House Natural Resources Committee members will face a table of empty chairs this afternoon when they hold their second hearing on a joint federal report on the causes of the Deepwater Horizon disaster.

And barring any parliamentary wizardry on the part of committee Democrats, the 2 p.m. hearing may consist of no more than a set of opening statements.

Facing more than a dozen federal violations and numerous lawsuits, the CEOs of the companies involved in last year's deadly accident in the Gulf of Mexico -- BP PLC, Transocean Ltd., Halliburton Co. and Cameron International Corp. -- have declined invitations sent at Democrats' request to appear before the panel (Greenwire, Nov. 1).

While committee Chairman Doc Hastings (R-Wash.) will control the gavel this afternoon, Republicans are leaving much of the procedural decisions up to the minority, said Hastings spokesman Spencer Pederson.

In letters to the committee over the past week, companies said they already sent their junior executives to testify on the joint Interior Department-Coast Guard report at a hearing last month (Greenwire, Oct. 13) and would decline to send their CEOs due to ongoing lawsuits and scheduling conflicts, among other reasons.

"Given that BP has already provided a witness who testified before the committee on October 13, and in light of the constraints imposed by numerous pending legal proceedings, BP must respectfully decline the invitation to have [CEO Bob] Dudley testify," wrote David Nagel, executive vice president of BP America. "BP is not in a position to discuss the Joint Investigation Team Report's finding in detail."

Halliburton CEO David Lesar will be out of the country today, said Jeffrey Turner, an attorney at Patton Boggs LLP who responded to the invitation on Lesar's behalf.

"As you no doubt appreciate, Mr. Lesar has significant worldwide responsibilities in leading the company," Turner said.

Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), the committee's ranking member, said he had hoped the companies' top executives would be able to speak more freely than their junior associates. He blasted their decisions to decline the invitations.

"Oil companies avoiding oversight was one of the factors that led to this disaster in the first place," Markey said. "The CEOs of these companies are now repeating history by refusing to appear before the committee of jurisdiction to answer questions about their spill."

To date, BP's Dudley has not appeared before any congressional committee, a Markey aide said.