Over on our main page, my colleague Alexander Bolton reports that prospects for climate legislation in the Senate have taken a big hit in recent days.

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) on Wednesday alleged there are increasing federal efforts to “take over private industry.”

BP also announced after an exhaustive White House meeting that it would not pay any further dividends this year.

BP "finally got the message" about its business practices by suspending its dividend, Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) suggested Wednesday.

Schumer, who led the Senate fight to persuade BP not to pay shareholder dividends while the Gulf of Mexico oil spill is continuing, said Wednesday the petroleum company "finally got the message" with its afternoon announcement that 2010 dividends have been cancelled.

Schumer said the announcement, made by BP after a White House meeting with President Barack Obama, said that decision as well as the company's pledge to create a $20 billion escrow account shows that the company has at last heeded "the handwriting on the wall" in terms of public pressure. Schumer appeared with Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Mark Begich (D-Alaska) at a Senate press conference to applaud the announcements.

The comment comes a day after Obama gave a speech that called for a transition away from fossil fuels.

President Barack Obama is asking congressional leaders to set aside $15 million for his Gulf oil spill commission.

The money is needed to fund operations for the commission, which the president has tasked with taking a "comprehensive look at how the oil and gas industry operates and how we regulate it." The commission's purpose is to investigate the causes of the oil spill and suggest ways to prevent future disasters, Obama wrote in a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Wednesday.

Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) is floating a bill that would force offshore oil producers to drill so-called relief wells along with their exploration wells, a measure aimed at preventing months-long spills like the one in the Gulf of Mexico.

BP is currently drilling relief wells to intercept its ruptured deepwater well that’s gushing oil into the Gulf.

The process is expected to permanently end the leak, but it is not slated for completion until some time in August — more than three months after the spill began. Lautenberg said such wells should be in place from the get-go as a precaution when companies drill offshore.

President Barack Obama will gather a bipartisan group of senators at the White House next week to discuss comprehensive climate change and energy legislation, Rahm Emanuel said Tuesday night.

The White House Chief of Staff told Charlie Rose that Obama would bring in "bipartisan members who worked on this in the Senate to the White House to get the best ideas from all the legislation to address it on a comprehensive basis."

The BP oil spill should be a wake-up call to pass an energy bill, Emanuel said, noting that the House has already acted.

"Obviously if we don't, it's a lost opportunity. And the president thinks this is the opportunity to finally get done what hasn't been done to date for the country," Emanuel said.

"Never allow a good crisis to go to waste when it's an opportunity to do things that you have stopped yourself from doing before," he added.

A liberal action group is stepping up its campaign against Senate Republicans over their votes seeking to block the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from regulating greenhouse gases.

The group Americans United for Change (AUFC) announced a new ad targeting all GOP senators, attacking their votes supporting a resolution of disapproval against new EPA rules.

The resolution, sponsored by Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) failed by a vote of 47-53. Every Republican senator, as well as six Democrats, voted to support it.