NASA image of Gulf of Mexico oil spill

The latest news reports suggest the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico from the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig that sunk earlier this month is much worse than anticipated. The oil slick, which is now the size of West Virginia and getting bigger by the day, could hit Louisiana's coastline by this weekend. Experts say the oil continues to leak at a rate of about 5,000 barrels per day, more than five times original estimates. The Coast Guard's plan to ignite the oil slick and burn most of it away isn't going as planned as winds have limited their ability. The White House has declared this a spill "of national significance."

But just a month ago, the Obama adminsitration announced plans to open new areas off the East Coast to more offshore oil drilling, and also upheld Bush-era leases in almost 2.8 million acres of the Chukchi Sea in the Arctic Ocean. The announcement allows exploration drilling to move forward starting as early as this summer. As we and many other groups have said in the past, a catastrophic oil spill in the icy, remote waters of the Arctic would be an emergency beyond any we've ever seen.

Global warming not only is real but is "primarily human-induced," the U.S. State Department has concluded in its draft 5th Annual U.S. Climate Action Report.

According to the report, climate change effects include the thinning of ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland, rising sea levels, thawing permafrost, vanishing mountain glaciers, and warmer ocean temperatures.

Senate legislation on climate and energy authored by Democrat John Kerry, Republican Lindsey Graham and Independent Joe Lieberman is expected to be introduced on April 26.

Meanwhile…

The Obama Administration is proposing to OK well pads like this one in the West Elk roadless area. Photo (c) Ted Zukoski.

On the Obama administration's second Earth Day, we can look back on some change we can believe in: oil and gas leases near national parks in Utah suspended, a glimmer of progress on slowing the destruction of rivers and streams in Appalachia by coal mines, the beginning of EPA's commitment to slow global warming from car tail pipes.

But 15 months in, the administration appears to have at least one glaring blind spot: how to reduce the environmental destruction from coal mining in the West - both on the ground and in the atmosphere. 

Sen. John Kerry, co-author of a forthcoming Senate climate bill

Last week was a rollercoaster for the environment. One minute it was down, the next it was up. First came Obama's announcement of offshore drilling, then came the new EPA policy clamping down on mountaintop removal mining, new clean car standards were finally finalized, then came the adoption of a key household energy efficiency standard that makes a big difference, then a major setback for public lands with an Obama announcement to stick with a Bush-era policy.

Many of us wonder, will a good environmental decision one day make way for a bad decision the next? And with our eyes on the bigger picture, we ask, What does this all mean for the upcoming climate bill?

Newsweek's Daniel Stone posits that this flip-flopping signals that the Obama administration is willing to make some big sacrifices in order to get a climate bill passed. One big sacrifice, and a very wasteful one, would be a Senate bill that strips the EPA of its authority to fight climate change by regulating greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act.