President Obama’s job performance on energy and the environment is falling short of the public’s high expectations when he took office, a new poll finds.

The Gallup poll released Wednesday finds that 52 percent of Americans polled in early March believe Obama is doing a “good job” protecting the environment, while 79 percent expected Obama to do a good job in a poll taken shortly after he took office.

The new poll finds that 43 percent believe Obama is doing a good job improving the nation’s energy policy, compared to 72 percent who expected Obama to do a good job in the earlier survey.

The alternative climate change plan emerging in the Senate will create new barriers to passage even as it knocks down others, reports CNNmoney.com.

Steve Hargreaves, in a broad overview piece, notes the perils of using a tax or fee to address greenhouse gas emissions from motor fuels, rather than putting them under a cap-and-trade system.

Oil companies had bitterly opposed a House-approved cap-and-trade plan that required refiners to secure emissions allowances for their fuels’ use in transportation.

Twenty-one House Republicans led by Rep. Bill Posey (Fla.) are alleging that a Securities and Exchange Commission initiative that presses companies to disclose information about climate risks will hurt corporations and investors alike.

In a letter to the SEC Monday, the lawmakers criticize the SEC’s recent “guidance” to public companies -- they call it an “onerous new mandate” and note that it wasn’t steered through Congress or a formal rule-making process.

The lawmakers allege the initiative will create confusion and uncertainty for companies.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said Tuesday that he wants to move forward on energy and climate legislation but that the procedural pathway for the measure is uncertain.

Reid spoke to reporters after former President Bill Clinton used an appearance at the Senate Democrats’ weekly caucus lunch to argue that such a measure is key to the U.S. economy.

“We know we have to do something with energy. The issue before us is how do we do it,” Reid said in the Capitol.

Former President Bill Clinton urged Senate Democrats to pass energy and climate change legislation that he said would provide an economic spark.

Congress should pass a renewable electricity mandate and other incentives to encourage renewable power sources separately from climate change legislation, Iowa Gov. Chet Culver, a Democrat, said Tuesday. Culver is the chairman of the Governors’ Wind Energy Coalition, which includes the governors of 29 states.

“We don’t want these things to get caught up in the broader debate and discussion that will only slow us down,” Culver said. 

The coalition released a report on Tuesday that made several recommendations to Congress to develop the wind energy sector. The list includes a renewable electricity standard that requires 10 percent of power to come from renewable sources like wind, solar, and biomass by 2012 and tax breaks targeted at clean energy projects. 

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Former President Clinton and Center for American Progress CEO John Podesta will be guests at the Senate Democrats' weekly lunch Tuesday, and climate change and energy will be major topics in their discussion with lawmakers.

President Obama is pushing nuclear power pretty hard, calling for an additional $36 billion worth of loan guarantees to help build the first new U.S. reactors in decades. Other countries are moving ahead with plans to expand this controversial power source as well.

The Council on Foreign Relations has launched a nifty multimedia tool to help make sense of it all.

It includes videos, timelines, descriptive maps and other info about the potential of nuclear power and the proliferation and safety risks (it recounts the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, for instance) that come with it. Worth a look.

On Monday we wrote about California GOP Senate candidate Carly Fiorina’s new web ad that bashes incumbent Barbara Boxer’s (D) cap-and-trade initiative.

The ad has prompted bloggers for the liberal Center for American Progress and Mother Jones magazine to point out that Fiorina was for cap-and-trade before she was against it.