Here are the key talking points the White House sent around with the speech:

• This economic and environmental tragedy underscores the urgent need for this nation to embrace a clean energy future.  For years, there has been little more than lip service given to the need to end our reliance on fossil fuels.  That failure to move forward with innovative energy policies is evidenced by the Gulf spill. Now it is time to act with the urgency that this challenge requires.
• This Administration has taken unprecedented action to jumpstart the clean energy industry – from the largest-ever investment in basic research to financial support for innovative “green” businesses to aggressive new national fuel standards.  These actions must be matched by a comprehensive plan that transitions the United States to a 21st century clean-energy economy.  We must not continue to be tied down by old approaches to harnessing energy resources.
• The House of Representatives has passed a comprehensive energy and climate bill, and there is currently a plan in the Senate – developed with ideas from Democrats and Republicans – that would achieve similar goals. And the President is committed to working with anyone from either party to get this done, because the cost of inaction to our economy, our national security, and our environment is too great.

The speech itself was not quite so crystal clear.

Now I will credit him for the fact that this was a big oval office speech, and he does spell out the urgent need to end our addiction to fossil fuels.  But he can do better  than pulling punches, especially on climate, as this one does.  We’ll see if he’s serious about his words in the coming days if he personally lobbies Senators — especially Democrats.

What did you think?

Here are the key lines from the speech:

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The American Power Act may be President Obama’s last chance to pass comprehensive climate legislation and prevent catastrophe this year. The legislation, drafted by Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), Joe Lieberman (I-CT), and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) — before Graham dumped his commitment to a cap on carbon pollution — is in the mix for the Senate calendar, although many Democrats want to abandon it for a smaller suite of energy policies, such as the bill that came out of Sen. Jeff Bingaman’s (D-NM) energy committee last year. Recognizing the political challenge, Obama has committed to finding the votes for legislation that puts a price on carbon pollution.

The Environmental Protection Agency has released its analysis of the American Power Act today, agreeing with independent studies that the legislation would cut energy bills, create jobs, and strengthen national security. Most critically, they also looked at the effect of the legislation on the fate of the planet’s climate. Scientists have repeatedly warned that catastrophic tipping points — global species collapse, megadroughts, rapid sea level rise, ice cap destruction — become inevitable as the planet warms more than two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. Quite simply, an American cap on carbon is the deciding factor:

Under reference assumptions the probability of observed temperature changes in 2100, relative to pre-industrial levels, remaining below 2° C (or 3.6° F) is roughly 1%, and the probability of observed temperature change exceeding 4° C (or 7.2° F) is approximately 32%.

Under the combined APA and the G8 international agreement assumptions, the probability of observed temperature changes in 2100 remaining below 2° C (or 3.6° F) increases to 75%, and the probability of observed temperature changes exceeding 4° C is negligible given climate sensitivity assumptions.

To be clear — EPA’s modeling of climate sensitivity is optimistic, and the world will need to raise its ambitions for declaring independence from oil and coal pollution.

Without policy, the EPA finds, concentrations of greenhouse gases will rise to 931 ppm carbon-dioxide-equivalent by 2100; with America leading the G8 to cut emissions by 80 percent by 2040, concentrations will only rise to 457 ppm.

Even if China, India and other developing countries take the unlikely path of inaction until 2050, and then hold emissions constant, “the probability of observed temperature changes in 2100 remaining below 2° C (or 3.6° F) increases to approximately 11%, and the probability of observed temperature changes exceeding 4° C (or 7.2° F) falls to roughly 15%.”

The opponents of the American Power Act and EPA regulation of carbon pollution are playing a deadly game of Russian roulette — with bullets in 99 chambers out of 100.

NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center has published its monthly “State of the Climate Report.”

The combined global land and ocean surface temperature was the warmest on record for May, March-May (Northern Hemisphere spring-Southern Hemisphere autumn), and the period January-May.

