The Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission continues to keep state waters open to fishing despite contamination by the BP oil disaster, the Wonk Room has learned. On June 16, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) extended the federal fisheries closure to the federal waters seven miles off Panama City Beach. Meanwhile, the state encouraged fishing with the announcement that “all Florida residents and visitors are invited to fish statewide for saltwater species without a license during the upcoming Father’s Day weekend, June 19-20.” On June 19, tarballs began washing up on Panama City Beach. On June 20, the visible oil slick spread to one mile of the Panama City coast, well within the seven-mile state boundary, but the state did not put the waters off limits to fishing:

Satellite image of oil slick one mile off Panama City, FL, June 20, 2010, from University of Miami.

Gov. Charlie Crist’s (I-FL) office warned residents on June 21 that “the Florida Panhandle will continue to be threatened by shoreline contacts as far east as Panama City through Monday,” but the State Fish & Wildlife Commission kept the waters open, just off the impacted shore. Other than the “partial fishing closure in Escambia County” the commission belatedly imposed, the agency’s official position is that “the rest of Florida’s recreational and commercial fisheries have not been directly affected by the oil spill.”

This is Gallup’s tracking poll since January.  Pretty hard to discern any meaningful trend.  You certainly would be hard pressed to pick out any evidence of a BP-disaster effect.

Nate Silver notes that even on the narrower question of Obama’s handling of the disaster — [I only used "spill" in the headline this one time so it would fit on one line] — Obama’s numbers are flat if not slightly rebounding:

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The figure above shows the number of days the temperature will exceed 90°F by century’s end in the IPCC’s A2 scenario (850 ppm), which is actually lower than our current emissions trajectory (see “Global Warming Is A Medical Emergency”: Hellish heatwaves to harm health of millions).

Yet even though much of his state is poised to exceed 90°F much of the year, Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA) went to the floor of the House last week to slam clean energy legislation because it would supposedly lead to … hyperthermia, where body temperatures skyrocket, and then “people are gonna die because of that”!  Here is his bizarre rant:

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The federal judge who overturned Barack Obama’s offshore drilling moratorium appears to own stock in numerous companies involved in the offshore oil industry””including Transocean, which leased the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig to BP prior to its April 20 explosion in the Gulf of Mexico””according to 2008 financial disclosure reports.

So Yahoo reports.  It will not come as a big shock to CP readers — see my June 9 post, “58 percent of federal trial judges in oil-affected states have a stake in oil industry.“  Here are the details:

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Robinson: “A GOP chorus of Joe Bartons on the BP oil spill”

MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann has created a great new logo for the Grand Oil Party.  If someone is good at cleaning up such images, send me a better version, and I’ll repost it — thank you DGaines.

I’m not sure if GOBP or GObP is better — what do you think?  Either way, “Joe Barton reflects the philosophy of over 115 Republicans.”

That’s the same point Eugene Robinson makes today in a Washington Post column, “The Texas congressman’s lavish sympathy for BP — which he sees not as perpetrator of a preventable disaster but as victim of a White House “shakedown” — is actually what passes for mainstream opinion among conservative Republicans today”

Here is more of that column (followed by the full image from MSNBC):

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Lasst week Dirty energy lobbyist-turned-Governor Barbour was concerned that escrow account will cut into BP’s profits, saying “It bothers me.” On Sunday, on NBC’s Meet the Press, when host David Gregory asked Barbour why he opposed the account now that the oil giant has agreed to pay into it, Barbour made a statement that might find its way into a bar reelection campaign ad.  Think Progress has the video

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Uber-cartoonist Tom Toles offers a cartoon he headlines “Ever so sorry”:

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In a plutocracy like America, the corporations with the most money to bribe the government get to dictate government policies. The five richest corporations in the world are the dirty energy companies: so they dictate energy policy in the US.

We may find this distasteful, but there is little Americans in the new clean energy industry can do other than try to better focus our more puny government bribes to better compete with the dirty energy bribes. A few key votes should be funded, rather than squandering funds where they simply don’t make any impact, if we want to change the way this nation gets energy.

Below the fold, I list the detailed voting history that shows where every dollar would have the most impact on the outcome of climate/clean energy legislation. The clean energy voter has no money to waste. Here is where every dollar needs to be focused and why.

Cleantechnica has some advice for how progressives can get the most bang for their political buck.  I don’t agree with it all, but it’s worth a look:

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Solar energy offers a vast supply of power, but harnessing it is a challenge

We have a solar-based economy, whether or not we realize it. Ninety-four percent of the world’s energy comes from the sun, even energy that doesn’t at first glance seem solar. Coal, oil and natural gas are mostly the products of ancient plants that grew with the sun’s help. The sun drives hydroelectric power by evaporating low-lying water, then dumping it at higher altitudes. Windmills turn because the sun warms the planet’s air unevenly.

Kind of annoying this WashPost piece totally ignores Concentrated solar thermal power Solar Baseload “” a core climate solution, but it is an okay intro to PV:

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Evaluating the implications for American competitiveness