The nation’s largest mortgage lenders, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, are facing increasing questions about their ability to help consumers ride out the subprime mortgage debacle.  The government wants to meet the needs of troubled consumers, but the companies’ shareholders are interested in higher profits.  Writing in the Wall  Street Journal, James Hagerty describes the tension and notes that even Freddie Mac’s chairman, Richard Syron, calls the lending companies "odd ducks" for waddling the tightrope between the public and private sectors.  Read Hagerty here.

Michael Grunwald of TIME magazine brings us the truth about biofuels in a convenient, if fairly horrifying, package.  After extensive travel in Brazil and a clear-eyed look at the markets for fuel and food grains, Grunwald makes it clear that we are in the midst of a global screwup that could finally prove Malthus right.  (more…)

Interior Department Secretary Dirk Kempthorne promised 15 months ago that in a year he would determine whether the polar bear is an endangered species. The Washington Post’s Juliet Eilperin notes that he still hasn’t and environmental groups are suing because of it.

Yesterday, Kempthorne was nowhere to be seen on Capitol Hill even as the Senate’s top environmental committee held a hearing on the polar bear ruling. The reason?  He said it wouldn’t be appropriate to testify on an issue he was being sued about.  Read Eilperin here.  MB

The New York Times’s Felicity Barringer reports that yesterday 18 states, along with several cities and environmental groups, sued the Environmental Protection Agency because the administration has yet to rule on whether greenhouse gas emissions endanger public health.

The Supreme Court ruled last May that if EPA scientists found that greenhouse gas emissions endanger public health, they are compelled to regulate those emissions. But now it’s 11 months later and the EPA still hasn’t offered a ruling, in part because they’ve decided to introduce a public comment period on the issue. The public comment period was suggested by the conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation as a way to delay regulation. Can the will of citizens, states and Congress possibly thwart the Heritage Foundation? Stay tuned.  Read Barringer here.   MB

The Washington Post’s Lyndsey Layton reports that 17 state legislatures have rejected the Department of Homeland Security’s Real ID program, a card that would replace state driver’s licenses as the standard form of identification. The battle between the states and DHS was waged on Capitol Hill yesterday as DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and others accused DHS of bullying states and setting up an inefficient program that could cost the taxpayers billions.

DHS responded that it would keep granting states extensions until June 2009 so they would be able to comply. Which raises a question: When, if ever, will this post 9/11 program be a reality and not just a source of controversy?  Read Layton here.  MB

That’s what two Federal Aviation Administration whistleblowers will be telling the House transportation committee today. FAA inspectors Bobby Boutris and Douglas Peters allege they were stopped from properly inspecting Southwest Airlines planes. Southwest managers successfully went over their heads and told the FAA they could deal with the plane’s maintenance problems themselves.

The Wall Street Journal’s Andy Pasztor obtained the whistleblower’s testimony and comprehensively lays out the problems allegedly plaguing the aviation agency. The most serious charge is that FAA let commercial airlines choose which FAA employees they wanted to perform inspections.  Read Pasztor here.   MB