House panel, Interior IG square off over oil drilling report

WASHINGTON -- An Interior Department watchdog clashed repeatedly Thursday with congressional Republicans investigating her role in investigating the Obama administration's handling of a May 2010 report on a moratorium on deep-water drilling following the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

"When you are participating in meetings and conference calls and receiving draft documents on the very same issues your office is asked to investigate, and then did investigate, it is clear that your office has been compromised," said House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Doc Hastings, R-Wash., whose panel has been investigating Mary Kendall, acting inspector general for the Interior Department, at a hearing.

Specifically, the panel is examining whether Kendall's attendance at meetings at which department officials reviewed drafts of a report on the drilling moratorium — a report that she later investigated — undermined the independent role of the inspector general and her ability to fill the office.

Kendall's report only found that the report "could have been more clearly worded." Republicans believe Obama administration officials may have edited the report for political purposes because it appeared that engineering experts supported the moratorium when they did not.

Offshore domestic drilling has long been a divisive political issue, more acutely in the wake of the April 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf. Republicans historically have supported increased domestic drilling, while Democrats broadly oppose it for environmental concerns. The Natural Resources committee was divided on partisan lines in its questioning of Kendall.

"I don't see anything nefarious here. It's simply that the majority did not like the conclusion and they want to discredit the report," said Rep. Rush Holt, D-N.J.

The panel's ranking Democrat, Rep. Edward Markey of Massachusetts, accused Republicans of wasting committee time on a "trivial and baseless" investigation that he said was driven by the GOP's own partisan motives. "Instead we are here to investigate the investigation of a two-year-old copy-and-paste mistake," he said.

Kendall has repeatedly denied any political influences and defended her integrity before the committee Thursday. "I have been a public servant for over 26 years, all but three of those years in the law enforcement arena, without blemish on my record," she said. "I was born and raised in the Midwest, where one's honor and word are sacrosanct."

She said the past 17 weeks examining her investigation "have been the most painful and difficult of my entire career."

Kendall is the acting watchdog for the department and acknowledged Thursday that she would like to be appointed by President Obama to be the inspector general. If she were nominated she would require Senate approval. Three GOP Gulf State senators last month asked the Integrity Committee of the Council of Inspectors General for Integrity and Efficiency, a federal panel that investigates allegations against inspectors general, to review the matter. They agreed, and it is currently under review.