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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Accountability, Big Oil, Small People, Shakedowns, $20 Billion, Hayward in the Congressional hot seat ... PLUS: The Fake President ... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Tea Party Star Rand Paul on Mountaintop Mining: Nobody Will Miss a Hill or Two; Corps suspends streamlined mining permits; GSA announces first “Chief Greening Officer”; Video-conferencing can save $19 Billion: Study; The link between global warming and extreme deluges; More oil spilled in Nigeria "every year than has been lost in the Gulf of Mexico"; China mulls crackdown on big energy consumers ...PLUS: Global Heat Is On in 2010, So Far ...

STORIES DISCUSSED IN TODAY'S 'GREEN NEWS REPORT'...

• LATEST in the BP Oil Disaster in the Gulf:
• 70,000 Barrels or 5,000? What Did BP Know and When Did They Know It? (Treehugger)
• BP acknowledges it never followed blowout preventer law, blames MMS (NOLA.com)
• First dead whale found in Gulf since BP rig explosion and oil spill (NOLA.com)
• Sea creatures flee spill, gather near shore: Scientists say phenomena may signal polluted habitat, loss of fish (AP)
• BP Opens Second Containment System (NY Times)
• Easily the Scariest Thing You'll Read Today: What if We Can't Stop the BP Oil Leak? The Nightmare Scenario (The Oil Drum): [T]he Deepwater Horizon rig's problems extend below the sea floor, where one or more leaks are currently weakening the seabed foundation in a way that could cause an inextinguishable "wide open gusher blowing out 150,000 barrels a day of raw oil or more." [via Gawker]
• Federal Government Opposes Attempt To Stop Drilling Moratorium (Wall St. Journal)
• Fox & Friends ignores international aid in attacking Obama over oil spill response (Media Matters)
• Gulf Representatives Call for...More Drilling? (Mother Jones)
• Obama rounds out oil spill commission with academics, green group chief (The Hill)
• New Exxon Blog Targets BP Fallout (Mother Jones)
• WATCH: Big Developments, Big Speeches, Big Testimony on Capitol Hill This Week:
• WATCH: President Obama’s Oval Office Address on BP Oil Spill & Energy (White House)
• READ IT: Remarks by the President to the Nation on the BP Oil Spill, Oval Office (White House):
  
