FINALLY — new car/truck/SUV mileage standards could be on tap

Without Michgan gasbag Carl Levin able to block, the Senate has approved a 35mpg standard. for cars, pickups and SUVs.

The Senate energy bill is still weak. The 35mpg standard doesn’t hit until 2020, with Levin saying he’s still going to work to kill it. Senate Republicans killed a $29 billion tax on oil companies to pay for renewable energy development, a pittance compared to what most Western nations, especially in Europe, finance.

Also bad, bad is a requirement that half of cars be able to flex-fuel on 85 percent ethanol by 2015. Ethanol from corn is energy-neutral at best, possibly energy-negative. It’s also not that much lighter on CO2 emissions than conventional gasoline.

But, it’s something.

Its strongest point is to put pickups and SUVs under the same overall mileage standards, thus killing a HUGE loophole.

And, this is a fair part of why Levin opposes it, I think.

Detroit builds most of its SUVs on truck platforms; Tokyo on car rails. So, Japanese SUVs get better gas mileage, and can be further improved more easily

Tough shit, Carl. The Not-So-Big Three have had 33 years since the first oil embargo.

Bloomberg bubble — hold the phone on Iraq

Via TPM Election Central, it appears Big Mike does NOT favor an immediate or a full pullout from Iraq.
At a speech at Google HQ Monday:

“We are in trouble overseas. There’s obviously an unpopular war, but a war that has no easy answers. The people that say, ‘let’s just automatically pull troops out,’ I don't think have really looked at the consequences of destabilizing the world, and the genocide that may or may not occur, depending on who you believe.”

The only other quotes TPM EC has about Bloomberg’s position are pre-invasion; any further information about his stance between then and now, to flesh out the picture, is welcome.

In any case, the first picture of him on Iraq is that he won’t be more progressive than any Democrat to the left of JoeMentum Lieberman (whom Bloomberg endorsed over Ned Lamont).

So, contrary to somebody like M.L. Rosenberg over at TPM, right now, I personally don’t have a hankering for Bloomberg, and, unless he changes positions on Iraq, some other progressive bloggers are probably right that he’ll draw more from Republicans, should he jump in.

Also, and something I missed, Bloomberg’s been ginning up speculation for a month, even to the point of a possible VP to run with him.

Only days after Bloomberg’s [mid-May] Houston appearance, maverick Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) hinted broadly that he was considering joining forces with the billionaire mayor to run for the White House as independents.

So, his Hamlet-like demeanor will wear thin soon enough.

China now No. 1 on CO2 emissions

Blame dirty Chinese coal plants, among other things, says Netherlands environmental group.

At the same time, the U.S. is still to blame; manufacturing gets outsourced not only because of cheap labor but because many companies don’t want to do the environmental cost of business, either. For example, the majority of coke used in various U.S. metallurgical and other chemical processes is made in China.

U.S. already active in British portion of Iraq?

So it would seem, if we’re down near Basra:

In what appeared to be a separate operation deep in the south near the Iranian border, a ferocious battle between American troops and Shiite militants left at least 20 people dead and wounded scores more, Iraqi and American officials said.

The clashes, in Amara and Majjar al-Kabir, a pair of mostly Shiite towns just north of Basra, started early Monday. They were sparked by raids on what American officials described as a secret network involved in transporting “lethal aid” from Iran to Iraq, particularly deadly roadside bombs known as explosively formed penetrators, or E.F.P.’s.

Lt. Col. Christopher Garver, an American military spokesman in Iraq, said American troops have intensified their focus on finding and dismantling places where those weapons are built, like the towns raided Monday, because the weapons were especially hard to stop at the border. “It’s hard to catch because they are shipped as components, not completed weapons,” he said.

According to officials aligned with the Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr in Basra, the fighting involved members of Mr. Sadr’s Mahdi Army militia. The battle appeared to be the largest clash with Mr. Sadr’s loosely affiliated gunmen since the start of the new American security plan in February.

In addition to the 20 dead, six suspects were wounded and one was detained, officials said. A hospital official said that at least 60 people were wounded.

So, is British control slipping? Is the heat picking up in the south? And, if soon-to-be British PM Gordon Brown does go through with a British drawdown, how do we fill the gap?

Gen. Petraeus ain’t talking about this one, at least not in public.

I would say it would necessitate a minimum of 20,000 additional troops.

Maliki government looking more shaky in Baghdad

Samarra bombing leads to top resignation, again bring its viability into question.

Iraqi Vice President Adel Abdul Mahdi, a senior Shiite politician often mentioned as a potential prime minister, tendered his resignation last week in a move that reflects deepening frustration inside the Iraqi government with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

Other senior Iraqi officials have considered resigning in recent weeks over the failures of their government to make progress after more than a year in power, according to Iraqi and U.S. officials.

Abdul Mahdi said he was provoked by the second bombing of the Shiite shrine in Samarra on June 13, in which he said corrupt police abetted Sunni insurgents. “The two minarets were as important to us as September 11, and we should be accountable to the people,” Abdul Mahdi said in a telephone interview Wednesday. “We should be doing more to move in a positive direction — on corruption, accountability and defending the important sites.” …

Maliki’s political benefactor, radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, has again withdrawn his followers in parliament in the wake of the Samarra bombing. The leader of Sadr’s legislative bloc, Nasar al-Rubaie, said that “the Maliki government will surely collapse if the situation continues as it is right now.”

I don’t think it’s a question of “if” the center can hold any more, but “how long.”

From the BushCo point of view, Maliki continues to dilly-dally on things like the draft oil law. Now, he’s president, not a prime minister, but especially with his veep just resigning, don’t doubt that Bush, Condoleezza Rice and Ambassador Ryan Crocker aren’t sniffing around for some way to not only fill Mahdi’s vacancy but “lean on” Maliki at the same time — or perhaps even trying to run the table with a “two-fer.”

Petraeus: September is no policy deadline date — he has no deadlines at all

Gen. David Petraeus says September is a report deadline and nothing more, one of several insights in a British interview.

“That is a deadline for a report not a deadline for a change in policy, at least not that I am aware of. Ambassador Crocker and I intend to go back and provide a snapshot at that time, however focused the photograph is at that time and begin to describe what has been achieved and what has not been achieved and also to provide some sense of implications of courses of action. Neither of us is under any illusion.”

Really? Wonder if Dems will smell more coffee on the next Iraq supplemental?

And, he doesn’t expect “total victory”:

Will [the surge] be enough to restore security?

“You are never going to eliminate sensational attacks in Baghdad. That cannot be your metric of success. What we have to do is reduce their number and their impact. We had done quite well until the attack yesterday that killed a number of innocent civilians.”

And, apropos of the headline, he’s very open-ended about deadlines:

Would you like the surge to continue indefinitely?

“It depends on what the sense is for the prospects of achieving Iraq’s constitution. I hope that we can put time back on the Washington clock. Al-Qaeda is keenly aware of the Washington clock. They are obviously going to have a surge of their own.

And, he continues to “pump up the volume” about the importance of Iraq:

What about the leadership in Iraq?

"It is still led by foreigners called al-Qaeda Senior Leadership (AQSL). Our assessment is that this is the central front for al-Qaeda. They have a global war of terror, and Iraq is the central front. Whether you like it or not.

So, in a nutshell, the top brass in Iraq wants an open-ended commitment and claims we have to fight al-Qaeda there. He goes on to claim Iran has a high degree of backing for rogue elements of the Mahdi Army (I wouldn’t doubt some backing, but question the degree) and that the still-unpassed draft oil law is a key to political reconciliation.

Well, general, if you believe that, you could be waiting a long time.