If Congress grants request in lame-duck, the commission would give its counsel “whatever time he requires” to finish investigation.

A senior Democrat is pushing back against the presidential panel investigating the BP oil spill over its initial finding that BP and other companies involved in the disaster did not make decisions that sacrificed safety to trim costs.

“What is fully evident, from BP's pipeline spill in Alaska and the Texas City refinery disaster, to the Deepwater Horizon well failure, is that BP has a long and sordid history of cutting costs and pushing the limits in search of higher profits,” said Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), a senior member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, in a statement Monday.

Markey’s statement came hours after the chief investigator of the bipartisan National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling said there is no evidence to suggest that BP, Transocean or Halliburton cut corners on safety to save money.

The top Republican on the House climate change panel that Democrats created in 2007 is urging GOP leaders not to kill the committee when they take control next year.

Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) says Republican leaders should recast the Select Committee for Energy Independence and Global Warming as a check against Environmental Protection Agency rules he calls economically harmful.

Sensenbrenner, in a Roll Call op-ed Monday, takes aim at EPA climate change rules, as well as proposals to toughen regulation of industrial boilers and coal wastes, among other policies.

The lead investigator probing this summer’s Gulf of Mexico oil spill bemoaned the fact that Congress has not given him subpoena power to put industry officials under oath.

Fred Bartlit, chief counsel of the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling, said several times at a public meeting of the commission Monday he should have subpoena power to adequately probe the matter.

“I wish I could” have that power, Bartlit said. “Because I think it’s damned important — but that’s the way it goes.”

While the House has granted that subpoena power, the Senate has not.

Bartlit and his deputy investigators outlined 13 preliminary findings publicly for the first time at Monday’s meeting. Bartlit is grilling officials from the three companies involved in the oil spill — BP, Transocean and Halliburton — about whether they agree with those findings. But the officials are not testifying under oath.

Two environmental groups are trying to ratchet up pressure on G-20 nations meeting in South Korea this month to make good on pledges to slash fossil fuel subsidies.

White House officials say they’re looking to the Nov. 11-12 Group of 20 summit in Seoul to make progress on eliminating subsidies as a way to slow greenhouse gas emissions.

But a report Monday from Oil Change International and Earth Track claims the G-20 efforts — announced at a Pittsburgh summit last year — haven’t gotten off the ground and lack transparency.

Key investigators looking into the deadly explosion of the BP oil well said Monday they are baffled as to why experienced rig workers determined — incorrectly — that a pressure testing on the eve of the accident showed nothing wrong.

“Nobody thought they were taking a chance,” Fred Bartlit, chief counsel of the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling, told commission members. “Nobody thought the negative test has been screwed up.”

The consensus now is that the pressure testing clearly showed that cementing work done by Halliburton intended to seal the well was inadequate and that there was too much pressure building inside the well. The pressure caused the April 20 explosion, which killed 11 rig workers and sparked the largest oil spill in U.S. history.

Rep. Jerry Costello (D) will not seek the top Democratic spot on the House Science and Technology Committee, the Illinois lawmaker announced Monday.

Costello, a 24-year House veteran, said he wants to invest his energies instead on issues swirling around the Transportation and Infrastructure panel, where he would rank at least third among Democrats next year after Tuesday's shocking defeat of Chairman James Oberstar (D-Minn.).

"I am deeply committed to my work on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, and there is a great deal of important legislation to address next year, including possibly the FAA Reauthorization bill, a new highway bill, and the Water Resources Development Act," Costello said in a statement.

"I want to maintain my focus on these issues in which I have invested so much time and attention, and which should be a major part of our continued efforts to improve the economy.”

Next in line for ranking member of the Science and Technology Committee is Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, a Texas Democrat about to enter her 10th term.

Johnson's office did not immediately have a comment about Costello's announcement Monday. 

From the fascinating-if-true department: Fox News reports that Republicans are urging Sen.-elect Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) to switch parties, and dangling his pick of committee spots and funding for coal-based fuels projects in return.

From their piece Monday:

“Republicans are making some big promises to try to lure West Virginia Senator-elect Joe Manchin to cross the aisle.”

Chief investigator Fred Bartlit said the spill commission had not seen a case where companies favored "dollars over safety."