Richard W. Pombo
PER
Richard W. Pombo Pombo
In a letter to Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton, Representative Richard W. Pombo, the chairman of the House Resources Committee, demanded memos, correspondence and data on the program and on the negotiations over the law that created it in 1996. Mr. Pombo, a California Republican, said he was beginning the investigation in response to an article published on Tuesday in The New York Times. In his letter to the Interior Department, Mr. Pombo said the government had not been consistent in carrying out the 10-year-old law, called the Deep Water Royalty Relief Act, and had become embroiled in litigation. Representative Richard W. Pombo, the chairman of the House Resources Committee, in a letter to Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton, demanded memos, correspondence and data on the program and on the negotiations over the law that created it in 1996. Mr. Pombo, a California Republican, said he was beginning the investigation in response to an article published on Tuesday in The New York Times. He made it clear that a primary purpose of his investigation was to attribute much of the problem to decisions by the Clinton administration to sweeten the incentives in 1998 and 1999.