Waxman, Barton press MMS on inspection records

The leaders of a House panel probing the Gulf of Mexico oil spill are putting new pressure on the Interior Department’s Minerals Management Service to produce records related to the Deepwater Horizon rig that exploded in April.

House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas), the panel’s top Republican, sent Interior a letter Friday seeking inspection reports, investigation records and other documents.

The panel is probing the BP drilling project that went catastrophically awry April 20 with the well blowout and rig explosion that killed 11 workers and touched off what has become the largest spill in U.S. history. The request includes documents on tests of the rig’s blowout preventer — which failed to properly deploy — performed by BP or rig-owner Transocean Ltd.