the inspector general requires the i.g. to be independent, to cooperate with and provide information to congress, essentially an i.g. is to be an independent watchdog of the executive branch. there are legitimate questions that this independent in this case is being compromised. this includes the refusal of the acting i.g. to subpoena

documents by the committee based on the grounds that the administration may exert executive privilege to withhold these documents. this was done without the acting i.g.'s office ever being informed by the administration of its intentions to assert actual executive privilege, or ever inquiring if the administration had any such intentions. in addition, the document by the committee raised red flags about the i.g.'sises vest into the report, e-mails from the i.g. investigators details how they were not able to obtain all doi document that is may have been relevant to their investigation and they were not allowed to interview sact salazar or white house satisfy involved in editing the report. the quote -- to quote one such e-mail by the investigator, i am quoting now, i am deeply concerned this is yet another example of how a double standard is

being followed in this investigation in granting great deference to the secretary's office that would not be granted to any other department, bureaus, or employees, end quote. another e-mail, the lead investigator wrote, and i, again, directly quote, i truly believe the editing was intentional. let me start over again. i truly believe the editing was intentional by an overzealous staffer at the white house and if asked, i as a case agent would be happy to state that opinion to anyone interested, end quote. the thoroughness of the i.g.'s investigation is very important. the i.g. report is being used by the obama administration as a defense that this matter has been investigated and resolved. in reality the department has never had to disclose key documents or answer questions on why -- how and why this report was edited. finally, it's important to learn more today about the actioning i.g.'s exact role

in a participation in a board and the process that produced the drilling moratorium report. in testimony in this committee in 2010, ms. kendall stated she was not involved in the process of developing this report. however, this statement appears inconsistent with documents showing that she attended meetings with senior department officials developing the report. meeting drafts of the report in advance of its release and accepting an invitation by the department on the safety oversight board. i have to question the ability to be impartial in investigating the matter that one admits to having direct knowledge and involvement with, including direct interaction with the very political appointees on the matter being investigated. this does not strike me as a type of independent role that i.g.s are expected to serve. this raises a bigger question about the role of an acting

i.g. the question is whether an i.g. in an acting capacity can truly be impartial in investigating an administration while openly expressing the desire to be the permanent i.g. and of course that position is nominated by the president. to be clear, these are not questions broadly about the employees and investigators in the i.g.'s office. but rather, about the leadership and administration of the office. the written testimony of the acting i.g. seeks to provide the defense an explanation of certain actions. but in several instances, there are questions raised. it is hoped that direct answers will be forthcoming, though we are prepared to take the necessary steps, including those that extend beyond today's hearing that ensure that we receive all of the facts and with that i recognize the distinguished ranking member. thank you mr. chairman.

>> giving my remarks. >> -- it's bad enough that the republican house has not passed a single piece of legislation to improve the safety of off shore drilling. last week, republicans passed two bills that would put the american people at greater risk of another devastating bill. one bill would force us to

rush new drilling off the beaches of california, maine, new hampshire, massachusetts, rhode island, connecticut, new york, new jersey, maryland, and other states, without any new safety reforms, the freedout would block all manner of health, safety and environmental protections, including new safeguards being developed by the department of interior to improve the safety requirements for off shore blowout preventers, dementing casing and well design. compared to these bills, the investigation we are dealing with today has the advantage of being trivial. but it's no less misguided.

we should be thanking today's witnesses for helping to highlight important safety reforms at the interior department and prevent another catastrophic spill from ever happening again. but the committee republicans aren't interested in looking at reforms so improve the safety of off shore drilling. instead, we are here to investigate the investigation of a two-year-old copy and paste mistake. nearly 30 days after the bp spill with oil still gushing into the gulf, administration officials worked late into the night on a report from the secretary of interior, set to be released the next day, that offered recommendations to the president on how to respond. between the hours of 11:00 p.m. and 3:00 a.m., text was moved around in the executive summary in a way that created

ambiguity about whether the report's external peer reviewers, many of whom consulted for the off shore drilling industry, supported a six month moratorium on drilling in the gulf of mexico. the review was endorsed in undefined, temporary pause in deep water drilling but did not review the recommendation of the six-month moratorium. when some of the external reviewers expressed concerns about the executive summary, secretary salazar immediately sent public policy letters to them, clarifying the recommendation for a 6-more more -- six-month moratorium was his alone. secretary salazar. congressional republicans, including our chairman, then asked the interior department's office of inspector general to investigate whether the edits were intentional and politically motivated.

