COMMITTEE ON NATURAL RESOURCES
1324 Longworth House Office Building
Thursday, September 13, 2012
10:00 a.m.

• Official Hearing Transcript
• Committee Investigation - The Obama Administration's Decision to Include Gulf Drilling Moratorium in Interior Report

OVERSIGHT HEARING ON:

• "Committee Oversight of Department of the Interior: Questioning of Key Department of the Interior Officials"

OPENING STATEMENT:

The Honorable Doc Hastings
Chairman

WITNESSES AND TESTIMONY:

Panel I

Mary Katherine Ishee
Deputy Chief of Staff and Senior Advisor to the
Assistant Secretary for Land and Minerals Management
U.S. Department of the Interior

BACKGROUND:

The hearing is part of the Committee’s more than year-long investigation into the Obama Administration’s decision to impose a drilling moratorium in the Gulf of Mexico without any scientific analysis that put thousands of people out of work and caused widespread economic harm and decreased American energy production and whether the Obama Administration intentionally misrepresented the views of engineering experts in a Departmental report in order to justify the unilateral moratorium decision. The witnesses have been requested to testify and answer questions about (1) their roles in assisting with developing, reviewing, and editing the Departmental report, (2) how the moratorium decision was made without any technical or scientific analysis, (3) whether the peer review language in the Departmental report was intentionally misrepresented to justify the economically devastating moratorium decision, and (4) the activities of the Office of Inspector General, and other Departmental matters of which you may have personal knowledge.