A senior Interior Department official faces new scrutiny after publicly describing her work on federal grazing rules that could bolster her own family's ranching business. Karen Budd-Falen, an associate deputy secretary and longtime rancher, told a Congressional Western Caucus event that revising grazing regulations was "closest to my heart" and detailed efforts to expand exemptions and increase ranchers' access to public land, the Washington Post reports. Her family's companies, worth millions, hold rights to graze cattle on roughly 250,000 acres of Bureau of Land Management land, according to federal filings. Budd-Falen and her husband, Frank Falen, report owning at least five ranches in Nevada and Wyoming.
The nonpartisan Campaign for Accountability wants Congress to investigate whether Budd-Falen violated conflict-of-interest laws and whether Interior's ethics office provided adequate oversight. Ethics lawyers say her remarks appear to describe policymaking that could directly affect her financial interests, though some note the law's gray areas and the rarity of prosecutions. Interior says Budd-Falen has fully complied with ethics rules. The department granted her a partial waiver last month allowing her to handle matters that could benefit the family business, per Politico's E&E News; one former White House ethics lawyer called it unacceptable but legally protective. Democrats signaled they would look into the issue if they regain investigative power, but any criminal case would fall to President Trump's Justice Department, which could decide not to act.
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