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.

“There’s nothing new to report at this time,” Landrieu spokeswoman Ellie Atkins said in an email.

Landrieu placed a hold on Lew’s nomination in September, citing the Obama administration’s deepwater drilling moratorium, which she argued would kill thousands of jobs and further damage the Gulf coast economy. The administration lifted the moratorium last month, but Landrieu has said she will wait to lift the hold until she has time to review the administration’s efforts to review permits.

Landrieu, other Gulf coast lawmakers and the oil industry have raised questions about the amount of time it will take for drilling to resume once the moratorium is lifted, fearing long delays to approve permits.

The poll comes as the Obama administration has overturned a moratorium on deepwater drilling in the Gulf and imposed new safety rules on oil companies. The moratorium was put into place in the aftermath of the Gulf oil spill.

The poll — conducted by the Society for Human Resource Management, National Journal and the Pew Research Center from Oct. 21-24 –finds that 59 percent of likely voters would approve of  ”allowing more offshore oil and gas drilling.” Just 35 percent would disapprove.

In addition, the National Journal says, “Republicans in the registered sample were twice as likely as Democrats to favor expanded drilling, with independents almost exactly in the middle.”

The announcement comes a little more than a week after the Obama administration announced that it is overturning the moratorium on deepwater drilling. Though environmentalists still have concerns with the practice, deepwater drilling stands to yield massive quantities of oil. The administration has established new deepwater drilling safety rules that companies must comply with before drilling.

The Jack and St. Malo oil fields are in about 7,000 feet of water, while the Deepwater Horizon oil rig was in about 5,000 feet of water. Chevron is investing $7.5 billion to develop the fields. The project is expected to start producing in 2014. Chevron says it can produce 170,000 barrels of oil and 42.5 million cubic feet of natural gas per day.

The oil fields are potentially very lucrative. Chevron says they have the capacity to produce 500 million barrels of oil.

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.