WASHINGTON (Legal Newsline) - The Department of the Interior (DOI)’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) is calling out a Bureau of Land Management (BLM) official for not complying with a component of the "Biden Ethics Pledge."
Protect the Public's Trust (PPT) alleges that BLM Deputy Director of Policy and Programs Nada Culver became the subject of an investigation by the DOI after PPT filed a complaint in June 2021 claiming inconsistent ethics actions and improper participation in an ongoing particular matter.
“We acknowledge that the Departmental Ethics Office (DEO) did not identify Former Employer 1 as one of the BLM Official’s former employers for purposes of the Ethics Pledge under the interim ethics guidance it issued and that this contributed to the violation,” wrote the Office of the Inspector General in their Aug. 18 report of investigation.
The IG report does not name the official involved or the official’s former employers related to the incidents discussed in the report, but Michael Chamberlain, director of PPT, said the incidents discussed in the report closely match those in PPT’s complaint about Culver whose previous employers include The Wilderness Society and The Audubon Society.
“The people that work in these agencies are supposed to be acting on behalf of the American public,” Chamberlain said. “They're not just supposed to be there to do the bidding of their former employers, their campaign donors, their spouses’ employers, their former colleagues or other people that they have relationships with.”
Culver was delegated the authority of the BLM director while the current director, Tracy Stone-Manning, awaited Senate confirmation, according to a press release.
“We submitted a complaint with the inspector general regarding her work on public land orders in Alaska and we believe that her former employment with the Audubon Society made her participation in those improper, so we were surprised that they did not consider that to be a violation,” Chamberlain told Legal Newsline.
Instead, the IG’s office determined that the BLM officials’ violation lay in a meeting with the Wilderness Society and two other individuals within the DOI without any other organizations present, according to Chamberlain.
“There are certain conditions in which political appointees can meet with their former employers,” he said. “If, for instance, they meet with five or more different groups then generally that would be okay ethics-wise.”
The IG report further stated that Stone-Manning would be the department executive who would discipline the BLM official.
"There seems to be a pattern of a laissez-faire attitude towards ethics obligations in the current administration," Chamberlain added. "It doesn't appear that the officials at the Department of the Interior have really paid attention to ethics to the extent that they should have and they don't appear to have bought into the Biden. Administration's promises to be the most ethical in history."