Democrats put Ken Salazar under informal witness protection

Word came down Thursday evening from the House Energy and Commerce Committee Democrats:

“The joint hearing of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations and the Subcommittee on Energy and the Environment entitled 'The Role of the Interior Department in the Deepwater Horizon Disaster,' scheduled for Tuesday, June 29, 2010 has been postponed. A new date and time for the hearing is to be determined.”

The star witness of the scheduled hearing? Interior Secretary Ken Salazar.

Rep. Michael Burgess (R-Texas), top Republican on the subcommittee has repeatedly requested oversight testimony from the Obama administration on their actions in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon rig explosion.

The Majority has set up the greatest Witness Protection program this Congress has seen,” Burgess said. “Secretary Salazar had already agreed to be present for next Tuesday’s hearing, so it appears that the Democrats are delaying this hearing for purely political reasons.”

Big problems arose from Salazar’s appearance before a Senate interior appropriations subcommittee when he testified of his intent to reinstate the offshore drilling ban.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs in Hornbeck v. Salazar -- the case responsible for the injunction against the drilling ban -- notified the judge of Salazar’s intent to defy his preliminary injunction after the Salazar testimony.

Big Oil and Big Government are partners in pursuit of new oil; that's the problem

It took the Deepwater Horizon tragedy to bring out the fact that a single federal agency, the Minerals Management Service, is “responsible for both policing the oil industry and acting as its partner in drilling activities,” writes the New York Times. “Decades of law and custom have joined government and the oil industry in the pursuit of petroleum and profit. The Minerals Management Service brings in an average of $13 billion a year. Under federal law, even in the case of a major accident, the company responsible for the oil well acts in concert with government in cleanup activities.”

The coziness between government and the oil industry is also apparent in the cap on liability for damages – a paltry $75 million — from offshore oil spills (not including cleanup costs). The interesting question is whether BP’s dubious conduct would have been different without the cap. Hayward, the Wall Street Journal reports, “admitted the U.K.-based oil giant had not had the technology available to stop the leak, and said in hindsight it was ‘probably true’ that BP should have done more to prepare for an emergency of this kind.” Transocean, owner and operator of the rig, is petitioning to limit its own liability to $26.7 million....

The free market will undoubtedly take the rap — but it’s an unjust rap. According to Reuters, “Like BP, both Transocean … and Halliburton, a contractor, also pumped money into the campaign war chests of senators who sit on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee and the Environment and Public Works Committee.”