Dear Mr. Secretary:

This letter is a follow up to our January 25, 2012 letter providing the Department of the Interior ("Department") a final opportunity to comply with our April 25, 2011 request for documents about White House edits to the Executive Summary of the final report entitled "Increased Safety Measures for Energy Development on the Outer Continental Shelf" ("ISM Report") and notice of our intent to move to compel production of these documents if the Department does not voluntarily provide them. The edits in question implied that the moratorium had been peer reviewed by technical experts, who had provided input into the report's recommendations when, in fact, they had not reviewed or endorsed the moratorium in the Executive Summary of the final report. A November 8, 2010 report from the Department's Office of inspector General ("OlG") "determined that the White House edit of the original DOI draft Executive Summary led to the implication that the moratorium recommendation had been peer reviewed by the experts." As explained in our January 25 letter, almost 4 months passed before the Department released 15 pages of documents that had not already been provided by the Department's OlG. In a letter dated August 16, 2011, the Department provided copies of 7 almost identical form letters sent by Deputy Secretary David Hayes apologizing to the peer reviewers for falsely conveying their endorsement of the six-month drilling moratorium, totaling 14 pages, along with a copy of the 1-page internal management clearance form for the final report.

Read the entire letter HERE.