The warming in May is greatest precisely where climate science suggested it would be — the high northern latitudes (see “What exactly is polar amplification and why does it matter?” — precisely the worst possible place from the perspective of amplifying feedbacks (see “Tundra 4: Permafrost loss linked to Arctic sea ice loss“):

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Or else we’ll be against it as we always have been and always will be

Big Oil’s allies in Congress are terrified that Obama might actually lead the public where it wants to go — off the dirty, unsafe fuels of the 19th century and onto the clean, safe fuels of the 21st century that never run out.

Remember, the pro-pollution conservatives are the same folks who have repeatedly glommed onto the thinnest of excuses to block efforts to end our addiction to oil for decades now — “the economy is bad and the climate bill will hurt the recovery” or “the economy is good and oil prices are already too high” or “global warming is a hoax” or “this bill will do nothing to reduce global warming.”  To paraphrase Groucho Marx, whatever the reason, they are against it.

So we have the top House Republican, John Boehner (R-OH), issuing a statement today:

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Defenders of the dirty energy status quo, particularly the lobbyists and politicians associated with the oil and coal industry, have continually trotted out a group of evangelical leaders known as the Cornwall Alliance to counter the growing sentiment in the evangelical community that anthropogenic climate change is a threat to God’s creation. Cornwall declares that true Christians believe “there is no convincing scientific evidence that human contribution to greenhouse gases is causing dangerous global warming.”

This Friday at the polluter-funded Heritage Foundation, Cornwall is preparing to roll out its latest campaign called “Resisting the Green Dragon.” Billed as “a Biblical response to one of the greatest deceptions of our day,” the video series claims the entire climate change movement is a “false religion,” a nefarious conspiracy to empower eugenicists and create a “global government.” Watch the absurd trailer here, which portrays the idea of climate change as akin to the Lord of the Rings villain Sauron:

Thus far, Cornwall has been able to masquerade as a legitimate, independent group of pastors and religious leaders opposed to addressing climate change. However, ThinkProgress investigated the group and found deep ties to the oil industry, as well as with longtime right-wing operatives orchestrating the climate science denial machine.

The Cornwall Alliance appears to be a creation of a group called the James Partnership, a nonprofit run by Chris Rogers and Peter Stein, according to documents filed with the Virginia State Corporation Commission. Rogers, who heads a media and public relations firm called CDR Communications, collaborates with longtime oil front group operative David Rothbard, the founder and President of the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT) and Jacques Villarreal, a lower level staffer at CFACT, for his James Partnership group. In the past, Rogers’ firm has worked for the Bush administration and for the secretive conservative planning group, the Council for National Policy.

According to public records, the following entities are all registered to the same address, 9302-C Old Keene Mill Road Burke, VA 22015, an office park in suburban Virginia:

– Rogers’ consulting firm, CDR Communications
– Rogers’ nonprofit hub, the James Partnership
– The Cornwall Alliance
– The new “Resisting the Green Dragon” website

In late 2005, evangelical leaders like Rick Warren joined a drive to back a major initiative to fight global warming, saying “millions of people could die in this century because of climate change, most of them our poorest global neighbors.” To counter this historic shift in the evangelical community, a group called the “Interfaith Stewardship Alliance” (ISA) was launched to oppose action on carbon emissions and to deny the existence of climate chance. One of the men guiding this group was Paul Driessen, a consultant for ExxonMobil, the mining industry, and for CFACT.

For “stream lining” reasons, ISA relaunched as the Cornwall Alliance in 2006. With the new name came a redesigned website, highly produced web videos, and an organized network of churches to distribute climate change denying propaganda to hundreds of pastors around the country. The branding for the Cornwall Alliance is derived from the “Cornwall Declaration,” a 1999 document pushing back against the creation-care movement in the evangelical community. The Declaration “stressed a free-market environmental stewardship and emphasized that individuals and private organizations should be trusted to care for their own property without government intervention.” CFACT President Rothbard has been hailed as the “driving force” behind the Cornwall Declaration public relations effort.

CFACT is a gimmicky right-wing organization that does everything it can to try to discredit the science underpinning climate change. For instance, staffers from the group traveled to the Copenhagen conference on climate change to stage silly press conferences with Rush Limbaugh’s former producer and stunts aimed at mocking Greenpeace.

