Senate Republicans do not plan to block future attempts to give subpoena power to a commission President Barack Obama has appointed to draw up safety and oversight recommendations for offshore oil and gas drilling in the wake of the Gulf of Mexico spill.

"I don’t know of any objections from Republican leaders," Don Stewart, spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), wrote in an e-mail Thursday.

Democrats — on short notice — Wednesday tried to grant Obama’s commission subpoena power by unanimous consent and without a roll call vote. 

The Interior Department is on the cusp of issuing a revised moratorium on deepwater oil-and-gas drilling to replace the blocked ban.

Adm. Thad Allen, national incident commander, said they stand a “good chance” of working but declined to offer a percentage estimate.

As the White House continues to tackle the Gulf of Mexico oil spill and renews its effort to address immigration reform, environmental groups are pressing President Barack Obama to take a stronger lead on pushing Senate climate and energy legislation this summer.
 
“I think it absolutely is doable and we can pass a bill with an enforceable carbon limit before the August recess,” Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) President Fred Krupp told reporters Thursday. “The key to that, though, is that the president has to directly engage with his staff at a detailed level in producing a bill inclusive of carbon limits that will win 60 votes in the Senate.”
 
“If he doesn’t do that, then everything he’s done so far will lead to nothing,” Krupp said.

Animal rights and environmental groups on Wednesday filed suit against oil giant BP and the U.S. Coast Guard for allegedly killing endangered sea turtles during controlled burns of oil in the Gulf of Mexico.

“BP’s actions in killing and otherwise harming and harassing endangered and threatened sea turtles constitute flagrant violations of its lease with the United States,” alleges the complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana.

The Animal Welfare Institute filed the complaint along with the Center for Biological Diversity, the Turtle Island Restoration Network and the Animal Legal Defense Fund.

The groups are asking the court to block the alleged killings.

Hurricane Alex hinders response to BP’s Gulf of Mexico oil spill

“The hurricane made landfall over northeastern Mexico late on Wednesday, its high winds and the rough seas delaying the British energy giant's plans to expand the volume of oil it is siphoning from the leaking well,” Reuters reports.

“The bad weather also threatened to push more oil-polluted water onto the shoreline of the U.S. Gulf Coast and forced the halting of skimming, spraying of dispersant chemicals and controlled burns of oil on the ocean surface, officials said.”

A key Republican says his report will blow holes in White House claims about its oil spill response.

House Energy and Commerce Committee Democrats have slowed work on new legislation to toughen oil-and-gas drilling safeguards amid what a committee source called bipartisan talks on the bill.

The Energy and Environment subcommittee had been slated to mark up the bill, which is authored by committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and other senior Democrats, on Thursday morning.

But the session was scuttled Wednesday evening and a new date has not been set.

Rep. George Miller's (D-Calif.) plan would deny BP new offshore oil-and-gas leases for up to seven years.