Hitting double-digits for the first time in a generation, U.S. unemployment reached 10.2 percent last month, up from 9.8 percent in September.

The October rate is the highest since late 1982. The Christian Science Monitor reports, “After dismal jobs report, unemployment rate could hit postwar high,” the new government data has economists reconsidering their earlier economic projections.

“We have been forecasting a 10.5 percent peak for the unemployment rate in mid-2010; given that it is already at 10.2 percent, this could be too low,” writes Joshua Shapiro, chief US economist for MFR Inc. in New York.

The $787 billion stimulus bill pushed by President Obama and passed by the Democratic-controlled Congress last February is looking increasingly like a failure of sorts. At the time, the Obama administration promised that passing the huge tax and spending bill would keep unemployment from rising above 8 percent.

A recent administration claimed that the stimulus bill had created or saved more than 600,000 jobs (how do you accurately measure how a job is “saved.”) But media analysises of the documentation has found numerous errors that contributed to an inflated count, “White House tally appears to overstate stimulus jobs.”

For example, raises paid to some preschool teachers with stimulus dollars were mistakenly counted as saved jobs.

And a Kentucky shoe store that supplied nine pairs of work boots to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers counted the $800 expenditure as saving nine jobs.

That large of a bang for the buck was too good to be true.

New environmental regulations for transportation fuels being considered in Congress would deal a “devastating” blow to U.S. projects like the proposed Hyperion Energy Center in Union County, according to a coalition of business groups.

Some majority Democrats back legislation that would lower carbon emissions in U.S. vehicles. The Low-Carbon Fuel Standards, or LCFS, would penalize heavier, dirtier oil such as the crude from the Alberta, Canadian oil sands that Hyperion plans to process.

Last month, Hyperion secured a state air quality permit for its $10 billion refinery, which would process of 400,000 barrels per day.

“No permit in the world is going to save this project if LCFS is put in place,” said Chris Tucker, a spokesman for the Consumer Energy Alliance, a 125-member group that includes oil companies, retailers, trucking and transportation groups and business organizations like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

At top is a YouTube video of a TV ad that the CEA is airing in South Dakota, as well as three other states — North Dakota, Montana and Tennessee — with industries dependent on heavier oil. The S.D. ad encourages viewers to call the state’s two U.S. senators — Republican John Thune and Democrat Tim Johnson.

The group’s television and radio campaign, scheduled to last two weeks, attempts to educate consumers about the issue, warning that LCFS threatens to cost Americans jobs, drive up prices at the pump and increase U.S. dependence on Mideast imports.

A broader, better known climate control bill, known as Waxman-Markey, or cap-and-trade, passed the House in June without the low-carbon fuel provision, which was removed during negotiations. But CEA officials fear supporters will revive the low carbon language and insert it into other legislation during the current session of Congress.

Has ”Cars for Clunkers” come to the end of the road? The Obama administration says the wildly popular car incentive program would be suspended by week’s end without an infusion of cash, “LaHood: Car rebates will stop unless Senate acts.”

The federal government blew through the first $1 billion in about a week’s time, as thousands of consumers junked their old gas-guzzling cars and trucks for incentives of up to $4,500 to buy new models with better gas mileage.

President Obama is pressuring senators to approve the additional $2 billion to keep the rebate program afloat.

In the last week, Siouxlanders have flocked to local dealerships to take advantage of the one-time incentives. The rush has boosted sales and left many dealers with depleted inventories of popular high-mileage vehicles.

Watch my story in print and online Tuesday on what’s been happening with the story locally. I also am set to appear on KTIV live at 5 p.m. tonight to discuss the current status of the program.

Is there new life for local car dealers that Chrysler and General Motors discarded in their bankruptcy proceedings?

The U.S. House is scheduled to vote today a bill that would require the automakers to restore their franchise agreements as a condition of receiving federal aid. The plan is strongly opposed by both GM and Chrysler, as well as President Obama, whose administration strong armed the bankruptcy reorganizations for the U.S. automakers, ”Obama opposes House plan to protect auto dealers”

Lawmakers complain that the automakers cut dealerships with little notice or explanation, and hurt local economies already reeling from the recession.

Chrysler shut down 789 dealerships, including five in Northwest Iowa, last month. GM GM plans to shutter about 2,400 dealerships, including a dozen or more in Siouxland, by October 2010. Unlike Chrysler, GM has not publicly disclosed its list of dealers being eliminated.

The bill is likely to pass the House, but it faces an uncertain future in the Senate, where Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley has introduced similar legislation. The idea has received a chilly response, however, from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, who said Thursday, ”yesterday that “when you have a bankruptcy, there are winners and losers.”

Update: The House approved the auto dealer measure late Thursday as part of a broader spending bill.

Top brass from General Motors and Chrysler were back on Capitol Hill today, where they took yet another grilling at a congressional hearing, “GM, Chrysler executives defend dealership closings.”

GM CEO Fritz Henderson and Chrysler Deputy CEO Jim Press told a skeptical House panel that the decision to let go hundreds of dealers across the country was painful but necessary to preserve the automakers as they emerge from bankruptcy.

Henderson told the panel that 95 percent of the roughly 4,100 eligible GM dealers have signed up to be part of the new automaker that emerges from bankruptcy.” Almost 90 percent of dealerships slated for termination had signed or verbally agreed to wind-down terms by today’s deadline.

In print in the Journal today, I report on the GM agreements, which one dealer described as having a loaded gun pointed at your head. All of the area dealers I spoke to said they had or planned to sign either the so-called participation or wind-down agreements.