On May 22, 2010, President Obama established the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling, to investigate the Gulf of Mexico disaster and recommend policies to guard against future offshore disasters, as recommended by the Wonk Room earlier that month. Today, as the commission nears its six-month deadline, it has issued several staff-written draft reports on contentious topics, from dispersants to oil flow estimates.

On the scope of the disaster

The commission sharply criticized the government’s failure to correctly estimate the scope of the disaster:

By initially underestimating the amount of oil flow and then, at the end of the summer, appearing to underestimate the amount of oil remaining in the Gulf, the federal government created the impression that it was either not fully competent to handle the spill or not fully candid with the American people about the scope of the problem.

“Throughout the first month of the spill, government responders officially adhered to what we now know were low and inaccurate estimates,” the commission writes. “Non-governmental scientists, on the other hand, used the small amount of publicly available flow data to generate estimates that have proven to be much more accurate.” The government took an “overly casual approach” in determining its 5000-barrel-a-day estimate, the report finds: the rough guess of one NOAA scientist, who was not an expert in flow rate estimates.

On the chain of command

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I posted yesterday the news account of the White House decision to put solar panels back on the White House.  I had thought that the WH spinmeisters might not want to do this for fear  of being associated with the presidency of Jimmy Carter, which first put up solar panels before Reagan tore them down.  But in fact most voters either are too young or don’t have strong memories of Carter’s presidency — and those that do have strong negative memories ain’t Democratic voters anyway.

And so the calculus must’ve been that the WH needs to energize environmentalists who are pissed off about climate.  For me, this move is a not terribly important piece of symbolism from an administration that has a lot to brag about on the climate and clean energy front, but which killed its legacy by letting the climate bill died without a serious fight (see “How the Senate and White House missed their best chance to deal with climate change“).

What do you think?

Here’s what the Secretary of Energy thinks:

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Favors slashing DOE funding “if they continue to fail” in effort to reduce foreign oil dependence — failing to mention conservative’s mutli-decade effort to promote such dependence

Our guest blogger is CAP’s Tom Kenworthy.

You would think that after the hottest decade on record, with other nations eating our lunch on development of renewable energy, and with Colorado a new energy economy leader, that a serious candidate for statewide office there would not be an advocate for crippling the Department of Energy.

But you would be wrong. Ken Buck, Tea Party favorite and GOP candidate for U.S. Senate in Colorado, has his eyes set on the DOE’s budget if he wins his tight race against incumbent Michael Bennet.

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The Chamber of Commerce is one of the leading lobbyists against — and promoters of disinformation about — clean energy and climate action  (see “Luddite U.S. Chamber seeks “the Scopes monkey trial of the 21st century” on global warming).

Since clean energy and low carbon technologies will be one of the biggest sources of job creation this century — and since the nearly billion dollars a day Americans send out of this country to buy oil harms our economic security — the Chamber is not merely working to destroy the health and well-being of our children and countless future generations, but also to undermine US competitiveness (see Seventh Generation founder: “The US Chamber of Commerce doesn’t act in the best interest of business”¦. I think it’s a reputational risk to be associated with the Chamber, given their behavior”).

A Think Progress investigation details the extreme lengths this effectively extremist organization is going to elect members of Congress who will work tirelessly to ensure that the US never regains its leadership in clean energy and that we fail to act in time to avert catastrophic human-caused global warming.

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A rise in river flows raises alarm

The volume of fresh water pouring from the world’s rivers has risen rapidly since 1994, in what  researchers say is further evidence of global warming. The study, led by a team at UC Irvine, is the first to estimate global fresh-water flow into the world’s oceans using observations from new satellite technology rather than through computer or hydrological models.

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The leading edge of a big solar energy wave is beginning to hit in the desert Southwest.  CAP’s Tom Kenworthy has the story.  The image, from susty.com, is a recreation of what one of the final arrays might look like.

The Department of Interior today announced final approval of two large solar energy projects in southern California that will produce 754 megawatts of clean renewable energy to power more than a quarter million homes and create almost 300 permanent jobs and about 700 construction jobs.

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Nate Lewis: “Nature is balancing its books every day. It was a record 113 degrees in Los Angeles the other day. There are laws of politics and laws of physics. Only the latter can’t be repealed.”

Californians from across the political spectrum are trying to raise money to defeat Prop 23, but the vote could be close. George Shultz, a former secretary of state during the Reagan administration, has taken a leading role in the campaign against Prop 23. (See: www.stopdirtyenergyprop.com.)

“Prop 23 is designed to kill by indefinite postponement California’s effort to clean up the environment,” said Mr. Shultz. “This effort is financed heavily by money from out of state. You have to conclude that the financiers are less concerned about California than they are about the fact that if we get something that is working here to clean up the air and launch a clean-tech industry, it will go national and maybe international. So the stakes are high. I hope we can win here and send a message to the whole country that it’s time to put aside partisan politics and get an energy bill out of Washington.”

That’s Tom Friedman writing in his column today on Big Oil’s effort to kill California’s climate and clean energy laws, which CP has been closely tracking (click here for links).

Here’s more:

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