CEOs of Gulf oil spill companies decline to testify before House committee

Top executives at BP and several contractors blamed in a recent federal report for last year’s massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill have declined invitations to testify before the House Natural Resources Committee Wednesday.

Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.), the top Democrat on the committee, blasted the executives for declining to testify at the hearing on the joint Interior Department-U.S. Coast Guard report.

{mosads}“It is unacceptable for the heads of these companies to evade testifying before Congress in order to avoid answering questions about the U.S. government’s major report on the oil spill for which their companies share responsibility,” Markey said in a statement Tuesday.

“Democrats on the Natural Resources Committee intend to hold these companies accountable, and plan to take action to compel these witnesses to appear before the committee,” he said.

A Markey spokesman declined to expand on what Democrats plan to do to compel the executives to testify.

Wednesday’s hearing is the second on the federal report, which faults BP, Deepwater Horizon rig owner Transocean Ltd. and Halliburton, which performed the concrete job on the well.

BP America Vice President Ray Dempsey; James Bement, vice president of Sperry Drilling, a division of Halliburton; and Transocean Managing Director for the North American Division Bill Ambrose testified at the Oct. 13 hearing.

Markey has been pressing committee Chairman Doc Hastings (R-Wash.) for weeks to invite the top executives at the companies. The committee invited BP CEO Robert Dudley, Transocean CEO Steven Newman, Halliburton CEO David Lesar and Cameron CEO Jack Moore.

In a letter to the committee Monday, BP America Executive Director David Nagel declined the invitation for Dudley to testify.

“BP remains committed to continue to cooperate with the committee, but, given that BP already has provided a witness who testified before the committee on Oct. 13, and in light of the constraints imposed by numerous pending legal proceedings, BP respectfully must decline the invitation to have Mr. Dudley testify on Nov. 2,” he letter says.

The other executives also declined the invitation in separate letters.