[House Hearing, 118 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


               EXAMINING THE INFLUENCE OF EXTREME ENVIRONMENTAL 
               ACTIVIST GROUPS IN THE DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR

=======================================================================

                           OVERSIGHT HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                       SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND 
                               INVESTIGATIONS

                                 OF THE

                     COMMITTEE ON NATURAL RESOURCES
                     U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS

                             SECOND SESSION

                               __________

                        Tuesday, April 30, 2024

                               __________

                           Serial No. 118-115

                               __________

       Printed for the use of the Committee on Natural Resources
       
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        Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov
                                   or
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                               __________

                   U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE                    
55-586 PDF                  WASHINGTON : 2024                  
          
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                     COMMITTEE ON NATURAL RESOURCES

                     BRUCE WESTERMAN, AR, Chairman
                    DOUG LAMBORN, CO, Vice Chairman
                  RAUL M. GRIJALVA, AZ, Ranking Member

Doug Lamborn, CO		Grace F. Napolitano, CA	
Robert J. Wittman, VA		Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan, 
Tom McClintock, CA		  CNMI
Paul Gosar, AZ			Jared Huffman, CA
Garret Graves, LA		Ruben Gallego, AZ
Aumua Amata C. Radewagen, AS	Joe Neguse, CO
Doug LaMalfa, CA		Mike Levin, CA
Daniel Webster, FL		Katie Porter, CA
Jenniffer Gonzalez-Colon, PR    Teresa Leger Fernandez, NM
Russ Fulcher, ID		Melanie A. Stansbury, NM
Pete Stauber, MN		Mary Sattler Peltola, AK
John R. Curtis, UT		Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, NY
Tom Tiffany, WI			Kevin Mullin, CA
Jerry Carl, AL			Val T. Hoyle, OR
Matt Rosendale, MT		Sydney Kamlager-Dove, CA
Lauren Boebert, CO		Seth Magaziner, RI
Cliff Bentz, OR			Nydia M. Velazquez, NY                                 
Jen Kiggans, VA			Ed Case, HI
Jim Moylan, GU			Debbie Dingell, MI
Wesley P. Hunt, TX		Susie Lee, NV
Mike Collins, GA
Anna Paulina Luna, FL
John Duarte, CA
Harriet M. Hageman, WY                             

                    Vivian Moeglein, Staff Director
                      Tom Connally, Chief Counsel
                 Lora Snyder, Democratic Staff Director
                   http://naturalresources.house.gov
                                 ------                                

              SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS

                        PAUL GOSAR, AZ, Chairman
                      MIKE COLLINS, GA, Vice Chair
                MELANIE A. STANSBURY, NM, Ranking Member

Matt Rosendale, MT                   Ed Case, HI
Wesley P. Hunt, TX                   Ruben Gallego, AZ
Mike Collins, GA                     Susie Lee, NV
Anna Paulina Luna, FL                Raul M. Grijalva, AZ, ex officio
Bruce Westerman, AR, ex officio

                              -----------                                
                                
                               CONTENTS

                              -----------                              
                                                                   Page

Hearing held on Tuesday, April 30, 2024..........................     1

Statement of Members:

    Gosar, Hon. Paul, a Representative in Congress from the State 
      of  Arizona................................................     1
    Stansbury, Hon. Melanie A., a Representative in Congress from 
      the State of New Mexico....................................     3

Statement of Witnesses:

    Walter, Scott, President, Capital Research Center, 
      Washington, DC.............................................     5
        Prepared statement of....................................     6
    Painter, Richard W., S. Walter Richey Professor of Corporate 
      Law, University of Minnesota Law School, Minneapolis, 
      Minnesota..................................................    11
        Prepared statement of....................................    13
    O'Neil, Tyler, Author, ``Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of 
      the Southern Poverty Law Center,'' Washington, DC..........    18
        Prepared statement of....................................    20

Additional Materials Submitted for the Record:

    Submissions for the Record by Representative Stansbury

        Walter M. Shaub, Jr., Statement for the Record...........    41

        United States Department of the Interior, Office of the 
          Solicitor, Letter to Committee dated August 9, 2023....    57

        United States Department of the Interior, Office of the 
          Secretary, Letter to Committee dated February 2, 2024..    59
                                     


 
 OVERSIGHT HEARING ON EXAMINING THE INFLUENCE OF EXTREME ENVIRONMENTAL
                   ACTIVIST GROUPS IN THE DEPARTMENT.
                            OF THE INTERIOR

                              ----------                              


                        Tuesday, April 30, 2024

                     U.S. House of Representatives

              Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations

                     Committee on Natural Resources

                             Washington, DC

                              ----------                              

    The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:16 a.m. in 
Room 1324, Longworth House Office Building, Hon. Paul Gosar 
[Chairman of the Subcommittee] presiding.
    Present: Representatives Gosar, Rosendale, Collins; and 
Stansbury.

    Dr. Gosar. The Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations 
will come to order.
    Without objection, the Chair is authorized to declare a 
recess of the Subcommittee at any time.
    The Subcommittee is meeting today to hear the testimony on 
examining the influence of extreme environmental activist 
groups in the Department of the Interior.
    Under Committee Rule 4(f), any oral opening statements at 
the hearing are limited to the Chairman and the Ranking 
Minority Member. I, therefore, ask unanimous consent that all 
other Members' statements be made part of the hearing record if 
they are submitted in accordance with Committee Rule 3(o).
    Without objection, so ordered.
    Do you guys have any people waiving on?
    Ms. Stansbury. No.
    Dr. Gosar. I will now recognize myself for my opening 
statement.

STATEMENT OF THE HON. PAUL GOSAR, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS 
                   FROM THE STATE OF ARIZONA

    Dr. Gosar. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our 
witnesses for coming. Thank you for coming before the Committee 
to discuss this critical issue, examining the influence of the 
extreme environmental activist groups in the Department of the 
Interior.
    The Committee invited several non-profits, including the 
Pueblo Action Alliance and the Wilderness Society, to join us 
today. But unsurprisingly, they would prefer to keep the 
American public in the dark regarding their cozy relationship 
with the Department of the Interior under the Biden 
administration.
    Over the course of the 118th Congress, the Oversight and 
Investigation Subcommittee has uncovered a track record of 
close and potentially improper relationships with radical 
environmental activist groups and the Department. While all 
presidential administrators have their particular points of 
view, which is to be expected, the issue at hand here is 
twofold:
    (1) at their core, most of these groups are fundamentally 
opposed to the congressionally authorized missions of the land 
management agencies that they seek to influence and, 
increasingly, NOAA.
    (2) some of these groups are also influenced by dark money 
from unfriendly foreign sources like China. We now know that 
China provides funding for many radical environmental groups, 
such as CodePink, for the purpose of stopping America's natural 
resources development and weakening our energy security. Not 
only does this CodePink advocate for the end of fossil fuels 
and domestic mining, but they are currently leading numerous 
protests against Israel's response to the brutal terrorist 
attack by Hamas on October 7.
    The Committee is concerned that radical environmental 
groups are now affecting critical decisions and rulemaking at 
DOI regarding resource development, including the Chaco Canyon 
withdrawal and the cancellation of the Twin Metals mineral 
leases in the Superior National Forest.
    Before joining the Biden administration, Secretary Haaland 
was very involved with the PAA, and repeatedly advocated for 
their preservationist policies to withdraw more land in the 
Chaco Canyon from natural resource development. There is 
evidence that she has maintained her close relationship with 
PAA while serving as Secretary, in addition to her daughter 
remaining employed to advocate on this issue.
    In 2022, Secretary Haaland satisfied PAA's efforts by 
issuing a public land order to officially withdraw over 330,000 
acres, nearly a 110-mile radius of Federal land surrounding the 
Chaco Canyon National Historical Park, for 20 years. In this 
case, Secretary Haaland undoubtedly should have recused herself 
to resolve any potential conflicts of interest.
    Another concerning incident involved the Twin Metals mine 
in the Superior National Forest in northeastern Minnesota. In 
2018, the Federal Government had reinstated the mineral leases 
for the prospective Twin Metals copper, nickel, and cobalt mine 
project in northeast Minnesota. Then in 2020, various 
environmental activist groups, including the Wilderness 
Society, sued the Bureau of Land Management, the Fish and 
Wildlife Service, and the Forest Service over their decision to 
renew the permits for Twin Metals.
    Later, a FOIA request revealed that, while this litigation 
was ongoing, then-Deputy Secretary Tommy Beaudreau and Deputy 
Chief of Staff Kate Kelly purportedly met with lobbyists from 
the Wilderness Society, a lead plaintiff in the case in an off-
the-books meeting. At the same time, the Wilderness Society 
apparently coordinated with DOI's lawyers on legal and policy 
pathways regarding mining in northeastern Minnesota.
    Then, in 2022, Secretary Haaland canceled the two-decades-
old mineral leases for Twin Metals and withdrew over 225,000 
acres of mineral rich land in the same area for mineral 
exploration and development. The coordination with the 
Wilderness Society on this issue raises substantial concerns 
regarding the undue influence exercised by the environmental 
non-profits over the Biden administration.
    Unfortunately, these two instances are only a drop in the 
bucket when considering the full breadth of the damage done by 
DOI working with radical non-profits to stymie domestic 
resource development and make the United States less energy 
secure.
    Tomorrow, Secretary Haaland will come before the Committee 
in a rare appearance to discuss the Interior's budget request, 
so I hope she comes prepared to explain these seeming conflicts 
of interest and their effect on her decision-making to the 
American people.
    Now, per usual, I don't expect my Democratic colleagues to 
engage in the substance of this hearing today. However, 
regardless of a Republican or Democratic administration, 
Congress must keep the Federal Government in check and working 
for the American people. The Committee will continue to uphold 
this vital responsibility.
    I will now recognize the Ranking Member, Ms. Stansbury, for 
her opening statement.

STATEMENT OF THE HON. MELANIE A. STANSBURY, A REPRESENTATIVE IN 
             CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW MEXICO

    Ms. Stansbury. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. When I signed up to 
be the Ranking Member of this Subcommittee, I was genuinely 
excited to get to work on issues that matter for the American 
people, to work on climate change, water resources issues, 
protecting our public lands, serving our Tribal Nations, all 
issues that I have spent my entire career working on. But week 
after week, I have sat here as this Subcommittee and others 
across our Congress have become increasingly a stage for 
political theater. And I have to say that it is extremely 
disconcerting, and I hope we can get back to working for the 
American people.
    And I was especially dismayed after I read the prep 
materials for this hearing, and saw that it was going to be yet 
another partisan attack on our public servants at the 
Department of the Interior, including on our Secretary, who, of 
course, is a New Mexican and our nation's very first Indigenous 
cabinet secretary.
    But since this is the direction that the Majority has 
decided to take the Committee and they want to talk about 
conflicts of interest, I feel that it is incumbent upon us to 
point out that the influence of dark money at the Department of 
the Interior has never been more apparent than it was under the 
Trump administration, when both of its Interior secretaries 
were embroiled in dozens of scandals and ethical violations. Of 
course, none of this is particularly surprising when the tone 
is set at the top by President Trump, who has literally spent 
most of his life involved in pay-to-play scandals.
    In fact, the Oversight and Accountability Committee 
released a Minority report just a few months ago called the 
Mazars Report, which includes 156 pages of evidence compiled. 
While in office, former President Trump and his companies 
received at least $7.8 million from at least 20 different 
foreign governments while they had business in front of the 
White House. And the Saudi government, as we know, also gave 
more than $2 billion to his son-in-law after he left office.
    So, if we want to talk about influence peddling and 
criminal behavior, let's talk about the former President and 
the culture of influence that he brought not only to the White 
House, but to the Department of the Interior under his tenure.
    In fact, when you scratch the surface, what you find is 
that the Trump Interior Department offered unprecedented access 
to oil and gas, mining, and other special interests that 
resulted in dozens of investigations and criminal referrals. 
Efforts like a bribery scheme, in which a developer organized a 
quarter million dollars in campaign donations on the same day 
that his permit for a mega-development was announced, thanks to 
the Trump Interior Secretary, the Secretary that lobbied on 
behalf of so many extractive interests that he had to carry a 
card around listing his conflicts, and had to reconfigure the 
ethics department.
    Another Trump secretary who received a criminal referral to 
DOJ after he used his position to try to open a private 
business in his home town and fired the Inspector General the 
day before the news broke.
    Or a previous Interior secretary under Bush, who was also 
referred to DOJ for sharing insider information to Shell Oil, 
which she then asked to work for.
    Or a deputy that leaked documents to extractive industries 
who were suing the Department and lied to Congress.
    And finally, an offshore oil and gas agency at Department 
of the Interior that was so corrupted that employees took 
trips, gifts, and had cocaine-fueled parties with oil and gas 
executives, and signed off on protocols that ultimately led to 
the largest oil spill in American history.
    But this is just the tip of the iceberg. But what is common 
across all of these instances is well-documented, well-
substantiated investigations of influence and unethical 
behavior, all of which took place under Republican 
administrations. Yet, here we find ourselves today in a hearing 
where my colleagues are trying to manufacture a scandal tying 
Secretary Haaland to environmental groups. For what? Doing her 
job? Setting aside tribal sacred sites, conserving ecosystems, 
protecting public lands, all things that fall under the mandate 
of the Department of the Interior?
    And ironically, they brought in two witnesses today to spin 
this story who are affiliated with conservative organizations 
funded by dark money donors and engaged in preparing for 
another Trump administration.
    So, let me just say this: one thing is clear. The depth, 
breadth, and persistence of corruption that we saw under the 
Trump administration must never be repeated again.
    And like other hearings this Congress, it is peculiar that 
my friends across the aisle are so focused on these political 
fantasies while their own President is sitting in a courtroom 
today, and while the Department of the Interior was engaged in 
so many demonstrated legal and ethical failures, and that is 
what the Oversight Committee should be focused on.
    With that, I yield back.

    Dr. Gosar. I thank the gentlelady. For a minute there I 
thought you were talking about Burisma and Ukraine.
    I am now going to introduce our witnesses.
    First, we have Mr. Scott Walter, President, Capital 
Research Center; Mr. Richard Painter, Professor of Corporate 
Law, University of Minnesota Law School; and Mr. Tyler O'Neil, 
Author.
    Let me remind the witnesses that under Committee Rules, you 
must limit your statement to 5 minutes, but your entire 
statement will be made part of the hearing record.
    To begin your testimony, push the ``talk'' button and get 
started. At 4 minutes, you will see the light turn yellow. That 
tells you to try to wrap it up. And when you see a red light, 
stop.
    I will now recognize Mr. Walter for your 5 minutes. Thank 
you.

