Top House Democrats on Tuesday asked the Interior Department’s Office of Inspector General to investigate a Trump administration official after reports emerged that she failed to disclose her family’s $3.5 million contract with Lithium Americas while it was seeking approval from her agency to build the Thacker Pass mine in Nevada.
While serving as a high-ranking lawyer during President Donald Trump’s first stint in office, Budd-Falen failed to detail her family’s water rights contract in multiple financial disclosure forms even after Lithium Americas was supposed to begin paying her family, according to financial documents.
In a Tuesday letter, House Natural Resources ranking member Jared Huffman of California and Oversight and Investigations subcommittee ranking member Maxine Dexter of Oregon questioned how the unearthed ties between Lithium America and Budd-Falen, currently a top adviser to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, could have influenced the mine’s federal approval.
“It appears Ms. Budd-Falen may have used her power in the Interior Department to give her family a $3.5 million windfall by fast-tracking a mining project and letting a multibillion-dollar corporation skip an environmental review designed to keep communities safe from polluting projects,” they wrote.