the o.i.g. reviewed drafts of the report, e-mails exchanged between the department departmef interior and the white house and interviewed peer reviewers, as well as department of interior employees involved in the editing. the conclusion? there was no evidence of wrongdoing. not satisfied with this conclusion, the committee majority has responded by turning its investigation to the acting inspector general, mary kendall. but the majority's problem is not really with ms. kendall and it's not with the white house or the interior department, either. the majority's problem is with the facts. the facts don't show what the majority wants them to show. so now, all that's left is to investigate the investigation i want to close again by

reminding the majority of what was happening at the time. look at the monitors. this is what secretary salazar and the others in the administration were trying to stop. this is what they wanted to prevent from ever happening again. and this is what we in this committee should be working to prevent. this is under the just distinction of this committee, to put the safety measures in place to make sure it does not happen again. and this is what this committee has avoided doing for two years to protect against a repetition. instead, the majority is wasting the committee's time on this trivial and baseless investigation, of an investigation. thank you mr. chairman. >> i thank the gentleman for his statement and i want to welcome the acting inspector general of the u.s. department of interior,

ms. mary kendall, thank you very much for being here. you've been in front of the committee before so you know how the lights work, but let me remind you again. your full statement will appear in your record and we all have your extensive full statement. when the green light comes on, the five minute clock starts, when the yellow light comes on you have 30 seconds and i would ask you to keep your remarks within that time frame if you could. with that, welcome, you with recognized for five month. sue: mr. chairman and members of the committee, good morning and thank you for holding this hearing today. as you know, inspectors general are appointed or designated without regard to political affiliation and solely on the integrity and demonstrated ability in certain fields pursuant to section three of the i.g. act, section two of the act establishes independence and objectivity expectation, although neither appointed or designated acting inspectors general are expected to conduct themselves with

integrity, independence and nonobjectivity in a nonpartisan manner. for the past four-months i have weathered the scrutiny of this committee, which has used a unilateral approach to investigate me by requesting select documents from the office of inspector general, drawing conclusions to those documents without the facts and presenting those conclusions to the public by press releases challenging my integrity, independence and objectivity. therefore, i welcome the opportunity to testify today, respond to questions, and present all the facts as i know them. the letter requesting my attendance at this hearing said i should be prepared to answer questions about my role relative to the six month drilling moratorium in the gulf of mexico, following the deep water horizon disaster. the o.i.g. investigation into perceived misrepresentation that the moratorium decision had been peer reviewed, my response to a subpoena to documents, the independence and ineffectiveness of an act be inspector general and my

previous testimony before the committee. in short i can answer these issues as follows. i stand behind the i.o. -- o.i.g. investigation into the allegation that d.o.i. senior officials in the decision to impose a six month moratorium on deep water drilling misrepresented the moratorium was reviewed and supported by the national academy science and industry experts, this was obtained in the executive summary of a report commonly called the 30 day report, therefore the executive summary was the focus of the o.i.g. investigation. the question of whether there was intentional misrepresentation came down to a review of e-mails exchanged between the doi and white house in the late hours of may 26th and early hours of may 27, 2010, in which the executive summary was being edited. these e-mails revealed no evidence that the executive summary was intentionally edited to lead readers to believe that the moratorium recommendation had been peer

reviewed. this committee has posted on its website a number of e-mails from the case agent who investigated the peer vee -- review issue that suggests he was not allowed to investigate every step he want to take. none of the agents' complaints was made knowing to me during the course of the investigation. had they been brought to my attention i would have addressed them directly with the case agent but in the end based on what the case agent presented to me, i was confident that our investigation was well done, thorough and to the point, which is precisely what i expressed to the case agent directly in e-mails. until this matter, in my 26 years with the federal government, i have never experienced an instance in which executive privilege came into play. we have since learned that the process by which such differences of position between the legislative and executive branches are resolved is both lengthy and complex. i reiterate my position that the dispute between this