STATEMENT OF SCOTT WALTER, PRESIDENT, CAPITAL RESEARCH CENTER, 
                         WASHINGTON, DC

    Mr. Walter. Chairman Gosar, Vice Chairman Collins, 
distinguished members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the 
honor of testifying. I am President of Capital Research Center, 
where we study radical activists.
    I claim no expertise in climate science, environmental 
policy, and the like, but I am experienced in Federal policy-
making. That process requires the ability to join in honest 
debate, to recognize that all policy choices have trade-offs, 
and to engage rationally with people you may disagree with.
    Unfortunately, today's radicals reject all these 
prerequisites to good public policy. That is why Pueblo Action 
Alliance joined other radical groups in a violent protest at 
the Interior Department that led to over 50 arrests and sent at 
least one police officer to the hospital. Yet, Secretary 
Haaland's child, who works for the Alliance, posted photos of 
this demonstration to Instagram and called her participation 
``an honor.''
    That is why the Pueblo Action Alliance issued a statement 
on the death of George Floyd with hysterical language like, 
``The institution of policing in the United States was created 
to control, criminalize, and brutalize African and Indigenous 
peoples on stolen land. Modern Amerikkkan''--three Ks in the 
spelling--``police descend directly from slave patrols and 
settler militias. Police and armed U.S. State agents are 
working today, as they have always been designed to, as tools 
of racist, settler, colonial, capitalist, and imperialist 
violence, hand in hand with White vigilante terrorists.'' That 
statement was issued in conjunction with the All African 
People's Revolutionary Party, which seeks ``the total 
liberation and unification of Africa under scientific 
socialism.''
    This extremist group was founded by an African dictator who 
received the Lenin Peace Prize from the Soviet Union. Pueblo 
Action Alliance is tied to another communist dictatorship 
through its alliance with Cuba's Venceremos Brigades. The 
Alliance's creative strategist glamorizes Cuban tyranny, saying 
he ``experienced reverse culture shock'' when returning to 
America from Cuba, a country Freedom House rates not free 
because ``Cuba's one-party communist state outlaws political 
pluralism, bans independent media, suppresses dissent, and 
severely restricts basic civil liberties.''
    This isn't idealism, it is nihilism. The utopian nihilism 
of extremists often ends in violent bloodshed. It never ends in 
good policies that sane Americans desire. So, it is shocking 
the Interior Department not only treats Pueblo Action Alliance 
as a source of policy wisdom, but also appears to have made 
official policy with bias toward the Alliance, and provided 
improper assistance to the Alliance.
    In one notorious case, Interior ignored the Navajo Nation 
while crafting a policy that costs thousands of Navajos 
millions of dollars, pushing tribe members into greater 
poverty, according to the Standing Committee of the 25th Navajo 
Nation Council.
    This Committee's letters to the Interior Department 
document multiple meetings between the Secretary and Pueblo 
Action Alliance officials. The Secretary has promoted PAA by 
having its insignia appear in public photographs beginning her 
first day in office. PAA has promoted itself by such means as 
posting those photographs on its Instagram. Activists have 
promoted Secretary Haaland's involvement in a film produced by 
the director of PAA which demands that oil, gas, and mineral 
leasing outside the Chaco Culture National Historical Park be 
ended, a question on which the Secretary officially ruled in 
favor of PAA's demand.
    Finally, there are many ways that the Secretary appears to 
be influenced by her adult child, Somah. No wonder the 
Committee is deeply concerned that PAA may have improperly 
received non-public information from the Department.
    The Wilderness Society is another example of environmental 
extremism influencing Interior. I note it refused, as did the 
Pueblo Alliance, to testify today. Again, radicals refuse 
honest debate. The Wilderness Society's governing council has 
two leaders from the most notorious source of foreign dark 
money in politics today: Molly McUsic, head of both the Wyss 
Foundation and its Berger Action Fund dark money group, and the 
foreign national billionaire, Hansjorg Wyss himself. The 
Society has worked with high-ranking Interior personnel on 
issues like the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge, and achieved 
policy victories.
    Other dark money actors powerfully influencing Interior 
include the Arabella Network, to which Wyss has given hundreds 
of millions, and the League of Conservation Voters, whose 
extremist founder radicalized Arabella's founder, and who 
suggested ``someday childbearing will be deemed a punishable 
crime against society unless the parents hold a government 
license.''
    Clearly, radical environmentalists are exercising 
considerable sway over the Interior Department. Americans, 
especially the poor, deserve to enjoy the benefits of 
inexpensive energy and abundant resources. Please protect them 
from the radicals. Thank you.

    [The prepared statement of Mr. Walter follows:]
 Prepared Statement of Scott Walter, President, Capital Research Center

    Chairman Gosar, Vice Chairman Collins, distinguished members of the 
Subcommittee, thank you for the honor of testifying. I'm president of 
the Capital Research Center, where for decades we have studied 
nonprofits and extremist groups.
    I applaud the full Natural Resources Committee and this 
subcommittee for your attention to threats posed by environmental 
extremists and special interest groups attempting to influence the 
Department of the Interior--matters that do not receive nearly as much 
attention as they deserve from Congress and the media.
    As we meet, radical extremists are showing their contempt for the 
rule of law and for common decency on college campuses in this city and 
across the country, harassing Jewish students and defending terrorist 
attacks. Where left-wing radicals are concerned, a group may be best 
known for its stand on a non-environmental issue, but the same group is 
likely to espouse extreme environmental views, too. Take Code Pink, for 
example, a group best known for zealotry related to foreign policy, 
including a history of hatred of Israel: some years ago one of its 
national directors claimed ``Israel is a terror state'' and its 
existence is a ``war crime.'' \1\ In just the last two weeks Code Pink 
protestors defending Hamas shut down San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge 
to demand ``Palestinian liberation'' and disrupted the White House 
Correspondents Dinner.\2\ When speaking of Palestine, Code Pink uses 
the language of Indigenous people; for instance, ``CODEPINK recognizes 
Palestinians as the rightful owners and caretakers of Palestine, their 
Indigenous homeland.'' \3\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ https://www.adl.org/resources/blog/prominent-voices-demonize-
israel-regarding-conflict.
    \2\ https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/second-protest-
blocks-all-lanes-of-golden-gate-bridge-san-francisco/; https://
thehill.com/homenews/media/4626563-demonstrators-protest-media-
coverage-of-israel-hamas-war-at-white-house-correspondents-dinner/.
    \3\ https://www.codepink.org/palestine.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    But like most extremist groups Code Pink also includes radical 
environmentalism in its campaigns to manipulate federal departments, 
including Interior. Code Pink joined others to harass Rep. Nancy Pelosi 
at her office, demanding she pass the so-called Green New Deal.\4\ It 
has celebrated the blocking of pipelines near Indian lands,\5\ and in 
many other ways has made clear it sees all these radical causes as 
inseparable.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \4\ https://www.codepink.org/
green_new_deal_yes_war_weapons_planet_destruction_no.
    \5\ https://www.codepink.org/
growing_a_local_peace_economy_daily_198.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Under the current Administration, another radical group, Pueblo 
Action Alliance (PAA), wages the best-known extremist campaign to 
influence the Interior Department. Like Code Pink, PAA seamlessly 
connects radical environmental views with radical foreign policy views 
and shows a fondness for revolutionary violence--all obvious just from 
the front page of PAA's website. That landing page currently shows a 
PAA flyer for the COP28 climate conference that includes radical 
environmentalism (denouncing carbon capture, hydrogen, water and 
nuclear power; demanding a complete phase-out of fossil fuels), radical 
feminism (calling for ``feminist regenerative economies''), and radical 
anti-Israel policies (``solidarity with our Palestine relatives'').\6\ 
The page's very first words exhort: ``The Pueblo Revolt Never Ended: 
1680 to Infinity,'' a reference to the uprising of Pueblo people 
against Spanish colonizers in A.D. 1680, which brought the death of 
hundreds of Spaniards.\7\ I do not defend the Spanish who mistreated 
Pueblo people in past centuries, but to act as if present-day Pueblo 
people are enduring similar horrors and to also suggest that murderous 
uprisings should continue unto ``Infinity'' bespeaks a dangerous 
radicalism that Americans across the political spectrum do not want 
influencing any part of the federal government.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \6\ https://www.puebloactionalliance.org/.
    \7\ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pueblo_Revolt, citing The Pueblo 
Revolt of 1680: Conquest and Resistance in Seventeenth-Century New 
Mexico, Andrew L. Knaut. University of Oklahoma Press: Norman. 1995.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Radicalism's affinity for violence is also seen in the way PAA 
media organizer Somah Haaland posted to Instagram photos of protests 
that turned violent at the Interior Department. Haaland wrote, ``What 
an honor it was to march with my Pueblo kin last week for 
#Peoplevsfossilfuels week of action.'' The reference was to October 
2021 protests that, as one media report put it, ``culminated in 
outbreaks of violence and arrests at the Department of the Interior 
that were `reminiscent of January 6th.' '' Dozens of radicals were 
arrested, and ``at least one officer was hospitalized.'' \8\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \8\ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11713413/Interior-
secretarys-daughter-Deb-Haaland-high-ranking-member-radical-
environmentalist-group.html.

    PAA's vision is written in the kind of ``woke'' vocabulary found in 
Columbia classrooms whose poorly educated students now terrorize their 
Jewish peers on campus. PAA feverishly promises ``to dismantle and 
eradicate white supremacy, capitalism, imperialism, hetero-patriarchy 
and extractive colonialism. Rematriation of everything stolen.'' \9\ 
Similarly, PAA issued a joint statement on the death of George Floyd 
with the All African People's Revolutionary Party--New Mexico that 
declared,
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \9\ https://www.puebloactionalliance.org/purpose.

        The institution of policing in the United States was created to 
        control, criminalize, and brutalize African and Indigenous 
        peoples on stolen land. Modern Amerikkkan police descend 
        directly from slave patrols and settler militias formed in the 
        18th and 19th centuries. In the present day, their ranks are 
        riddled with outright fascists and white supremacists. Police 
        and armed US state agents like those of ICE, the DEA, the FBI, 
        DHS, and the US military are working today as they've always 
        been designed to--as tools of racist settler-colonial 
        capitalist and imperialist violence, hand in hand with white 
        vigilante terrorists.\10\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \10\ https://www.puebloactionalliance.org/blog/justice-for-george-
floyd.

    It is easy to see how anyone indoctrinated with this hysterical 
ideology could turn violent, and in that vein, PAA's allies in the All 
African People's Revolutionary Party proudly seek ``the total 
liberation and unification of Africa under Scientific Socialism.'' \11\ 
The Party pays homage to its founder, Kwame Nkrumah, the dictator of 
Ghana who received the Lenin Peace Prize from the Soviet Union.\12\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \11\ https://aaprp-intl.org/about-aaprp/.
    \12\ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenin_Peace_Prize.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The PAA is also aligned with another Communist dictatorship through 
its alliance with Cuba's Venceremos Brigades. Its website includes an 
essay by PAA's ``creative strategist'' that glamorizes Cuban tyranny. 
The strategist explains that when he returned to this country from 
Cuba, he ``experienced reverse culture shock returning to an 
environment with such a prominent white supremacist ideology.'' \13\ By 
contrast, Freedom House rates Cuba as ``Not Free'' and reports, 
``Cuba's one-party communist state outlaws political pluralism, bans 
independent media, suppresses dissent, and severely restricts basic 
civil liberties.'' \14\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \13\ https://www.puebloactionalliance.org/blog/solidarity-with-
cuba.
    \14\ https://freedomhouse.org/country/cuba.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Most Americans would likely assume that a group as radical as 
Pueblo Action Alliance would not be taken seriously by the Department 
of the Interior, but alas, the respect shown by the Department for 
these extremists has become notorious. This Committee has pointed out, 
in letters to the Secretary, that she and her department not only treat 
PAA as a source of policy wisdom but have also created at least the 
appearance of bias in official decisions and improper assistance to 
PAA.\15\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \15\ https://naturalresources.house.gov/uploadedfiles/
haaland_impartiality_and_misuse_of_ office.pdf.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The letters document multiple meetings between the Secretary and 
PAA officials. The Secretary has promoted PAA by having its insignia 
appear in public photographs beginning from her first day in office. 
PAA has promoted itself by such means as posting these photographs on 
its Instagram account.\16\ Activists have promoted Secretary Haaland's 
involvement \17\ in a film produced by the Director of PAA which 
demands that oil, gas, and mineral leasing outside of the Chaco Culture 
National Historical Park be ended--a question on which the Secretary 
officially ruled in favor of PAA's demand. And finally there are the 
many ways that the Secretary appears to be influenced by her adult 
child, Somah Haaland, who is employed by PAA. No wonder the Committee 
is deeply concerned that PAA may have improperly received nonpublic 
information from the Department.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \16\ https://www.instagram.com/p/CJwfQ9Wlkvg.
    \17\ https://www.videoproject.org/our-story.html.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Let there be no claims that such policy decisions as the withdrawal 
of leasing outside Chaco Park indicates respect for Indigenous peoples. 
In this case as in others, a ruling sought by one tribe is strenuously 
opposed by another tribe. The Navajo Nation voted to reject the 
Secretary's policy for the understandable reason that it expects her 
decision to cost the tribe hundreds of millions of dollars.\18\ The 
Navajos offered a compromise on this policy but were ignored by the 
Department, which failed to consult with a tribe that was powerfully 
affected by the policy. The result? According to the Standing Committee 
of the 25th Navajo Nation Council, their tribe members ``will be pushed 
into greater poverty.'' \19\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \18\ https://www.thecentersquare.com/new_mexico/article_5bb6556e-
e9f6-11ed-a681-1f3ccee2b6f0. html.
    \19\ Quoted in ibid.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    In response to this injustice, Kathleen Sgamma, head of a trade 
group for small independent producers, objected that Somah Haaland has 
``aggressively lobbied DOI and Congress to advance the Chaco 
withdrawal.'' Sgamma added, ``Can you imagine if President Trump's 
Interior Secretary David Bernhardt had a son who lobbied him on behalf 
of Western Energy Alliance to increase leasing around Chaco? It would 
have been unacceptable and rightfully criticized. Secretary Haaland's 
situation is no different and probably worse since over 5,000 Navajos 
stand to lose millions of dollars in income every year if the 
withdrawal is approved.'' \20\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \20\ https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2023/may/4/interior-
secretary-deb-haaland-dogged-ethics-quest/.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
``Dark Money'' Used to Influence the Department