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The BP oil disaster made a major energy bill more likely, but what about a climate bill? And does Obama understand that how he handles oil and climate will define his legacy?

When life gives you lemons … add some lemon dispersant and they’ll disappear from sight.  Okay, wrong metaphor.

Obama has suggested many times that he aspires to be a transformational leader like President Reagan, the “great communicator.”  Tonight, we may well find out to tonight whether Obama is a Reagan or a Carter.  Does Obama understand that his first term will be defined by how he deals with the oil spill — and the looming threat of $4 gasoline as he runs for re-election (see “Peak oil production coming sooner than expected“)?  Indeed, those two factors may determine whether or not he has a second term.

Future generation will judge his presidency as a success or failure solely on the basis of whether he spares them the multiple catastrophes that are likely if we stay anywhere near our current path of unrestricted unrestricted greenhouse gas emissions.  Our children and grandchildren will hardly care about health care reform or the deficit or Afghanistan if the nation and the world are on an inexorable march to 9°F warming, 4 to 6 feet of sea level rise, rampant superstorms, widespread DustBowlif-ication, and hot, acidified oceans with ever-expanding dead zones — aka Hell and High Water.

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Tesla Sets IPO Terms, Now Expects to Raise $185M

Electric vehicle startup Tesla Motors has set the terms of its long-awaited IPO and is looking to raise substantially more than it previously estimated. Tesla is looking to sell 11.1 million common shares at between $14 and $16 each, and estimates it will raise as much as $185 million, up from the roughly $100 million it said it hoped to raise back in January.

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BP has rejected the help of thousands of volunteers, many with expert training and experience in handling offshore oil disasters and oil spill cleanup. Yesterday, MSNBC’s Chuck Todd interviewed Don Abrams of OilSpillVolunteers.com, who collected the names of nearly 8,000 volunteers in the first weeks after BP’s Deepwater Horizon explosion, and tried repeatedly to contribute their expertise to mitigating this national disaster. Many of the volunteers Abrams had organized have certification in the federal government’s official Hazardous Waste Operations and Emergency Response Standard (HAZWOPER), and were ready and able to train others:

On May 13, we turned over a list of about a hundred highly qualified people to BP, including people with two to three decades of offshore oil experience, people with experience in spill clean ups, people who are HAZWOPER instructors. As of about two days ago, I contacted about half of those people, and none of them have been contacted by BP.

Watch it:

Abrams explained that he has turned over his list to state agencies and local non-profit organizations, after BP and the federal government failed to respond. The Center for American Progress recommends that the government, not BP, run the volunteer hotlines and cleanup efforts. “People actually just want to be called to service,” Center for American Progress fellow Van Jones said on Sunday. “‘What are we supposed to do, Mr. President? And we will do it.’ That’s what’s missing.”

The NYT reported that the British are now unhappy that some Americans are calling BP “British Petroleum.”  So I wrote a humorous column for Salon, which they headlined, “It’ll always be ‘British Petroleum’ to me,” though I was kind of partial to “The British Invasion” or “The B’s are coming”:

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A framework for responding to the Gulf Coast oil crisis from CAP’s Bracken Hendricks and Tom Kenworthy and Kate Gordon.

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More finger in the wind [in your eye?] doubletalk, from the master himself, via TP.

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Last week, 47 senators launched a failed assault on science, supporting Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s (R-AK) resolution to overturn the Environmental Protection Agency’s scientific finding that greenhouse gas pollution endangers the public health and welfare. The EPA finding was based on decades of science, synthesized during the Bush administration by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the U.S. Global Change Program. Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK), the leading denier in the Senate of the threat of climate change, justified his vote for the Murkowski resolution by claiming the science is just a United Nations conspiracy:

We all know now that the IPCC, which is the United Nations, their science has all been debunked. [Americans for Prosperity, 6/9/10]

The Climategate scandal forced open the inner sanctums of the IPCC, and the public finally saw the political science the body had produced. [Senate floor, 6/11/10]

This weekend, catastrophic rainfall devastated Oklahoma with floods, leading “authorities to declare a state of emergency in 59 of Oklahoma’s 77 counties“:

Oklahoma City Micronet (OKCNET) reports that a rainfall observation of 10.21″ in OKC has exceeded the 1-in-500 year rainfall total for a 12 hour period. Moreover, the 9 inches that fell in 6 hours meets the requirements for a 1 in 500 year flood event.

