E2 Morning Roundup: Obama pledges no letup in spill response, moment of truth for U.N. on climate, NRA claims victory over EPA, spill panel chief presses Senate on subpoena power, greens at a crossroads, and much more

Obama on oil spill recovery: ‘We are going to stand with you’

President Obama on Sunday sought to reassure Gulf Coast residents that the end of the oil gusher isn’t the end of White House commitment to the region.

“[W]e will continue to rely on sound science, carefully monitoring waters and coastlines as well as the health of the people along the Gulf, to deal with any long-term effects of the oil spill. We are going to stand with you until the oil is cleaned up, until the environment is restored, until polluters are held accountable, until communities are made whole, and until this region is all the way back on its feet,” he said in New Orleans, marking the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.

Defending the spill response – Obama says Katrina comparison is ‘just not accurate’

In an NBC interview that aired Sunday evening, he rejected allegations that the federal spill response lagged early and that it’s his administration’s Katrina. He called the claims “just not accurate.”

“We had immediately thousands of vessels, tens of thousands of people who are here. And what we're seeing now is that we've got a lot more work to do. But the fact is because of the sturdiness and swiftness of the response, there's a lot less oil hitting these shores and these beaches than anybody would have anticipated, given the volume that was coming out of ... the oil well,” Obama said.

On tap Monday: Moment of truth for U.N. climate panel

At the U.N. in New York, a scientific body called the InterAcademy Council will release a report on the “processes and procedures” that the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change used to craft a landmark 2007 report on global warming. Watch it live here.

The InterAcademy Council, based in the Netherlands, is an umbrella group for national science academies in various nations.

The U.N. requested the review early this year following revelations of problems with the report, including erroneous data about the rate of Himalayan glacier melt.

Climate skeptics say the errors show something is rotten to the core of the climate panel. But advocates of emissions curbs say the problems were at the margins of the massive report, and do nothing to undercut the widely held scientific view that earth is warming and human activities are a big reason why.

Commission co-chair calls out Senate on subpoena power
From E2 on Sunday:

The co-chairman of the White House-created panel probing the BP oil spill is pressing the Senate to give the commission power to compel testimony from witnesses.

 The House has twice approved subpoena power for the bipartisan National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling. But the Senate has not acted. 

“I wish they would give us subpoena authority and hope that they do that as soon as they come back from recess,” said co-chairman William Reilly in an interview that aired Sunday on Platts Energy Week. Reilly, a Republican, headed the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under former President George H.W. Bush.

More on the spill: Reilly agrees the drilling ban should end early

Reilly also said the Interior Department freeze on deepwater drilling should not last until the scheduled Nov. 30 expiration. Asked if he believes the ban should end early, Reilly replied, “I do.” Check out the whole story — Reilly also previews the leasing reforms the commission is likely to recommend.

Louisiana Gov. Jindal meets Monday with spill commission co-chair

The Hill’s Sean Miller reports from New Orleans that Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) is slated to meet Monday with the other co-chair of the commission, former Florida Sen. Bob Graham (D).

The New York Times, A1: Oil industry goes ‘ultra deep’ with unknown risks in tow

The paper has an above-the-fold look at oil companies drilling and producing in deeper and deeper waters. The Deepwater Horizon rig that blew up April 20 was not even on the frontier. The piece notes that, “the risks increase as the rigs get larger and more complicated.”

“Yet even as regulators investigate the causes of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, the broader dangers posed by the industry’s push into deeper waters have gone largely unscrutinized,” the Times reports. 

The story looks at Shell’s massive Perdido platform in the Gulf:

“Perdido, for example, is more than a 20-hour supply boat journey from shore — far enough out that a major fire could burn out of control before assistance arrived. Hurricanes regularly batter the region with giant waves and winds exceeding 100 miles an hour. Underwater, both powerful currents and mudslides play havoc with delicate equipment and the pipelines that bring oil and gas back to shore.”

“The water temperature, which hovers at just above freezing at depths below 3,000 feet, can harden natural gas into crystallike structures called hydrates that can clog pipelines and other equipment. And because the wells are deeper than human divers can go, oil companies must rely on remote-controlled submarines to maintain their equipment or perform repairs.”

The Wall Street Journal: Industry legal tactics emerging in spill probe

The paper looks at last week’s hearings of the joint Interior Department-U.S. Coast Guard probe that took place in Houston. The panel’s hearings have included testimony from BP, Transocean and Halliburton, the companies involved in the Deepwater Horizon disaster.