    With that reference to former Interior Secretary Bernhardt we come 
to another aspect of environmental extremism's influence on the 
Department. Mr. Bernhardt became Secretary after environmental 
activists had first hounded his predecessor Ryan Zinke from the office. 
The same activists then hounded Bernhardt through the end of the 
previous Administration. Those activists are part of the largest 
network of ``dark money'' on either side of the political spectrum; 
namely, the network operated by Arabella Advisors, and they have taken 
precious little interest in this Administration's dubious conflicts of 
interest and other ethics challenges.
    The Arabella network's scheme is to create and manage multiple 
``umbrella'' nonprofits which in turn pop up hundreds of fake 
grassroots groups for all sorts of political purposes. In this case, 
two of Arabella's nonprofits created a matching pair of fake groups 
known as Western Values Project and Western Values Project Action in 
2013.\21\ Those groups in turn spent years attacking first Zinke, then 
Bernhardt, in hopes of influencing Interior policy and paving the way 
for their radical allies such as Secretary Haaland.\22\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \21\ See https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/western-values-
project/ and https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/western-values-
project-action/.
    \22\ See Hayden Ludwig, ``Arabella's Long War,'' Capital Research 
Center, November 12, 2021, https://capitalresearch.org/article/
arabellas-long-war-part-1/.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Although the fake groups' websites tried to imply they were 
launched in Helena, Montana, and operated by ``folks who live in the 
Rocky Mountain West,'' \23\ in fact the groups were operated out of two 
of Arabella's ``Beltway bandit'' shops, the New Venture Fund and the 
1630 Fund in Washington, DC. They were staffed by Democratic and union 
operatives, such as Chris Saeger, a former staffer of the Montana 
Democratic Party and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), 
and two more Montana Democratic staffers, Jayson O'Neill and Yetta 
Stein. The advisory board included a Colorado Democratic staffer, 
Kjersten Forseth, who was also a former AFL-CIO political director. 
Another advisory board member was Caroline Ciccone, who in 2019 ran 
another New Venture Fund fake group, Restore Public Trust, which 
attacked the Trump Administration. Ciccone, a former communications 
director of the Democratic National Committee, previously led Americans 
United for Change, a left-wing agitation group whose national field 
director, Scott Foval, was recorded in 2016 by undercover journalists 
bragging that the group had paid mentally ill and homeless people to 
instigate violence at Trump campaign rallies. Within days, Foval was 
fired.\24\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \23\ https://web.archive.org/web/20191004111231/https:/
westernvaluesproject.org/about-us/.
    \24\ Scott Walter, Arabella: The Dark Money Network of Leftist 
Billionaires Secretly Transforming America (New York: Encounter Books, 
2024), p. 97-98.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Another advisory board member was Kyle Herrig, who had been on the 
board of Arabella's New Venture Fund as well as the advisory board of 
at least five other Arabella fake groups, including Ciccone's Restore 
Public Trust. Herrig came to Arabella from one of its largest and most 
sinister donors, the foreign national billionaire Hansjorg Wyss.\25\ 
Because he lacks U.S. citizenship or even a green card, Mr. Wyss is 
supposed to stay out of U.S. politics, but in years past he contributed 
over $100,000 in illegal direct political contributions to such Members 
of Congress as Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), former Rep. Jay Inslee (D-WA), 
and former Rep. Mark Udall (D-CO). Unfortunately, the illicit donations 
were not discovered until after the statute of limitations on the crime 
had expired, though the contributions are still visible in the Federal 
Election Commission's database.\26\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \25\ Though Herrig's LinkedIn and Accountable.US bios hide his Wyss 
connection, he is listed as an employee of the Wyss Foundation in its 
2012 and 2013 IRS Form 990s: https://projects.propublica.org/
nonprofits/display_990/251823874/2013_10_PF%2F25-1823874_990PF_ 201212; 
https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/display_990/251823874/
2014_10_PF%2F25-1823874_990PF_201312.
    \26\ https://www.fec.gov/data/receipts/individual-contributions/
?contributor_name=Wyss%2C+ Hansjoerg&contributor_name=Wyss%2C+Hansjorg.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    In more recent years, Wyss has contributed roughly half a billion 
dollars to nonprofits active in politics and public policy, as 
documented by the watchdog group Americans for Public Trust.\27\ A 
quarter-billion of those dollars went over the last two decades into 
the Arabella network, which launched the Western Values Project 
nonprofits and other attack groups aimed at the previous 
Administration. Wyss's deeply disturbing interventions in American 
politics through his multibillion-dollar Wyss Foundation and its 
connected ``dark money'' 501(c)(4) Berger Action Fund were the subject 
of an oversight hearing in the House Ways and Means Committee, 
exercising its supervision of the nonprofit sector, at which I was 
honored to testify last December.\28\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \27\ Americans for Public Trust, ``Foreign Influence in U.S. 
Elections: How Swiss Billionaire Hansjorg Wyss and the Arabella 
Advisors Network Uses Foreign Dark Money to Sway American Politics and 
Policy,'' July 2023, https://americansforpublictrust.org/document/
report-foreign-influence-in-u-s-elections/.
    \28\ https://waysandmeans.house.gov/event/oversight-subcommittee-
hearing-on-growth-of-the-tax-exempt-sector-and-the-impact-on-the-
american-political-landscape/.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    In 2020, the two Western Values Project nonprofits linked to 
Herrig, plus Restore Public Trust linked to Ciccone and two more 
Arabella fake groups (American Oversight, a judicial activist and 
litigation group, and Allied Progress, which attacked Republican 
cabinet officials) announced they were being rolled into one new 
organization: Accountable.US, itself a former Arabella fake group later 
established as an independent nonprofit headed by Herrig and Ciccone. I 
note that Accountable.US also engages in such work as releasing an oppo 
research dump on me and other witnesses ahead of our testimony at a 
recent House Administration Committee hearing.\29\ APAArently 
Arabella's children do not appreciate having the curtain pulled back on 
this massive Wizard of Oz-style operation that takes in billions of 
dollars every election cycle.\30\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \29\ https://cha.house.gov/hearings?ID=CF598468-0C48-4DAC-9C0E-
0287E733682A. My testimony is available at https://capitalresearch.org/
article/scott-walter-testifies-to-committee-on-house-administration/.
    \30\ https://www.influencewatch.org/for-profit/arabella-advisors/
#network-financial-overview.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Before leaving the enormous influence exerted by the Arabella 
network on the Interior Department across entire Administrations, and 
the network's deep-rooted connections to Hansjorg Wyss, I should add 
that Arabella's founder, Eric Kessler, was radicalized by an 
environmental extremist, and that Mr. Wyss's private foundation and his 
``dark money'' group are run by a woman, Molly McUsic, who likely first 
met Mr. Kessler before he launched Arabella, when both of them were 
working at the Department of the Interior under Bruce Babbitt, the 
former head of the League of Conservation Voters (LCV), where Kessler 
previously worked.
    The founder of the League of Conservation Voters, David Brower, 
says he established it ``initially as part of Friends of the Earth,'' 
which he also founded, but the two groups ``later separated for legal 
reasons (corporations are not supposed to contribute to political 
candidates).'' \31\ Brower earlier ran the Sierra Club, but he so 
radicalized and politicized the group that it lost its 501(c)(3) 
charitable status.\32\ Brower also radicalized the undergraduate 
Kessler in 1990, when Brower gave a speech at Kessler's Colorado 
university. Kessler hitchhiked after Brower to San Francisco to work 
with him.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \31\ David R. Brower, ``Foreword'' to Friends of the Earth, 
Progress As If Survival Mattered (San Francisco: Friends of the Earth, 
1977), p. 8.
    \32\ https://www.earthisland.org/journal/index.php/magazine/entry/
from_heresy_to_conventional_ wisdom_at_blinding_speed/##.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    It's unclear whether Kessler realized just how radical Brower was. 
In a 1977 Friends of the Earth manifesto overseen by Brower, the 
environmental apocalypse predicted was not then global warming but the 
``population bomb.'' (Note that the religious fanaticism of radicals 
seems to require the preaching of a secular apocalypse, though as the 
various predictions of doom fail to come true, new apocalypses must be 
manufactured.)

    That 1977 manifesto's first chapter deals with the alleged threat 
of population, and it calmly ponders horrific public policies to 
``save'' the world from people:

        Perhaps someday childbearing will be deemed a punishable crime 
        against society unless the parents hold a government license. 
        Or perhaps all potential parents will be required to use 
        contraceptive chemicals, the governments issuing antidotes to 
        citizens chosen for childbearing.\33\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \33\ Progress As If Survival Mattered, pp. 16-17.

    I do not know if Arabella's Kessler was aware of this depraved view 
of alleged environmental dangers, nor if Secretary Haaland, as she 
earned a lifetime score of 98 percent from the League of Conservation 
voters for her service in Congress,\34\ was aware of the extremism that 
gave birth to the League. But I do know it should be a warning to 
anyone with oversight over the Department she now runs, and to the 
Secretary herself: Radical environmentalism can blind its acolytes to 
reality and lead to gruesomely anti-human conclusions, rendering such 
radicalism entirely unfit as a basis for public policy.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \34\ Walter, Arabella, p. 103.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Even on the more mundane level of ``dark money'' influencing the 
Interior Department, note that the Center for Public Integrity has 
warned that the League of Conservation Voters has become a `` `dark 
money' heavyweight,'' \35\ using its cash to influence the 
Administration and thwart the desires for abundant minerals and 
inexpensive energy felt by most Americans.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \35\ https://publicintegrity.org/federal-politics/league-of-
conservation-voters-becoming-dark-money-heavyweight/.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Another example of the combination of ``dark money'' and 
environmental extremism comes from the Wilderness Society, which 
regularly works to influence the Interior Department. The Society's 
sister group, the Wilderness Society's Action Fund, reveals its crude 
partisanship by donating only to Democratic candidates.\36\ The Society 
itself has not one but two Wyss-world leaders on its governing council: 
the aforementioned Molly McUsic, leader of the Wyss Foundation and its 
Berger Action Fund ``dark money'' group, and Hansjorg Wyss himself.\37\ 
McUsic serves as a vice-chair of the Society's governing council. 
Evidence of the Society's influence in the Interior Department appears 
in such instances as the December 2, 2022 meeting with Deputy Secretary 
Beaudreau to discuss Izembek National Wildlife Refuge policy,\38\ which 
three months later led to a complete victory for the Society.\39\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \36\ https://www.opensecrets.org/political-action-committees-pacs/
wilderness-society-action-fund/C00788992/pac-to-pac/2022.
    \37\ https://www.wilderness.org/about-us/our-team/our-governing-
council.
    \38\ https://www.doi.gov/sites/doi.gov/files/beaudreau-calendar-
dec-2022-redacted.pdf.
    \39\ https://www.wilderness.org/articles/press-release/biden-
administration-rescinds-land-exchange-protects-izembek.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Clearly, radical environmentalists with extreme views are 
exercising considerable sway over the Department of the Interior. I 
hope this serious problem will be addressed. Americans, especially the 
poor, deserve to enjoy the benefits of inexpensive energy and abundant 
resources, with which our nation has been blessed. You should protect 
the country from radicals who attempt to push on the levers of 
government to eliminate energy sources and to prevent the mining of the 
very natural resources required to produce their preferred sources of 
energy and transportation.
    Thank you.

                                 ______
                                 

    Dr. Gosar. Thank you, Mr. Walter. I now recognize Mr. 
Painter for 5 minutes.

STATEMENT OF RICHARD W. PAINTER, S. WALTER RICHEY PROFESSOR OF 
CORPORATE LAW, UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA LAW SCHOOL, MINNEAPOLIS, 
                           MINNESOTA

    Mr. Painter. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member, thank you for 
inviting me here to testify today. I am a law professor in 
Minnesota, where I have been ever since I was the chief White 
House ethics lawyer for President George W. Bush from 2005 to 
2007. I was proud to serve in the Bush administration, where 
the vast majority of the President's appointees conducted 
themselves in accordance with the ethical obligations of 
Federal employees. Unfortunately, the Interior Department was 
not our most shining example of ethical compliance.
    Federal land is our land. It belongs to the American 
people. Congress holds this land in trust pursuant to the 
United States Constitution. Authority is delegated to the 
Interior Department to manage Federal land. This is over one-
quarter of the land mass of the United States. This land is 
intended for use in the interests of the American people, which 
includes, but is not limited to, environmentally sound 
extraction of minerals, timber, oil and gas, and other 
commercially productive uses.
    But the problem is that, with this vast amount of power 
over so much land, the Interior Department has been a source of 
corruption for over a century, going back to the Teapot Dome 
scandal of the 1920s all the way through the time when I was 
the chief White House ethics lawyer for President Bush and we 
had too many scandals in the Interior Department, up until 
today.
    The vast majority of this corruption over 100-plus years 
has involved oil and gas, mining, and real estate developers 
and casino operators such as Jack Abramoff's clients and others 
seeking access to Federal lands on terms favorable to 
themselves and detrimental to the public interest, not by the 
means of lobbying the Interior Department in accordance with 
the laws and the First Amendment right of every American to 
petition the government for redress of grievances, but 
illegally. And that is why we have had so many scandals over a 
century.
    It is conceivable that environmental groups also will seek 
access to the Interior Department through improper and illegal 
means. And I want to emphasize it is critically important that 
the same rules apply to everybody, whether it is industry or an 
environmental group.
    That being said, I would have to say that worrying about 
environmental groups taking over the Interior Department would 
be somewhat analogous to worrying about pacifists taking over 
the Department of Defense. Perhaps it will happen someday, but 
that is not where we are now.
    We have had over a century of corruption in the Interior 
Department under presidents of Republican and Democratic 
administrations. This is not a partisan issue. We have had 
corruption in the Interior Department from industry groups that 
want unfair access to the Department and want to use Federal 
lands for their enrichment at the expense of the American 
people.
    I want to just discuss briefly the impact of what happens 
in the Interior Department on the people in the state of 
Minnesota. Former Republican Governor Arne Carlson and I, for 
the past 5 years, have been fighting efforts by foreign 
billionaires to build sulfide mines in the state of Minnesota. 
We are famous for iron mining in Minnesota. We have the Iron 
Range. That is not the sulfide mining range. And if we are 
going to have sulfide mining in Minnesota, with all its 
environmental complexities, we certainly don't need these 
companies run by foreign billionaires coming into our state, 
polluting our water, and then hightailing on out of there 
because they have influence in Washington.
    One of these companies, Glencore, was founded by Marc Rich, 
a tax cheat pardoned by President Clinton. And Glencore opened 
up a company called PolyMet that would run a mine in Minnesota, 
and arranged a land swap deal with the Interior Department to 
get Federal land for purposes of sulfide mining. Glencore, the 
parent company, is close to Russian oligarchs. The CEO of 
Glencore received the Medal of Freedom from Vladimir Putin. 
Those are not the people we want engaged in sulfide mining in 
northern Minnesota.
    And the same for another company run by a Chilean 
billionaire called Antofagasta. They want to open a mine right 
in the Boundary Waters, and they got a lease from the Interior 
Department. Over many decades, they have had this lease. What 
happens is, as soon as President Trump was elected, 
miraculously we find that the billionaire owner of this 
company, this foreign billionaire, is leasing a house to Jared 
and Ivanka Trump. Now, that is perfectly legal to be a landlord 
for the incoming administration. I don't know what the rent 
terms were on that lease, but I will assure you one thing. The 
people of Minnesota do not want that sulfide mine in the 
Boundary Waters, and we expect the Interior Department to stand 
up for us.

    [The prepared statement of Mr. Painter follows:]
     Prepared Statement of Richard W. Painter, Law Professor at the
                        University of Minnesota

    Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member, and Members of the Committee:
    Thank you for inviting me to testify today on the ethics and 
integrity of the Department of the Interior.
    I am a law professor at the University of Minnesota, and I was the 
chief White House ethics lawyer for President George W. Bush from 2005 
to 2007. I specialize in corporate law, securities regulation, lawyers' 
ethics, and government ethics.
    The subject of my testimony today is improper influence of special 
interest groups on the Department of the Interior.
    The federal government owns about six hundred forty million acres 
of land, between a quarter and a third of the total land in the United 
States. That is almost two acres of land for each of the approximately 
three hundred and thirty million people living in the United States.
    Federal land does not belong to oil companies, or to mining 
companies, or to anyone else. It belongs to ``you and me'' \1\ the 
American people.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ This Land in Your Land, As recorded by Woody Guthrie in April 
1944

    Under the United States Constitution, Congress holds this land in 
trust. Your power as custodians of this land is set forth in the 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Constitution Article IV, Section 3, Clause 2:

        The Congress shall have Power to dispose of and make all 
        needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other 
        Property belonging to the United States; and nothing in this 
        Constitution shall be so construed as to Prejudice any Claims 
        of the United States, or of any particular State.

    Public lands may only be disposed of with congressional 
authorization. The Supreme Court has held that the power of Congress is 
exclusive.. United States v. Fitzgerald, 40 U.S. (15 Pet.) 407, 421 
(1841); Utah Power & Light Co. v. United States, 243 U.S. 389, 403-04 
(1917), although in the absence of Congressional action courts often 
defer to the executive branch. United States v. Midwest Oil Co., 236 
U.S. 459, 469 (1915). Congress has from time-to-time reasserted control 
over federal lands. See e.g. 43 U.S.C. Sec. 315. Grazing districts; 
establishment; restrictions; prior rights; rights of-way; hearing and 
notice; hunting or fishing rights. Pub. L. No. 94-579, Sec. 704(a), 90 
Stat. 2792 (1976).
    The time has come, once again, for Congress to act. I testify today 
not about specific laws for best use and preservation of public lands, 
but rather much needed reform of the ethics rules that bind the 
Department of Interior.
    Corruption of government officials is an ancient problem.\2\ 
Because the Interior Department controls such vast swaths of federal 
land, and much of this Country's natural resources, however, corruption 
of the Interior Department is perhaps an even greater risk. The 
Interior Department has been a problem in government ethics for over a 
century. The Interior Department was an ethics disaster zone in the 
1920s, it was problematic during the Bush Administration when I was the 
chief White House ethics lawyer, and the problems remain today.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \2\ The late Judge John T. Noonan of the Ninth Circuit Court of 
Appeals recorded the history of bribery over two thousand years in his 
seminal book Bribes, published shortly after President Reagan appointed 
him to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. John T. Noonan, Jr., Bribes 
(1986).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    I will close my testimony with specific suggestions on what 
Congress can do to prevent yet more scandals in the Interior Department 
and assure that authority delegated to the Department by Congress is 
used in a manner consistent with the interests of the owners of federal 
land--the American people.
    In April 1922, Senator John Kendrick (D-WY) sought investigation of 
a secret deal in which Interior Secretary Albert Fall, without 
competitive bidding, leased the U.S. Naval Petroleum Reserve at 
Wyoming's Teapot Dome to a private oil company. Senator Robert La 
Follette (R WI) and the Senate Committee on Public Lands investigated. 
Prosecutions soon followed. Fall was the first former cabinet officer 
to go to prison.\3\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \3\ Albert B. Fall v. United States, 49 F.2d 506 (D.C. Cir. 1931) 
(conviction affirmed).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Secretary Fall went to prison for bribery. He was not the victim of 
a political prosecution. He was a felon. In the United States, no 
person is above the law--not a cabinet member and not even a president. 
There is no immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts that 
are criminal.\4\ A Secretary of the Interior or any other Interior 
Department official who for personal profit sells access to federal 
land or natural resources on federal land commits a felony. See 18 U.S. 
Code Sec. 201-Bribery of public officials and witnesses.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \4\ See United States v. Trump, 23-939, Brief of the United States 
and oral argument, April 25, 2024; review on cert. of U.S. v. Trump, 
No. 23-3228 (D.C. Cir. 2024).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    But criminal laws cannot be the only constraint on the affairs of 
the Interior Department. We should not delegate management of vast 
portions of the United States to a federal agency that can do whatever 
it wants, whenever it wants, so long as prosecutors cannot prove a 
public official committed a crime.
    There have been way too many Interior Department scandals to 
mention all of them in my testimony. I note a few.
    When I came to the White House in February 2005, lobbyist Jack 
Abramoff faced criminal charges for corrupt dealings with clients and 
the government. Much of his activity centered on the Department of 
Interior and misuse of statutes and rules intended to allow Indian 
Tribes specific privileges in lobbying the government about use of 
tribal land and federal land. Abramoff used--indeed abused--these 
federal laws to make profits for himself and the casino industry. J. 
Steven Griles, former Deputy Secretary of the Interior was sentenced to 
ten months in prison for obstructing the U.S. Senate's investigation 
into Abramoff.\5\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \5\ See Department of Justice Press Release, June 26, 2007, Former 
Interior Deputy Secretary Steven Griles Sentenced to 10 Months in 
Prison for Obstructing U.S. Senate Investigation into Abramoff 
Corruption Scandal, https://www.justice.gov/archive/opa/pr/2007/June/
07_crm_455.html

    We had other problems during the Bush Administration. A New York 
Times article summarizing an Inspector General's report on an Interior 
Department program that managed oil and gas royalties from federal 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
lands, stated:

        ``The report says that eight officials in the royalty program 
        accepted gifts from energy companies whose value exceeded 
        limits set by ethics rules including golf, ski and paintball 
        outings; meals and drinks; and tickets to a Toby Keith concert, 
        a Houston Texans football game and a Colorado Rockies baseball 
        game.

