Barack Obama, Energy | featured news

Soaring gasoline prices are threatening to undercut President Barack Obama's re-election prospects and offering Republicans an easy target. With prices pushing $4 a gallon and threatening to go even higher, Obama sought Thursday to confront rising public anxiety and strike back at his GOP critics.

A former campaign adviser to President Obama warned in a prescient e-mail that Republican attacks "are surely coming over Solyndra and other inside DOE deals that have gone to Obama donors" and suggested firing Energy Secretary Steven Chu. Dan Carol, who advised Obama's 2008 campaign, wrote in a February e-mail that the administration turned over today to the House Energy and Commerce Committee that the White House "bring forward a new leadership team in one package: DOE Secretary, Undersecretary (open), EERE (open), Chief of Staff (open)."

A California solar-panel manufacturer once touted by President Barack Obama as a beneficiary of his administration's economic policies -- and the recipient of a $535 million federal loan -- is laying off 1,100 workers and filing for bankruptcy.

So now President Barack Obama has decided to go after the oil speculators. He wants to “root out any cases of fraud or manipulation.” He’s directed the Justice Department to set up a task force. Yessir, he’s determined to get to the bottom of this.

With gas prices climbing and little relief in sight, President Barack Obama is scrambling to get ahead of the latest potential obstacle to his re-election bid, even as Republicans are making plans to exploit the issue....

Linking economic growth and energy independence, President Barack Obama says shifting the country away from imported oil and toward cleaner forms of energy will help continue a trend that has led to 1.8 million new jobs in the past 13 months.

President Barack Obama will not be allowing new drilling in the eastern Gulf of Mexico for at least seven years, according to a senior administration official.

Energy companies in the Gulf of Mexico will have to permanently plug nearly 3,500 nonproducing wells and dismantle about 650 unused platforms, the Obama administration says.

President says the expanding oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is "the most painful and powerful reminder yet that the time to embrace a clean energy future is now."

The president says he'll discuss how BP must pay claims "fairly and quickly" to compensate oil spill victims. He also says he'll name separate commanders for Florida, Alabama and Louisiana to speed response to states' residents.

President Obama previewed part of his Oval Office address in an appearance here Tuesday morning, saying he will talk about the need for BP to pay out claims "quickly and fairly'' to compensate victims of the worst environmental disaster in U.S.