>> the tragedy unfolding on our coast is the most painful reminder yet that the time to embrace clean energy future is now. ♪ host: president obama devotes his first oval office address to the gulf oil spill in the future of u.s. energy policy. washington is reacting to in analyzing the president's remarks this morning. we want to give all of you on " -- "washington journal" a chance to weigh in. the numbers are on your screen.

for republicans, 202-737-0001. for democrats, 202-737-0002. for independents, 202-628-0205. the president made those remarks from the over -- from the oval office last night. he is open to the ideas of raising efffciency standards for buildings just like the administration did for cars and trucks. he also mentioned setting standards to make sure that more electricity comes from wind and solar power. he also mentioned research and development into high-tech industry. we want to get your thoughts this morning about it beeng time to embrace the energy future in his ideas and comments on the gulf oil spill. what the administration is doing. what bp should be doing as well. "we will fight this spill with everything we have got for as

long as it takes." the " on the front page of "the times picayune." "65,000 barrels of oil may be flowing, meaning that 29 gallons of oil are being released for second. for that 733 milllon gallons have been spilled to date." the also note on the front page of the newspaper that he will ask the spilled panel to speak -- to speed up the investigation because the moratorium on deepwater drilling will last for six months. the president also address that last night. omaha, neb., republican line. what do you think? caller: i did not like the

speech. i do not think it went into an of detail as far as what will be in place so that bp can pay off those people. what they need to get. and president bush, he was very late in katrina. but the minute he got the 82nd airborneein there, i felt better about it. i felt that there was command and structure there. i do not feel that that is the case here. this is not about democrat, republican, conservative or liberal. this is about human suffering in america. the media, you have to talk to the president for those people. host: you can talk to him in washington through this show. caller: great. i will say at one time. mr. president, we are looking

for command and control. for you to say that i am on this. here is what is going to happen. i do not want to hear about blue-ribbon panels or something. some noble laureate. i want to know how you have your hand on this thing. thank you. host: all right. thank you. maine, mark. good morning. calllr: i think that the president did a fine job last night. ultimately this has to be a turning point. a pivotal moment when we really decide how to solve these kinds of problems in a much larger way. i do not know that it will work, but i do want to say that i m and iraq war veteran. bronze star recipient. i think that people should think about connacting

[unintelligible] because they're big on switching to alternate energy sources. host to what you think about the criticism from the last caller that the president did not have specifics on the way forward? caller: i think that he is hemmed in a little bit. anything that he says at this point is going to be open to an awful lot of criticism. if he had become too specific, you know, i think it would have been shot down on technical terms. it would have been really difficult for him to make the big picture argument. i think it was a gambit no matter what he did. but i think that the real critical message is that we+ really need to be thinking about very different ways of

approaching energy. i do not know if it will be enough. if the feedback from this crisis will be enough to get the american people to move away from their current pattern. but i hope that they do. host: if there is a cost in transitioning to clean energy do you think that the american people can stomach that? caller: that is the $50,000 question. as i said, i do not know. i hope they're willing to stomach the cost. we had the very least needy go with cap and trade. here is another part of this, if we head down that half aggressively now we have a

by kickstart in new industries that we are starting to fall behind in. host: coming up at 7:45 this morning we will talk to simon lomax, a reporter for bloomberg. we will be discussing the prospects for energy legislation. it is no longer being called climate legislation on capitol hill. for months the senate majority leader has been saying that cap and trade is no longer a part of the language they are using to sell this bill. here is what the president had to save. host: -- >> there are costs associated with this transition and some say that we cannot afford those costs for now. i say that we cannot afford to

change how we produce energy. long term costs are far greater. host: the headline this morning in "politico" says "costs would be less than $1 per day in the carried lieberman bill. epa studies show that the overall costs innthe global warming provision would cost on average $80 to $150 per year. this way we would not have diverges oil from foreign countries. the epa predicted industries that would pay $12 to $41 for allowances necessary for compliance with the bills rising to between $13.50 $9.