        The investigation also concluded that several of the officials 
        `frequently consumed alcohol at industry functions, had used 
        cocaine and marijuana, and had sexual relationships with oil 
        and gas company representatives.' '' \6\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \6\ Charles Savage, Sex, Drug Use and Graft Cited in Interior 
Department, New York Times, September 10, 2008, https://
www.nytimes.com/2008/09/11/washington/11royalty.html

    None of this behavior was disclosed to the White House ethics 
office during my watch. I assure you I would have recommended immediate 
dismissals if it had.
    More recently, during the Trump Administration, Interior Secretary 
Ryan Zinke faced allegations that he misused his position to advance a 
commercial development project in his Montana hometown and may have 
lied to an agency ethics official about his involvement. He was also 
accused of making false statements during a probe of a Native American 
casino development.\7\ Zinke was the subject of over a dozen 
investigations by either the Interior Department Office of the 
Inspector General (OIG), the Government Accountability Office (GAO), or 
the Office of Special Counsel (OSC). No criminal charges were filed and 
none of these allegations have been proven in court, but they are 
concerning.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \7\ The OIG found that Zinke used his office and taxpayer resources 
for personal gain, used a personal email account to communicate 
information, and may have lied to the OIG about it. See https://
www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/interior-secretary-
zinke-resigns-amid-investigations/2018/12/15/481f9104-0077-11e9-ad40-
cdfd0e0dd65a_story.html and https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-
environment/2022/08/24/ryan-zinke-misled-investigators-watchdog-report/
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Zinke's successor, Interior Secretary David Bernhardt disclosed 
over two dozen former clients and employers presenting potential 
conflicts of interest.\8\ Hopefully these conflicts were appropriately 
managed by Interior Department ethics lawyers, but Bernhardt's 
appointment is just one example of the long-standing close ties between 
senior Interior Department officials and private industry.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \8\ Marc Rehmann, David Bernhardt Is President Trump's Most 
Conflicted Cabinet Nominee, American Progress, March 15, 2019. https://
www.americanprogress.org/article/david-bernhardt-president-trumps-
conflicted-cabinet-nominee/
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    On May 19, 2022, the Interior Department OIG released a report of 
its investigation into whether Bernhardt violated the Lobbying 
Disclosure Act of 1995 when he represented Westlands Water District as 
a lobbyist before and after serving as Interior Secretary.\9\ Bernhardt 
refused to be interviewed and OIG was not able to make a determination. 
On January 19, 2023, OIG issued a report on whether Bernhardt violated 
the Ethics Pledge and conflict of interest rules by participating in 
matters involving the California Central Valley Project, a large 
Federal water project under the jurisdiction of the Bureau of 
Reclamation.'' \10\ Once again, Bernhardt declined to be interviewed 
and OIG did not reach a determination.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \9\ Office of Inspector General, Former Secretary's Alleged 
Lobbying Disclosure Act Violation Before Joining the U.S. Department of 
the Interior as Deputy Secretary, Report No: 20-0393, Department of the 
Interior, May 19, 2022. https://www.oversight.gov/sites/default/files/
oig-reports/DOI/WebRedactFormerSecretarysAllegedLDAViolation.pdf
    \10\ Office of the Inspector General, Allegations of Ethics 
Violations by Former U.S. Department of the Interior Secretary Were Not 
Substantiated, Report Number: 19-0313, Department of the Interior, 
January 19, 2023. https://www.doioig.gov/sites/default/files/2021-
migration/
WebRedacted_AllegationsofEthicsViolationsbyFormerDOISecretaryWereNotSubs
tantiated.pdf
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    On May 11, 2022, Committee Democrats made a criminal referral to 
the Department of Justice outlining evidence of a quid pro quo between 
Trump administration officials, including Bernhardt, and real estate 
developer Mike Ingram, the owner of El Dorado Holdings, which proposed 
to build the Villages at Vigneto (Vigneto), a large housing and 
commercial development near the endangered San Pedro River in Benson, 
Arizona. At the same time as the Army Corp of Engineers permit for the 
project was re-opened, Ingram and other Arizona donors gave about a 
quarter of a million dollars to the Trump Victory Fund and the 
Republican National Committee. The question, not yet proven one way or 
the other, is whether this donation was in exchange for the U.S. Fish 
and Wildlife Service changing its position about a Clean Water Act 
permit for Vigneto.\11\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \11\ House Committee on Natural Resources, Letter of Criminal 
Referral to U.S. Department of Justice, U.S. House of Representatives, 
May 11, 2022. https://democrats-naturalresources. house.gov/download/
grijalva-porter-to-doj-regarding-villages-at-vigneto&download=1
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    In none of these instances has criminal wrongdoing yet been proven. 
Nonetheless there have been so many allegations backed up by 
substantial evidence about corruption in the Interior Department that 
the American people ought to be concerned. Congress also should be 
concerned.
    Yet another problem is the growing influence of foreign 
corporations, some with ties to foreign governments. Arne Carlson, 
former Republican Governor of Minnesota, and I have vocally opposed 
efforts of mining conglomerates controlled by foreign billionaires, to 
open sulfide mines near the Boundary Waters and Lake Superior 
watershed. Sulfide mining is not like the iron mining Minnesota is 
famous for. A sulfide mine loosens up rocks and minerals deep 
underground and can turn water into the color of orange hair dye. 
Whether or not we like orange hair dye, Minnesotans don't want their 
lakes and rivers looking like that.
    One of these mining companies, PolyMet, in 2017 arranged a land 
swap with the Interior Department to acquire federal land for sulfide 
mining. Litigation by environmental groups against the Interior 
Department continues to this day. See Center for Biological Diversity 
v. Haaland (D. Minn.) Case No. 22-cv-181 (PJS/LIB) (seeking an Order of 
the Court voiding the land exchange between the Forest Service and 
PolyMet; setting aside and vacating the various reports, opinions, and 
assessments created by defendants). PolyMet (now NorthMet) is 
controlled by Swiss mining conglomerate Glencore, founded by a tax 
cheat Marc Rich, pardoned by President Clinton. Glencore recently has 
had close ties with Russian oligarchs, and in 2017 Glencore's CEO Ivan 
Glasenberg received the Presidential Medal of Friendship from Vladimir 
Putin.\12\ These are not the people we want opening a sulfide mine in 
Minnesota on federal land.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \12\ See Jack Farchy, Putin Awards Glasenberg Order of Friendship 
After Rosneft Deal, Bloomberg, Bloomberg, April 10, 2017, https://
www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-04-10/putin-awards-glasenberg-
order-of-friendship-after-rosneft-deal
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Yet another sulfide mine on a lease of federal land, adjacent to 
the Boundary Waters, was championed by federal officials in the Trump 
Administration. This mine would be controlled by Antofagasta, a 
corporation owned by a billionaire from Chile. The same billionaire in 
2017 also leased an expensive house he had purchased in Washington DC 
to Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump.\13\ I have no idea what the rent 
was, but this landlord's focus was not real estate. He was in the 
sulfide mining business. Despite Minnesotans' overwhelming opposition 
to sulfide mining in the Boundary Waters, the Trump Administration 
supported this mine. Fortunately, that decision was reversed during the 
Biden Administration.\14\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \13\ Mark Maremont, Ivanka Trump's Landlord Is a Chilean 
Billionaire Suing the U.S. Government: President Donald Trump's 
daughter and her husband, White House adviser Jared Kushner, live in a 
Kalorama house owned by a Chilean business titan. His company is suing 
the U.S. over a Minnesota mine, Wall Street Journal, March 8, 2017, 
https://www.wsj.com/articles/ivanka-trumps-landlord-is-a-chilean-
billionaire-suing-the-u-s-government-1489000307
    \14\ U.S. Department of the Interior, Press Release: Interior 
Department Takes Action on Mineral Leases Improperly Renewed in the 
Watershed of the Boundary Wates Wilderness, 01/26/2022, https://
www.doi.gov/pressreleases/interior-department-takes-action-mineral-
leases-improperly-renewed-watershed-boundary
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Environmental groups also seek to influence the Interior 
Department. While their resources are nowhere near as vast as those of 
industry groups, they must play by the same rules. We can't have one 
set of rules for industry and another for nonprofits. Furthermore, it 
is not always easy to discern who is funding nonprofits and whether 
industry or other special interests stand behind them.
    A recent Inspector General's report points out a violation of the 
Biden ethics pledge by Nada Culver, the Bureau of Land Management's 
director of policy and programs.\15\ The inspector general concluded 
that Culver met with her previous employer, the Wilderness Society, on 
potential changes to regulation of oil and gas development and climate 
change. The inspector general apparently also concluded that Culver did 
so unintentionally and followed ethics guidance given to her, and that 
these meetings did not affect Bureau policy decisions. Intent, however, 
is not determinative--a violation of the ethics pledge is a violation 
(intent in relevant in criminal law, but violations of the ethics 
pledge are not criminal). The fact that a previous employer was an 
environmental advocacy organization rather than a private company also 
is not a factor in the ethics pledge. A violation of the ethics pledge 
is not a criminal offense, but still should be avoided.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \15\ Office of the Inspector General, Bureau of Land Management 
Official Did Not Comply with the Federal Ethics Pledge, Department of 
the Interior, August 18, 2022, https://www.doioig.gov/sites/default/
files/2021-migration/WebRedacted_BLMEthicsPledgeViolation.pdf
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    We did not have this ethics pledge during the Bush Administration. 
Senior officials met with their former employers frequently as they had 
during the Clinton, George H.W. Bush, and Reagan Administrations. Many 
of these officials had been previously employed by oil and gas, mining, 
or energy companies or by trade associations. As the White House ethics 
lawyer, I did not like these meetings with former employers, but there 
was little I could do about them. At that time, no rule prohibited 
them.
    President Obama's ethics pledge, drafted by Ambassador Norman Eisen 
and embodied in an executive order in 2009, changed this.\16\ Similar 
language was used in Trump and Biden Administration ethics pledges. 
Meetings with previous employers to discuss federal policy are 
prohibited, even if the language of the ethics pledge is not as clear 
as it should be. Violation of the ethics pledge is not a criminal 
offense, but it should be taken seriously. The ethics pledge should be 
enforced. A single violation is not necessarily a firing offense, but 
this must be taken seriously.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \16\ Executive Order 13490--Ethics Commitments By Executive Branch 
Personnel, January 21, 2009.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    How do we fix the ethics problems in the Interior Department?

