REUTERS/Jim Young
–The two words to listen for in Obama’s Oval Office address tonight are “carbon pricing.” It is still unclear whether the president will focus on proximate fallout of the spill or “Go Big” on climate.
–Possible tea leaves: Obama sent a letter yesterday to members of political arm Organizing for America roughly sketching out an energy push. Still, it’s not as if presidential attention can summon non-existent votes in the Senate.
—Greg Sargent notes Republicans are preparing to push back on climate with an argument that the spill needs to come first.
–Press Secretary Robert Gibbs made the rounds on TV this morning to preview the speech, but focused on BP.
—Mark McKinnon writes effective Oval Office addresses are hard to pull off.
–The conference committee meetings to merge House and Senate financial reform bills continue today with debate on, among other things, credit ratings agency reform. Barney Frank and House negotiators want to strip Al Franken’s amendment that would establishment a board at the SEC to oversee which agencies rate which products and replace it with a one-year study of the so-called conflict of interest. You can watch live starting at 11 am ET.
–Blanche Lincoln is floating a “softer” version of her derivatives spin-off language that would allow banks to trade them, but require vast amounts of capital be put up as collateral. Her changes appear designed to appease regulators who opposed portions of her original package. Financial sector lobbyists, having given up on the Volcker Rule, are shifting all their focus to derivatives. Lincoln’s latest language would also exempt smaller community banks from the ban. It won’t be debated in conference until next week.
–And Stu Rothenberg says Sharron Angle’s primary victory doesn’t change Reid’s chances.
What did I miss?
A quick note: The comments, as much as we love them, may not always be the best place to share a story or a tip or an anecdote. So I’m putting up an e-mail address where you can reach me. I won’t be able to reply to everything, but I hope it can be an outlet for substantive communication.