Senate Republicans seek hearing on White House changes to drilling report

Several GOP members of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee are calling for a hearing on the Interior Department inspector general’s findings about White House edits of a controversial report on offshore drilling safety.



The Interior Department’s acting inspector general this week said changes by energy czar Carol Browner’s staff to Interior’s late May report left the impression that outside experts who reviewed the study had endorsed a six-month ban on deepwater drilling. They hadn’t.



Ranking member James Inhofe (R-Okla.), and Sens. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) and David Vitter (R-La.) called on Committee Chairwoman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) to conduct a hearing on the matter.

“Under Carol Browner's watch, politics is trumping science. Congress must investigate the editing of scientific reports and secret meetings where nothing was put into writing.  As the Ranking Member on the Subcommittee on Oversight, I will demand that hearings be held immediately. This ‘Czar' should be accountable to the people, not the other way around,” Barrasso said in a prepared statement Friday.



The senators are among GOP lawmakers on both sides of the Capitol who are using the report as political ammunition against the White House.