    First, we must realize that government ethics is not a partisan 
issue. Republicans and Democrats have an interest in protecting our 
federal lands and in the integrity of the Interior Department. 
Democratic, Republican, and Independent voters demand higher standards 
of ethics in government, Congress should pass legislation that will 
improve ethics in the Interior Department and other federal agencies.
    It is your choice whether to turn this hearing into a partisan 
competition between members making accusations--true of false--against 
the Interior Department under a president of the other political party, 
while defending everything that happened under a president of their 
own. Voters, however, see right through that. We want change, not 
partisan acrimony.
    Second, we must understand what the real problem is, and has been 
since the Teapot Dome scandal. Most of the corruption in the Interior 
Department is on account of private enterprises--oil and gas companies, 
mining companies, developers and casino operators. Environmental groups 
also will seek to assert influence, hoping to even the playing field. 
Some might even break the rules and should be held accountable. But 
worrying about extreme environmental groups trying to take over the 
Interior Department would be like worrying that pacificists will take 
over the Defense Department. Lockheed Martin and Boeing Corporation 
surely have closer ties with the Defense Department than your local 
Quaker Meeting House. Likewise, it is persons seeking profit from 
misuse of federal lands who for over a century have sought influence in 
the Interior Department.
    Contacts with former employers are a major problem. The Interior 
Department should promulgate its own regulations prohibiting senior 
officials from engaging in policy discussions with their former 
employers or the former employers of more senior officials in the 
Department. One of the ways lobbyists get around the ethics pledge is 
to lobby a government officer's subordinates, often dropping the name 
of their boss. That should not be permitted.
    18 USC 208 prohibits financial conflicts of interest for all 
federal employees. The accompanying financial disclosure regime, 
however, is deficient. As I have testified before in this House,\17\ 
the financial disclosure form needs to list the financing of separately 
incorporated entities in which the public official owns a controlling 
interest.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \17\ Testimony of Richard W. Painter Before the Committee on 
Oversight and Government Reform, U.S. House of Representatives, Hearing 
entitled Legislative Proposals for Fostering Transparency March 23, 
2017.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Spousal lobbying of an agency is yet another problem, but it is 
currently allowed in most instances.\18\ The Interior Department should 
say no to this. Individuals outside the government, including spouses, 
have the First amendment right to lobby, but the Interior Department is 
not required to give them preferential access not available to every 
other American.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \18\ See Richard W. Painter, Getting the Government America 
Deserves: How Ethics Reform Can Make a Difference (Oxford U. Press 
2009) at 184 (``Another increasingly important personal connection 
comes through spouses. One spouse serves in government, while the other 
lobbies. This is the so-called `Washington power-couple phenomenon.' 
'')
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The Department decides who gets preferential access to its most 
senior officials. Persons personally connected with senior officials 
should only be afforded the level of access available to a member of 
the public unknown to the Department. This should include lobbying by 
grown children of Interior Department officials.
    It would probably go too far to exclude employers of these family 
members from lobbying senior officials in the Department but the family 
members themselves should not participate in Interior Department 
meetings other than meetings open on similar terms to the public. Under 
existing ethics rules, and even the ethics pledge, however, many such 
private meetings with well-connected individuals are now permitted.
    Ethics rules can't monitor or prohibit discussions Interior 
Department officials have with their own friends or family members 
about broad policy issues also debated in the public forum.\19\ 
However, disclosure of nonpublic information about the Department to 
persons outside the government should in most circumstances be 
prohibited. When nonpublic agency information is disclosed, almost 
always it is private industry, including persons engaged in trading in 
securities, who benefit.\20\ On at least one prior occasion the 
Interior Department Inspector General found that a senior official, the 
Director of Fish and Wildlife, had improperly disclosed nonpublic 
information to private parties.\21\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \19\ Secretary Haaland's adult child, Somah Haaland has advocated 
on a matter pending before the Interior Department, but I have not seen 
evidence that Somah Haaland lobbied Secretary Haaland, or other 
presidential appointees in the Department.
    \20\ See Donna Nagy and Richard W. Painter, Plugging Leaks and 
Lowering Levees in the Federal Government: Practical Solutions for 
Securities Trading Based on Political Intelligence (with Donna Nagy), 
ILLINOIS LAW REVIEW (2014).
    \21\ See Department of the Interior Office of the Inspector 
General, Report of Investigation, Julie MacDonald, Deputy Assistant 
Secretary Fish, Wildlife and Parks (March 2007) (finding violation of 
under 5 C.F.R. 9 2635.703 Use of Nonpublic Information and 5 C.F.R. 5 
2635.101 Basic Obligation of Public Service, Appearance of Preferential 
Treatment).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Undisclosed gifts are yet another problem. Federal gift rules and 
disclosure rules are detailed, but too often are not followed. For 
example, I repeatedly told senior White House officials and Interior 
Department ethics lawyers that free rides on private jets are 
prohibited under the gift rules and in rare exceptions where free 
travel can be accepted, it must be reported. I and other ethics lawyers 
ridiculed what we called the ``empty seat theory'' of corporate jet 
travel: the specious argument that a government employee can accept and 
not disclose a free ride on an oil company jet because the jet had an 
empty seat and the free trip cost the company no money. This same 
prohibition on free travel applies to federal judges, and the White 
House discussed it with several judges, including prospective nominees 
to the Supreme Court.\22\ The existing gift rules are sufficient and do 
not need amending, but Congress should increase the penalties for 
violation of these rules and failure to disclose gifts from prohibited 
sources.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \22\ But see Samuel A. Alito, Jr., Justice Samuel Alito: ProPublica 
Misleads Its Readers, WALL ST. J. (June 20, 2023) (defending an 
undisclosed free trip on a private plane to Alaska).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Congress also needs to fix its own ethics problems. First, Members 
of Congress should not own--and trade--energy company stocks while 
regulating/deregulating the energy industry. Such financial conflicts 
of interest are legal because Congress has not applied the criminal 
conflict of interest statute, 18 USC 208, to itself. But this is 
unseemly. Congress should pass a law applying to Congress the conflicts 
of interest rules that apply to the executive branch, including the 
Interior Department.
    Second, our campaign finance system is an invitation to corruption. 
Last June I testified before the Senate Budget Committee about the 
enormous expenditures by fossil fuel companies on electioneering 
communications, lobbying and other attempts to influence Congress and 
the Executive Branch.\23\ Some Members of the Committee took this 
subject seriously. Other senators strayed into the irrelevant.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \23\ Testimony of Richard W. Painter before the U.S. Senate, 
Committee on the Budget, Hearing ``Democracy Distorted: Unraveling the 
Consequences of Fossil Fuel Dark Money in Politics,'' June 21, 2023, 
https://www.budget.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Mr.%20Richard%20Painter%20-
%20 Testimony%20-%20Senate%20Budget%20Committee1.pdf
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    I sincerely hope the Members of this Committee will take ethics in 
government seriously. That includes careful attention to the issues 
raised in today's hearing and also fixing a campaign finance system 
that gives polluters an outsized influence in Congress as well as in 
the Interior Department.
    Foreign money is another concern. Foreign money comes mostly on the 
industry side, but theoretically could also infiltrate nonprofit 
organizations that pretend to advocate for the environment but are 
really acting on behalf of foreign principles.
    It is important that American environmental advocacy organizations 
not be infiltrated by extremists or foreign adversaries. We should be 
vigilant about attempts by China to influence American nonprofits, as 
well as governments in the Middle East that fund organizations that 
deny the existence of Israel as a Jewish state. We should remember that 
Middle East oil money comes from an industry that has profited 
enormously from CO2 emissions. There is little evidence of foreign 
governments or extremists infiltrating the major environmental advocacy 
organizations in the United States. Let's keep it that way.
    Reform of the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938 (FARA) is 
essential. I have spoken of sulfide mining companies controlled by 
foreign billionaires who seek to influence public opinion so they can 
open sulfide mines in Minnesota. Foreign agents have a largely 
unconstrained opportunity to influence our government, but they must 
disclose who they are under FARA. Too many foreign agents do not 
disclose. The rules need to be clarified and enforcement improved. At 
the same time, FARA should not be used to make false allegations 
against environmental organizations or engage in political witch hunts.
    In conclusion, the Interior Department is vulnerable to corruption 
by special interests. Congress has delegated to it broad authority to 
administer federal lands covering over a quarter of the Country. These 
lands belong to you and me, the American people. Natural resources 
extraction by private industry on federal land can generate enormous 
wealth for the few but may or may not also serve the public welfare. 
That depends on the facts. The Interior Department should administer 
federal lands entrusted to it according to the facts and the interests 
of the American people, not the political influence of moneyed special 
interests.
    The American people also are entitled to their share of what 
natural resources on federal land are worth, a share that should not be 
diminished because special interests buy off officials in the Interior 
Department, politicians, or political parties. Government ethics reform 
is an important way in which Congress can protect the value of federal 
land, our land, for perpetuity.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member and Members of this 
Committee, for your attention to these serious matters.

                                 ______
                                 

    Dr. Gosar. I thank the gentleman. I now recognize Mr. 
O'Neil for his 5 minutes.

   STATEMENT OF TYLER O'NEIL, AUTHOR, ``MAKING HATE PAY: THE 
CORRUPTION OF THE SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER'', WASHINGTON, DC

    Mr. O'Neil. Chairman Gosar, Ranking Member Stansbury, 
extreme environmental groups have broad sway in the Interior 
Department. In my remarks, I plan to show how these groups 
affect policy, how their former staff now help lead Interior, 
and how a leftist group that demonizes conservatives is 
influencing Interior's efforts to be more inclusive.
    In July 2023, the Sierra Club and its allies asked an 
agency at Interior to crack down on oil and gas in the Gulf of 
Mexico. Two months later, Interior released a 5-year plan that 
included the smallest number of oil and gas lease sales in the 
Gulf in history. We know because Secretary Haaland bragged 
about it. This plan is currently facing a lawsuit because 
America's largest fossil fuel industry association says the 
plan will harm American consumers and threaten our energy 
security.
    Earlier this very month, Interior announced its 5-year plan 
for wind energy. While it restricts oil and gas to 3 lease 
sales, it plans for 12 offshore wind auctions. The Sierra Club 
celebrated the move, and pledged to continue collaborating with 
the Biden administration.
    Oil is cheaper and more reliable than wind energy, and 
America has the best track record of generating the least 
emissions while drilling for oil. Wind also requires strip 
mining for rare Earth minerals, leaving toxic by-products. Yet, 
Interior is promoting wind energy. The left's dark money 
network helps explain why.
    While Democrats were obsessed with the Koch brothers, a New 
York Times analysis shows that the left's dark money network 
spent more than comparable conservative groups. The left-wing 
Arabella Advisors and the Tides Foundation set up non-profits 
to allow donors to pour money into specific projects without 
disclosing what the money does.
    The Arabella Network's new venture fund funded and launched 
Governing for Impact, for example. Governing for Impact bragged 
that the Biden administration acted on more than 20 of its 
recommendations.
    The Center for American Progress, which advocates for 
environmental justice, received more than $3 million from the 
Arabella Network. Meanwhile, the Department of the Interior is 
directing $2 billion in funds through the so-called Inflation 
Reduction Act. Who determines where these funds go? Center for 
American Progress founder, John Podesta.
    Meanwhile, the National Wildlife Federation, an 
environmentalist group that promoted Al Gore's film, ``An 
Inconvenient Truth,'' received nearly $1 million via Arabella 
non-profits. NMFS's former employees now hold positions of 
power at Interior.
    Four-year NWF staffer Tracy Stone-Manning is now the 
Director at the Bureau of Land Management. She notoriously sent 
a threatening letter on behalf of eco-terrorists who spiked 
trees to cause physical harm to loggers. She later says she 
does not condone tree spiking or terrorism of any kind.
    Laura Daniel-Davis, who worked at Interior under Obama 
before joining the NWF for 3 years, is now the second in 
command at Interior. She is only in an acting role, however, 
because the Senate would not confirm her. Senator Joe Manchin 
opposed her for valuing the left's radical climate agenda, his 
words, ahead of Alaska's energy needs.
    The National Wildlife Federation also takes credit for 
climate smart conservation, a project it claims it developed 
with its Federal agency partners, such as the National Park 
Service.
    Of course, these ties to the Interior shouldn't come as a 
surprise. A 2009 Inspector General report found that staff at 
the Bureau of Land Management had worked so closely with NWF 
that they may have violated the law: NWF staff were writing and 
editing official BLM materials.
    Finally, Interior recently convened a committee to re-
evaluate place names to remove derogatory terms. That seems 
noble, but Secretary Haaland named a divisive figure to the 
committee. Kimberly A. Probolus had previously worked with the 
Southern Poverty Law Center to help with its project, shaming 
officials into removing public symbols of the Confederacy. In a 
meeting of the Interior committee, she noted this previous 
work, expressing her gratitude for the chance to continue to 
work toward racial and social justice with Interior.
    The SPLC, which has lobbied Interior on historical 
designations, praised Haaland for including Probolus, 
suggesting the committee should use SPLC resources on hate. 
``No one should have to visit a national park whose name is 
rooted in legacies of hate and white supremacy,'' SPLC's Lisa 
Brooks said. Yet, the SPLC is far from a reliable arbiter of 
hate. It is notorious for putting mainstream, conservative, and 
Christian groups on a hate map with KKK chapters, scaring 
donors into ponying up cash. If Interior wants to avoid being 
derogatory, it shouldn't rely on the SPLC.
    In short, the left's dark money network is propping up 
radical environmentalist groups that help steer policy at 
Interior. Thank you.

    [The prepared statement of Mr. O'Neil follows:]
  Prepared Statement of Tyler O'Neil, Author, ``Making Hate Pay: The 
            Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center''

 How Radical, Dark Money-Funded Green Activist Groups Are Influencing 
                Policy at the Department of the Interior

    My name is Tyler O'Neil. I oversee the day-to-day operations of The 
Daily Signal as managing editor, though I am testifying in my personal 
capacity. I wrote a book, ``Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the 
Southern Poverty Law Center.''
    Chairman Westerman, Ranking Member Grijalva, members of the 
committee, I am honored to be invited to testify before you today.
    Extreme environmental activist groups appear to have broad sway in 
the Department of the Interior under President Biden. These groups can 
often get their agenda implemented by the federal government without 
the need to support new laws in Congress, encouraging bureaucrats who 
are favorably disposed to their ideas to rewrite existing rules and 
regulations.
    For example, on July 12, 2023, six environmental groups petitioned 
the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management at Interior, urging the agency to 
``end a routine practice of fast-tracking approval for offshore oil and 
gas projects.'' The groups, including Earthjustice and the Sierra Club, 
condemned Interior's ``categorial exclusion'' for oil and gas 
activities beginning in 1981. The groups urged Interior to tighten 
restrictions for ``oil-and-gas exploration and development in the 
Gulf'' of Mexico.\1\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ ``Gulf and Environmental Groups Call on Interior Department to 
End Routine Fast-Tracking of Offshore Oil Drilling Projects.'' 
EarthJustice. July 12, 2023. https://earthjustice.org/press/2023/gulf-
and-environmental-groups-call-on-interior-department-to-end-routine-
fast-tracking-of-offshore-oil-drilling-projects Accessed April 27, 
2024.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Two months later, Interior issued a press release bragging that it 
announced the ``fewest offshore oil and gas lease sales in history'' 
for the Gulf of Mexico. Its plan for the 2024-2029 National Outer 
Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program includes a maximum of 
three potential oil and gas lease sales.
    ``The Biden-Harris administration is committed to building a clean 
energy future that ensures America's energy independence,'' Interior 
Secretary Deb Haaland said. ``The Proposed Final Program, which 
represents the smallest number of oil and gas lease sales in history, 
sets a course for the department to support the growing offshore wind 
industry and protect against the potential for environmental damage and 
adverse impacts to coastal communities.'' \2\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \2\ ``Reflecting America's Rapid and Accelerating Shift to Clean 
Energy, Interior Department Announces Fewest Offshore Oil and Gas Lease 
Sales in History in Proposed Final Program for 2024-2029.'' Interior 
Department news release. Sept. 29, 2023. https://www.doi.gov/
pressreleases/reflecting-americas-rapid-and-accelerating-shift-clean-
energy-interior-department Accessed April 27, 2024.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The plan proved so extreme, it inspired legal action from America's 
largest fossil fuel industry association, the American Petroleum 
Institute. API sued Interior in February, arguing that the plan 
restricting future offshore fossil fuel lease sales puts American 
consumers at risk and threatens U.S. energy security.
    ``In issuing a five-year program with the fewest lease sales in 
history, the administration is limiting access in a region responsible 
for generating among the lowest carbon-intensive barrels in the world, 
putting American consumers at greater risk of relying on foreign 
sources for our future energy needs,'' Ryan Meyers, API senior vice 
president and general counsel, told Fox News.\3\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \3\ Catenacci, Thomas. ``Biden admin hit with legal challenge over 
historic restrictions on offshore oil drilling.'' Fox News. Feb. 12, 
2024. https://www.foxnews.com/politics/biden-admin-hit-legal-challenge-
historic-restrictions-offshore-oil-drilling Accessed April 27, 2024.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Earlier this month, the Sierra Club praised new rules from Interior 
laying out the five-year schedule for offshore wind leasing. While 
Interior restricts oil and gas lease sales in the Gulf to 3, it plans 
for 12 offshore wind auctions in federal waters between 2024 and 2028.
    ``We are enthusiastic about these developments and remain dedicated 
to collaborating with the Biden administration and all stakeholders to 
maximize the potential of offshore wind, which is crucial for enhancing 
energy security and meeting our climate goals,'' Sierra Club Deputy 
Legislative Director Xavier Boatright said (emphasis added).\4\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \4\ ``Sierra Club Statement on Biden Administration Five-Year Plan 
for Offshore Wind.'' Sierra Club news release. April 24, 2024. https://
www.sierraclub.org/press-releases/2024/04/sierra-club-statement-biden-
administration-five-year-plan-offshore-wind Accessed April 27, 2024.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Oil is cheaper and more reliable than wind energy. In 2022, 
petroleum accounted for 31% of U.S. energy production, while all 
renewable energy sources only accounted for 13%. Wind energy accounted 
for only 29% of that 13%, meaning that wind energy accounts for about 
3.8% of America's energy production.\5\ Wind energy also involves 
harvesting rare earth minerals through strip mining, an intensive 
process with toxic biproducts.\6\ Yet Interior is investing in wind and 
turning away from oil, largely for ideological reasons.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \5\ ``U.S. energy facts explained.'' U.S. Energy Information 
Administration. https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/us-energy-facts/ 
Accessed April 27, 2024.
    \6\ Allen, Virginia. ``Fact-Checking Wind and Solar Claims: Climate 
Expert Makes Case for `Realism.' '' The Daily Signal. April 3, 2024. 
https://www.dailysignal.com/2024/04/03/fact-checking-wind-solar-claims-
climate-expert-makes-case-realism/ April 27, 2024.

    How are these activist groups able to influence the administration 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
in this way?

