Obama Improves Fuel Economy Rules While Congress....

Brad Plumer reports Will the new fuel economy rules actually work? "This morning, Barack Obama is scheduled to unveil one of the biggest policy accomplishments of his term—though it certainly won’t seem that way. After the president gives his televised remarks on the debt ceiling crisis, the White House is expected to announce—at a much sleepier Washington Convention Center venue—that it has finally struck a deal with the auto industry on extending new fuel-economy standards out to 2025."

"Broadly speaking, the deal will require automakers to get their car and light-truck fleets to average 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025—a bit below the 62 mpg that greens were pushing but far higher than the current average of 27.3 mpg."

"Judging by an earlier EPA estimate, the regulations could reduce U.S. oil consumption by nearly 2.2 million barrels per day by 2025—roughly equal to all of our current daily imports from Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, and Kuwait. " "Jim Kliesch, a senior engineer at the Union of Concerned Scientists, told me that a sticker mileage of 54.5 mpg, for instance, would likely translate into about 39 mpg on the road."

"Thanks to a 2007 Supreme Court ruling that extended the existing Clean Air Act to cover greenhouse gases, the Obama administration didn’t need Congress. It had the legal authority to make these decisions largely on its own."

So while still working on the debt ceiling deal Obama is improving gas mileage in cars. What's Congress doing while not solving the debt issue? They're naming post offices. Seriously. And while that's common for Congresses, it seem particularly common for this Congress. A third of 237 laws this Congress passed, were naming government buildings and other commemorations.