committee is between this committee and the department. the documents are not the oigs, neither is the privilege, the oig is to either assert or wave. as acting inspector general i have exercised all the independence and objectivity necessary to meet the o.i.g. mission, i have elected to exercise this independence and objectivity in a way that maintains a healthy tension between the o.i.g. and the department we oversee, i believe, however, that independence and objectivity are not compromised by a rsful relationship with both the department and the congress, the two entities we are charged with keeping fully informed pursuant to the i.g. act. as a result, we have effected a great deal of positive change over the past three years by working with the department in a spirit of respect to achieve such change. although i have testified before this committee numerous times i assume that the questions relate to my testimony on june 17th, 2010,

about which the committee has said it has serious questions. i address those questions in my formal statement today. mr. chairman, i hope we can adjourn today having addressed all the questions the committee may have about me. although the questions you have raised about me reflect on the o.i.g. it has become clear that your questions are really about me. if nothing else, from the title of this hearing today. mr. chairman, i have been an attorney and a member of the bar in good standing, approaching 30 years. i have been a public servant for over 26 years. all but three of those years in the law enforcement arena, without blemish to my record, and i was born and raised in the midwest, where one's honor and word are sacrosanct. the past 17 weeks have been the most painful and difficult of my inter career, not only because of attacks on my personal integrity but

this has eclipsed all the outstanding work that the o.i.g. did and continues to do. this concludes my remarks. i request that my formal statement be entered into the -- into the record and i am prepared to answer the questions the committee may have. >> thank you for your statement and as i mentioned earlier your full statement will appear in the record and i too hope the outcome that you express is an outcome that we can have with the members here. but there are concerns, as i have mentioned. i will recognize myself first for five minutes. you know, ms. kendall, i have significant concerns about how the i.g.'s investigation was handled and about your conflicting participation on the o.c.s., safety oversight board. the i.g. was designed to be an independent watchdog. your involvement in the safety oversight board, a policy body, changes that

role, in my view. in that role, you became an appointed policymaker. in this capacity, you repeatedly interacted with political appointees who wrote the report and the executive summary. you were a first person witness to that process. it's very difficult to understand how you cannot see how the dual roles are in conflict. you are supposed to be the independent and objective investigator. you stated that in your statement. but when you are participating in meetings or conference calls and receiving draft documents on this very same issues that your office may be asked to investigate, and of course, then, did investigate, it's clear your primary function was compromised. that you did not see this participation as an apparent conflict of interest or something that would raise questions about your independence, it's that action or those actions that

trouble me the most. so my questions are why didn't you decline the administration's request to serve on the safety oversight board when it was clear that it would place the integrity and the independence of the i.g.'s office into question i accept this at the outset as a member of the safety oversight board but the department was responding to a crisis. i did not think it plop pratt for me -- appropriate for me to say no, you go ahead and deal with this crisis and i'll just stand by and -- >> no, i have a short time here. by your own admission you were unfamiliar with the details -- and by your own admission, one of the reasons that you wanted to be involved in the whole process was to bring yourself up to

date. is that correct? >> i participated in informational meetings to bring myself up to date. >> up to date on issues you didn't really know anything about. >> i didn't know anything about them. >> you didn't know anything about it, yet you were accepting a policy position within the administration. let me -- >> i did not participate in policy decisions. >> this is a policy board. >> it was not a policy board, sir. it was a board asked to bring safety recommendations. >> right. which is policy. that is policy. >> that is policy. >> can you provide an example of when -- of prior times when i.g.s have participate policy groups like this? >> i do not have an example on the top of my head, but i would like to note that the i.g. became one of the most effective tools the department had because of my participation on this board.

in our evaluation of the outer continental shelf operations which served as the basis of both the o.c.s. board report in september -- that is exactly the point. you are working side by side. and you are -- in other words, you're working on policy. now, since there was a -- some questions raised on the summary, which we asked you to look at, and considering thaw worked alongside the people that are being investigated in -- being investigated, why don't you recuse yourself after we had asked you and knowing that your participation -- or why didn't you recuse yourself from the executive summary and editing and so forth? >> i did not participate in either the 30 day report -- >> i know you didn't, but you -- >> or the summary. >> but there are people that were involved with that. let me ask this question,

then. did the people that were investigating -- your i.g. inspector, did they know you had participated prior to the executive summary and had conversations and documents? did they know that? >> i don't know that. >> well, you are the -- >> well, wait, i do know that, sir. i actually had an e-mail that i received from the case agent who said in your role as a member of the safety oversight board, if there's anything i can do to help i'd like to. >> have you provided that to the committee? >> i would think so. >> but you don't know? >> i don't know. >> my time is running out here. but it appears that there's inherent conflict when the role of the i.g. is expanded to the political policy appointee, which i think that has happened. congress, i believe, demands that the i.g. be an independent watchdog of the administration, that was not the -- that is the intent of the law.

