Facing more than a dozen federal violations and numerous lawsuits, the CEOs of the companies involved in last year's deadly Deepwater Horizon accident have declined to appear before the House Natural Resources Committee tomorrow.

The CEOs of BP PLC, Transocean Ltd., Halliburton Co. and Cameron International Corp. all declined invitations from committee Chairman Doc Hastings (R-Wash.) to testify about a government report on the causes of the April 2010 disaster, which claimed 11 lives and spilled nearly 5 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.

"It is unacceptable for the heads of these companies to evade testifying before Congress in order to avoid answering questions about the U.S. government's major report on the oil spill for which their companies share responsibility," said Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), the committee's ranking member. "Democrats on the Natural Resources Committee intend to hold these companies accountable and plan to take action to compel these witnesses to appear before the committee."

A Markey spokesman said committee staff were still collecting the letters companies sent indicating the CEOs would not appear. The committee did not indicate any new witnesses have been confirmed for tomorrow's 2 p.m. hearing.

The invitations were sent at Markey's request after a hearing last month in which Democrats complained they were not informed that company executives would testify until less than two days before the hearing and were given less than 24 hours to review their testimony.

At that hearing, lower level executives including BP Vice President Raymond Dempsey were largely mum about the findings of the report, citing ongoing litigation and investigations (Greenwire, Oct. 13).

Markey said he hoped the CEOs of the companies would be able to speak more freely than their junior executives. He also wants to ask BP CEO Bob Dudley how his company plans to pursue recently approved drilling plans more than 200 miles off the Louisiana coast.

The 212-page joint Interior Department-Coast Guard report, which is the topic of tomorrow's hearing, places much of the blame for the spill on poor management decisions by BP and makes a series of regulatory recommendations to improve the safety of offshore drilling.

Based on the report's findings, Interior later issued 15 citations to BP, Halliburton and Transocean for their roles in the spill. The four citations each issued to Halliburton and Transocean were the first Interior has ever issued to drilling contractors, raising questions among some committee members as to whether the agency overstepped its authority.