the wide range reflects different modeling aspects, including helping to keep standing forests in developing countries." akron, ohio. independent line. jimmy? caller: you have asked some good questions. one of them is the cost fielded have stepped back in his speech last night. in independent. i voted for both republican and democratic presidents. what i wanted less lead was leadership. i got what i expected last night, it was like my house was on fire, the fire truck pulled3 he is going to put out the fire. he talked about raising my city

taxes. the other caller said that he cannot get into specifics. but that is what he should have done. last night he failed to do this. right now i and my job, the epa government estimate of costs are going to be accurate? when was the last time that the government agency estimated and accurate cost of a program belmopan my company cannot afford that. -- program? my company cannot afford that. the increased cost to fuel will be devastating. it will cause layofff. problems not just at the pump, but as far as jobs. i wanted the president to

address last night not taking advantage of a crisis for political means but saying that we have an issue in here is how i am going to fix it. here is why failed the do. the government turned down held at the very beginning from foreign countries. he should have said that was a mistake and that we would ttke help from anyone and we would get the thing flood. >> let's listen to a little bit about what the president has said regarding how his administration has responded. >> we have 40,000 personnel working across four states to clean up the oil. thousands of other ships and vessels are cleaning up the gulf. i have authorized the deployment of 17,000 national guard members along the coast. they are ready to help clean the

beaches, train response workers, even help in processing claims. i urge the governors from the affected states to allow the assistance. >> fremont, ohio, bob is on the republican line. caller: good morning. i have been listening. thank you for c-span. you really open things up. i am a republican but i am seriously thinking of voting democratic. host: why is that? because of this? caller: i am all in favor of cap and trade. i have seen the republicans fighting everything that has to do with the environment and i think that they are making a big anti-environmental.ng totally

i am not a flag waving, tree bark eater, but it started with dick cheney, it disturbs me when he decided on global energy policies for the secret meetings with oil and coal giants during the bush administration. i am a republican and i have worked with intelligence services. every time we fill up our suv with gas the oil comes from wonderful places like kuwait, saudi arabia, and the united arab republic. i am sorry but these are all despotic regimes. every time that you do that it goes to charity in the hands of

al qaeda. host: john boehner last i said this, "i hope the the obama administration will not try used toocut -- a crisis for political points on the backs of americans living and working on the gulf coast." dennis, upper marlboro. your next. caller: thank you for taking my call. thank you for c-span. first i wanted to say that i appreciate the president's management style in a crisis like this. bush shooting from the head, looking in the eyes of vladimir putin, seeing his soul in all of that kind of crap.

through his eight years of running this country, all of these problems were building up. now they are falling in the laugh of this great young president. i am an african-american male. 60 years old. one thing about this nation, they seem to think that african- american men are emotional. not as cool under pressure and in a crisis. here comes obama. he is cool, calm, obviously intellectual. when you have these 24-hour news cycles constantly attacking this

man from the right, from the left, from the middle, america wants things done immediately. anyone that knows anything about water pressure, the sea, oil and whenever, they realize that this thing has the potential to be with us not for just three months, but one year or more. in his speaking to us from the oval office he is talking to the adults out there in america. he is not talking to the tea parties and these crazy right wing that jobs out there attacking his birth certificate and everythinn. he is trying to reach the adults. thank god america is overwhelmed with adults.

host: we will leave it there and go to wayne in north carolina. good morning. caller: good morning, greta. the caller from maryland has got it all wrong. what president obama is doing is trying to further his agenda. bp, yes, they should be responsible, but government should not seize their assets. corporate control of the country, it could bankrupt the country. president obama is using this incident like he uses every incident, to further his agenda, whiih is more government control, more taxes. that is the government that he seems -- that is the direction he seems to be going. he did not give specific.

i do not think that he can get specific. he is a politician, not a leader. this man does not have the answers. host: on capitol hill yesterday many oil executives from different companies were testifying before the committee. they came under fire from democratic members that said that their plans for addressing an oil spill were carbon copies of that of bp. oil executives were doing their best to distance themselves from bp. the ceo of bp is in town, he will be up on capitol hill tomorrow to testify before the committee of their. we will have live coverage of his testimony on c-span 3 starting at 10:00 a.m. tomorrow. about the executive speech ast night, the president talked

about that and what he plans to ask of the bp executive. >> tomorrow i will meet with the chairman of bp and inform him that he is the set aside whatever resources are required to compensate the workers and business owners that have been harmed as a result of his company's recklessness. in order to make sure that all legitimate claims are paid out in a timely manner, the account must be and will be administered by an independent third party. host: "the wall street journal" says this morning that of setting up this account "legal and corporate finance specialists are debating whether he has the authority to demand restitution or what co. shareholders might require in return."

