Our guest blogger is Daniel J. Weiss, a Senior Fellow and Director of Climate Strategy at the Center for American Progress Action Fund. This post was originally published on Climate Progress. On May 4, Weiss wrote “We need an independent commission to investigate the BP disaster.”

As millions of gallons of oil continue to gush from the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico four weeks after the tragic BP disaster, AP reports that

President Barack Obama will establish the commission [to investigate the BP disaster] by executive order. It will be similar to panels created to investigate the space shuttle Challenger disaster and the nuclear accident at Three Mile Island, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity ahead of a public announcement.

The New York Times reports

The president will create the panel by executive order “in coming days,” a White House official said. “The commission will take into account the investigations underway concerning the causes of the spill and explore a range of issues including: industry practices; rig safety; Federal, state, and local regulatory regimes; federal governmental oversight, including the structure and functions of M.M.S.; and environmental review and other protections,” the official said, requesting anonymity to discuss the matter in advance of the presidential announcement.

An hour ago White House sources indicated to CAP that an official announcement about this executive order could occur on Tuesday or Wednesday.

In addition to the horrible loss of eleven lives on the now sunken Deepwater Horizon oil rig, the BP oil disaster could be the most devastating environmental disaster to ever befall the United States. To understand what caused this oil nightmare, in early May CAP proposed that President Obama appoint appoint “an independent commission to completely examine the causes of the BP disaster and offer guidance for how we can make sure it never happens again.

This would enable investigators to conduct an independent assessment of the causes of the disaster, and determine the responsibilities born by BP, Transocean, and Halliburton. An independent inquiry would also be able to determine whether the Minerals Management Service of the Department of Interior fulfilled its oversight duties.

Representatives Lois Capps (D-CA) and Ed Markey (D-MA), introduced the “BP Deepwater Horizon Disaster Inquiry Commission Act of 2010,” H.R. 5241. Senators Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Barbara Boxer (D-CA), and Robert Menendez (D-NJ) have a companion proposal. These measures would create a bipartisan independent commission to investigate the BP oil disaster.

Rather than wait for legislation, Presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan used executive orders to create independent commissions to investigate the near nuclear meltdown at Three Mile Island nuclear plant and the Challenger Space Shuttle accident. The orders were signed two and one week after these events, respectively, and the panels completed their work six months and three months after the events.

These were discrete incidents, while the BP oil disaster is an ongoing event so it may take longer to investigate and draw conclusions about the causes and damages. By using an executive order, President Obama can get this inquiry started much more quickly than by waiting for Congress to pass legislation. This will enable investigators to question witnesses while their memories are still fresh, and promptly order BP, Transocean, and Halliburton to preserve all relevant communications and documents.

Masters: Record Atlantic sea surface temps in hurricane development region, “The three past seasons with record warm April SST anomalies all had abnormally high numbers of intense hurricanes”

NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center has published its monthly “State of the Climate Report.”  It pretty much matches the NASA data.

An emeritus physics professor writes me cautioning against the use of the word ‘anomaly’ since, “In many people’s mind, the word ‘anomaly’ means something unusual that is a temporary phenomenon.”  He suggests “change,” which is probably better.

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On May 4, Daniel J. Weiss, CAP’s Director of Climate Strategy, wrote, “We need an independent commission to investigate the BP disaster.”  Now Weiss reports that the White House is doing just that.  As hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil continue to gush from the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico four weeks after the tragic BP disaster, AP reports that

President Barack Obama will establish the commission by executive order. It will be similar to panels created to investigate the space shuttle Challenger disaster and the nuclear accident at Three Mile Island, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity ahead of a public announcement.

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More oily humor from Dave:
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The past twelve months were the hottest in recorded history. According to NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, the global mean surface temperature for April 2010 was the hottest of all Aprils since their record begins in 1880. March 2010 was similarly the hottest March, January-April 2010 the hottest start of any year. The twelve months from May 2009 to April 2010 were the hottest consecutive twelve months in history, over 1.18°F above the 1951-1980 average:

Fueled by this extreme heat, which comes despite an extended solar minimum, record-breaking catastrophic climate events have been devastating the United States:

April 2010: Biblical floods in Nashville

March 2010: Calamitous floods in Rhode Island and North Dakota

February 2010: Record warmth in Vancouver and another round of record snowstorms in the Mid-Atlantic

January 2010: The most powerful storm in the history of the Southwest

December 2009: Record snowstorm in the Mid-Atlantic

November 2009: Record heatwave in Arizona

October 2009: Record rainfall in the Midwest

September 2009: Epic flooding in Atlanta

August 2009: Record rainfall in Washington DC, Louisville, and northeast Indiana

July 2009: The record three-year drought in California continues

June 2009: Record storms in western Pennsylvania

May 2009: Catastrophic storms, heat waves, wildfires and floods in Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, California, Illinois, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, and West Virginia

The climate is similarly becoming increasingly catastrophic around the globe, with the consequences of unrecoverable economic damage and untold human suffering. As the world burns, the national media ignores this terrible reality and instead promotes the propaganda of global warming conspiracy theorists, ideological cranks, and the fossil-fuel industry.

