President Barack Obama gets the big picture right when it comes to the tragic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

This unprecedented environmental disaster reinforces the fact that the nation needs to increase its use of clean renewable energy and reduce its reliance on polluting fossil fuels.

The Deepwater Horizon tragedy should help convince Americans they have reached a turning point in how the country gets its power.

Oil and coal won't be replaced overnight. They are now and will remain important sources of energy for this country for many years.

However, the nation also has waited far too long to invest significant private and public research dollars in renewable energies such as solar and wind power.

At some point, preferably later this year, Congress needs to approve an energy policy that better promotes renewable energy.

We have noted before that a cap-and-trade measure favored by many lawmakers in Washington is deeply flawed. It is full of loopholes, too lenient on polluters and would not quickly slash harmful emissions.

A carbon tax is a better idea. It would correctly pressure coal-fired power plants and other industries to modernize their equipment. It would encourage investment in cleaner energy sources that could create millions of new jobs. The tax would impose new, but not dramatic, costs on Americans using power that damages the environment.

Unfortunately for Obama's popularity ratings, most Americans are focused on other important details right now.

Despite an Oval Office speech last Tuesday and a meeting with top BP officials Wednesday, Obama still hasn't convinced the public that he or his administration are effectively dealing with this environmental catastrophe.

n BP has been unable to stop the oil now spilling into the gulf at the rate of up to 60,000 barrels a day. That failure understandably galls many Americans. It's maddening that BP initially, and almost cavalierly, originally estimated the leak at just 1,000 barrels a day. Yet it's difficult to see how this is Obama's fault.

n The federal government — especially in the years before Obama took office — fell down badly on the job in making sure BP (and other petroleum companies) had fail-safe mechanisms in place with their deepwater oil rigs. Last week, Obama appointed Michael Bromwich as the person responsible for restructuring the former Minerals Management Service, the federal agency that oversees oil and gas development. Bromwich had better be fully committed to breaking up the too-cozy relationship between regulators at the agency and the petroleum industry.

n Obama and the feds have failed to quicken the speed of the cleanup and of the financial payouts from BP to people and companies affected by the spill. On Wednesday Obama announced that BP would create a $20 billion fund to compensate people affected by the oil spill. But the key to this fund will come in making sure the money is given quickly to people in need. Obama must keep the pressure on to make sure this is not a drawn-out process.

Any move by BP to get out of paying legitimate claims would add insult to injury to the American people.