    It may come as a surprise to many Democrats that the Left has a 
larger ``dark money'' network than the Right. A New York Times analysis 
showed that 15 of the most politically active nonprofit organizations 
that generally align with Democrats spent more than $1.5 billion in 
2020, compared to only $900 million spent by a comparable sample of the 
most politically active groups aligned with Republicans.\7\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \7\ Vogen, Kenneth P. and Shane Goldmacher. ``Democrats Decried 
Dark Money. Then They Won With It in 2020.'' The New York Times. Jan. 
22, 2022. Updated Aug. 21, 2022. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/29/us/
politics/democrats-dark-money-donors.html Accessed April 12, 2024.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    While ``dark money'' is not inherently nefarious, networks like the 
pass-through nonprofits under the Arabella Advisors umbrella can cloak 
the true source of donations. Arabella Advisors, a for-profit company, 
has launched multiple nonprofits, through which it funnels money to 
special projects. Those special projects, like the secretive group 
Governing for Impact, use their money to influence national policy. 
Governing for Impact claimed that the Biden administration acted on 
``more than 20'' of its specific recommendations.\8\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \8\ Schoffstall, Joe. ``Secretive Soros-funded group works behind 
the scenes with Biden admin on policy, documents show.'' Fox News. 
April 26, 2022. https://www.foxnews.com/politics/secretive-soros-
funded-group-works-behind-scenes-biden-admin-policy-documents Accessed 
April 15, 2024.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The Arabella network has funneled money to many left-wing groups 
that impact the Biden administration, pushing radical agendas that do 
not advance America's interests.
    The Center for American Progress receives a great deal of money 
through the Arabella network. The Hopewell Fund funneled $315,000 into 
CAP between 2020 and 2022.\9\ The New Venture Fund poured $2.97 million 
into CAP between 2012 and 2021.\10\ The Sixteen Thirty Fund poured 
$300,000 into the center between 2014 and 2021, with $250,000 of that 
sum earmarked for ``environmental (climate, conservation & energy) 
programs.\11\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \9\ ``The Hopewell Fund.'' Form 990 Schedule I for 2020, 2021, and 
2022, accessed on April 22, 2024, via ProPublica.
    https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/473681860/
202143169349311614/IRS 990ScheduleI (2020)
    https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/473681860/
202203139349304855/IRS 990ScheduleI (2021)
    https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/473681860/
202333149349300038/IRS 990ScheduleI (2022)
    \10\ ``New Venture Fund.'' Form 990 Schedule I for 2012-2021, 
accessed on April 22, 2024, via ProPublica. https://
projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/display_990/205806345/
2013_12_EO%2F20-5806345_990_201212 (2012)
    https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/205806345/
201413219349306531/IRS 990ScheduleI (2013)
    https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/205806345/
201523209349314357/IRS 990ScheduleI (2014)
    https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/205806345/
201623359349300312/IRS 990ScheduleI (2015)
    https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/205806345/
201723179349305572/IRS 990ScheduleI (2016)
    https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/205806345/
201843169349302864/IRS 990ScheduleI (2017)
    https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/205806345/
201903169349302480/IRS 990ScheduleI (2018)
    https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/205806345/
202043389349300039/IRS 990ScheduleI (2019)
    https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/205806345/
202113169349310971/IRS 990ScheduleI (2020)
    https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/205806345/
202243139349303999/IRS 990ScheduleI (2021)
    \11\ ``Sixteen Thirty Fund.'' Form 990 Schedule I for 2014 and 
2021, accessed on April 22, 2024, via ProPublica.
    https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/264486735/
201533209349314223/IRS 990ScheduleI (2014)
    https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/264486735/
202243119349300829/IRS 990ScheduleI (2021)
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    The Center for American Progress advocates for ``environmental 
justice,'' and praised the administration for advancing ``an 
unprecedented climate, clean energy, and environmental justice 
agenda.'' \12\ CAP claims that ``long-standing racial and environmental 
injustices disproportionately expose communities of color to climate 
pollution.'' \13\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \12\ ``Securing Environmental Justice for All.'' Center for 
American Progress report. March 25, 2024. https://
www.americanprogress.org/article/how-the-biden-administration-is-
fighting-for-clean-air-and-water-climate-protection-and-healthy-
communities-for-all/ Accessed April 26, 2024.
    \13\ ``Advancing Racial Equity and Justice.'' Center for American 
Progress. https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/advancing-racial-
equity-and-justice/ Accessed April 26, 2024.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Meanwhile, the Department of the Interior is directing $2 billion 
in funds through the so-called Inflation Reduction Act and other laws 
President Biden signed.\14\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \14\ ``America the Beautiful 2023 Annual Report.'' Department of 
the Interior. January 2024. https://www.doi.gov/sites/default/files/
documents/2024-01/jan-2024america-beautiful-2023-annual-report508-1.pdf 
Accessed April 26, 2024.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Who determines where those funds go? None other than John Podesta, 
former chairman of Hillary Clinton's campaign and founder of the Center 
for American Progress. Podesta serves as senior advisor to the 
president for clean energy innovation and implementation, and he 
oversees ``implementation of the Inflation Reduction Act's expansive 
clean energy and climate provisions.'' \15\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \15\ ``President Biden Announces Senior Clean Energy and Climate 
Team.'' White House Briefing Room. Sept. 2, 2022. https://
www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/09/02/
president-biden-announces-senior-clean-energy-and-climate-team/ 
Accessed April 26, 2024.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Climate policies like those the Center for American Progress 
advances make energy more expensive and drive production outside the 
U.S. Ironically, this makes it more likely that other countries, which 
do not produce fossil fuels as cleanly as America, will pollute the 
environment.\16\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \16\ ``Report: U.S. Beats Competitors With Low Carbon Intensity 
Oil.'' Energy In Depth. June 2, 2023. https://www.energyindepth.org/
report-u-s-beats-competitors-with-low-carbon-intensity-oil/ Accessed 
April 26, 2024.

    Radical environmental groups have also gotten their staff appointed 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
to positions of power in Interior.

    Tracy Stone-Manning, Biden's pick to lead the Bureau of Land 
Management, faced accusations that she helped eco-terrorists put spikes 
in trees in order to cause physical harm to loggers who dared cut them 
down. A former prosecutor said he investigated her in 1989 and 1993, 
and he described her as ``vulgar, antagonistic, and extremely anti-
government.'' Stone-Manning confessed that she had edited, retyped, and 
sent a threatening letter to the U.S. Forest Service on behalf of tree-
spiking eco-terrorists.\17\ Stone-Manning later claimed she ``had no 
involvement in the spiking of trees'' and does ``not condone tree 
spiking or terrorism of any kind.'' \18\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \17\ ``Lead Investigator: Tracy Stone-Manning Helped Plan 1989 Tree 
Spiking & Was a Target of the Investigation.'' Senate Committee on 
Energy & Natural Resources news release. July 15, 2021. https://
www.energy.senate.gov/2021/7/lead-investigator-tracy-stone-manning-
helped-plan-1989-tree-spiking-was-a-target-of-the-investigation 
Accessed April 27, 2024.
    \18\ Lefebvre, Ben, Anthony Adragna, and Burgess Everett. ``Biden's 
BLM pick hit with new allegations from former investigator in tree-
spiking case.'' Politico. July 15, 2021. https://www.politico.com/news/
2021/07/15/biden-blm-pick-allegations-499739 Accessed April 27, 2024.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Stone-Manning worked for four years at the National Wildlife 
Federation, which claims to combat climate change to help wildlife. The 
NWF has also advanced climate alarmist predictions that later proved 
false.
    ``The National Wildlife Federation working with federal agency 
partners developed an innovative planning approach known as `climate-
smart conservation,' '' the NWF claims on its website.\19\ The National 
Park Service, part of Interior, collaborated with the NWF on Climate 
Smart Conservation and cited the federation in its materials on the 
project.\20\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \19\ ``Climate-Smart Conservation.'' World Wildlife Federation. 
https://www.nwf.org/Our-Work/Climate/Climate-Change/Climate-Smart-
Conservation Accessed April 27, 2024.
    \20\ ``Climate Smart Conservation Planning for the National 
Parks.'' National Park Service. https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/
climatesmartconservation.htm Accessed April 27, 2024.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The National Wildlife Federation's close ties to Interior should 
not come as a surprise. In 2009, an Interior Department investigation 
into the Bureau of Land Management found that BLM was consulting NWF 
staff on budgeting, and NWF staff were writing and editing official BLM 
materials that promoted the NWF's priorities. An Inspector General 
report concluded that National Landscape Conservation System directors 
had engaged in inappropriate relationships with advocacy groups 
creating ``the potential for conflicts of interest or violations of 
law.'' \21\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \21\ Straub, Noelle. ``BLM employees too cozy with advocacy 
groups--IG.'' The New York Times. Oct. 5, 2009. Archived. https://
archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/gwire/2009/10/05/05greenwire-blm-
employees-too-cozy-with-advocacy-groups-ig-20341.html Accessed April 
27, 2024.

    The Justice Department declined to prosecute in lieu of 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
administrative action.

    Stone-Manning is not the only former NWF staffer to move to the 
Department of the Interior. Laura Daniel-Davis, who served as the chief 
of staff at Interior under Obama, worked at the group for three years, 
as a vice president for conservation strategy and chief of policy and 
advocacy. In late 2020 and into 2021, she worked on climate issues on 
the Biden-Harris transition team, landing at Interior in 2021.\22\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \22\ ``Laura Daniel Davis.'' LinkedIn profile. https://
www.linkedin.com/in/laura-daniel-davis-74168859/ Accessed April 27, 
2024.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Biden nominated Daniel-Davis to serve as assistant secretary of 
Interior for land and minerals management in June 2021, but the Senate 
Energy Committee deadlocked on her nomination, her nomination timed 
out, and Biden renominated her in January 2022. Sen. Joe Manchin, D-
W.Va., announced his opposition to Daniel-Davis on March 10, 2023.
    Manchin faulted the nominee for agreeing with a decision that 
Manchin said involved the administration ``putting their radical 
climate agenda ahead of the needs of the people of Alaska and the 
United States.'' The document involved Interior's decision making on an 
oil and gas lease sale off the coast of Alaska.\23\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \23\ Frazin, Rachel. ``Manchin indicates opposition to Biden lands 
nominee over internal memo.'' The Hill. March 3, 2023. https://
thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/3883311-manchin-jeopardizes-
chances-for-biden-lands-nominee/ Accessed April 27, 2024.

    Biden appointed Daniel-Davis acting deputy secretary at Interior in 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
October 2023.

    ``This appointment is yet another example of this administration 
disregarding Congress and elevating nominees when they are unable to 
get the bipartisan support needed for confirmation,'' Manchin said in 
response. ``Their insistence on ignoring the confirmation process to 
advance their agenda undermines the role of the Senate and should be 
troubling to everyone.'' \24\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \24\ ``Manchin Statement on Daniel-Davis Being Named Acting Deputy 
Secretary at Interior.'' Senator Joe Manchin news release. Oct. 31, 
2023. https://www.manchin.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/manchin-
statement-on-daniel-davis-being-named-acting-deputy-secretary-at-
interior Accessed April 27, 2024.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The NWF has promoted former Vice President Al Gore's climate 
propaganda documentary ``An Inconvenient Truth,'' which predicted that 
``there will be no more snows of Kilimanjaro'' by 2016. Yet it 
continues to snow on the mountain in Tanzania.
    The Arabella Network group New Venture Fund sent $800,000 to the 
National Wildlife Federation between 2010 and 2016.\25\ The Windward 
Fund sent the NWF $100,000 in 2020.\26\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \25\ ``New Venture Fund.'' Form 990, Schedule I, for 2010-2016, 
accessed April 27, 2024, via ProPublica.
    https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/display_990/205806345/
2011_11_EO%2F20-5806345_ 990_201012 (2010)
    https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/display_990/205806345/
2013_12_EO%2F20-5806345_ 990_201212 (2012)
    https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/205806345/
201413219349306531/IRS 990ScheduleI (marked as 2014)
    https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/205806345/
201523209349314357/IRS 990ScheduleI (2014)
    https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/205806345/
201623359349300312/IRS 990ScheduleI (2015)
    https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/205806345/
201723179349305572/IRS 990ScheduleI (2016)
    \26\ ``Windward Fund.'' Form 990, Schedule I for 2020, accessed on 
April 27, 2024, via ProPublica. https://projects.propublica.org/
nonprofits/organizations/473522162/2021431693493 11234/IRS990ScheduleI
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Arabella is not the only major ``dark money'' player on the Left. 
The Tides Foundation pioneered the Arabella ``fiscal sponsorship'' 
model, allowing donors to cloak which projects they were funding by 
directing funds through a nonprofit.
    The Tides Foundation has bankrolled the Southern Poverty Law 
Center, a group I wrote a book about in 2020. Between 2018 and 2022, 
the Tides Foundation sent the SPLC more than $1 million.\27\ Although 
the SPLC has an endowment of $731.9 million, this still represents a 
significant investment.\28\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \27\ The precise figure is $1,038,381. ``Tides Foundation'' Form 
990 Schedule I for 2018-2022, accessed April 26, 2024, via ProPublica.
    https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/510198509/
201913189349314251/IRS 990ScheduleI (2018)
    https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/510198509/
202043149349304239/IRS 990ScheduleI (2019)
    https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/510198509/
202133149349300708/IRS 990ScheduleI (2020)
    https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/510198509/
202233189349313898/IRS 990ScheduleI (2021)
    https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/510198509/
202400469349300305/IRS 990ScheduleI (2022)
    \28\ ``Financial Information.'' Southern Poverty Law Center. 
https://www.splcenter.org/about/financial-information Accessed April 
26, 2024.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The SPLC may have indirectly influenced policy at the Department of 
the Interior. The SPLC has become notorious for two major projects: its 
``hate map'' where it puts mainstream conservative and Christian 
nonprofits on a map with chapters of the Ku Klux Klan; and its efforts 
to remove Confederate monuments from public spaces. The SPLC has 
demanded the removal of Confederate monuments and celebrated their 
removals.\29\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \29\ ``SPLC Reports 48 Confederate Memorials Removed in 2022.'' 
Southern Poverty Law Center news release. April 12, 2023. https://
www.splcenter.org/presscenter/splc-reports-48-confederate-memorials-
removed-2022 Accessed April 27, 2024.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    While it makes sense to remove monuments celebrating hateful 
Confederates like Nathan Bedford Forrest, who went on to found the Ku 
Klux Klan, the SPLC comes in with a sledgehammer when a scalpel is 
required. Robert E. Lee, for example, is more complicated. While he 
fought for the Confederacy, Lee later helped heal the nation after the 
Civil War. The SPLC also published a map plotting Confederate monuments 
across the U.S., including elementary and middle schools. The map even 
included Stonewall Elementary, in Lexington, Kentucky. The school 
wasn't named after ``Stonewall'' Jackson, the Confederate general, 
however. It had been named after a literal stone wall. While the SPLC 
later apologized and removed the school, the incident highlights the 
group's desire to find hate where there isn't any.\30\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \30\ Musgrave, Beth. ``Stonewall Elementary gets an apology. It 
wasn't named for Confederate general.'' Lexington Herald-Leader. Oct. 
18, 2017. https://www.kentucky.com/news/local/counties/fayette-county/
article179513491.html Accessed April 28, 2024.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The movement to remove Confederate monuments arguably inspired 
vandals with Black Lives Matter to target statues of America's Founding 
Fathers. These vandals also targeted a monument celebrating the 54th 
Massachusetts regiment, a regiment of black soldiers fighting for the 
Union. Vandals spray-painted anti-police messages and ``RIP George 
Floyd'' on the monument in 2020.\31\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \31\ O'Neil, Tyler. ``The Violence Against This Civil War Monument 
Captures Just How Badly the George Floyd Riots Have Gone Wrong.'' PJ 
Media. June 4, 2020. https://pjmedia.com/tyler-o-neil/2020/06/04/
george-floyd-rioters-deface-civil-war-monument-celebrating-black-union-
patriots-n495913 Accessed April 28, 2024.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The Southern Poverty Law Center appointed Kimberly A. Probolus-
Cedroni, who received her Ph.D. in American Studies from The George 
Washington University, to help with the project ``The Third Edition of 
Whose Heritage? Public Symbols of the Confederacy.'' \32\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \32\ ``Kimberly A. Probolus.'' American Council of Learned 
Societies. https://www.acls.org/fellow-grantees/kimberly-a-probolus/ 
Accessed April 27, 2024.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    In August 2022, Interior Secretary Haaland named Probolus-Cedroni 
to the Advisory Committee on Reconciliation in Place Names, an 
``advisory group to help identify and recommend changes to derogatory 
terms still in use for places throughout the country.'' \33\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \33\ ``Secretary Haaland Announces Members of the Advisory 
Committee on Reconciliation in Place Names.'' Department of the 
Interior news release. Aug. 9, 2022. https://www.doi.gov/pressreleases/
secretary-haaland-announces-members-advisory-committee-reconciliation-
place-names Accessed April 27, 2024.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The minutes for the committee's meetings on June 14 and June 15, 
2023, mention that Probolus-Cedroni, now a public history teacher in 
Washington, DC, noted her previous work with the SPLC, ``where she 
worked on policies to remove Confederate memorials and monuments.'' The 
minutes add, ``She expressed her gratitude for being able to continue 
to work toward racial and social justice with the work of the 
committee.'' \34\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \34\ ``Advisory Committee on Reconciliation in Place Names Meeting 
Minutes, June 14 and 15, 2023.'' National Park Service. https://
www.nps.gov/orgs/1892/upload/June-2023-Meeting-Minutes-2.pdf Accessed 
April 27, 2024.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    According to OpenSecrets, the Southern Poverty Law Center 
contracted with the lobbying firm NVG, L.L.C. to lobby the Department 
of the Interior on ``historic designations.'' \35\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \35\ ``Southern Poverty Law Center Is Represented By NVG, LLC.'' 
ProPublica Lobbying Representation. https://projects.propublica.org/
represent/lobbying/r/301035891 Accessed April 27, 2024.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The SPLC praised Secretary Haaland for including Probolus-Cedroni 
on the committee, though the center did not mention her by name.
    ``We are thrilled with Secretary Deb Haaland's announcement and her 
efforts to remove hateful names from public space,'' SPLC Chief of 
Staff and Culture Lecia Brooks said in a statement. ``Our Whose 
Heritage Project contributes to this effort by mapping and tracking 
data on Confederate monuments and memorials--including some on federal 
land. We hope the tribal leaders, scholars, and activists on the 
committee will use our important resources.''
    ``Just as no person of color should have to serve on a military 
base named after a Confederate, no one should have to visit a national 
park whose name is rooted in legacies of hate and white supremacy,'' 
Brooks continued.\36\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \36\ ``SPLC Applauds Appointments to Advisory Committee on 
Reconciliation in Place Names.'' Southern Poverty Law Center news 
release. Aug. 10, 2022. https://www.splcenter.org/presscenter/splc-
applauds-appointments-advisory-committee-reconciliation-place-names 
Accessed April 27, 2024.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    SPLC has faced harsh criticism for defining ``hate'' broadly. It 
publishes a ``hate map'' plotting mainstream conservative and Christian 
groups like Alliance Defending Freedom, the Center for Immigration 
Studies, the Federation on American Immigration Reform, and the Center 
for Security Policy as ``hate groups'' alongside Klan chapters.\37\ 
Last year, the SPLC even added parental rights groups like Moms for 
Liberty and Parents Defending Education to the ``hate map,'' suggesting 
that moms and dads who want a say in their kids' education are the 
modern equivalent of men in white hoods burning crosses.\38\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \37\ O'Neil, Tyler. ``Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the 
Southern Poverty Law Center.'' New York: Bombardier Books, 2020. pp. 
87-120.
    \38\ O'Neil, Tyler. ``Far-Left Group Puts Moms for Liberty on Map 
With KKK Chapters.'' The Daily Signal. June 6, 2023. https://
www.dailysignal.com/2023/06/06/breaking-southern-poverty-law-center-
adds-parental-rights-groups-hate-map/ Accessed April 26, 2024.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    In 2019, amid a racial discrimination and sexual harassment scandal 
that led the SPLC to fire its co-founder, a former employee came 
forward, calling the ``hate'' accusations a ``highly profitable scam.'' 
\39\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \39\ Moser, Bob. ``The Reckoning of Morris Dees and the Southern 
Poverty Law Center.'' The New Yorker. March 21, 2019. https://
www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-reckoning-of-morris-dees-and-the-
southern-poverty-law-center Accessed April 26, 2024.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The SPLC has even suggested that the entire Roman Catholic Church 
should be considered a ``hate group.'' It cited as evidence of ``hate'' 
a direct quote from the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the binding 
document stating the essential and fundamental content of the Catholic 
faith.\40\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \40\ O'Neil, ``Making Hate Pay.'' p. 108.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Yet SPLC President Margaret Huang bragged to donors that in the 
early days of the Biden administration, federal agencies reached out to 
``solicit our expertise'' to ``help shape the policies'' to counter 
``the domestic terrorism threat.'' \41\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \41\ O'Neil, Tyler. ``ORWELLIAN NIGHTMARE: Biden Admin Consulted 
Anti-Christian Group for `Domestic Terrorism' Strategy.'' The Daily 
Signal. Jan. 11, 2024. https://www.dailysignal.com/2024/01/11/
exclusive-biden-admin-approached-anti-christian-splc-help-shape-
policies-counter-domestic-terror-threat/ Accessed April 26, 2024.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    That's not just braggadocio--the Justice Department listened to the 
SPLC right after it put Moms for Liberty on the ``hate map.'' \42\ 
Biden appointed an SPLC attorney, Nancy Abudu, to the U.S. Court of 
Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.\43\ The FBI cited the SPLC in its 
notorious memo going after ``radical traditional Catholics.'' \44\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \42\ O'Neil, Tyler. ``SMOKING GUN: Biden DOJ Took Advice From Group 
Demonizing Concerned Parents, Docs Show.'' The Daily Signal. March 7, 
2024. https://www.dailysignal.com/2024/03/07/exclusive-splc-tried-sic-
dojs-hate-crimes-division-moms-liberty/ Accessed April 26, 2024.
    \43\ O'Neil, Tyler. ``5 Things to Know About Nancy Abudu, Leftist 
SPLC Lawyer Biden Tapped for 11th Circuit.'' The Daily Signal. Feb. 1, 
2023. Updated May 18, 2023. https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/02/01/5-
things-know-nancy-abudu-leftist-splc-lawyer-biden-tapped-11th-circuit/ 
Accessed April 26, 2024.
    \44\ O'Neil, Tyler. ``WHISTLEBLOWER DOCS: FBI Cites Southern 
Poverty Law Center in Report on `Radical-Traditionalist Catholic 
Ideology.' '' The Daily Signal. Feb. 8, 2023. https://
www.dailysignal.com/2023/02/08/whistleblower-docs-fbi-cites-southern-
poverty-law-center-in-report-on-radical-traditionalist-catholic-
ideology/ Accessed April 26, 2024.