but i think that -- i mean, just clearly, this short give and take we've had to me raises more questions, but my time is clearly expired so i'll recognize the gentleman from massachusetts. >> thank you mr. chairman. ms. kendall, this committee voted yesterday to subpoena five department of interior officials. your office interviewed two of these officials as part of your investigation, steve black and neil kemkar. do you have any evidence that mr. black or mr. kemkar were being untruthful when they told your office that there was no intention to mislead in the editing of the report? >> no, we did not. >> the remaining three individuals, this committee voted to subpoena, mary katharine ishey, walter kookshank and kaylee handy, is there any reason to

believe that any one of these people has important information related to this investigation? >> i have no information to believe that they were involved, in either the 30 day report or executive summary. >> the core function of i.g.s is to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the department programs, and so uncover fraud, waste and buse and many ways, i.g.s look out for the taxpayer, to make sure they get their money t worth from the federal government. how much of your office's time an resources have been consumed, responding to the majority investigation of this one issue. >> i have not calculated that amount but it's been significant. >> have the committees, multiple and extensive, document request taken you and other senior staff away from your core work?

>> i would say yes. >> ms. kendall, your office recently provided the committee a list of many important jobs that are either ongoing or that have been completed over the last 3 1/2 years. you are conducting several ongoing investigations related to the bp spill, including one with the department of justice, and you have already completed five investigations related to the bp spill, including cases laybolt, halliburton and bp scam, testing a blowout preventer and bp safety failures and polices. cancan you tell the committee about your investigations into the deep water horizon spill and what you have found? >> the criminal investigation continues to be ongoing, so i cannot comment on that. we have also -- >> you say criminal? >> criminal. >> criminal.

>> that's the investigation being conducted with the department of justice. we also conducted an investigation with the department of justice on the civil side. the three that you mentioned are not familiar to me. i'm not sure that those are ones that came from our office. but they sound like some that have been conducted by some other agencies. >> could you expand a little bit on what this criminal investigation is looking at? >> i really can't, because it is ongoing. but i'm hopeful that it will come to fruition in the fairly near future. >> you served on the outer continental shelf safety oversight board. can you describe the situation when you joined that board? >> the board was tasked with basically overseeing the investigation into the deep water horizon event. and to provide the secretary with safety recommendations

to improve the outer continental shelf operations and oversight by the department. >> so can you describe your role and the role of the office of inspector general in carrying out the mission of the board? >> i offered and then tasked my entire central region to conduct a comprehensive review of the continental outer shelf operations overseen by the department of interior. some 60 people spent three months, a very, very short time frame, to conduct this comprehensive review, and they provided findings and recommendations as we do as an i.o.g. to the safety -- o.i.g. to the safety oversight board to adopt them for themselves to issue the september report and then the o.i.g. almost issued an exact but a little more detailed report of its own in december 2010. >> thank you. in this role, were you in any

way involved in the drafting or editing of the 30 day report or the executive summary? >> i was not. >> do you think your independence was in any way compromised with respect to your subsequent work, looking into the editing of the executive summary? >> i do not. >> we thank you. we thank you for your work, your comments about the ongoing criminal investigation, all those companies, and we saw the pictures of what they did in this crime against the environment, the greatest in the history of our country. that's where the work should be of this committee. we should find out who did it, we should have them sitting under oath, the ceos of each of these companies. that is not happened in a year and a half, we're waiting for that and the american people are waiting for this committee to do their job. >> the time of the gentleman has expired, we recognize the gentleman from colorado, mr. mr. lamborn. >> thank you mr. chairman.

ms. kendall, i want to take us to a june 10, 2010 subcommittee hearing in this room, i asked him if the office of the inspector general was investigating the circumstances surrounding the editing of the drilling moratorium report, you said no and went on to add that you were not involved in developing the report. i'd like to show a video clip. could you please show exhibit six? >> number six. >> i was not involved in the process of developing that report, and i think it would be inappropriate for me to comment on it. >> by the way, it's clear that you're not so you can be an objective observer because there needs to be an investigation. >> so i think you'd agree, an inspector general needs to avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest.

