BP spill hearing delayed, GOP claims administration withheld witnesses

A House committee is postponing a hearing about the recently completed federal investigation of the 2010 BP oil spill amid allegations by a senior Republican that the Obama administration abruptly pulled its witnesses.

House Natural Resources Committee Republicans said they’re delaying Friday’s planned hearing about the joint Interior Department-U.S. Coast Guard report until Oct. 6.

Committee Chairman Doc Hastings (R-Wash.), in a statement, accused the Obama administration of “delaying proper oversight by suddenly refusing to allow members of the investigation team to testify.”

He said the administration had earlier confirmed that investigators from Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, and the Coast Guard, would appear.

“We were informed today, one day prior to the hearing, that this had changed. It’s unacceptable for the Committee not to be able to hear from the actual investigators who conducted the investigation and wrote the report,” he said.

The Interior Department’s offshore drilling branch had no immediate comment on Hastings’ allegations Friday evening.

Hastings said he expects the chairmen of the joint investigative team to appear Oct. 6 before the panel.

The agencies issued a joint report last week that pointed to a series of errors by BP ahead of the April 2010 blowout of its Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico that claimed 11 lives and led to the months-long spill of several million barrels.

For instance, it notes BP made “cost or time saving decisions without considering contingencies and mitigation were contributing causes of the Macondo blowout.”

The report also finds fault with Transocean Ltd., which owned the Deepwater Horizon rig that was drilling BP’s well, and Halliburton, which performed the failed cement job on the well.

Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), the top Democrat on the Natural Resources Committee, has called on Hastings to bring officials with the companies before the panel as well. Hastings said he plans to have company officials appear in a subsequent hearing, and suggested the Obama administration is complicating that effort.

“It’s always been my intention to first hear from the investigators about their findings,  in order to get all the facts, and then hear from the specific companies that are cited in the report. The companies have been notified of this fact. The Administration’s actions are complicating and compromising the Committee’s ability to move forward on this matter,” Hastings said in a statement.