UPDATE: Senate President Jeff Atwater called to clarify his position on the decision not to hold a special session on oil spill-related issues. Here’s what he had to say:

“I haven’t changed my mind on anything. I don’t know how I could have tried any harder,” Atwater said about the House’s decision that a special session is unnecessary this year. He said a special session is both “timely and necessary.”

There’s no need for a special session to address the fall-out from BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil rig blast that pumped millions of gallons of hydrocarbons into the Gulf of Mexico, House Speaker Larry Cretul and Senate President Jeff Atwater have decided.

Despite earlier promises that lawmakers would convene as early as September to try to give a helping hand to fishermen and others in the Panhandle whose finances have crumbled in the aftermath of the April 20 disaster, the pair are convinced those issues can wait until the regular session next year in March.

“It would appear that while there are some issues where legislative action may be appropriate, there are no issues that require immediate formal legislative action. Additionally, there are several areas where it is clear that we do not yet possess the information necessary to make informed decisions. Moreover, many of these issues require solutions that would benefit from closer scrutiny during a regular legislative session,” Cretul, R-Ocala, wrote to House members today.

Atwater, who is running statewide for chief financial officer, apparently agreed although he had previously pushed the House to come back early.

Atwater, R-North Palm Beach, said he asked his select committee “to continue developing proposals, gathering data, and working with incoming leadership in preparation for the next session” in a memo to the his members today.

Matt Carter, the former chairman of the Public Service Commission, is now the staff director for the Senate Communications, Energy and Public Utilities Committee.

Carter’s taken the place of Diana Caldwell, who was let go last month by Senate President-elect Mike Haridopolos. Haridopolos, R-Melbourne, and his newly appointed chief of staff and general counsel Steve MacNamara are making a clean sweep of high-paid staff whom Haridopolos accused of behaving like “the 41st senator” and having too much influence over public policy.

Carter chaired the regulatory panel during a bleak period marked by investigations into secret BlackBerry messages swapped between utility lobbyists and PSC staff and revelations that the PSC’s own lobbyist partied at the home of a Florida Power & Light executive during a Kentucky Derby fete. Carter, who was not involved in the BlackBerry message investigations, put an end to the use of the electronic devices.

Carter’s term ran out in December and he was not reappointed by Gov. Charlie Crist.

Democratic Senate nominee Kendrick Meek and independent Gov. and Senate candidate Charlie Crist will appear at the Sept. 15 Forum Club of the Palm Beaches lunch in West Palm Beach. Republican nominee Marco Rubio was also invited, but couldn’t make it because of a scheduling conflict, Forum Club director Gayle Pallesen said.

The Crist-Meek pairing, while not the original intent of organizers, highlights what many Dems have come to view as a second Democratic primary in the Senate race. With former Republican Crist aggressively courting Democratic votes, Meek released a primary-style radio ad today highlighting Crist’s past professions of conservatism from his Republican days and telling voters — presumably Democrats — “Don’t be fooled.”

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