Washington ? The congressional committee that investigated steroid use in baseball will turn its investigation to the same problem in football. The panel said Tuesday it would ask NFL officials and union representatives to testify at a hearing next week.

“A public review of the NFL’s strategy for combatting steroid use marks the next step in our investigation,” said Rep. Tom Davis, chairman of the House Government Reform Committee. “Examining the effectiveness of the NFL’s policy is a key part of understanding why 500,000 high school students today have tried steroids.”

Invited to the April 27 hearing are NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue; Gene Upshaw, vice president of the NFL Players Assn.; and Harold Henderson, the NFL’s executive vice president for labor relations.

Davis and the committee’s ranking Democrat, Rep. Henry Waxman of California, sent a letter last month to Tagliabue asking for information about the league’s drug program. The letter asked for the number of drug tests each year, the number of positive results and which substances are tested for; it didn’t require that the league reveal names of players. The committee received the NFL’s response early this month.

Similar letters were sent by Davis and Waxman to the heads of the NBA, the NHL and five other sports organizations.

The committee held an 11-hour hearing on steroids in baseball last month. Among the witnesses were former players Mark McGwire and Jose Canseco and baseball commissioner Bud Selig.