Also, without subpoena power, the commission was unable to get some potentially important specifics about the incident.
In his statement to The Times, Mr. Long of the federation emphasized that without subpoena power, its inquiries relied on members' voluntary cooperation.
It has been operating without subpoena powers that could more quickly clear up conflicting accounts given by the three big players — BP, Hallibuton and Transocean.
Co-operation is required but without subpoena power, it can be difficult to assess the quality of someone's compliance with a given request, he said.
Even after the Sept. 11 attacks, the Justice Department under the Bush administration's first attorney general, John Ashcroft, let dozens of referrals from intelligence agencies die out of concern that some leak cases could be impossible to make without subpoenaing reporters.
And getting information without subpoena power has become much harder because, as a new report in U.S. News & World Report puts it, the Bush administration has "dropped a shroud of secrecy across many critical operations of the federal government".
"We are going to support this and urge them to make a commitment that if it doesn't work without subpoena power, they will go back and look at that down the road," said Mr. Wertheimer, head of the group Democracy 21. "But this is an improvement over the current situation".
The Bush FBI seized phone records -- without subpoena -- from four American journalists, including Raymond Bonner and Jane Perlez.
"An officer makes a probable cause determination in the street and removes bodily fluid from a human being without a warrant, without a subpoena, without notice," Mr. Martz said after the hearing.
Republicans questioned Mr. Soares's approach, particularly conducting the interviews without putting the subjects under oath and without issuing subpoenas.
