Oil industry analysts have estimated that there may be as much as a billion barrels or more of oil in the reservoir below BP’s Macondo Well. If the well is leaking at the so far maximum estimated rate of 100,000 barrels per day, and there are 1 billion barrels of oil in the reservoir, then determining how long the well could leak if it is not plugged is a simple high school mathematics level calculation.

One billion barrels divided by 100,000 barrels per day equals 10,000 days, or a continuous leak of 100,000 barrels per day for 27.39 years if the well is not plugged, to empty the reservoir into the Gulf of Mexico.

Kudos to Markey for getting BP to consent to a live feed, but let’s leave the technology to the pros. The White House needs to take control and own this live feed of a pipe leaking millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf every day.

About a month ago, a strange email hit the inboxes of many congressional staffers. It was an invitation to an ‘Executive Forum’ on climate and energy policy hosted by the American Petroleum Institute. What was strange about this invitation was the sender of the email and the co-host of the policy forum: Newsweek magazine. The event is scheduled for today at 4pm.

Greenpeace’s Executive Director Phil Radford, understandably, took issue with this when the event was announced:

At present, the panel’s only member is American Petroleum Institute (API) President Jack Gerard.As you know, Mr. Gerard is the nation’s top registered lobbyist for Big Oil. API and its biggest member, ExxonMobil, have aggressively lobbied against global warming policy solutions that will inevitably limit global consumption of oil. API and its members have spent tens of millions of dollars over the past decade alone on propaganda efforts and front groups to undercut public confidence in the wide and deep global scientific consensus that global warming is real, that human consumption of fossil fuels is driving it, and that the problem is a serious threat to America and the rest of the world.

In the last few weeks a diverse group of activist, NGO and labor campaigns have launched to escalate the pressure on the Chamber and its member companies. Here is a brief summary of current efforts:

The Natural Resources Defense Council has been leading the fight. In addition to Pete Altman’s prolific coverage of the story as it develops, they have launched a website — whodoesthechamberrepresent.org — to ask the question: “Who Does the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Really Represent?”

Credo Mobile sent an email to their customers on Thursday with the subject line “Earth to Chamber of Commerce: You’re killing me”:

We can’t let this stand. Help us keep up the momentum and join us in asking every CEO serving on the Chamber of Commerce board to quit the Chamber and renounce its radical stance.

The science is clear. And the Chamber is feeling the heat.

Click here to urge CEOs on the board of the Chamber of Commerce board members quit the Chamber and join the planet.

Kevin Grandia applied pressure directly to Toyota two weeks ago, calling out the company’s inconsistency in a piece at DeSmogBlog:

If Toyota is genuinely committed to sustainability as they say they are, then they can can take their lead from Nike, Exelon and others and stop supporting the US Chamber and their attack on the Obama administration’s clean energy and climate change reforms. If they don’t leave the US Chamber, then we know where their motivations truly lie.

Move On followed up on Grandia’s pressure on Toyota, writing in an email blast to members on Friday:

If Toyota is as “green” as they claim, why are they supporting a massive effort to kill President Obama’s clean energy plans?

Toyota needs to know consumers won’t stand for this. Can you ask Toyota to quit the Chamber of Commerce? If you’ve owned a Toyota, be sure to mention it when you call.

If major companies like Toyota quit the Chamber, members of Congress will be less likely to listen to the Chamber’s lobbyists.

For years, the Chamber of Commerce has pursued a right-wing agenda out of step with the business interests of many of its members. This year, they’ve launched an all-out lobbying blitz to block all of Obama’s goals—from climate to health care to fixing the economy. If the Chamber has less influence in Washington, our country has a real chance for change.

Call on Toyota to quit the Chamber of Commerce:

Toyota
(212) 223-0303

The Service Employees International Union is also running a campaign against the Chamber, petitioning Senators to “Break Up with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce”:

There’s an exodus from the corporate front group over its extreme views. We must use this opportunity to further isolate the U.S. Chamber as an out-of-touch outfit that only serves the interest of a handful of greedy CEOs.

The U.S. Chamber can’t be taken seriously. Your senators need to know this – the corporate front group is in Congress every day, lobbying for its extremist positions. They need to be immediately discredited.

Sign the petition to the Senate now: don’t listen to the extremist U.S. Chamber of Commerce on any issue.

And Brad Johnson at Think Progress has been painstakingly correcting the Chamber’s falsehoods with rapid-response blog items, as they pop up.

Today, Representative Ed Markey pushed this story back to the forefront with a Huffington Post piece. After setting the record straight on Romney’s falsehood and explaining the urgency of clean energy legislation, Markey finishes strong:

So the next time you hear Mitt Romney or other opponents of clean energy and climate legislation railing about the costs of action, you should multiply your suspicion by whatever number they are attempting to sell. Odds are, it is far from even-handed.

While this is a solid piece, and Representative Markey makes his case well, he barely mentions the other Republican politicians who have repeated this lie. I understand the value of pegging this on a potential 2012 Presidential candidate, but there are over a dozen current elected officials in the Republican party who have repeated this lie as well.

Since I last updated the count a few weeks ago, eight additional Republican politicians and party organizations have repeated the lie, bringing the total to 20.

Health reform rally on the Boston Common

Representatives Henry Waxman and Ed Markey Tuesday at long last made public a discussion draft of the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES). Some are calling this the opening shot in the battle over what the United States will do about global warming. Rep. Markey, not one who is prone to understatement, told a conference call for environmental bloggers Tuesday that this is “the beginning of an incredibly intense period of political debate in our country.” Speaker Pelosi amplified this sentiment, explaining that “there’s an inevitability to this that everyone has to understand.”

Join us on the flip for a discussion of why this bill is so important, what the good and bad provisions are, and how this may play out over the next several months.