peter baker in "the new york times" this morning writes about the meeting today. "until now he has employed most of the tools of his office, including the moratorium, traveling to the region, firing the agency director and appointing a commission. he used a few more on tuesday night, summoning the cameras to the oval office, of pointing and long term recovery coordinator, demanding that the company responsible set up a multibillion-dollar escrow accounts to compensate the victims." queens, new york. dave, republican line. you are next. thoughts on the oval office address? good morning? caller: good morning. right. long time listener the c-span.

i have a queetion to ask the nation. are we so wrapped up in money that we are forgetting about life? what is more important? life or money? i heard mary matalin in an interview with james carville. she was talking about what happens if we put the key out of business. nobody gets anything. when is a firm, real message going to be sent to all of big business. at the same time people are talking about the loss of oil, the loss of mmney from the peak. i heard another take on the fact

that general motors is not building the hummer anymore. people were out crying that they would not be able to buy their homer, these big gas guzzlers. the real problem in this whole thing is that we've, the american people, we are the problem. host: should he have appealed more to the american people to make a sacrifice? caller: absolutely. is it life or money? that seems to be all that we are thinking about. money and what we are going to lose because we are so personally caught up. what obama was talking about change everyone was jumping up

and saying yes, a change. americans do not want change. they want stability in the ill- gotten gain of an unfair system that was never balanced. it was that -- it was meant to be balanced but it never was. host: san diego, sheila, you are on the air. caller: i just wanted to make a few points. one is something that you mentioned. in terms of transitioning to different sources of energy, what we have not considered is the cost of doing business as usual in the gulf of mexico. when people say that the president -- i agree with the caller who talked about using

sticks over knives. life does not work that way. this is the worst crisis we have faced. two weeks, three weeks, what ever. whoever was on the agenda this time, that is what the president is facing right now. host: let's let the president also talked about some initiative for long-term solutions to the gulf corp. -- the gulf coast. he had appointed reagay naganmad here is what he had to say about that. >> i asked him to develop a

long-term restoration plan as soon as possible. it will be designed device states, local communities, tribes, fisherman, and other gulf residents. bp will pay for theeimpact of this bill on the region. host: from "the financial times" this morning in their opinion pages, "we need to free the mississippi. if mr. obama is serious about recovery, the gulf needs to harness the mississippi by building a hoover dam like structure around the mouth of the river or immediately issue a white house executive order that they open the floodgatts and build diversion canals.

the net affected these engineering boondoggles -- a fact of these engineering boondoggles -- effect of these engineering boondogglls has been to destroy the amazing louisiana wetlands. the program has deprived of wetlands of their annual said amend -- sediment. as the oil comes in the wetlands have no natural means of replenishmenttand are becomingga toxic dump." his solution is to wash out the wetlands that are soaked with oil. the morning, -- good morning, georgia. caller: thank you. as an energy pollcy we should have started this years agg when oil was becoming too expensive

to afford. i heard from a historian years ago that our idea was that we were going to purchase foreign oil until it would become cheaper for us to go drill our own oil on our own shores and in our own nation. that point has a few years ago. but it is never too late. in the meantime the we are drilling our own oil, we must make it safer, of course. god rest those who have lost their lives in this disaster, but in the meantime while we are getting our own oil cannot, in the meantime, start investing in solar power, wind power, hydroelectricity, and nuclear? it is a controversial subjects, but isn't everything?

just to make everything last, we cannot be wasteful with everything. host: other issues percolating on capitol hill this week, the house and senate negotiators for financial regulation are meeting this week. it continues today and tomorrow. we will talk with scott garrett about the negotiations so far coming up at 8:30 eastern time here in c-span. general david petraeus testified yesterday on capitol hill. here is the headline from "the wall street journal." "bipartisan criticism as setbacks star of concern." starting at 9:00 we will have live coverage of that on c-span 3. joining us on the phone, roxanne

coming to us from "of the hill." -- from "the hill." what do you expect to come out of today's hearing? caller: good to be with you. i would expect more of the same line of questioning and concerned, but the senate hearing this morning and later on in the house. the main areas of concern are the 2011 deadlines to start withdrawing troops from afghanistan and a date to study the conditions in afghanistan. both democrats and republicans are starting to become significantly concerned with u.s. strategy in afghanistan and are going to ask a lot of questions