2 days ago !! WASHINGTON -- On the same weekend that 40,000 people gathered on the Mall in Washington to protest constru... -- to its critics, a monument to carbon-based folly -- President Obama was golfing in Florida with a pair of Texans who are key oil, gas and pipeline players.

Obama has not shied away from supporting domestic drilling, especially for relatively clean natural gas, but in his most recent State of the Union speech he stressed the urgency of addressing climate change by weaning the country and the world from dependence on carbon-based fuels.

"We can choose to believe that Superstorm Sandy and the most severe drought in decades and the worst wildfires some states have ever seen were all just a freak coincidence," Obama said in the speech, last week. "Or we can choose to believe in the overwhelming judgment of science -- and act before it's too late."

But on his first “guys weekend" away since he was reelected, the president chose to spend his free time with Jim Crane and Milton Carroll, leading figures in the Texas oil and gas industry, along with other men who run companies that deal in the same kinds of carbon-based services that Keystone would enlarge. They hit the links at the Floridian Yacht and Golf Club, which is owned by Crane and located on the Treasure Coast in Palm City, Fla.

Carroll is the chairman of CenterPoint Energy, a public utility company based in Houston, Texas. He is not a major donor to political candidates, having given just $5,800 since 2007, including a $2,300 donation to Obama's first presidential campaign. CenterPoint Energy benefited from the 2009 federal stimulus law signed by Obama through its receipt of $200 million in federal grant money to upgrade its system to a Smart Grid.

CenterPoint is not Carroll's only connection to the energy industry. Both Carroll and Crane are directors at Western Gas Holdings, the managing partner of Western Gas Partners, a midstream energy provider created by Anadarko Petroleum, one of the largest publicly traded oil and gas companies. Western Gas Partners' main investment is in the booming field of natural gas exploration, transportation and manufacture in Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado and Wyoming.

Unlike Carroll, Crane has been more active in campaign funding circles. In 2012, he gave the maximum $5,000 to the Obama campaign and $30,800 to the Democratic National Committee (DNC). In 2010, he gave big to Democratic Texas gubernatorial candidate Bill White, with $125,297 in contributions. Crane's donations have exclusively flowed to Democrats since 2002. Before that, he made a few contributions to Republicans, including $5,000 to the Republican National Committee (RNC) in 2000, and to candidates such as former Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison and Texas Sen. John Cornyn.

Clark Stevens, a White House spokesman, reemphasized the president's commitment to confronting climate change in a statement Wednesday morning.

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