President Obama announced in his weekly address a plan to open part of the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska to oil drilling. Through an executive order, the President would also extend leases in the Gulf of Mexico for oil concerns that were subject to the moratorium on deepwater drilling after the BP oil disaster, as well as speeding up evaluation of resources in the Atlantic, extending other leases in Alaska and building incentives for oil and gas companies to use land they own on existing leases on land and sea.

Democrats unveiled their legislation to repeal Big Oil tax subsidies today, giving the high-profile legislation to three Senators with elections next year in tough states (Claire McCaskill, Sherrod Brown and Jon Tester) along with Bob Menendez, who appears to be the point person on oil-related issues in the caucus. Given that he was so successful in getting the oil spill liability cap lifted- oh wait, he didn’t, and I suspect that this legislation will end up somewhere on the same shelf with that one.

Let’s just say that the President’s energy security speech didn’t go over so well among the communities of interest.

The Obama Administration approved the first deepwater drilling well permit for the Gulf of Mexico, 11 months after the BP oil disaster. . . .

The Presidential Oil Spill Commission has released their final report on the BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. Basically, they see the problems that manifested on the Deepwater Horizon well to be systemic, and ensuring the safety of rig workers and the US coastline depends on overhauling the industry completely.

I think the headline of this piece, “Greens Scoff at Drilling Plan, GOP Shrugs,” really says so much about the Obama administration.

The White House lifted its deepwater drilling moratorium today, but Mary Landrieu still won’t lift her hold on Jack Lew.

The Interior Department moved forward today with new offshore drilling rules without moving up the end of the moratorium.

The executive summary and the full investigation rely heavily on jargon, but they basically describe a systemic failure. However, BP cleverly sidesteps the question of well design, for which they have personal responsibility, and basically looks at the incidents on the Deepwater Horizon in a vacuum.

An oil rig in shallow water, about 80 miles from the Louisiana shore in Vermilion Bay, exploded today, in a scene eerily reminiscent of the Deepwater Horizon explosion.