Agency chiefs, House GOP spar over subpoena requests

E&E News
By Emily Yehle
September 11, 2014

Fish and Wildlife Service Director Dan Ashe butted heads with House Republicans today over how his agency has responded to dozens of document requests from the Natural Resources Committee.

Natural Resources Chairman Doc Hastings (R-Wash.) has launched several investigations into FWS and its parent Interior Department, issuing subpoenas that have required the agency to collect and release tens of thousands of documents. The effort has produced friction between Interior and the panel, with Interior Secretary Sally Jewell asserting that her department has spent at least $2 million on the panel's requests.

At today's hearing, Republicans peppered Ashe with questions over how specific documents were redacted -- and accused FWS of giving more information to reporters than to the panel.

"It's unacceptable that you're giving the press ... more than you're giving us," said Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.), pointing to a document that was redacted differently under the Freedom of Information Act than under the panel's subpoena. "And at a minimum, I think someone should be fired over this."

But Ashe stood his ground, calmly defending his agency's transparency even when several lawmakers talked over him.

"I believe I have done and can do and will do what is reasonable to accommodate the committee, but I cannot do that if it's going to require me to sacrifice our critical mission function in the process," Ashe said.

He suggested that the panel work with FWS to narrow its requests, rather than issue subpoenas and letters asking for a broad swath of documents. Interior's solicitor, Hilary Tompkins, echoed that plea.

"The requests we get are very broad. It results in us pulling thousands of documents together," she said. "If there are specific things that you want to know about or you feel that we've missed, then let's talk about them."

But Republicans insisted that the problem wasn't the requests but how FWS filled them.

"How is it that you can track what appears to be the exact cost of responding to oversight requests but when the committee asks how much, for example, the department is spending on the sage grouse listing, we get absolutely no information?" Hastings said.

"I could give you an estimate, and I could give you that in pretty short order," Ashe later asserted, citing again that the problem was broad requests that are "draining" his resources.

The exchange was a repeat of a March hearing, during which Ashe told the panel one of its subpoenas was "enormously disruptive" and expensive (Greenwire, March 26).

At today's hearing, Democrats railed against what they called a witch hunt with no results. In a handout, the minority side of the panel listed the resources that have gone to Republican demands for documents on 16 different topics. They quoted Jewell's estimate that her agency has so far spent 34,000 hours to produce 60,000 pages of documents.

Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.), the panel's top Democrat, accused the Republicans of searching for "a conspiracy where one doesn't exist" and suggested drowning Ashe would be a more expedient method.

"If he floats, he's guilty. If he sinks, he wasn't," DeFazio quipped.

Hastings is pursuing several investigations into FWS and Interior on a variety of issues. Yesterday, Republicans released a 92-page report on how Interior handles ethics issues, detailing cases where the agency was slow to respond to potential conflicts of interest (E&E Daily, Sept. 10).

At today's hearing, Tompkins expressed confidence in the ethics office, which she oversees. Responding to the report, she said ethics officials "applied the law correctly" when handling the recusal of a former top official from issues involving the renewable energy company where his girlfriend worked.