The oil giant’s new CEO is overhauling the way employee performance is evaluated, at least for now.

“BP . . . which faced accusations that it precipitated the Gulf of Mexico oil spill by placing profits before safety, said in an internal memo to its staff that safety would be the sole criterion for rewarding employee performance in its operating business for the fourth quarter,” the Wall Street Journal reported Monday afternoon.

“BP's new chief executive, Bob Dudley, announced the step in an email to employees that was viewed by The Wall Street Journal. While the move shows Mr. Dudley acting on a promise to change the culture at BP, it's likely to be greeted skeptically given BP's past safety lapses and the fierce attacks the company sustained after the Gulf disaster,” the piece adds.

A company spokesman told the paper that the policy applies only to one quarter and that a broader review of BP’s employee compensation system is ongoing.

The League of Conservation Voters on Monday announced $250,000 in ad buys hitting Republicans in key House races in Michigan and North Carolina.
 
The ad buys raise the independent expenditures from LCV this election cycle to more than $3 million, or nearly double the $1.7 million the group spent on such expenditures in the 2006 midterm elections.
 
With still two weeks left until the Nov. 2 election, LCV is quickly closing in on the roughly $3.3 million it spent on independent expenditures in 2008. The group has also contributed or raised more than $1 million so far to support their favored candidates, an increase over the approximately $850,000 and $600,000 that the group raised or contributed in the 2008 and 2006 election cycles, respectively.

The Interior Department’s top offshore regulator is seeking to publicly discredit oil industry attacks over the pace of permit approvals now that the formal deepwater drilling freeze has been lifted.

Michael Browmich — head of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement — argued in an online op-ed Monday that tougher safety rules and limited resources mean that permits will take longer than in years past.

“Less than a week after announcing the roadmap operators will need to follow to resume drilling in deep waters, we are already being criticized by powerful industry forces who say that it will take too long to review and approve drilling permits. That judgment is based on the standards of the past when safety and environmental standards were fewer,” Bromwich noted in the op-ed on CNN’s website.

Oil-and-gas companies active in Western states have filed litigation that alleges Interior Secretary Ken Salazar is blocking energy exploration on federal lands.

A trade group called the Western Energy Alliance filed suit in a Wyoming federal court Monday claiming that Interior is violating the Mineral Leasing Act by failing to issue leases within 60 days of receiving payment.

But the litigation — which targets the policies of Interior’s Bureau of Land Management — more broadly reflects political tension between the two sides and their allies. Drilling companies allege Interior is wrongly denying access to domestic energy through a series of policy changes finalized in May. 

But Salazar early this year said oil companies that were “kings of the world” under the Bush administration would now face heightened environmental scrutiny.

Read more...

Former Vice President Al Gore is highlighting the need to further respond to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill and stimulate a still-lagging economy in a fundraising e-mail sent Monday for Democrat Alex Sink’s gubernatorial effort in Florida.
 
Gore's e-mail — sent on the first day early voting starts in the Florida governor’s race — asks for $10 contributions to Sink’s campaign against Republican Rick Scott to succeed Gov. Charlie Crist.
 
“To get the economy back on track and recover from the oil spill, Florida needs a leader with Alex’s business experience,” Gore states in the e-mail. “The stakes in this race are too high for anyone to stay on the sidelines.
 
“With Early Voting starting today, the reality is that this week could decide the election — which is why Alex needs your help to expand her outreach efforts now,” Gore adds. “This election will go down to the wire, and the $10 contribution you make today — which allows Alex’s campaign to knock on a few more doors or run one more TV ad — could be what decides this election.”

The race continues to be one of the closest gubernatorial contests in the nation, with a recent Rasmussen Report poll showing Scott ahead by three points, 50 percent to 47.
 
In September, Gore campaigned for Florida Democratic Senate hopeful Rep. Kendrick Meek. The Nobel Prize-winning climate crusader also has helped Ohio Senate Democratic candidate Lee Fisher and is sending a video out to supporters of Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick (D) attacking the global-warming views of his Republican challenger, Charles Baker.

The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) Action Fund says new poll data shows that voters in regions with competitive House races prefer incumbent Democrats who support legislation to limit greenhouse gas emissions.

The group’s survey looked at 23 congressional districts where the incumbent House Democrat voted in favor of last year’s contentious cap-and-trade bill. However, the survey did not specifically reference that bill or use the term “cap and trade” in questioning.

NRDC is touting the survey as finding that, in 21 of the polled races, a “clear” majority of voters were more likely to support incumbents who supported energy legislation that creates jobs and limits greenhouse gas emissions. The survey found essentially a statistical tie between voter preferences for Reps. Zack Space (D-Ohio) and Harry Teague (D-N.M.) and their Republican opponents.

“Our poll presented our opposition's main, misleading talking point — that a climate bill is akin to an energy tax,” NRDC Action Fund Director Heather Taylor-Miesle said in a prepared statement.

In a conference call with reporters, Taylor-Miesle said the poll pitted the arguments on “clean energy” and climate change legislation against each other. She said the message of critics “has really fed into a storyline that somehow support for clean energy legislation has become a tough sell and could in fact cause some people to lose” in the election.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar will appear with embattled Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) in Nevada Tuesday for the groundbreaking of a major power transmission project.

The Southwest Intertie Project will “create jobs, spur growth in the renewable energy sector and improve transmission capacity for Western communities,” according to Interior, which played a major role in the project’s approval because it traverses public lands.

