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Associate Deputy Secretary Karen Budd-Falen told a Senate Western Caucus event in December she was “so excited” about reducing regulations on grazing permits that directly helped her father-in-law. Campaign for Accountability has asked Congress to investigate potential ethical violations given her family’s five ranches valued at more than $5 million and federal grazing allotments.
The IndependentAssociate Deputy Secretary Karen Budd-Falen, the number three official at the Department of the Interior, said in December she was “so excited” about reducing regulations that made it more difficult for ranchers to obtain grazing permits. Budd-Falen spoke at a Senate Western Caucus event hosted by Republican Senator Cynthia Lummis.
She told the audience she is a rancher and that grazing regulations were the thing that was probably the closest to her heart.
She added that relaxed regulations on cattle grazing through “categorical exclusion” directly benefited her father-in-law in Nevada. According to Budd-Falen’s financial disclosure report, she and her family own and operate at least five cattle or ranch operations in Wyoming and Nevada, each valued at a minimum of $1 million.
Budd-Falen and her husband Frank Falen hold allotments that allow them to graze cattle on federal land overseen by the Interior Department.
The public video of Budd-Falen’s December remarks was first reported by The Washington Post. Campaign for Accountability, a nonpartisan nonprofit watchdog group that discovered the video, sent letters to congressional committees requesting they investigate Budd-Falen for potential ethical violations. “Ms.
Budd-Falen has been actively directing federal public lands policy in ways that appear to benefit her family’s extensive ranching operation, and the DOI ethics office, in dereliction of its mandate, seems eager to ratify, rather than remedy, the behavior,” Campaign for Accountability stated.
Budd-Falen served in the Interior Department during President Donald Trump’s first administration in 2018. In 2018, she signed an ethics document that prohibited her from working on or discussing grazing policy so she could retain her ranching holdings.
The Interior Department later issued Budd-Falen a waiver allowing her to work on grazing policies despite her personal interest. The waiver was issued only after Public Domain inquired with the Interior Department. In January, congressional Democrats asked the Interior Department’s inspector general to investigate whether Budd-Falen’s personal financial relationship with a lithium mine developer had influenced the government’s permit approval for the mine during the first Trump administration.
5 million a year before Budd-Falen met with the mining company’s executives. The Department of the Interior stated that all appointed personnel undergo rigorous ethics screenings by Departmental ethics staff and the Office of Government Ethics. The department added that Karen Budd-Falen has complied and continues to comply with all legal requirements, ethical standards and ethics guidelines.
The Independent reported that the ethics document signed in 2018 was intended to allow her to retain her ranching holdings while serving in government. The department’s waiver reversed that prohibition after her return to office. Budd-Falen’s December appearance before the Senate Western Caucus occurred as the department continued to review public lands policies.
Her remarks, captured on video, prompted the watchdog group to act after earlier scrutiny in January over the lithium mine matter.
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