Energy Secretary Steven Chu said in Saudi Arabia Monday that oil market volatility is “far in excess” of supply and demand, according to Reuters, showing that he’s more willing than his Bush-era predecessor to see a Wall Street hand in price swings.

“We are going to be undergoing studies to try and find out how much has the volatility been increased by large financial institutions taking positions,” Chu told reporters in Riyadh, the news service reported.

“Certainly the volatility of the price seems to be far in excess of demand and supply,” added Chu, who is visiting several Middle Eastern countries this week.

A copy of the big new EPA plan to clean up the Great Lakes that we noted earlier can be found here. The agency vows that the five-year, $2.2 billion Great Lakes Restoration Initiative -- which includes plans to fight the hungry, invasive Asian Carp -- isn't just another airy pledge.

"The Initiative is not intended to be another grand statement about the Great Lakes; it is intended to operationalize those statements," the agency said on its website.

Energy Secretary Steven Chu floated an interesting idea over the weekend: Could the federal government take ownership of waste piling up at nuclear power plants even before it knows where to take it?

The U.S. had promised to start taking spent fuel off the industry’s hands beginning in 1998. That didn’t happen, and the government is already liable for billions of dollars.

The White House has dropped the long-planned Yucca Mountain waste dump in Nevada, and Chu in January appointed a “blue ribbon” panel to explore long-term waste policy.

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson is scheduled to testify before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on Tuesday.

U.S Fish and Wildlife Service Director Sam Hamilton, 54, died Saturday in Colorado after experiencing chest pains.

Energy Secretary Steven Chu said Saturday that major Capitol Hill renewable electricity proposals would not prompt additional generation from sources like wind and solar power beyond the increases expected under existing programs.

A “renewable electricity standard” (RES) that forces many utilities to supply escalating amounts of their power from renewable sources over time has long been a pillar of Democratic energy and climate bills, but has not become law.

Chu – appearing the National Governors Association meeting in Washington, DC – said that renewables are already on a path to eventually supply 15-17 percent of the nation’s power on the strength of funding in the big 2009 stimulus law.

President Obama on Friday used an appearance in Nevada to address climate change and all the snow this year. He spoke at a town hall meeting while campaigning for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.).

Here’s what Obama said during a lengthy response to a question about energy and climate policy:

First of all, we just got five feet of snow in Washington and so everybody is like -- a lot of the people who are opponents of climate change, they say, see, look at that, there's all this snow on the ground, this doesn't mean anything.  I want to just be clear that the science of climate change doesn't mean that every place is getting warmer; it means the planet as a whole is getting warmer.  But what it may mean is, for example, Vancouver, which is supposed to be getting snow during the Olympics, suddenly is at 55 degrees, and Dallas suddenly is getting seven inches of snow. Read more...

Eight Senate Democrats jointly said Friday that they fear the economic effects of planned EPA global warming rules.

The Interior Department is forming a new “consortium” with Atlantic Coast states to help spur development of offshore wind power projects, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said Friday.

Salazar, appearing with a group of the governors, also said he has instructed Interior officials to examine ways to streamline the permitting of projects in federal waters.

Salazar announced the plan after meeting at Interior headquarters with the governors of Maine, Rhode Island, Delaware, Virginia and Maryland. The Massachusetts governor joined the meeting by phone.