since that hearing there have been significant questions about whether you crossed that line and in turn whether your june 2010 statement might have be misleading, a number of e-mails and calendar entries have come to light showing you had access to drafts of the moratorium report in the days before it was finalized, you also attended meetings with both the peer review -- reviewers and same officials who were the subject of the i.g. investigation, but only three weeks after the report was issued, you sat here, said in that clip we saw that you were not in the process of developing the report. after these questions were first raised in may of this year, you wrote to the committee to say you did attend a number of these meetings in order to learn about off shore drilling in your role as a member of the o.c.s. safety oversight board and, quote, in one of the meetings that i attended was the subject of the 30-day report discussed, end quote. i'm curious what happened in

these meetings. for example, there was a meeting on may 17th of that year that you were invited to with steve black, counselor to the secretary and lead author of the report. one of the people who's part of this investigation. could you show exhibit seven, please. so on the agenda, you'll see walk through document to be reviewed, and also, discussion on document. and then there's a follow-up e-mail from mr. black to you and others sending a draft of the report's recommendations and asking for comments and suggested changes, quote, based on your own work to date and today's conversation exhibit eight, please. and then thank you for participating on the call today with the n., a e. identified experts, i'd be

grateful for your comments and any suggested changes by close of business tomorrow based on your own work tomorrow and today's conversations. then lastly, there's another e-mail from mr. black to you where he thanks you for your participation, exhibit nine, please. and thank you for your kind worksdz mary, and for your participation in so many of the meetings and interviews leading up to this report. your effort has been enormous -- enormously impressive, by the way. okay, my questions. do you still stand by your june 2010 testimony that you were not involved in the process of developing the drilling moratorium report? >> i do. >> and would you agree that an inspector general needs to avoid any -- this is just a rhetorical question -- any appearance or actual conflict of interest and lack of independence? >> i do. >> okay.

considering your significant role in working closely with members of the safety oversight board, do you think you should are recused yourself from investigating the moratorium and the editing of the report to avoid any suggestion that the investigation was compromised? >> to this day, i do not. >> when you testified before the committee that you were not involved in the, and i quote, process of developing the report, unquote, do you believe that the process of developing that report includes meeting with the peer reviewers? which you had done before your testimony. i attended that meeting for informational purposes as i did with very many others, where i learned about deep water drillings -- drilling, blowout preventers, pressure testing, negative pressure testing, complexities, orchestrating wells world wide. these are what i was attending the meetings for. i did not participate in

developing the 30 day report or the executive summary. >> well, i would have done it differently. i would have met with experts who were not subject to the investigation and gotten briefed by them on the technical issues. do you see finally -- do you see how people can raise questions that you have been too close to the department to be objective? and that you were actually able to aggressively investigate the moratorium decision and editing? >> in the context of the crisis in which the department was responding at the time, i did not. time has expired. >> thank you. evidently the majority here does not, did not, like the conclusions of the report. and so they turned this into an investigation with a number of subpoenas and now

the testimony of the acting inspector general. as i said yesterday, it is ludicrous, it must look really silly to people outside looking at this. so here we're spending committee time, subpoenaing people, calling them in because in the preliminary edition of the report, the word pause was used and in the final report a more official sounding word, moratorium, was used. you know, yesterday, i went through at great length various synonyms for moratorium, which would include pause. i don't see anything nefarious here. it's simply that the majority

did not like the conclusion and they want to discredit the report. and unfortunately, try to discredit some hard working con seenshus -- conscientious altruistic public servants, and i thank you for coming, ms. kendall, i'm sorry that you have to go through this. let me run through a few questions. when the case agent finished a draft of the report, you reviewed that and with an eye toward editing it, is that correct? >> i edit almost every report that leaves our office. >> and so this was standard, as you always do. >> absolutely. >> and after you finished editing, you sent your revisions back to the case agent and asked him if he had any issues with your changes, he responded, quote, your e-mail language about the exchange between the

department of interior and the white house was far simpler than my own, and i believe it clearly captured our findings, is that correct? >> that is correct. >> and if the case agent had concerns, he didn't communicate them to you at that time, which was the obvious opportunity for him to do that. >> the case agent never communicated any concerns during the course of the investigation. and i met with him at the very end to talk about his findings. he did not express any concerns at that time. >> okay. do you thinkieo and so there's now a discussion by my colleagues and others about whether the editing was intentional by an overzealous white house staffer. do you think that there is evidence to be gained if we conduct a more thorough investigation?