“The hearings, which began last spring outside New Orleans and continued last week in a nondescript hotel conference room here, have previewed the years of legal drama to come. Nominally a fact-finding investigation led by the Coast Guard and Interior Department, the process has allowed lawyers from all parties to dig for evidence, test out theories and read into the record snippets of information carefully chosen for their headline-grabbing potential,” the Journal reports.

Kendrick Meek touts green credentials in longshot Senate bid

The race for Florida’s open Senate seat is generally seen as battle between Marco Rubio (R) and Florida Gov. Charlie Crist (I). But Rep. Kendrick Meek (D) said Sunday that he’s best equipped to battle big oil. “I'm the only person that stood up to oil companies in this race before and after the BP spill with 100 percent environmental record,” he said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

NRA claims win on EPA rejection of lead bullets ban

Fallout from EPA’s decision Friday to reject a petition from environmental groups seeking to ban use of lead in hunting ammo: The National Rifle Association is happy.

“We applaud the EPA for its understanding of the law and its common sense in this situation — both of which were totally missing in the petition filed by these extreme anti-gun and anti-hunting groups,” said Chris Cox, the executive director of the NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action, in a statement.

But green groups say EPA had the authority and the evidence to bar the ammo

“The EPA had ample evidence that lead bullets and shot have a devastating effect on America’s wildlife, yet has refused to do anything about it. It’s disappointing to see this country’s top environmental agency simply walk away from the preventable poisoning of birds and other wildlife,” said Darin Schroeder, vice president for conservation advocacy at the American Bird Conservancy, in a prepared statement. The group is one of several that had petitioned EPA.

On tap Monday II: Greens, coal industry battle over EPA rule

In Arlington, Va., EPA kicks off a series of public hearings nationwide about its proposal to regulate so-called coal ash, a waste product of power plants. EPA is weighing two options for regulating the stuff — which drew attention when it flooded a Tennessee river in 2008 — under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, one more aggressive than the other.

Pro-coal lawmakers, backed by the industry, say there’s no reason to regulate coal ash under the law’s hazardous waste title. Enviros, on the other hand, say there is, and late last week several groups released a report about water contamination from coal ash nationwide. Look for each side to show their flags at the hearing, which include testimony from the National Mining Association, Earthjustice, and many other groups on all sides of the matter.

On tap Monday III: GE Hitachi to press federal panel on nuke fuel recycling

The company’s CEO is among the witnesses Monday at a Washington, D.C., meeting of a commission on advising the Energy Department on nuclear waste policy (the Obama administration set up the panel after it pulled the plug on building the Yucca Mountain waste dump).

Jack Fuller, the board chairman of the reactor and fuel company, plans to tell a panel of the Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future that waste can safely be re-used with advancing recycling technologies. The U.S. doesn’t currently reprocess nuclear waste, but advocates say that emerging technologies can enable re-use without creating separated plutonium, a proliferation risk.

“GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy, a global alliance formed by GE and Hitachi, is prepared to offer these new technologies to customers around the world. However, as is often the case in the nuclear industry, government policy is the key to success,” he will tell the panel, according to a summary of his comments.

“In order to meet the demands of the predicted worldwide growth in the nuclear industry, we believe that the U.S. should adopt a national policy to recycle used nuclear fuel.”

Getting technical: GE’s pitch

“Full recycling takes used nuclear fuel and separates the usable uranium and transuranics using a molten salt bath and electricity. The recovered uranium and transuranics are then used as fuel for Generation IV reactors, thereby generating electricity from nuclear waste. The remaining fission product wastes are placed into ceramic and metal alloy, which require safe storage for just a few hundred years. Because no pure plutonium is extracted, the proliferation risks are minimized,” GE says in the testimony.

The Washington Post, A1: Enviros at a crossroads after climate bill sputters

The paper looks at the sagging fortunes of the environmental movement, which had high hopes on climate change not long ago.

“A year ago, these groups seemed to be at the peak of their influence, needing only the Senate's approval for a landmark climate-change bill. But they lost that fight, done in by the sluggish economy and opposition from business and fossil-fuel interests,” the Post reports. 

“Now the groups are wondering how they can keep this loss from becoming a rout as their opponents press their advantage and try to undo the Obama administration's climate efforts.”

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This post was updated at 1:14p.m. on August 30.