Interior Secretary Ken Salazar sent a letter yesterday to Interior Department Inspector General Mary Kendall arguing that her investigation into the circumstances surrounding the release of a 30-day report on the oil spill “confirms that there was no wrongdoing or intent to mislead the public.”

Kendra Barkoff, Interior Department spokeswoman, highlighted the letter in an attempt to downplay the report:

Secretary Salazar’s letter speaks for itself. There was no intent to mislead the public. The decision to impose a temporary moratorium on deepwater drilling was made by the Secretary, following consultation with colleagues including the White House.

In addition, Barkoff pointed to a June 3 letter to Dr. Per Holland addressing his concerns that the report misrepresented the extent to which he and other experts reviewed the recommendations. In the letter, Interior Department Deputy Secretary David Hayes said:

By listing you as a member of the [National Academy of Engineering] panel that peer-reviewed the 22 safety recommendations contained in the Report, we did not mean to imply that you also agreed with the decision to impose a moratorium on all new deepwater drilling. We acknowledge that you were not asked to review or comment on the moratorium.

Barkoff, referencing Hayes’ June 3 letter, said that the issue had been resolved months ago:

As the report makes clear, the misunderstanding with the reviewers was resolved with the June 3rd letter and a subsequent conference call with those experts.

The report, obtained by Politico, said scientists and industry experts “had neither reviewed nor supported such a policy decision and had never been asked to do so.”

Interior Department officials told the department’s inspector general that they never intended to give that impression in their version of the report. But a White House edit of the executive summary of the report,  by staffers in White House climate and energy policy director Carol Browner’s office, “led to the implication that the moratorium recommendation had been peer reviewed by the experts,” the report said.

????Here is the text in question, from the executive summary of the report:

The Secretary further recommends an immediate halt to drilling operations on the 33 permitted wells, not including the relief wells currently being drilling by BP, that are currently being drilling using floating rigs in the Gulf of Mexico. Drilling operations should cease as soon as safely practicable for a 6-month period.

The recommendations contained in this report have been peer-reviewed by seven experts identified by the National Academy of Engineering. Those experts, who volunteered their time and expertise, are identified in Appendix 1. The government also consulted with a wide range of experts from government, academia and industry.

An Interior Department official who worked on the report, Steve Black, told the inspector general that the executive summary was not intentionally unclear, and he stressed that the recommendations that came later in the report were peer reviewed, though the moratorium recommendation was not.

The inspector general report was requested by a number of Republicans, including Sen. David Vitter (R-La.), who opposed the drilling moratorium.

The moratorium was imposed in the aftermath of the BP oil spill, which dumped 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. The administration has issued new offshore drilling rules as a result of the spill, and Michael Bromwich, head of the Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, is putting the finishing touches on a report on the moratorium that will determine when and how the administration will lift the drilling ban.

Gulf Coast lawmakers are vehemently opposed to the moratorium, arguing that it adds an additional layer of economic hardship on the already-hurting region. Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) put a hold on Jack Lew, President Obama’s nominee to head the White House Office of Management and Budget over the moratorium.

The administration has said that drilling will not immediately resume after the moratorium is lifted as companies will need to comply with new drilling rules. Calls to the White House and the Interior Department were not immediately returned.

Exxon Mobil spent $2.52 million in the second quarter lobbying Congress and the White House on offshore drilling, the Associated Press reports.

Much of its lobbying was focused on proposals related to offshore drilling and the U.S. moratorium on deepwater exploration. Some of those proposals would lift liability caps for oil spills, boost safety requirements and ban companies with poor safety records from receiving new permits.

For context, this quarter’s numbers are “a drop from the $4.27 million that the company spent in the same three-month period last year and the $3.39 million it spent in the first quarter of this year,” the AP says.

Of course, during that same period last year, the House was working to pass its climate bill and key senators were working to draft their version of the bill. At the same time, the Obama administration was trying to figure out whether to expand drilling on the Outer Continental Shelf. (It later decided to do so.)

According to Open Secrets, the oil and gas industry spent more than $175 million in 2009 on lobbying, more than any time in the last 10 years. In 2010 so far, the industry has spent just under $75 million.

It will be interesting to see how much lobbying numbers jumped in quarter three, once more serious debate began on offshore drilling proposals.

Salazar, speaking at the Woodrow Wilson International Center Scholars, said the moratorium was “vital to protect the Gulf coast.” He acknowledged the criticism of the moratorium (Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) is blocking the administration’s nominee for head of the Office of Management and Budget until the moratorium is overturned), but he said the moratorium is important to determine how best to remake the offshore drilling industry to ensure safety is prioritized.

“We will only lift the moratorium when I, as Secretary of the Interior, am comfortable that we have significantly reduced” the risks associated with drilling, he said, while acknowledging that “we still need” oil and natural gas from the Gulf of Mexico.

Landrieu, who has been a vehement opponent of the drilling ban, has come under fire this week from many in her own party — including Senate Democrats and administration officials — over the hold on Jack Lew, the OMB nominee. But, in a floor speech today, she said she won’t budge.

My hold on Mr. Lew’s nomination will remain for the same reason it was placed originally: the Administration has not acted to lift its ill-conceived moratoria on offshore drilling that are having such a devastating impact on working people and small businesses throughout the Gulf Coast.[...]

The Administration seems to believe that no new exploration should be allowed to proceed until every single offshore operation is in compliance with 100 percent of the revised rules, which aren’t even final.  That is an unworkable framework and an unreasonable standard.

Landrieu’s hold comes as the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management is expected this week to release new rules on offshore drilling that will likely determine the fate of the moratorium. But the hold puts the administration in a difficult position. Even though administration officials have said they expect to end the moratorium early, they likely don’t want to be seen as giving in to Landrieu’s demands.

“This moratorium is doing almost as much damage and I think more damage than the spill itself.”

Landrieu was testifying at a national oil spill commission meeting today.

The report is expected to be the basis for an overhaul of offshore drilling regulations at the department in light of the Gulf oil spill. At the same time, the report will also determine the fate of an Obama administration moratorium on deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.

But Landrieu, in a letter sent today to BP Chief Managing Director Bob Dudley, said she believes the ongoing moratorium could cause companies to lay off employees in the near future.

The letter said:

According to the administrator of the fund, the Baton Rouge Area Foundation, only 365 applicants have come forward. I believe this is because many companies, to their credit, are keeping their workers on the payroll, despite the uncertainty of knowing exactly when new permits will commence.  Yet, with each passing day, their balance sheets take significant hits and it becomes harder for these companies to maintain their employees.  As a consequence, the demand for this fund may be on the rise over the next two months or until the moratorium is lifted.

In fact, an Obama administration report said many companies kept on their employees after the moratorium. But the report noted that the drilling ban had a more significant impact on other sectors of the Gulf economy that rely on drilling.

According to the Associated Press:

With nine days left to apply, a spokesman for the charity running the program told The Associated Press on Tuesday that only 356 people have come forward. Up to 9,000 people had been expected to seek grants of $3,000 to $30,000.