A top House Republican has called on Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to provide information on a two-year-old departmental internal investigations unit that was set up to look into wrongdoing by the offshore oil and gas industry and government officials who regulate their activities.

In a letter to Salazar, Rep. Doc Hastings (R-WA), chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, said that “more than two years after its creation, little is known about the IRU’s [Investigations and Review Unit] personnel, organization and activities.” The IRU was formed following the blowout of BP plc’s Macondo well and the sinking of the Deepwater Horizon rig in April 2010 (see Daily GPI, April 22, 2010).

It is “unclear whether the IRU has been serving as a law enforcement organization within the department and how its activities fit within the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement’s (BSEE) traditional role of regulating the offshore oil and gas industry, investigating accidents and working to improve the safety of offshore operations or within the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), which manages the exploration and development of offshore resources,” wrote Hastings, a longtime critic of Interior policies.

“It is also unclear how many people actually work in the IRU, what their backgrounds and expertise are, whether they serve as designated law enforcement officers, and whether their positions are necessary or are duplicative of other investigative and compliance functions within the department, including the Office of Inspector General and other BSEE components,” he said.

“Questions remain about whether the IRU has been allowed to operate as a law enforcement program, reporting only to the BSEE director and without sufficient public scrutiny and oversight from the department and the Congress. None of the internal department policies and orders related to the establishment of the IRU shed light on whether these employees are serving in a law enforcement capacity, how they are to interact with witnesses or collect evidence, and what technical expertise they possess.”

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