is there more to be brought to light, or do you think that all the facts that are out there have been considered? your investigation? >> we got and reviewed the e-mail exchange in which the editing was done, where a moratorium appeared to have been peer reviewed. we reviewed those, they did not indicate anything that it was intentional. the case agent has an opinion, apparently now, that it was the -- that it was. the evidence did not show that. >> and the case agent has actually stated that he has an opinion. >> he has stated his opinion. >> yes. and that he calls his position an opinion. >> i don't know that he calls it an opinion. he states it. it is an opinion, however. >> again, a few more questions. about you inter -- did you interfere with the work of the case agent? >> i did not.

>> was the investigation in your opinion thorough? >> it was. >> did you find any evidence of wrongdoing? >> we found no evidence that the changes to the executive summary to make it look like it was peer reviewed, that the moratorium was peer reviewed, was intentional. >> and in the preparation of your report, were you pressured, asked, directed, in any way influenced, to go easy on the administration? >> i had no conversations with the department about the report until it was issued. i mean, i let them know that we were doing it, but i did not talk to the department about the report itself until it was issued. >> in your 26 years as a public servant, is this the first time anyone has questioned your impartiality or professionalism or completeness? >> yes. >> well, i wish i had a little more time now to let you say what i think you're entitled to say about these allegations, that your work is not reliable or without

integrity. i hope this committee will give you a full opportunity to address these allegations. and i thank you for your work >> the gentleman's time has expired. we recognize the gentleman from texas, mr. goamer. >> thank you mr. chairman. we've had the question asked a couple of times, why are we here, and so they understand from somebody that went down all around the coast area, after this disaster the biggest disaster to the coastal area came not from the oil that was escaping. it came from the order of this president to have a moratorium on shallow water drilling that put thousands and thousands of people out of work, put thousands and thousands of people into

poverty, put thousands and thousands of people into needy situations because this president acted on the recommendations of experts who did not make those recommendations. so i think it is critically important that we find out more about the process. and i appreciate the inspector general's position, that it is sufficient to ask individuals if they were involved or if there was a problem, and i think it would come as great news and comfort to investigators all over the country, including the criminal investigators that we've been told are moving forward, if they knew that all they had to do is not gather evidence, not look at hard drives, as people were directed not to do in this case, as we see from the e-mails, and as they were

directed not to review e-mails of people who were involved, and as we see from the e-mail by richard larabie, where he says -- in a letter, actually -- as you know, i was directed to not ask for secretary counselor steve black's e-mails that contained the actual draft sent to and returned by the white house, even though he told us he had them if we wanted them. so let me ask you, who directed richard larabie not to request those e-mails and not to review hard drives? >> i don't know. >> did you investigate who might have directed him not to acquire those e-mails? wouldn't that have been important from an inspector general standpoint? >> he did receive the e-mails. these are the e-mails we are talking about. >> the question is who

directed him not to. >> sir, i don't know that. >> so would it be important to know why richard larabie was lying if he received e-mails and he said he was not, would that cause you concerns with his inconsistency? >> if i may, at steve black's first interview with the case agent, he offered the e-mails to the case agent. >> he points that out now. ma'am, i've covered that. i'm asking you who directed him. he points out that he was told by black that he could have them and then he was directed by somebody not to get the e-mails. who directed that? >> he chose not to accept them at the time. >> so he lied when he said he was directed not to ask for them. wouldn't that be worth investigating, why you're saying richard larabie, right in this letter that he wrote, and where he said i did not -- i was directed not to ask them -- >> i would be interested in knowing who he said would -- >> well, don't you have the

authority to ask that question? >> sir, i have not done anything to put this case agent in jeopardy, because he is as the -- >> ma'am, i would submit to you that you have done nothing to put anybody in jeopardy, and your job is to investigate the facts, and if somebody is worthy of being put in jeopardy, you do so. ma'am, i heard you say that you could not -- in fact, you said gee, i recognize my potential for a conflict of interest, but we were in a crisis, and i could not sit by and do nothing, so that tells us you did participate. you couldn't sit by and do nothing, whereas ma'am, i would tell you that as a judge and chief justice, there were times i saw lawyers not doing an effective job, an investigator not doing what he should have but i knew i could not compromise my position because it was too important, so i didn't jump in and do those jobs.