Update

,Climate Progress notes that NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center confirms the NASA results: “This was also the 34th consecutive April with global land and ocean temperatures above the 20th century average.”

As gigantic oil plumes form under Gulf, BP recklessly ignores scientists’ pleas: “We’re not going to take any extra efforts now to calculate flow there at this point. It’s not relevant to the response effort, and it might even detract from the response effort.”

If you had any lingering doubts about who was to blame for the disastrous undersea volcano of oil in the Gulf, last night’s 60 Minutes utterly dispels them:

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Question: Why do we need comprehensive clean energy legislation? What types of measures are included in the draft American Power Act? How will these provisions help American families?

CAP’s Daniel J. Weiss, Senior Fellow and Director of Climate Strategy, explains in this edition of Ask the Expert.
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LED Bulbs for the Home Near the Marketplace

The prospects of replacing today’s inefficient incandescent light bulbs with long-lasting, low-power LEDs are increasing.

Two of the lighting industry’s three biggest manufacturers, Osram Sylvania and Philips, plan to sell energy-efficient LED bulbs this year that can replace a 60-watt bulb, the most commonly used incandescent lamp.

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In the current Alabama gubernatorial primary race, there’s some serious mudslinging and general ugliness going on. True Republican PAC recently produced this campaign ad attacking conservative candidate Bradley Byrne for not being conservative enough. His crime? Bradley Byrne might believe in evolution!

Technorati reports the story and posts the “True Republican” TV ad:

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The full extent of the damage from the biblical rains to Nashville, the country music mecca known as “Music City,” is only now becoming clear. The death toll has reached 31 victims. In addition to the terrible human toll and an estimated $1.5 billion in physical damage, the global-warming-fueled flood struck at America’s musical and cultural heritage. Many news reports have shown the remarkable devastation to the Grand Ole Opry House, as this video with country star Brad Paisley shows:

The Grand Ole Opry House has been stripped to its concrete foundation as workers try to repair damage from flooding about two weeks ago. The stage, including a historic 6-foot circle of floorboards from the old Ryman Auditorium stage, has been removed along with pews that served as seats on the house floor.

Country star Kenny Chesney’s home will likely be condemned due to the flooding.

As “symbolically devastating as the recent flooding in Nashville was to the home of the historic Grand Ole Opry House,” Randy Lewis writes in the Los Angeles Times, the toll on “another building little known outside the city’s music community may well have a broader, more lasting impact.” Soundcheck Nashville stored instruments and equipment for 1000 musicians, including country stars such as Taylor Swift, Brad Paisley, Keith Urban and Vince Gill, and the Musicians’ Hall of Fame. The building spent six days under nine feet of water. Lost instruments include:

– Nearly all of Keith Urban’s guitars

– A Fender Stratocaster that belonged to Jimi Hendrix

– A Gibson Les Paul played by the Who’s Peter Townshend

– One of Johnny Cash’s guitars

– Two of Lightning Chance’s basses — one used on Hank Williams Sr.’s very last recording session — the bass that’s heard on “Your Cheatin’ Heart”

“A lot of instruments here were used on many hit records out of Nashville and many other cities too,” Studio musician Chris Leuzinger said. “Those instruments are not replaceable.”

The loss of these instruments and the musical heritage tied to them has not killed the music of Nashville, however, much as the devastation of Hurricane Katrina failed to still the jazz that pulses in New Orleans.

“I’d have to say one of the most heartening thing about what’s happened is the way musicians who weren’t at Soundcheck have been reaching out to other musicians,” John Hobbs, keyboardist in Vince Gill’s band said. “I’ve had half a dozen calls from other keyboard players in town, letting me know I’m welcome to use any of their gear that’s needed.”

Tickets are sold out for Nashville Rising, a benefit concert on June 22 featuring performances from Tim McGraw and Faith Hill, along with Taylor Swift, Carrie Underwood, Brooks & Dunn, Miranda Lambert, Miley Cyrus, and many more.

“It will be even more tragic if we … refuse to adopt new energy policies that will increase public health and safety while creating a new generation of clean energy jobs.”

Guest blogger Jerome Ringo has worked as chairman of the National Wildlife Federation and President of the Apollo Alliance. Prior to that he spent 22 years in the petrochemical industry.  This is a repost.

As someone who worked for more than 20 years in Louisiana’s oil fields and petrochemical industry, I am sad to say I was not surprised by the catastrophic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

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Do solar charging stations for electric cars and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles make sense?

At a recent Congressional briefing, the Environmental and Energy Study Institute (EESI) explored how a price on carbon might affect alternative vehicle fuels, including plug-in electrics. Guest blogger and former CAP staffer Alexandra Kougentakis recommends charging electric cars with power from the sun as a way to get off oil.

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