Naked corruption and self-dealing

Trump admin official reportedly made millions from fast-tracked lithium mine

By Kylie Mohr

The husband of Karen Budd-Falen, a senior leader in the Department of the Interior, made millions of dollars from a Nevada mine that Budd-Falen’s agency approved, according to reporting by Public Domain and High Country News. 

As the associate deputy secretary, Budd-Falen is third in command at the department, which oversees the National Park Service. Her current role doesn’t require Senate confirmation. 

She also served in the Interior Department during President Donald Trump’s first administration. Her meetings and financial self-disclosure — or lack thereof — at the time are now coming under fire, after records showed that her family sold water rights necessary for a mining project without disclosing the hefty profit.

Save Our Parks, an advocacy group for national parks, said that the “self-dealing goes beyond conflicts of interest into outright corruption” in a news release. “This naked corruption and self-dealing is par for the course at Doug Burgum’s Interior Department, which is more focused on self-serving and special interests than the American people and our outdoor heritage,” spokesperson Jayson O’Neil said. “Congress must say enough is enough and immediately open an investigation into just how deep the rot at Burgum’s Interior goes.”

According to federal ethics laws, senior government officials like Budd-Falen must disclose details about family finances, including income, assets and liabilities. Budd-Falen’s disclosures, filed in May, show the family’s major landholdings and their involvement in multiple cattle operations, according to reporting by Public Domain and High Country News. The Interior Department, through the Bureau of Land Management, oversees permitting for grazing on public lands.

Reporting by the New York Times found that Budd-Falen did not disclose a deal between her husband, Frank Falen, and Lithium Nevada Corp. In 2018, Falen sold water rights from the family ranch to the mining company, and a $3.5 million payment was completed in 2023. 

The lithium project under construction nearby, Thacker Pass, requires substantial water for its mining. But the mine also required a permit from the Interior Department, where Budd-Falen worked as deputy solicitor for wildlife between 2018 and 2021.

Budd-Falen met with mining company executives from Lithium Americas, the parent company of Lithium Nevada Corp in 2019, roughly two years before the agency approved the mine as part of a fast-track process that circumvented environmental review. 

A spokesperson for Lithium Americas, Tim Crowley, told the New York Times that the mine wasn’t discussed but did not respond to questions from SFGATE.

Aubrie Spady, a spokeswoman for the Interior Department, called the accusations “baseless” but didn’t respond to questions from SFGATE about Budd-Falen’s involvement in the mine’s approval, if she recused herself from actions involving the mine, or if she filed an ethics waiver notifying the department of how her husband would benefit financially from the mine.