House Natural Resources Chairman Doc Hastings today issued the first subpoena in the committee's ongoing investigation into an Interior Department report that recommended a deepwater drilling moratorium in the Gulf of Mexico following the 2010 BP PLC oil spill.

Critics of the drilling moratorium accuse the White House of tampering with language in the report to imply independent scientists supported the proposed drilling ban, when they did not. An Office of Inspector General probe found no intent to mislead the public, and Interior issued a quick apology to the scientists.

Today's request comes less than a week after committee members voted along party lines to allow subpoenas into the Interior report and a separate issue involving the Office of Surface Mining's forthcoming stream protection rule (Greenwire, March 28).

Today's subpoena seeks a portion of the documents Hastings (R-Wash.) previously requested in a letter to Interior more than two months ago (E&E Daily, Jan. 26).

The subpoena asks for all documents created, sent or received by Steve Black, Neal Kemkar, Mary Katherine Ishee, David Hayes and Ted Strickland in the two months following April 26, 2010, involving the "development, editing, review, issuance, response, or reaction to" Interior's 30-day safety report on the Deepwater Horizon spill, which recommended the six-month halt in offshore drilling.

It also seeks more than a dozen documents Interior provided to acting Inspector General Mary Kendall but asked to be kept from the public on concerns the pre-decisional documents could raise confidentiality issues with the executive branch.

"It's regrettable that a congressional subpoena is necessary to obtain documents pertaining to the administration's report," Hastings said in statement this morning. "The report falsely stated the professional views of independent engineers and the moratorium directly caused thousands of lost jobs, economic pain throughout the Gulf region and a decline in American energy production."

The agency's 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.

But Adam Fetcher, a spokesman for Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, said the committee's investigation is spending taxpayer dollars on an issue that was resolved two years ago. Drilling rig numbers in the Gulf of Mexico have risen to a level not seen since the BP spill.

"We have repeatedly testified, responded to the committee's requests, produced thousands of pages of documents and made clear that we intend to continue to cooperate with the committee's legitimate oversight interests," he said. "However, we also have expressed serious and long-standing institutional concerns about the committee's efforts to compromise executive branch deliberations, particularly regarding pending executive branch decisionmaking."

Hastings said the items he is seeking through the subpoena should be readily available. The subpoena sets a deadline of next Tuesday. He said additional subpoenas will be issued to obtain additional information.