The House Natural Resources Committee today voted to authorize new subpoenas for a handful of Interior Department officials as part of its ongoing investigation into the editing of a report recommending a moratorium on deepwater drilling following the BP PLC oil spill.

The 26-to-17 vote gives committee Chairman Doc Hastings (R-Wash.) broad authority to compel agency officials to appear at a hearing he has tentatively scheduled for September.

The hearing, and the looming potential that Republicans could file a contempt of Congress charge, is likely to continue drawing unwanted attention to the Obama administration's energy record as the election season heats up.

The vote today followed a short, but rancorous, debate over the scope, focus and intent of the GOP investigation. Republicans have already submitted two subpoenas seeking documents and correspondences between Interior officials and a panel of engineers that reviewed the report.

Late-night edits to the report suggested the moratorium was endorsed by the engineers, when in fact it was not. Interior quickly corrected the error and issued a public apology to the engineers.

Hastings said subpoena authority is necessary after Interior refused to confirm that five mid-level officials involved in the May 2010 report would appear at a hearing last week. The hearing was canceled, though Democratic aides insist Interior Secretary Ken Salazar had offered to testify.

"Taking steps to issue subpoenas is not the preferred option," Hastings said. "In fact, I hope never to have to use this authority.

"We shouldn't have to compel answers from an administration that claims to be the most open and transparent in history," he added. "But if the department continues to stonewall, we'll be left with no other choice."

Democrats, however, said the investigation was an attempt to embarrass the administration and pointed to Republicans' refusal to call the CEOs of the companies responsible for the Deepwater Horizon spill to appear before the committee.

The vote today authorizes Hastings to call Steve Black, counselor to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar; Neal Kemkar, special assistant to Black; Mary Katherine Ishee, senior adviser at the Office of Surface Mining, Reclamation and Enforcement; Walter Cruickshank, deputy director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management; and Kallie Hanley, senior adviser at the Office of the Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs; or any other Interior officials.

Rep. Rush Holt (D-N.J.) said Hanley at the time of the report was in an entry-level position at Interior and had just graduated from college. She was performing logistical and administrative tasks that had little to do with the editing of the six-month moratorium, he said.

"And we should be subpoenaing her?" Holt said. "This must look ludicrous to the American people."

Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), the committee's ranking member, called the Republican probe "a two-year investigation into a copy-editing error, a cut-and-paste error."

"We should be investigating the spill itself, its aftermath," said Markey, who has requested on multiple occasions that Hastings call the CEOs of BP, Transocean and Halliburton, among others. "You want to create a cloud of suspicion where none is justified, and that is just wrong."