    This group's overly broad condemnations have no place at the 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Department of the Interior.

    Radical environmentalist groups and groups like the SPLC enjoy the 
support of a dark money network that helps them influence the Biden 
administration, placing staff and leaders into the bureaucracy and 
moving the needle on policy in a way that weakens America's energy 
sector and energy independence.

                                 ______
                                 

    Dr. Gosar. I thank the gentleman. I now want to recognize 
Ms. Julia Fay Bernal.
    Oh, I forgot, she is not here. How about Mr. Jamie 
Williams?
    He is not here, either. I find it very, very interesting 
that that comes about.
    We are now going to go to Members' questions. The gentleman 
from Montana is recognized for his 5 minutes.
    Mr. Rosendale. Thank you very much, Congressman Gosar, and 
I appreciate you convening this hearing today.
    Over the past 3 years, we have observed a disturbing trend 
with this Administration, an ever-growing dependence on 
extremist organizations to shape policy decisions. The Biden 
administration appears to be governed by a fear of upsetting 
its most progressive faction. The policies enacted by this 
Administration show the significant influence of these 
extremist groups. This undue influence leads the Administration 
to prioritize appeasing these destructive groups, especially 
considering the coming elections.
    One area where this external pressure is directly felt is 
in our energy and public lands sectors. We have recently 
witnessed an attempt by the Administration to pursue the 
demands of these groups by advocating for the commoditization 
of our public land and resources, disregarding the needs of 
local communities and businesses reliant on these lands for 
their livelihoods, and in violation of the current statute. 
While this scheme was thwarted, the residual effects linger, 
exemplified by the recently implemented Conservation and 
Landscape Health Rule which flagrantly violates the Taylor 
Grazing Act, and the attempts to breach the lower Snake River 
dams.
    Mr. O'Neil, I really appreciate your comments and your 
insight as to what has been taking place. It is widely 
acknowledged that the United States produces some of the 
cleanest oil and gas globally, using the most environmentally 
sound practices. Despite this, Secretary Haaland and the 
current Administration persist in bragging about their 
reduction in lease sales.
    Given this Administration's purported focus on climate 
issues, how do you explain their desire to increase our 
dependence on comparatively dirtier foreign sources of oil and 
gas which is produced with little or no care for the 
environment?
    Mr. O'Neil. Yes, I think it is directly contrary. The more 
that we outsource the drilling of oil and gas, the worse it is 
for the global environment. Those who really care about climate 
change on a global level should be concerned about this.
    Mr. Rosendale. Mr. Walter, when we talk about the far-left 
environmental activism, there are two individual names that 
frequently come up: George Soros and Hansjorg Wyss. Mr. Walter, 
can you talk about these two men and why they have taken an 
interest in the policy area?
    Mr. Walter. Well, Mr. Wyss probably deserves more attention 
because he is far less well known. He has given roughly a half 
billion dollars as a foreign national to American non-profits 
that engage in politics and public policy debate, including 
(c)(4)'s that give money to SuperPACs, which he, of course, is 
not allowed to do.
    If you go to the FEC database, you can also see that he 
made direct political contributions to multiple members of the 
Democratic Party in Congress. Unfortunately, that wasn't 
discovered until the statute of limitations had expired.
    So, he continues to give hundreds of millions of dollars to 
the Arabella Network. In fact, he was probably the original 
sugar daddy when the Arabella Network was just getting started 
in the 2000s. He has had an FEC complaint lodged against him 
and his Arabella compatriots. The FEC, unfortunately, did 
nothing about it, as it usually does. But the general counsel 
at the FEC urged that both Arabella and he be sanctioned.
    Mr. Rosendale. Mr. Walter, do you have any insights on 
their end goals when influencing public policy, but most 
specifically in the natural resource space?
    Mr. Walter. Well, Arabella has said that roughly one-third 
of its work in its network is in the environmental space. And 
Mr. Wyss especially has done that. As I said, he is on the 
board, as is his dark money group's president of the Wilderness 
Society.
    Mr. Rosendale. Thank you very much.
    Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would yield back the balance of my 
time and wait for the second round.
    Dr. Gosar. I thank the gentleman. The gentlelady from New 
Mexico is recognized for her 5 minutes.
    Ms. Stansbury. I will wait until the end.
    Dr. Gosar. OK. I recognize the gentleman from Georgia.
    Mr. Collins. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Painter, in July 2021, before the cancellation of the 
Twin Metals leases, senior DOI officials met off the books with 
the Wilderness Society, one of the lead plaintiffs in the 
lawsuit against the project, and they concealed the purpose of 
the meeting. Later, Interior canceled the leases, despite 
ongoing litigation.
    Last year, you testified before the Senate Budget Committee 
and in written testimony criticized the fossil fuel industry 
for having backdoor access to Federal Governments, stating, 
``Fossil fuel companies also take advantage of the revolving 
door in and out of government. There they are allowed to 
participate in regulatory matters that affect their former 
employers' industry.'' With your condemnation of the fossil 
fuel industry allegedly using backroom channels of political 
appointments and relationships to influence policy, do you 
similarly condemn the Wilderness Society for using backroom 
tactics to lobby against the Twin Metals mining project?
    Mr. Painter. My understanding of the law is that these 
backroom conversations with previous employers have been 
allowed for a long time with respect to regulatory matters. The 
ethics pledge constrains some of that, not enough. We need to 
see a tightening up of the ethics rules. This was a serious 
problem under the Bush administration, it was a serious problem 
under the Clinton and the Reagan administrations. It is a 
problem today.
    Mr. Collins. So, that means you are similarly condemning 
the----
    Mr. Painter. I will condemn illegal communications. This is 
legal, and I will tell you where it is illegal. It is illegal 
when there is a communication between a Federal official and 
their former employer about a particular party matter within--
--
    Mr. Collins. That leads into it. Do you believe that non-
profits like the Wilderness Society should be allowed to guide 
natural resource policy, instead of the professionals at the 
Bureau of Land Management?
    Mr. Painter. I don't understand your question. Should they 
be giving their input? Yes, they should. They should be doing 
it legally.
    Mr. Collins. Yes, but they are----
    Mr. Painter. I believe the rules need to be tightened up 
for the Wilderness Society, as well as for the oil and gas 
industry. We have had too much of this revolving door access to 
the Interior Department.
    Mr. Collins. Well, what do you believe? Do you believe it 
is a more appropriate working relationship between non-profits 
and the Federal Government than we have observed here? Do you 
think there is more?
    Mr. Painter. I believe that the Federal Government needs to 
tighten up their ethics rules so we do not have Federal 
officials discussing regulations with their previous employer, 
whether the previous employer is the oil and gas industry or 
the Wilderness Society, there has been way too much of that. We 
need tighter regulations. That is the point I have made in 
front of the U.S. Senate last year and I am making today.
    Mr. Collins. On June 9, 2019, you tweeted, ``Sulfide mining 
companies controlled by foreign billionaires descend on the 
Great Lakes at Real Donald Trump and his allies, and 
Minnesota's most corrupt DFL politicians have shown them the 
way. Vote for clean water. Vote them out.''
    With your stated opposition to foreign billionaires 
influencing our natural resources policy, will you condemn all 
initiatives and projects that are funded by the Hansjorg Wyss, 
a foreign national who funds environmental groups such as the 
League of Conservation Voters Action Fund, as being influenced 
by foreign billionaires?
    Mr. Painter. I don't like foreign billionaires involved in 
American non-profits at all. I have condemned the influence on 
American universities from Qatar and other countries that seek 
to drive our universities toward anti-Semitism.
    Mr. Collins. I am going to take that as a yes.
    Mr. Painter. This is a serious problem. I do condemn it. 
But is your job in Congress to take action to pass laws, rather 
than play partisan games attacking the other party and simply 
trying to win an election, and then 2 more years of the same.
    Mr. Collins. I am running out of precious time.
    Mr. O'Neil, how do the goals of our foreign adversaries 
align with the goals of radical environmental non-profits 
regarding natural resources and environmental policy?
    Mr. O'Neil. Well, there is serious concern about, as the 
United States moves away from focusing on drilling oil and gas, 
that other countries, specifically Russia, will be able to 
influence more of the market by producing their own oil and 
gas. This is a national security concern, as well as an 
economic concern for American taxpayers.
    Mr. Collins. Thank you.
    Mr. Chairman, I was just on the coast in Louisiana last 
week. We were out on the oil platform. The Gulf of Mexico can 
produce 15 percent of this nation's energy right now, today. 
Also, they do it 80 percent more efficient than our adversaries 
across the world do it in the Middle East.
    We have an America-last policy. You are exactly right, Mr. 
O'Neil. America-last policy. And we have three leases that are 
supposed to be going off annually here. We didn't get them last 
year.
    They have sat right over there in that witness stand and 
said they weren't going to do any this year or any next year. 
And on top of that, LNG, you are exactly right. We have an LNG 
company down there right now on the coast of Louisiana that is 
almost ready to export LNG, but they can't get the permits 
finished from this Administration. Why? Because they would 
rather us buy our gas and oil from our adversaries who are out 
there funding people that want to kill us. And we also have 
Europe over there that is going to be forced to buy LNG from 
Russia because we won't fund or at least permit private 
companies in this country to export LNG.
    With that, Mr. Chairman, I will yield back.
    Dr. Gosar. I thank the gentleman. The gentlelady from New 
Mexico is recognized for her 5 minutes.
    Ms. Stansbury. All right. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I 
just want to clarify a few things.
    Mr. Walter, I actually really appreciate the comment you 
made at the beginning of your testimony about having an honest 
conversation with differing opinions. That is exactly what 
public discourse needs to be. So, I very much appreciate that. 
But I also think it is important to be clear on what 
perspectives people are representing when they are in front of 
us in the public discourse.
    Mr. O'Neil, I do appreciate you being here today, and I 
respect that you are bringing your perspective on these issues. 
I know in your opening statement that you submitted to the 
Committee that you stated you are here in your personal 
capacity, which I appreciate. But I just want to clarify. You 
are employed by the Daily Signal, correct?
    Mr. O'Neil. I am, correct.
    Ms. Stansbury. And the Daily Signal is a publication of the 
Heritage Foundation. Correct?
    Mr. O'Neil. Yes.
    Ms. Stansbury. And that is why your bio appears on the 
Heritage Foundation.
    And I just want to be clear. The Heritage Foundation is a 
conservative think tank that many of us know. And among other 
things, it supports both 501(c)(3) and (c)(4) activities, 
including engaging and influencing both policy and politics. It 
gives donations to conservative candidates like Donald Trump. 
And on the (c)(3) side, it is currently engaged in an effort 
called Project 2025, which is laying the groundwork for a White 
House more friendly to the right. That is actually what it says 
on the website.
    Mr. Walter, you are here in your capacity working for an 
organization called the Capital Research Center, which was 
founded also by a former Senior Vice President for the Heritage 
Foundation. And I find it ironic that our two Majority 
witnesses are both here and affiliated with these conservative 
organizations that are, of course, funded by many different 
sources, but among the donors include the Koch brothers, the 
Bradleys, the Mercer family, and a donor-advised fund called 
the Donors Trust, which is bankrolled largely by the Koch 
brothers and the Searle Foundation, which, among other things, 
has funded work to weaken child labor laws, gut voting rights 
across the country, to try to gut affirmative action policies, 
to push climate denialism, and also help to prepare for a Trump 
administration in a second term.
    So, while I do appreciate that we have different points of 
view represented here in front of the Committee today, I think 
it is bizarre to talk about the influence of dark money on 
policy without identifying that we actually have two great 
examples here in front of us today.
    Mr. Painter, we appreciate you traveling from Minnesota to 
come be with us today and your advocacy on behalf of your 
community. You are a former Bush administration official. Thank 
you for your service, especially around ethics issues.
    And you mentioned in your testimony that you came to the 
White House during the height of the Jack Abramoff scandal, 
during which Mr. Abramoff defrauded American Indian tribes of 
millions of dollars and was involved in an influence-peddling 
scheme at the Department of the Interior. And I noted during 
your testimony that you said that the Department of the 
Interior was certainly not one of your shining examples of 
ethical behavior during your tenure in the White House.
    So, I just want to kind of go back over the record a little 
bit. It is true that during that time the then-Secretary Gale 
Norton was investigated for sharing insider information with 
Shell Oil. And that matter was referred to the Department of 
Justice. Correct?
    Mr. Painter. I believe so, though no charges were filed. 
Yes.
    Ms. Stansbury. And it was also during that time that the 
Minerals Management Service, which was what BOEM was, which 
manages offshore oil and gas drilling, was found to have many, 
many ethics violations. And, in fact, employees at the time 
were steering contracts, taking thousands of dollars in gifts. 
They were allowing royalty underpayments by oil companies, and 
essentially engaged in a culture of giveaways and unethical 
behavior which ultimately led to a complete reorganization of 
the mineral management organization. Correct?
    Mr. Painter. This is true, and I read the Inspector 
General's report, and it cost millions of dollars to conduct 
that investigation. Unfortunately, the whole area there was a 
disaster zone: the drug use, the sex with oil company 
executives. My favorite line in the report being that a sexual 
relationship of a Federal employee with an oil company official 
is, by definition, not an arm's length relationship.
    Ms. Stansbury. Right. So, how do we stop this? We have seen 
the same kinds of abuses during the Trump administration. What 
should this Committee and what should Congress be doing to stop 
this kind of unethical behavior?
    Mr. Painter. We need to tighten up the ethics rules with 
respect to interaction with previous employers, whether those 
previous employers are in the oil and gas industry or in 
environmental groups, even though the vast majority of the 
corruption has been from the industry side.
    Previous employers have far more influence on Federal 
agency than other people, and that should be prohibited across 
the board in the Federal Government. But the impact of previous 
employers influencing the Interior Department has been 
egregious.
