comment from Obama legal advisor Cass Sunstein (of whom I expected better), and Passive Pelosi™ keeping under wraps the idea of a new Church Commission, Turley is right to be “very, very afraid.”

Sunstein, in another Obama the squishmeister/Kumbaya chorus master type of comment, said that investigating too much would risk politicizing public service unless the crimes were “egregious.”

“We’ve had eight years of moral relativism and the avoidance of legal process,” stated Turley. “And to start a major campaign with the suggestion that we're going to distinguish between egregious and non-egregious crimes promises more of the same.”

“Did we just see accountability go out the window for good?” Keith Olbermann asked Turley.

“That would probably wrap it up,” Turley replied.

Be very, very afraid — of an Obama victory. At least on the issue of civil liberties, you’re not going to get hypocrisy from McCain.

And, this fall, exercise your idealism and vote Green. If Obama loses? Maybe it’s better.