(Reuters) – The climate bill unveiled by U.S. Senators John Kerry and Joseph Lieberman on Wednesday would reward many businesses for cutting output of greenhouse gases but could add costs for those who do not.

Kerry and Lieberman hope that companies who see opportunities in energy conservation and low-carbon power will convince lawmakers to support the bill which needs 60 votes to pass.

Utilities such as FPL Group, Duke Energy and Exelon have lobbied alongside environmental groups for the climate bill as has General Electric, a manufacturer of clean coal and natural gas systems for power plants and wind turbines.

Here are some initial reactions to the bill from companies and business groups: (more…)

WASHINGTON/PORT FOURCHON, Louisiana (Reuters) – U.S. lawmakers pressed oil executives about flaws in a well safety device on Wednesday while BP scrambled with its latest deep-sea effort to control the huge Gulf of Mexico spill that threatens environmental disaster.

BP Plc, Transocean Ltd and Halliburton Co are all back in the hot seat in Washington over their responsibility in what could be the worst oil spill in U.S. history.

After a day of hearings on Tuesday where company officials traded blame for the April 20 rig explosion and oil spill, a U.S. House of Representatives panel said it had uncovered significant problems with a safety control mechanism on BP’s oil well that could have contributed to the accident.

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The U.S. Senate’s long-awaited energy bill, which will be officially unveiled Wednesday, would require utilities to begin paying for carbon dioxide emissions in 2013 and return two-thirds of the money to U.S. taxpayers to offset rising energy costs; it would also encourage the development of nuclear power with tax credits and other incentives and allow offshore drilling along new sections of the U.S. coast with certain restrictions and environmental safeguards.

The Senate bill, known as the “American Power Act,” limits entities that can trade directly in the carbon emissions permits to the utilities and, eventually, the factories that will be required to purchase the permits — a provision designed to avoid a speculative market in carbon trading. (more…)

The world community should abandon efforts to sign a climate change treaty and instead focus on combating global warming by imposing carbon taxes to fund renewable energy breakthroughs and to deliver clean electricity to the world’s poor, according to a report by 14 academics and scientists.

The group recommends pursuing a “politically attractive and relentlessly pragmatic” climate and energy strategy that combines a huge research effort into renewable energy with pragmatic, near-term solutions, such as reducing heat-absorbing “black carbon” produced by wood fires and industries.

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“The momentum of the heating, and the momentum of the economy that powers it, can’t be turned off quickly enough to prevent hideous damage. But we will keep fighting, in the hope that we can limit that damage.”

Bill McKibben’s words occur on the final page of his newly published book Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet.  The misspelling indicates a planet still recognizable but fundamentally changed. A planet that he first warned about over twenty years ago in his earlier book, The End of Nature.

McKibben is an activist as well as a writer. He led the 350.org campaign last year. Three hundred fifty parts per million is the level James Hansen and other scientists consider the upper limit of a safe level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – In response to the BP oil spill, U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar will announce on Tuesday that the Minerals Management Service will be divided so collection of oil royalties and safety inspection of offshore drilling are separated, a department official told Reuters.

The MMS currently carries out both roles, drawing criticism from some U.S. lawmakers and environmental groups.

Critics argue the MMS is faced with a conflict of interest because it is responsible for regulating and shutting down offshore oil production over safety concerns, if necessary, and also charged with keeping the oil flowing so the government can collect royalties.

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Just days after it received a new 20-year license extension from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station in New Jersey was found to be leaking radioactive tritium .

Located about 60 miles east of Philadelphia in Lacey Township, New Jersey, the Oyster Creek plant is the oldest in the United States, and the tritium leak from underground pipes that was discovered on April 9, 2009 may have spread further than officials previously thought.

New Jersey environmental officials now say that radioactive tritium has leached into the nearby water aquifer and that the plant’s owners need to install new monitoring wells to keep tabs on the spread of the chemical. Commissioner Bob Martin is worried about the tritium — currently being found at concentrations 50 times higher than those allowed by law — which has been slowly spreading underground at one to three feet a day. (more…)

The oil slick spreading across the Gulf of Mexico has shattered the notion that offshore drilling had become safe. A close look at the accident shows that lax federal oversight, complacency by BP and the other companies involved, and the complexities of drilling a mile deep all combined to create the perfect environmental storm.

It’s hard to believe now, as oil from the wrecked Deepwater Horizon well encroaches on the Louisiana marshes. But it was only six weeks ago that President Obama announced a major push to expand offshore oil and gas drilling. Obama’s commitment to lift a moratorium on offshore drilling reflected the widely-held belief that offshore oil operations, once perceived as dirty and dangerous, were now so safe and technologically advanced that the risks of a major disaster were infinitesimal, and managing them a matter of technocratic skill.

But in the space of two weeks, both the politics and the practice of offshore drilling have been turned upside down. Today, the notion that offshore drilling is safe seems absurd. The Gulf spill harks back to drilling disasters from decades past — including one off the coast of Santa Barbara, Calif. in 1969 that dumped three million gallons into coastal waters and led to the current moratorium. The Deepwater Horizon disaster is a classic “low probability, high impact event” — the kind we’ve seen more than our share of recently, including space shuttle disasters, 9/11, and Hurricane Katrina. And if there’s a single lesson from those disparate catastrophes, it’s that pre-disaster assumptions tend to be dramatically off-base, and the worst-case scenarios downplayed or ignored. The Gulf spill is no exception. (more…)

Are Offshore Oil Rigs a Threatened Species? Is the Deepwater Horizon spill the beginning of the end for offshore oil drilling, or just another Exxon Valdez? Today, as BP attempted to place a 100-ton cap over the broken well gushing under the Gulf of Mexico, it was uncertain if they’d be able to stanch the spreading damage at sea or in Washington, D.C.

The spill has muddied the prospects for a climate bill as one of its pillars — a new round of offshore oil drilling — founders in unstable political soil, as Mackinnon Lawrence reports. Meanwhile, environmental groups are hustling to make the case, as in this Sierra Club video, that offshore oil is dirty and unsafe. Perhaps it’s not only brown pelicans and terns who will have trouble flying after all this is over, and the black tide might yet turn against its maker.

Efficiency Experts To America: Stop Dreamin’ and Pick Up Yer Caulkin’ Gun. At a symposium of the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy — what, you missed it? — experts concluded that weatherstripping beats windfarms as the fastest way to save the US economy, and released some numbers to prove it. First, America is not as efficient as it thinks: the domestic economy is only 13 percent efficient, compared to 20 percent efficiency in Japan and some European countries. We were left pondering if it’s more efficient, percentage-wise, to order a veggie pizza from Papa John’s or gnaw on a frozen one from Trader Joe’s. (more…)

(Reuters) – The BP oil spill is the latest in a series of environmental insults to the U.S. Gulf Coast, from wetlands eradication to flood control measures that have starved marshes of new sediment deposits.

Wetlands Clearing: Early European settlers cleared coastal swamps and marshes in the Mississippi River delta to control malaria they believed was caused by the fetid air in wetlands. This destroyed coastal wetlands that filter pollution, shelter native species and act as buffers to slow down hurricanes that spawn in the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico. (more…)