A watchdog group is calling for an investigation of a high-ranking Interior Department official over allegations that her policy portfolio personally benefits her family’s businesses.
Karen Budd-Falen, the associate deputy secretary, spoke at a public event last December about her prioritization of grazing policies, although she didn’t receive a waiver to work on those issues until months later. While Interior under Trump has focused a lot on oil and gas development, Budd-Falen told an audience that her job at Interior is “everything else.”
“I’m a rancher, and so the thing that probably was the closest to my heart was grazing regulations,” she said during a conversation with Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) before the Congressional Western Caucus. Budd-Falen’s comments in the video, which was posted online by Lummis’ office, were first reported by The Washington Post.
Budd-Falen and her husband own at least five ranching operations and lands in Wyoming and Nevada that are each valued at more than $1 million, according to a financial disclosure document. She also has permits from the Bureau of Land Management, an Interior agency, to graze cattle on more than a dozen allotments.
