WASHINGTON (Legal Newsline) - Congressman Bruce Westerman (R-AR) is voicing concern after emails obtained by Freedom of Information (FOIA) litigation suggest that a "backdoor workaround" approach was used to approve an ethics waiver for Interior Department senior counselor Elizabeth Klein, whose recent work history includes controversial climate activism efforts.
The revealing emails were obtained by watchdog organization Energy Policy Advocates (EPA). In May, EPA filed a FOIA lawsuit against the Department of Interior (DOI) to request the release of records pertaining to Klein's possible conflicts of interest. The U.S District Court for the District of Columbia ruled in favor of EPA, ordering DOI to hand over at least 400 responsive documents.
“The Department of the Interior’s failure to fully respond to repeated inquiries about Ms. Klein, Ms. Culver, Mr. Beaudreau, and Mr. Cordalis by Republican members of this committee raises serious questions about the Biden Administration‘s commitment to ethics compliance for its political appointees,” Natural Resources ranking member Westerman (R-AR) told Legal Newsline. "I am particularly concerned by recent questions about whether Ms. Klein received special treatment to accommodate her conflicts of interest.”
As previously reported, before taking on a role at the Department of Interior, Klein served as deputy director of the State Energy & Environmental Impact Center (SEEIC) - a Bloomberg-funded organization at New York University's School - where she advocated against the fossil fuel industry. The group has funded the salaries of climate activists embedded into state attorneys general offices for the purpose of advancing a climate change agenda through litigation.
In January, President Biden nominated Klein for deputy secretary of the Interior Department, propping her up as one of several women selected by the administration to take over a top position in Washington. However, the administration later backtracked in March, withdrawing Klein's nomination in response to objections raised by centrist Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Joe Manchin (D-W.V). Murkowski represents one of the nation's most energy-rich states, while Manchin is accountable to a large constituency that relies on the stability of the coal industry.
The documents obtained by EPA suggest that the potentially unethical way in which Klein sought the ethics waiver may have caused her to lose support for her nomination.
The release of the documents followed a motion for a preliminary injunction filed by EPA. While EPA praised the court’s decision to require the release of the initial documents, the group also criticized the DOI for its continued lack of transparency.
"[S]ome engineering of Klein’s initial recusal list appears evident based on the records produced to EPA on Friday, July 23," EPA said in a statement, outlining specific examples of confusing discrepancies.
In June, Westerman and two other Republican representatives - Lauren Boebert and Oversight and Investigations ranking member Paul Gosar - sent a letter to Interior to request that Klein provide her recusal list and additional information about the efforts she made to comply with ethical obligations.
"Senior leaders at federal agencies are responsible for fostering cultures of ethical conduct. Employees unable to act impartially are not qualified to perform their role in government," the letter said. "Under these standards, Ms. Klein's participation in the decision making process for any issue related to the specific regulatory or legal challenges advocated by SEEIC fellows she placed in state attorneys general offices is questionable at best."
The letter was sent as a follow-up to a May 25 subcommittee hearing, during which Klein was pressed by Boebert about her conflicts of interest.
"Ms. Klein, the White House pulled your potential nomination to be the deputy Secretary because your conflicts of interest were so severe that you faced bipartisan opposition," Boebert said at the hearing. "Basically, SEEIC helped infiltrate state governments with Green New Deal extremists for the sole purpose of suing the federal government on environmental policies you all disagreed with. Yes or no?"
Klein did not answer the question directly but agreed to provide information about the work of the SEEIC. Nonetheless, Klein failed to provide the documents requested in a timely matter, according to a second letter sent by Westerman, Gosar and Boebert in late June.
“Notwithstanding Ms. Klein’s previous ethics guidance, it is troubling that DOI made no mention of any screening arrangements for Ms. Klein to properly comply with recusal and other ethics obligations, prior to her Ethics Recusal and Screening Arrangement submitted June 5, 2021,” the June 22 letter stated. “That absence of a screening process calls into question whether Ms. Klein met her ethical obligations prior to June 5, 2021.”