House Democrats are renewing their push to grant the presidential panel investigating the Gulf of Mexico oil spill subpoena power after the leaders of the commission yesterday blasted Senate Republicans for blocking efforts to do so.

Reps. Lois Capps (D-Calif.) and Ed Markey (D-Mass.) late yesterday urged the Senate to move on legislation during the short legislative session that begins next week to grant the seven-member panel subpoena power in its investigation.

"It's really astonishing that Senate Republicans have not allowed a bill that passed the House nearly unanimously to even come to the floor for the vote," Capps said in a statement. "They need to stop defending Big Oil and allow this bill to come to the floor when Congress returns to Washington next week."

The House passed legislation this summer that would grant the body power to subpoena witnesses under oath, but attempts to bring the legislation to the Senate floor were blocked by Republicans.

Yesterday during a meeting in Washington, D.C., the co-chairmen of the panel and the group's chief counsel lamented the fact that Congress had not granted the body power to subpoena witnesses.

"Because I don't have subpoena power, I have to look you in the eye and say I'm telling you what people told me. I can't subpoena people and put them under oath," Fred Bartlit, the group's chief counsel, said. "I wish I could. I think it's damned important, but it's the way it goes."

William Reilly, U.S. EPA administrator under President George H.W. Bush and co-chairman of the panel, blasted Senate Republicans for blocking legislation to grant the commissioners subpoena power.

"To those few senators who blocked this commission from having subpoena power, I hope that you are pleasantly surprised and not disappointed" by the findings, Reilly said.

Former Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fla.), the panel's other co-chairman, said the commission will push Congress to provide the panel subpoena power during the lame-duck session.

But Senate Republicans are loathe to grant the panel, which was appointed by President Obama, the ability to question witnesses under oath.

"I'll buy you lunch if you can find a single time Congress has given subpoena power to any noncongressionally appointed commission during my tenure in the Senate," said Don Stewart, a spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), in an e-mail. Stewart has been on staff since 1997.

But Markey said subpoena power would allow the commission to find all the details in the investigation.

"Every day that Senate Republicans block subpoena power for the independent commission is another day BP, Halliburton and Transocean can duck and dodge the panel's hardest questions," Markey said.

Markey also blasted one of the commission's preliminary findings presented at yesterday's hearing.

Bartlit yesterday outlined 13 tentative findings about problems associated with the operations on the Deepwater Horizon rig and in drilling the Macondo well, including one that said no evidence exists that indicates any of the companies involved in the disaster sacrificed safety to save money.

But Markey said BP's culture does not focus enough on safety.

"When the culture of a company favors risk-taking and cutting corners above other concerns, systemic failures like this oil spill disaster result without direct decisions being made or tradeoffs being considered," Markey said. "What is fully evident, from BP's pipeline spill in Alaska and the Texas City refinery disaster, to the Deepwater Horizon well failure, is that BP has a long and sordid history of cutting costs and pushing the limits in search of higher profits."