In an address from the Oval Office last night, President Obama asked Americans to get behind clean energy legislation, saying that BP’s Gulf oil spill is “the most painful and powerful reminder yet that the time to embrace a clean energy future is now.” Obama compared the move to clean energy to emergency preparations for WWII and the mission to the moon, although, unlike those very real and dramatic and successful government programs, he offered no s

The LA Times is reporting that the Deepwater Horizon oil rig that exploded in the Gulf "was built in South Korea. It was operated by a Swiss company under contract to a British oil firm. Primary responsibility for safety and other inspections rested not with the U.S. government but with the Republic of the Marshall Islands — a tiny, impoverished nation in the Pacific Ocean.

A new report by an environmental group claims that BP may not be able to pay all of the damages from the BP oil spill without the giant oil company being dissolved and all its assets sold off. It found that BP could potentially owe between $330 billion and $1.3 trillion if the BP oil spill completely decimates the area, an amount that could equal or even exceed the entire value of the company.