Chairman to Salazar: Here’s Deadline to Produce Witnesses in Drilling Moratorium Investigation

[Draggingtree]

PJ Media:

 

 

 

Chairman to Salazar: Here’s Deadline to Produce Witnesses in Drilling Moratorium Investigation

 

The chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee today set a deadline by which he wants to be able to Interior Department officials involved in the edited report that led to the Obama administration’s drilling moratorium in the Gulf of Mexico.

Rep. Doc Hastings’ (R-Wash.) request comes the same day that the Integrity Committee of the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency set a hearing date next week to investigate the Interior Department’s Acting Inspector General Mary Kendall. Sens. David Vitter (R-La.), Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) and John Cornyn (R-Texas) said in their May investigation request that Kendall “failed to ensure an independent, impartial and complete investigation into the Administration’s offshore drilling moratorium and related activities” and may have impeded the probe into allegations that the White House twisted scientific reports to support the drilling freeze in the wake of the BP spill.

“Absent a valid assertion of a Constitutionally based privilege, the Department’s continuing refusal to provide certain requested documents violates the subpoena and frustrates Congress’ ability to fulfill its Constitutional oversight responsibilities,” Hastins wrote to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. “As such, the Committee is left with no choice other than to continue to pursue compliance with the subpoena, as well as seek necessary information directly from the officials who were most involved in interacting with the peer reviewers and drafting and editing the Drilling Moratorium Report.”

The letter sets a July 12 scheduling deadline for interviews the week of July 16.

Hastings notes that Read More

http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2012/07/06/chairman-to-salazar-heres-deadline-to-produce-witnesses-in-drilling-moratorium-investigation/