Sam Stein provides the following preview. The first and last parts should be the most interesting.
1. Obama will stress, according to the official, that the "mission of the Oil Commission [set up to suggest post-disaster reforms] is to ensure a regulatory structure for safe energy exploration."
2. The president will also "discuss our containment strategy for capturing as much of or all the oil leaking in the Gulf."
3. Obama will also address, "The BP claims process and what we're doing to make it fast, efficient and transparent and to ensure its independence from BP." The official could not comment on how specific Obama will get about Congressional efforts to lift the liability cap for BP and other companies. Nor was there talk about whether the President would give a detailed explanation of the escrow account that his administration supports for helping victims of the spill.
4. Obama will detail "the beginning of a process to restore the Gulf to a place better than it was before the Deepwater Horizon exploded," the official said.
5. Finally, he will "talk about what we must do to decrease our dependence on oil and other fossil fuels."
On item #5, I hope he doesn't pander and repeat that more offshore drilling is needed. Time to let that one go, Mr. President. And with around 30 nuclear power plants leaking in America right now, I don't think new ones are in order until we fix the old ones. I'd really like to see him reach higher for the big clean energy Apollo project we've been talking about. Is there a better time for such a project?
Oh, and the first part about a new regulatory commission should make the teabaggers crap their big boy pants.