that is what an inspector general is supposed to do, make sure, as you said -- i recognize my potential for conflict of interest and you should have protected that. and so as a result, we have a report that costs thousands and thousands of people more misery than the oil that was coming out of the floor did. we can't even find most of that now. and i would submit to you that you should first do no harm, and you could have avoided the harm, if you had helped us get to the truth. you complained about how long this had gone on. i would submit to you, if you're consistent, it doesn't go on long at all. i yield back. >> the time of the gentleman has expired, chair recognizes the gentleman from georgia, mr. brown. >> thank you mr. chairman. in march 2009, president obama issued a memorandum expressing how important it was for the public to be able to trust science upon which policy decisions were being

made, and political appointees should not suppress or altar scientific and technological findings or conclusions. i'm very troubled that the moratorium decision was imposed without any scientific support and that political officials at the department or the white house altered the 30-day report to incorrectly suggest that peer reviewers had endorsed the moratorium when they scientifically did not, all to the contrary of the obama administration's own scientific integrity polices. the i.g. office aggressively investigated scientific integrity violations of the past administration, but seems to have less aggressive in pursuing this investigation. so do you agree that it is inappropriate for political appointees to altar or -- to alter or suppress scientific

findings or conclusion? >> i do. >> are there ever any situations where it would be appropriate for a political appointee to alter technical or scientific information. >> i can't think of any. >> ms. kendall, it has happened. this administration's transparency seems to be another word for their transparency is opaque. ms. kendall, part of the focus of this hearing is to get a better understanding of how the office of the inspector general has operated in the last 3 1/2 years, with an act be inspector general. -- about an acting inspector general. one thing i'd like to discuss is ethics and complaints. the i.g. has conducted a number of ethics investigations of officials in the previous administration, including a former secretary and deputy

secretary and i would hope your office is pursuing complaints against officials in the current administration just as aggressively, as i understand it, the department's ethics program provides ethics advice and tracks conflicts of interest in financial discloses for department officials, but your office is the one that handles investigations into whether department officials have violated the ethics laws. this is one area where i could see the importance of a strong working relationship between the department and the i.g. does your office get referrals from the department's office of ethics programs for further investigations? >> we do. >> when a complaint is received, what is the process of investigating an ethics complaint? is it the same for other criminal, or program investigations, in other

words, reviewing whether an investigation should be opened? >> yes. >> what is the process? >> the process differs almost every case, but we will review the allegations and determine whether or not it's something that falls within the scope of what we have defined as the high impact, high risk cases, and if it does, we will accept it for investigation. most ethics cases do fall within that. >> let me know how you make those decisions about which do and do not. how many ethics complaints does the i.g. receive in a begin year for investigation? and how many of these comments or referrals from the ethics programs compared to hotline whistleblower complaints or directly to the i.g.? >> i don't have that answer. i can get it to you. >> i'd appreciate that. >> how often are these cases referred to the department of justice for criminal prosecution, and have you made any referrals at all within the past 3 1/2 years? >> to the department of justice for prosecution? >> correct. >> not that i'm aware of, no.

>> how often are these cases referred? >> quite rarely, and they're very even more rarely prosecuted. >> how about in the previous administration, how many were referred to the department of justice? >> i'd have to get back to you on that. >> i'd appreciate that. but you've made absolutely zero referrals in the last three years. is that correct? >> i think that is correct. but i would like to be able to correct that. >> -- confirm that. >> how come you haven't referred any, there are no ethics violations in this administration at all? >> we have had several ethics cases that we've investigated and actually as i'm thinking about it, most of the time, we will refer them, usually expecting declination, so we may have referred some of those. i'd have to get back to you. >> please do. my time is running out. if you can follow you and provide this committee with a list of complaints of the ethics violations that have

