Leaders on the House Natural Resources Committee yesterday said they are willing to issue a subpoena if the Obama administration refuses to hand over documents associated with an Interior Department report that recommended a temporary ban on deepwater drilling following the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

The agency's inspector general in November 2010 found the White House had tampered with language in the report to imply a group of independent scientists supported the proposed drilling ban, though they never endorsed it (Greenwire, Nov. 10, 2010).

The report incited a firestorm of criticism from Republican lawmakers who accused the White House of misquoting scientists in order to push an economically destructive halt to deepwater drilling.

"The Obama Administration's six-month offshore drilling moratorium resulted in thousands of lost jobs, economic harm across the Gulf of Mexico, and rigs leaving the United States for foreign waters," said committee Chairman Doc Hastings (R-Wash.) in a statement. "Americans, especially those in the Gulf, deserve answers as to how these policy decisions were made, who made them and if they were actually based on sound science."

Republicans have tried since last April to obtain underlying documents, drafts and communications that would help identify who at the White House may have reworked the Interior report but say they have thus far been stonewalled.

In a letter yesterday to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, Hastings and Energy and Minerals Subcommittee Chairman Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.) give the agency until early February to submit documents that would point to who from the White House edited the report, as well as communications between the agency and the peer reviewers before and after the report was issued.

If the deadline is not met, the lawmakers say they would consider a subpoena to force the appearance of witnesses or to provide documents.

"The department is certainly aware of which department officials, likely limited in number, would have been engaged in editing and review of this document, and these activities occurred only during a defined period of time between April and June 2010," the letter states. "However, the department has provided zero documents in response."

The letter gives Interior until Feb. 2 to provide 13 documents that were used in the inspector general report but which Interior has apparently blocked investigators from releasing.

In a May 11, 2011, letter to the committee, acting Inspector General Mary Kendall said an Interior attorney noted several of the documents used for the IG report "reflect or constitute predecisional and deliberative interagency communications" and raise confidentiality issues with the executive branch.

Hastings and Lamborn balked.

"We have difficulty understanding the department's concern about releasing these OIG documents, other than the fact some of them discuss communications between department officials and White House staff," they wrote in yesterday's letter to Salazar. "That alone is an insufficient excuse for withholding the OIG documents from the committee."

The letter also asks the agency by Feb. 9 to provide documents from several high-ranking administration officials involving the decision to include a moratorium in the final report; any correspondence concerning edits, revisions or changes to the draft report's executive summary; documents concerning communications with the peer reviewers; and documents related to the apology letter Interior Deputy Secretary David Hayes sent to scientists, among other information.

While the inspector general said Interior's May 2010 report could have been "more clearly worded," it does not fault Interior or the White House for deliberately misleading the public. And it cites Steve Black, a counselor to Salazar who led the Interior team that produced the report, as saying the rush to finish it led to the oversight.

According to Hastings and Lamborn's letter, Hayes later sent a letter "apologizing to the peer reviewers for falsely conveying their endorsement of the six-month drilling moratorium."

The agency's first deepwater drilling moratorium was overturned by a federal judge in June 2010, but Interior quickly imposed a new ban in July that lasted until October.

Interior did not respond to a request for comment in time for publication.