The following is a fact-check from the June 20, 2010 episode of Meet the Press:

GOV. HALEY BARBOUR (R-MS) VS. REP. ED MARKEY (D-MA) | Obama energy plan quote & cap and trade costs

1) GOV. BARBOUR | Rep. Markey’s cap and trade bill would drive up energy costs – TRUE

2) GOV. BARBOUR | President Obama told a San Francisco newspaper that under his cap and trade plan, electricity plans [rates] would necessarily skyrocket. – TRUE

3) REP. MARKEY | The Obama quote Gov. Barbour mentioned was from three years ago – FALSE (2+ years)

4) REP. MARKEY | The Obama Cap and Trade plan is not the same as the bill the House passed last year – TRUE

GOV. BARBOUR: Now, there are people like Congressman Markey whose bill in Congress, the–that mostly effects electricity, would drive up, up energy costs.  As President Obama said, under–he told a San Francisco paper, and I quote, “Under my cap and trade plan, electricity rates will necessarily skyrocket.” One of the things President Obama and I agree on.

While there is still mostly partisan-delineated debate regarding the actual cost to American households of the cap and trade bill passed by the House last year, the non-partisan CBO estimated that yes, the cost of electricity would rise under the plan. Thus, we determine Gov. Barbour’s statement to be TRUE.

Thanks to a similar fact-check by PolitiFact, it is clear that Gov. Barbour’s statement is TRUE. Obama made the statement during a January 2008 meeting (video) with the editorial board of the San Francisco Chronicle.

Gov. Barbour’s statements are somewhat misleading, however, since he is attempting to link then Senator Obama’s quote regarding his plan at the time to the plan that the House passed last year, something Rep. Markey then responded to:

REP. MARKEY:  The governor is wrong.  And the governor is using something that then Senator Obama said three years ago, not the Waxman-Markey Bill along with senator–along with Speaker Pelosi that we passed through the House last year.  What we do is we create a, a program of market-based incentives so that we move towards wind and solar, towards geothermal, towards biomass, towards plug-in hybrids, towards all-electric vehicles; efficiency, doubling the efficiency of the homes and the, and the buildings that we work in; moving in a way that captures the innovation, captures the science lead that we have on the rest of our country.  And over time it will actually lead to lower electricity, lower energy bills for our country.

As mentioned above, the Obama statement referenced by Gov. Barbour was made in January 2008, which means Rep. Markey is incorrect that it was three years ago. It was instead two years and five months ago. Because we are doing our best to look at statements in a technical sense, Rep. Markey’s would thus be FALSE.

Also, in their fact-check from June of 2009, PolitiFact neatly summed up how the debate and plan had changed since Obama made his statement:

It is worth noting that the climate debate has changed substantially since Obama sat down with the Chronicle nearly a year and a half ago. Legislators have opted to give 85 percent of the polluting permits away for free instead of putting them up for sale, as Obama pledged to do on the campaign trail. In theory, this approach should reduce costs to consumers. Furthermore, revenue from auctioned permits will help consumers pay for increased energy prices, according to Obama’s first budget.

From what we have read, we agree, making Rep. Markey’s statement that Obama’s plan in January 2008 was not the same as the House bill passed last year TRUE.

We are also looking into Rep. Markey’s claim that electricity costs will eventually go down as a result of his plan, but as of right now that research is inconclusive.

This fact-check took a combined 2 hours.

The following is a fact-check from the June 20, 2010 episode of Meet the Press:

GOV. HALEY BARBOUR (R-MS) | The $20 billion BP put in escrow will be paid in $5 billion increments over a period of four years – TRUE

GOV. BARBOUR: Right. Well, I thought that they were talking about taking $20 billion from BP all at once, and my fear was if you took $20 billion from them all at once, put it in an escrow account, then they wouldn’t have the working capital to generate the revenue to pay us. I think the president was smart, and I congratulate him and BP that they reached an agreement. Instead of $20 billion taken out of that working capital all at once, it’s actually going to be $5 billion this year, $5 billion the next year, $5 billion the following year and $5 billion the fourth year.

According to both a Washington Post and CBS news article, under the deal, BP will put $5 billion annually into escrow for the next four years to pay damage claims from the Gulf of Mexico. Therefore, we rate Gov. Barbour’s statement TRUE.

The following fact-check took a combined 1 hour.