been -- well, you haven't referred any, but have been referred to you, or otherwise been received by your office in the past three years, as well as the status of any investigation of any complaint or referral, and if you -- would you do that for us? >> we can do that. >> can you do that within the next two weeks' period of time? >> next two weeks, i think we can. >> thank you. >> the time of the gentleman has expired, the chair recognizes the gentleman from louisiana, dr. fleming. >> thank you mr. chairman. ms. kendall, the underflying question here is this 30-day report, and whether or not the text was map ip lated to show something that really didn't exist, which is that this blue ribbon panel peer revieweas though to make it appear as though they agree there should be a moratorium. now, it lacks credibility, right on the face of it, to believe that wasn't deliberately done, and the

reason why is because after this came out, the president still went on and issued a moratorium and beyond that, it got into court, the president failed in court, and then once the moratorium ended, the moratorium period ended, then we had a period of what we call permatorium, foot drag, and even today, we've seen tens of thousands of jobs lost, rigs that have gone elsewhere, and i would argue, have been add more risk environmentally because they're going to countries that don't have the level of regslation -- regulations and oversight that we do. but i agree with mr. gohmert, the real damage has been done by the administration itself to prevent people from maintaining, keeping and acquiring good jobs and we've

lost that in many cases forever. my question for you is you are acting inspector general, as i understand it. is that correct? >> that is correct. >> do you wish to be appointed to be the -- to actually be an appointee of the administration in this position? >> i have expressed an interest, yes. >> so in effect, you have the role of investigating potentially the same administration that would be potentially selecting you for the job, is that correct? >> essentially, yes. >> okay. then have you not been really in an auditioning kind of position, to audition for the administration, and would that not be a conflict of interest? >> i have an interest in being nominated and confirmed but i want to do this for the o.i.g. as an organization, certainly not because i'm having a really -- >> but it wouldn't make sense

to make the president mad at you. is that correct? >> you know, there's the potential for conflict of interest, perhaps, here, but i've seen many of my colleagues rise from the deputy i.g. to the position of i.g. without conflict, and in fact -- >> but not under this president. >> under this president, this -- >> can you give me an example? >> i would state the department of -- well, he went to a different agency, but department of justice deputy i.g. >> and did they come out -- this person, before being promoted or transferred -- therefore dollars, did this person come out with a -- transferred, did this person come out with an adverse find something. >> i'm guessing, yes. >> you're guessing. it sounds like pure speculation, so i'll accept that no, we don't have a good example of that occurring at all. also, wouldn't it make sense that since you were co-opted to be in the policy arm of this and really disengaged from the investigation, that

really, you were part of the policy -- from the get go, what we've learned, in fact, a lot of the facts that we've come out with now shows that the lead investigator was the one who had the concern, although we didn't know about this until we uncovered e-mails. >> and neither did i. >> okay. so it -- it really appears in your testimony and the documentation that we have is that while you engaged in the policy side of things, that the lead investigator below you was not in good communication with you, and certainly not plugged in. you even admit that you didn't know about that. and so, it again leads to the question how in the world you can claim to be disinterested and objective and potentially one who could bring out the negative activities, the improper activities, of the administration, which i think is clear here with this 30-day report, how can you claim to be objective when at

the very least, you were part of the policy process? >> i was not part of the policy process. i was part of the process of reviewing outer continental shelf operations for safety and operational improvement. >> but is that really your job? your job is to investigate wrongdoing from the department of interior, is it not? >> my job is also in part to improve the -- >> but primarily your job is to investigate anything, fraud, waste, abuse, any kind of legal problems that may be going on, and you've got investigators that are really not in good communication with you on that. >> and to improve the operations of the department of interior. >> yeah, i would say that answer is unsatisfactory. thank you mr. chairman. >> time of the gentleman has expired, recognize the gentleman from california, when perform quintock. >> i'd like to focus on the basin studies, state, quote, given the comprehensiveness of the government agreements

to transparency given to the process and complete absence to date of any complaints about the manner in which this effort is proceeding, the o.i.g. does not have any plans to conduct any additional reviews at this time. is that correct? >> that is correct. >> that there's an complete absence to date of any complaints about the manner in which the basin studies are proceeding? >> we have not received any. >> on february 24th, an 11 page complaint was filed with the office of the executive secretary of the regulatory affairs of the department of interior's, it documented allegations of systematic, scientific and scholarly misconduct relating to the kalamuth river dam removal determination process and it wasn't filed by a gladfly, it was filed by dr. paul hauser of george mason university who was at the time the bureau of reclamations science adviser and science integrity officer, specifically he documented the intentional falsification