Evacuations are under way in some Oklahoma City neighborhoods, Mayor Mick Cornett said Monday. People there are dealing with vicious flash-flooding and scattered power outages as more thunderstorms head their way. The National Weather Service said almost 10 inches of rain fell between 2 and 11 a.m.

The IPCC report, which Inhofe says is a sham, warned of the coming floods caused by the rise in global temperatures:

Over the 20th century, based on changes in sea surface temperatures, it is estimated that atmospheric water vapour increased by about 5% in the atmosphere over the oceans. Because precipitation comes mainly from weather systems that feed on the water vapour stored in the atmosphere, this has generally increased precipitation intensity and the risk of heavy rain and snow events. Basic theory, climate model simulations and empirical evidence all confirm that warmer climates, owing to increased water vapour, lead to more intense precipitation events even when the total annual precipitation is reduced slightly, and with prospects for even stronger events when the overall precipitation amounts increase. The warmer climate therefore increases risks of both drought − where it is not raining − and floods − where it is − but at different times and/or places.

“Heavy downpours are now twice as frequent as they were a century ago,” the U.S. Global Change report states. “Projected changes in long-term climate and more frequent extreme events such as heat waves, droughts, and heavy rainfall will affect many aspects of life in the Great Plains.”

Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) and Sen. Mark Pryor (D-AR) also voted to reverse the scientific finding that global warming pollution endangers the public. That day, catastrophic floods from freak rainfall washed out an Arkansas campground, killing twenty:

Crews on Monday found the body of a young girl who was the 20th victim of a flash flood that devastated a popular Arkansas campground, but they continued searching because it wasn’t clear whether the girl was the last person reported missing.

Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) and and Sen. Mike Johanns (R-NE) also voted to reverse the scientific finding that global warming pollution endangers the public. This weekend, extreme rain caused record flooding throughout Nebraska, washing out bridges and damaging crops:

Two streams have broken long-standing records: The North Loup at Taylor reached its highest flow since the Geological Survey began recording water measurements there 73 years ago, and the Elkhorn at Ewing reached its highest peak for both water level and flow since recording began 62 years ago. The Geological Survey said that 30 percent of the long-term stream gages in the state were at record highs for June 13. Storm totals at some locations in the central and northeast exceeded 12 inches.

Sixty Nebraska counties may request disaster assistance following recent storms that caused flooding and damage across the state. 44 counties have requested assistance from the State. The State of Nebraska is working with emergency management officials throughout the state to respond to areas affected by the storms.

These senators are denying the threat of manmade global warming at the bidding of industrial polluters, because, as Lincoln said, “it is up to Congress to decide when a regulatory policy endangers the economy and threatens jobs in both traditional and new energy sectors.” I just wonder how much destruction our destabilized climate has to cause before these senators recognize the real threat our nation faces.

That’s why we need the escrow account

Back on April 30, CAP’s Dan Weiss wrote, “BP should be required to place its first quarter profit of $5.6 billion in an escrow account” (see “Held up without a gun“).  The money would cover claims by those whose livelihoods have been harmed by the disaster and would help pay for quicker action on cleanup.

Some in the UK now claim, “BP’s escrow solution is a dangerous idea.”  What’s dangerous is expecting a major oil company to make timely payments.  CAP’s Weiss and Susan Lyon explained the sad history of the Exxon Valdez back in May (see the post titled, “Making money on an oil disaster“).  Someone clever at Reddit gave the post a flashier headline (above) and it made the front page of that news aggregation site.  For those who missed it the first time around, here it is again:

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Ruthless cost-cutting leads to corner-cutting leads to disaster.  TP has the latest on the cause of the BP oil disaster:

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