Reid has sought to emphasize his work to draw federally supported or financed energy projects to Nevada. The event comes as Reid is in a neck-and-neck race with Sharron Angle, the Tea Party-backed GOP Senate candidate.

Oil vs. greens as California climate battle nears its apex

The Hill’s Darren Goode has a nice primer on the expensive fight over Proposition 23, the ballot initiative that would kill the state’s landmark climate change law.

“Protecting California’s global warming law has become a top priority for environmental activists who are still smarting over the defeat of comprehensive energy legislation in Congress this year. If the law survives the ballot challenge, it could become a model for other states to emulate,” the piece notes.

Inside the money battle

Opponents of the ballot measure have outraised supporters about 2-1 and raised more than $16 million, including $5 million from billionaire asset manager Tom Steyer, co-chair of the “No on Prop 23” campaign.

The League of Conservation Voters and its sister organization, LCV Education Fund, have committed $1.2 million so far to defeat Prop 23, the group announced Thursday — more than they are spending on any candidate races this year.

Major oil industry companies are bankrolling the effort to pass Prop 23. Valero Energy Corp. leads the pack with a $4 million donation — about half of the total that has been raised by supporters.  Tesoro Corp. has chipped in about $2 million, while a refinery subsidiary of Koch Industries Inc. — owned by the billionaire brothers and conservative political donors David and Charles Koch — has donated $1 million. Marathon Oil Corp. has contributed $500,000.

On Tap Monday and this week: Turning the ‘smart grid’ into reality

Gridweek 2010 runs for several days this week in Washington, D.C. — a huge conference of federal and industry officials (among other stakeholders) working toward the complex task of creating a “smart grid.”

The phrase refers to the suite of technologies — receiving heavy stimulus law backing — that make the aging power grid more efficient, secure and adaptable to alternative energies like solar power.

The conference includes officials from the Energy Department, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Federal Communications Commission and executives with to power companies like Southern Co. and many others. It gets rolling Monday morning with a keynote address by Commerce Secretary Gary Locke.

On Tap Monday II: Enviro TV ad hits Kit Bond for trying to block EPA

The Environmental Defense Action Fund is launching a new TV ad Monday in Missouri markets that targets Sen. Kit Bond (R-Mo.) for his efforts to slow or block Clear Air Act rules.

The 30-second spot by the Environmental Defense Fund’s political arm shows a young girl hooked up to a respirator, laboring to breathe. “Every year, air pollution cuts short the lives of 50,000 Americans,” the narrator states, noting it also increases hospital admissions and asthma attacks, especially among children and the elderly.

“So why is Senator Kit Bond trying to undermine America’s clean air rules?” the narrator asks. It concludes with text on the screen: “Senator Bond, please don’t weaken America's clean air rules.”

Bond is among the lawmakers trying to thwart the Environmental Protection Agency's ability to regulate greenhouse gases. While Bond is retiring, the weeklong ad is also a shot across the bow at other lawmakers seeking to block EPA efforts. The upcoming lame-duck session could include a Senate vote on legislation that would put upcoming EPA climate rules on ice.

China calls U.S. green trade probe a political ploy

A senior Chinese official is criticizing the U.S. for probing whether China’s support for domestic green energy companies is violating World Trade Organization rules.

“China’s top energy official said the U.S. was playing electoral politics with an announcement that it will investigate a union complaint that the Chinese government gives unfair subsidies to its alternative energy industry,” Bloomberg reports Monday.

“Does America want to get fair trade or a genuine dialogue, or get transparent information?” National Energy Administration Director Zhang Guobao said at a Beijing press conference last night, the news service reported. “I think not — it seems America’s main reason is to get votes.”

Al Gore attacks Massachusetts GOP candidate over climate change

Gore is backing incumbent Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick (D) and criticizing his opponent's views on global warming.

“In a video being sent to tens of thousands of Patrick supporters, Gore highlights comments [Charles] Baker made to the Globe in February, in which he dodged questions on his stance on climate change for days. Baker said he was not “smart enough’’ to understand the issue and declined to even issue an opinion,” the Boston Globe reports.

“Well, in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence, Charlie Baker’s statement is nothing short of unacceptable in my view from a candidate seeking the highest office in Massachusetts,’’ Gore says in the video, according to the Globe. “The climate crisis is just as real as the economic one that has touched every single family, business, and government in our country.’’

Obama’s mixed grades on energy

President Obama gave a lengthy interview to The New York Times that touches briefly on his administration's energy and climate agenda.

Obama notes the results have been mixed, in an interview that explores how much the rough economy has set the tone for his presidency thus far.

“But we’ve still got some more work to do, and we still don’t have an energy policy that I think served us well over the long term,” Obama notes at one point.

Broad energy and climate legislation flopped in the Senate, but the stimulus poured tens of billions of dollars into various “clean” energy programs.

“We haven’t been able to deal with climate change so far, but we did make the largest investment in clean energy in our history over the last two years. And we’ve seen entire industries in advanced battery manufacturing or in solar power or wind power develop all across the country,” Obama said.

On Tap Monday III: The midterm elections and cap-and-trade

The Natural Resources Defense Council will unveil polling about “energy and climate change issues and their impact on the midterm elections.”

Proposition 23 would stymie a first-in-the-nation cap on greenhouse gas emissions.