  But make no mistake: We will fight this spill with everything we’ve got for as long as it takes. We will make BP pay for the damage their company has caused. And we will do whatever’s necessary to help the Gulf Coast and its people recover from this tragedy.
  ...
  I make that commitment tonight. Earlier, I asked Ray Mabus, the Secretary of the Navy, who is also a former governor of Mississippi and a son of the Gulf Coast, to develop a long-term Gulf Coast Restoration Plan as soon as possible. The plan will be designed by states, local communities, tribes, fishermen, businesses, conservationists and other Gulf residents. And BP will pay for the impact this spill has had on the region.
  ...
  We cannot consign our children to this future. The tragedy unfolding on our coast is the most painful and powerful reminder yet that the time to embrace a clean energy future is now. Now is the moment for this generation to embark on a national mission to unleash America’s innovation and seize control of our own destiny.
  ...
  Each of us has a part to play in a new future that will benefit all of us. As we recover from this recession, the transition to clean energy has the potential to grow our economy and create millions of jobs -– but only if we accelerate that transition. Only if we seize the moment. And only if we rally together and act as one nation –- workers and entrepreneurs; scientists and citizens; the public and private sectors.
• WATCH: Remarks by President Obama After BP Executives Meeting, June 16, 2010 (C-SPAN)
• READ IT: Statement by the President After Meeting with BP Executives (White House)
• WATCH: Press Briefing on BP Escrow Account Agreement (White House)
• READ IT: Briefing on BP Escrow Account Agreement, by Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Stuart Levey, Admiral Thad Allen, and Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change Carol Browner, June 16, 2010 (White House)
• WATCH: "We Care About the Small People": BP Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg on White House Meeting (C-SPAN)
• The Politics of Climate and Clean Energy Policy,and Obama's Oval Office Speech:
• Cheney Comes Out of Hiding to Bash Obama on Spill Response (Mother Jones)
• Obama's Disappointing Spill Speech (Kate Sheppard, Mother Jones)
• The administration’s lame lame-duck climate strategy (David Roberts, Grist)
• Climate backers say Obama speech a boost despite carbon silence: White House aides insist Obama is committed to a comprehensive climate and energy bill....But Obama’s primetime speech steered clear of explicitly mentioning greenhouse gas emissions or global warming or repeating his past call to put a price on carbon. (The Hill)
• Why are Pundits More Disappointed Than Environmentalists by Obama's oil Speech?: As a cap on carbon emissions dies a slow death in the Senate, environmentalists --- not known for their optimism --- are surprisingly sanguine (Newsweek)
• LISTEN: Roundtable: The BP Oil Spill and the Way to a Green Energy Future with NOLA Environmental Attorney Monique Harden, Sierra Club Exec Director Michael Brune and Leading Scientist Amory Lovins (Democracy Now!)
• No Clear Rallying Cry From Obama? Too Bad. Get To Work. (Campaign For America's Future)
• BP CEO Tony Hayward in the Hot Seat: Dems Excoriate, but GOP Apologizes?:
• "I Cannot Recall" (Mother Jones)
• BP Chief Gives House Panel an Apology but Few Answers (NY Times)
• Follow Along with BP CEO Tony Hayward's Testimony: Live Blogging BP’s Tony Hayward in Congress (The Lede, NYT)
• WATCH: House Energy & Commerce Oversight Hearing: BP and the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill, Main Page (C-SPAN)
• Prepared Statement of Tony Hayward, Chief Executive, BP plc, to the House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce [.pdf] (C-SPAN)
• WATCH: Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX): "I Apologize" to BP for Escrow Fund:
• Oil and Gas Industry Contributions to House Panel (AP, Center for Responsive Politics):
  A look at how much members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee received in political contributions from oil and gas interests since the beginning of 2009:
  ...
  Joe Barton, R-Texas, $100,470
  ...
  Henry A Waxman, D-Calif., $6,000
• Boehner Holds Barton at Arm’s Length (NYT The Caucus blog)
• Statement by the Press Secretary on Congressman Joe Barton's Apology to BP (White House)
• BTW, How Much Would Clean Energy Legislation Cost Us? EPA Says "Postage Stamp A Day":
• EPA analysis of Senate climate bill shows modest costs, omits benefits (David Roberts, Grist)
• Saving the World for A Roll of TP: The climate bill would cost you up to $146 extra a year; what does that mean? : Would the American people pay as much to save the world as they pay for toilet paper? (Dave Roberts, Grist)
• To Tackle Climate Change, You Have To Actually Tackle Climate Change (Bradford Plumer, The New Republic):
  
  If the United States passes something like the Kerry-Lieberman climate bill and helps negotiate an international agreement on carbon emissions, we'll have a 75 percent chance of keeping temperature rises below the danger zone of 2°C. But if we do nothing, our chances of meeting that goal are roughly 1 percent. That's the difference between barreling headlong toward catastrophe and staying safe.
• Op-Ed: The Larger Struggle: The larger conflict began with the end of the cold war. That ideological dispute settled the argument over whether capitalism was the best economic system. But it did not settle the argument over whether democratic capitalism was the best political-social-economic system. (David Brooks, NY Times)

'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (Stuff we didn't have time for in today's audio report)...

• Corps suspends streamlined mining permits (Coal Tattoo)
• GSA announces first “Chief Greening Officer”: Poaching from the private sector, the General Services Administration has named its first “Chief Greening Officer” to aggressively pursue “innovative sustainable practices within GSA’s large portfolio of government-owned and leased buildings.” (General Services Administration blog)
• Video Conferencing Can Save $19 Billion, 5.5 Million Tons of CO2 (Treehugger)
• Tea Party Star Rand Paul on Mountaintop Mining: Nobody Will Miss a Hill or Two (Video) (Treehugger)
• More oil spilled in Nigeria "every year than has been lost in the Gulf of Mexico" (Boing Boing)
• Exclusive interview: NCAR’s Trenberth on the link between global warming and extreme deluges: New England, Tennessee, Oklahoma.... Who's next? (Climate Progress)
• China Mulls Crackdown on Big Energy Consumers: China will consider forcing energy-guzzling companies to reduce their output or close down completely in order to meet tough energy saving targets for this year, a senior official said on Wednesday (Reuters)
• Global Heat Is On in 2010 So Far: The National Climatic Data Center has released its summary of global climate conditions so far this year and finds that the month of May, as well as the period from January through May, were the warmest since thorough record keeping began in 1880. (NYT Dot Earth)

                 

Article Categories: Environment, Green News, BP Oil Disaster