The House Natural Resources Committee yesterday broadened its investigation into an Interior Department report that mistakenly implied a group of outside engineers had endorsed the agency's deepwater drilling moratorium in the Gulf of Mexico.

Committee Chairman Doc Hastings (R-Wash.) issued a subpoena to Interior acting Inspector General Mary Kendall requesting more than a dozen documents associated with the office's November 2010 probe into the Interior report. The IG's investigation found the White House had made edits to the report that implied scientists had endorsed the moratorium, but that there was no apparent intent to mislead the public.

Hastings' subpoena asks for the same 13 documents that Interior apparently declined to provide him in response to a subpoena the committee issued earlier this month (Greenwire, April 11). The Office of Inspector General (OIG) was ordered to respond to the new subpoena by April 18 at 5 p.m.

"Yesterday, instead of complying with a subpoena and disclosing documents on its actions, the Interior Department sent a three-page letter providing excuses under a façade of cooperation," Hastings said in a statement. "These exact same delaying tactics have been used for months and further stonewalling is unacceptable."

A call to Kendall's office was not returned this morning.

Kendall last May told the committee that an Interior attorney informed her that several of the documents used for the IG report "reflect or constitute predecisional and deliberative interagency communications" and raise confidentiality issues with the executive branch.

Hastings said it is "highly unusual, if not unprecedented" for Interior officials to interfere with the IG's independence.

"Further action will be taken soon to address the department's refusal to comply with the subpoena for communications and documents on the drilling moratorium and report," he said. "The American people have a right to know why and how the Obama Administration put tens of thousands of people out of work, sidelined crucial American energy production and caused millions of dollars in lost economic activity."

Interior in its response to the subpoena offered yesterday to allow committee staff to view, but not obtain, copies of two draft executive summaries of the agency's safety report, one of which was included as an attachment to the OIG report. The agency also provided 164 pages of correspondence with peer reviewers and pledged to provide additional documents on the Deepwater Horizon report later this week.

The agency has also briefed the committee on the "chronology and content" of the 13 documents the committee requested.

In a letter to the committee, Christopher Mansour, director of Interior's Office of Congressional and Legislative Affairs, said the committee's requests have been "broad and ill-defined" and that issuing a subpoena was "unnecessary and precipitous."

"We provided a letter to the committee in this same spirit of responsiveness that included additional documents as well as offers of accommodation to meet what continues to be an ever-changing and unsettled set of requests," Interior spokesman Adam Fetcher said yesterday. But the agency continues to have "serious and longstanding institutional concerns" over requests that he warned compromise the administration's ability to freely deliberate pending decisions.

The committee has not released the documents Interior provided, nor has it made available a file Interior handed over last October containing 112 documents and 919 pages of emails between Steve Black, counselor to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar; Neal Kemkar, an agency employee on detail to the Council on Environmental Quality; and the scientists who peer-reviewed the Interior safety report.

Republicans have tried since last April to obtain underlying documents, drafts and communications that would help identify who at the White House or Interior may have reworked the agency's report.