    And we need to cut back on gifts and all the shindigs, the 
free flights, the people flying on these airplanes, private 
jets, and then saying, well, I just flew on an empty seat, it 
was an empty seat, so I didn't get any gift from the oil 
company. I had to have that argument over and over again in the 
Bush White House. We need to cut out this nonsense, where 
Interior Department and other Federal officials are hobnobbing 
with outside special interests.
    Ms. Stansbury. Thank you very much, sir. I appreciate it.
    I yield back.
    Dr. Gosar. I thank the gentlelady.
    Mr. Painter, do you believe that all NGOs should have to 
disclose who donates to them if they take Federal dollars?
    Mr. Painter. Well, I certainly think the foreign donors 
need to be disclosed.
    Dr. Gosar. Why wouldn't we do it all across the board? I 
mean, because that shows, you brought up the oil companies. It 
definitely shows us who is playing in the game here.
    Mr. Painter. That is the problem. If you start to require 
all non-profits to disclose their donors, you are going to run 
into some serious opposition from particularly conservative 
groups. And, indeed, First Amendment issues have been litigated 
in front of the U.S. Supreme Court.
    But I do believe that foreign donors can be required to be 
disclosed. I have pushed very aggressively to require the 
disclosure of foreign donors to American universities, where I 
believe they are doing a great deal of damage, and we can 
require that in other sectors, as well.
    But across-the-board disclosure of all donors to all NGOs, 
requiring that type of disclosure does run into First Amendment 
issues. And you are going to find a lot of the conservative 
groups are going to be most concerned about that, so----
    Dr. Gosar. I am one of those conservatives. I guess my 
question is, then, how do you get to those if you get a foreign 
donor that runs their money through an NGO?
    Mr. Painter. This is a serious problem. We need to think 
about the balance between the First Amendment right to petition 
the government for redress of grievances and the need to 
disclose funding sources. I am just saying it is a complex 
issue.
    Dr. Gosar. I agree.
    Mr. Painter. And the minute we talk about requiring 
disclosure of donors, we are going to get into a lot of 
arguments, particularly with the non-profits on the 
conservative side.
    And I understand there are concerns under the First 
Amendment, but I believe that Congress needs to look seriously 
at the need for more disclosure of foreign funding sources. I 
have called once again on the Department of Education to 
require our universities to disclose the money they are getting 
from Qatar and all sorts of places all over the world, China. A 
lot of those existing regulations aren't even being complied 
with.
    Now, I know that is not within the jurisdiction of this 
Committee, but I am simply saying this is a difficult issue 
because if you expand disclosure requirements you run into 
First Amendment arguments.
    Dr. Gosar. I agree with you. But my question to you is, 
they are doing an elective procedure so they are taking money 
from the Federal Government. So, that is an elective aspect. 
They can choose not to take that money from the Federal 
Government, and they would still have to disclose, would they 
not?
    Mr. Painter. I believe you can condition Federal money on 
disclosure of foreign funding sources, and that is what we have 
been doing with the universities if the Department of Education 
would enforce their regulations with respect to disclosure.
    If an organization does not receive Federal dollars, we 
could argue you should still require disclosure because it is a 
tax-exempt status, and it is a subsidy from the American people 
through the 501(c)(3) status. But once again, you are going to 
run into very challenging First Amendment issues as you debate 
that. And a lot of the opposition to more disclosure is going 
to come from the more conservative side of the political 
spectrum.
    Dr. Gosar. Well, just the fact that we are having this 
dialogue tells me all I need to know, that we have to have that 
conversation because that is a fine, fine line.
    I guess my other question to you is, do you understand 
Minnesota, the northeast Twin Metals area? When you look back 
at that situation, do you think that the forefathers that 
actually did this buffer area weren't thinking outside the box?
    Mr. Painter. Which provision are you----
    Dr. Gosar. I am talking about where they established a 
buffer area within the Superior National Forest.
    Mr. Painter. Yes.
    Dr. Gosar. That is different than anywhere else at the time 
for a reason, to make sure that there was no contamination in 
groundwater or whatever. Are you not familiar with that?
    Mr. Painter. I am, and it makes a lot of sense.
    Dr. Gosar. It does, it makes tons of sense, and 
particularly when you take in the vantage point of what is 
going on with the new technology for smelting, extracting these 
minerals. It is much more efficient, a lot less water, 
recoverable, and a lot less pollution. So, I mean, I think you 
might want to retake a look at that.
    Now, are you familiar why we have foreign investors in our 
mining? Do you understand that?
    Mr. Painter. I am well aware of why Glencore wants to mine 
in northern Minnesota, just like they have been mining all over 
the world. But Glencore has been corrupting governments all 
over the world, and we are not going to let them do it in 
Minnesota.
    Dr. Gosar. Well, here is the deal. Part of our problem is 
we have eliminated all the American mining because you can't 
hold sole holdings in America because it takes so long for 
permitting processes to go forward. That is our big crux here.
    Are you familiar with Resolution Copper?
    Mr. Painter. Yes, but your point is that the permit is 
going to be the same, whether it is an American or a foreign 
agent, and I have indeed said that we need to get these foreign 
mining companies out of Minnesota. They are not honest. They 
are not being honest with the Minnesota Government, they are 
not being honest with the Department of the Interior. This is 
the problem we have. We have dishonest people who want to get 
in the mining business.
    Dr. Gosar. I will tell you, recapturing my time here, I 
disagree. I agree there are some bad actors. But one of the 
things that I have done with Resolution Copper, I have been 
intense about it, saying, listen, I want nothing, nobody gets 
anything out of this. But you show the people what you are 
going to give. So, if you are giving water to them beforehand, 
you want to show them water you can drink afterwards, and show 
them all the studies.
    The problem for them is these American miners don't have 
the ability to hold on to these vast leases to wait 20-some 
years. These multi-nationals actually could mine in Australia, 
can mine in Canada. But when it comes to the United States, 
well, Resolution Copper hasn't produced an ounce of copper, and 
it has been now almost 25, 30 years. There has to be an impasse 
here where we have to do something.
    Mr. Painter. I would just say we have plenty of 
billionaires in America who can take care of responsible 
mining. We don't need Glencore coming in here and then cutting 
deals with Vladimir Putin and getting the Medal of Friendship 
from Vladimir Putin. We are not going to mine northern 
Minnesota, tear apart our Boundary Waters so we could provide 
copper and nickel for the Russians.
    Dr. Gosar. Well, we will have some more conversation. We 
are going to go to our Round 2. I recognize the gentleman from 
Montana for his second round of questions.
    Mr. Rosendale. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I find it 
interesting that we have all these conversations about who the 
witnesses are and the organizations that they represent and/or 
work for.
    One thing I am glad to see is at least they are all 
domestic. At least I know that these organizations have the 
best interests of America as their main mission and goal, 
whereas the other groups that are funding a lot of the 
opposition to keep us from developing our natural resources are 
not domestic. They do not have our best interests at heart. And 
that is where the big conflict begins.
    The other thing that I find very interesting as we talk 
about making sure that the public lands are not only preserved 
and protected, but that they are utilized, and when they are 
utilized, to make sure that a fair amount of that revenue that 
is generated because of the development of whatever resources 
they are, that it actually goes back to benefit the taxpayers 
across this country.
    Meanwhile, within the last 30 days, I watched this 
Committee lease a piece of public land, Federal public land, 
park land that RFK Stadium currently sits on in Washington, DC 
for $1, and they are going to be able to have that completely 
developed, 160 acres right here in Washington, DC, and collect 
all of the revenue that it generates without having to pay a 
penny of it except, of course, that $1 in their lease 
agreement. The rest of the revenue will be retained by 
Washington, DC.
    So, as we say in Montana, it just depends on whose ox is 
getting gored before they make decisions about where the 
priority of revenue and the maintenance of properties comes 
from or goes to.
    Mr. Walter, in January 2022 the Bureau of Land Management 
announced a proposed rule to allow for the withdrawal of land 
within a 10-mile radius from mineral development within the 
Chaco Culture National Historical Park. Secretary Haaland has 
long advocated for withdrawing the land from the historical 
park from mineral use. Her family, including her adult child, 
also continued to do so, including going so far as to make a 
documentary about the need for this decision which has screened 
at the Capitol Visitor Center.
    Despite DOI's own ethics office determination that this 
could constitute a conflict of interest, Secretary Haaland 
reportedly stated that no reasonable person would question her 
impartiality. So, Mr. Walter, my question to you is, do you 
believe, as a reasonable person, that this might constitute a 
conflict of interest for the Secretary?
    Mr. Walter. Congressman, I don't think that passes the 
laugh test. No.
    Mr. Rosendale. How do you think a conflict of interest like 
this by the Secretary should be handled in this situation?
    Mr. Walter. Well, all of the proper ethics requirements 
which my colleague here, Mr. Painter, has discussed need to be 
respected.
    And, of course, in this case one of the problems was that 
she got to be a judge in her own cause, right? She was the one 
who was given the decision to say whether what she was doing 
was fine. And, again, ordinary Americans would not understand 
that as true ethical decision-making.
    Mr. Rosendale. Mr. Painter, you have been pretty outspoken 
against some of the things that the Republicans have been 
doing. Does this pass your smell test?
    Mr. Painter. I don't believe this is a partisan issue. If 
the ethics lawyer gives advice, I would expect it to be 
followed. I am a former government ethics lawyer, and it is not 
up for the Department head to decide whether the Department 
head is biased or not or should recuse. If the ethics lawyer 
says you should recuse, you recuse. I don't care if you are a 
Democrat or Republican or an Independent.
    Mr. Rosendale. Mr. Walter, can you tell us about the Pueblo 
Action Alliance?
    Mr. Walter. Well, as I tried to outline in my testimony, it 
is hard to find anybody who would be more perfectly fitting the 
description of radical and extremist and, again, so radical and 
extreme that they are willing to ally themselves with communist 
dictatorships and the like. It is off the charts.
    Mr. Rosendale. Mr. Walter, I am getting ready to run out of 
time here. Has Secretary Haaland's family been involved in that 
organization? And did the Secretary herself have any role in 
its creation?
    Mr. Walter. I am not certain about the role in the 
creation, but her adult child is one of its leaders. And in my 
written testimony especially I documented all these 
connections.
    Mr. Rosendale. Thank you very much, Mr. Walter.
    Mr. Chair, I yield back.
    Dr. Gosar. I thank the gentleman from Montana. The 
gentlelady from New Mexico is recognized for her 5 minutes.
    Ms. Stansbury. All right. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    I just want to make sure that folks out there understand 
that the matter that was just brought forward about potential 
conflicts of interest was actually an inquiry that was sent by 
the Majority to the Solicitor's Office which houses the ethics 
lawyer for the Department of the Interior and which is 
independent of the Administration. And there are two responses 
here from the Department of the Interior, one from August 9, 
2023 and one from February 2024, which provides the ethics 
lawyer's findings, and found that there is no conflict of 
interest.
    I appreciate, Mr. Painter, your comments about following 
what the ethics lawyers actually say.
    Secondly, I want to talk for a moment about Chaco Canyon. 
Chaco Canyon is a sacred site. There are dozens of tribes in 
New Mexico who have been working for decades to have the 
greater Chaco Canyon area protected because it is part of their 
ancestral history. It is a place where the Pueblo and Navajo 
Dine people have gone for countless generations to pray, to 
meet, to trade, and in the past have lived. The reason why the 
people of New Mexico and Arizona and the surrounding tribal 
communities have been working for countless decades to protect 
that site from oil and gas drilling is because it is core to 
their spirituality, their identity, and the future of the 
people of that land.
    When Secretary Haaland came into office, there were already 
decades, decades of efforts that had been undertaken to protect 
those lands. There were countless Members of Congress who had 
introduced legislation to protect those lands. There were other 
efforts by other administrations to try to set them aside. In 
fact, as this Committee knows well, this goes back all the way 
to the beginning of the 20th century, because those lands are 
so significant culturally for our communities.
    So, this doesn't represent some vast conspiracy theory. 
This is about protecting tribal sacred sites that are critical 
to our communities.
    Now, I am happy to talk about ethics violations. And I will 
go back to the ethics violations of the Trump administration 
and what we saw during the tenure of the two officials who were 
serving in the Secretary's role re-assigning career employees 
they didn't like; threatening Senators; stacking advisory 
committees with fossil fuel industry executives; killing 
science they didn't like; using taxpayer money to do favors for 
their buddies; compounding investigations; using taxpayer funds 
for political efforts, inappropriately demanding privileged 
access to market-moving oil and gas data, which was 
unprecedented; rewriting climate science over the protest of 
the authors; using office to advance land deals in their home 
towns; trying to fire an Inspector General who was 
investigating these matters.
    There is a fundamental difference between having 
differences of opinion over policy and what direction an agency 
should take, and legally binding ethics laws about what those 
in power do with those positions of power, what access they 
permit, and influence peddling. There are countless efforts of 
influence peddling that were investigated over the Trump and 
Bush administrations, and I think it is crucial that we address 
these issues through changes in the law to ensure that they 
never happen again.
    And I yield back.
    Dr. Gosar. I thank the gentlelady. I just want to remind 
everybody the accusations are one thing. Actual convictions are 
another.
    Ms. Stansbury. Well, we can clarify the----
    Dr. Gosar. We are innocent until proven guilty.
    Ms. Stansbury. We can clarify the Inspector General's 
reports for you so you can see the evidence for yourself.
    Dr. Gosar. Well, OK, I will give you something else. That 
is evidence. Once again, it has to go to a peer-reviewed body. 
It has to go to a jury of our peers for going through that. So, 
I mean, from that standpoint, I have to tell you, none of this 
has met fruition for one reason or another.
    Ms. Stansbury. Actually, there were multiple criminal 
referrals during the Trump administration.
    Dr. Gosar. Criminal referrals? Once again, where is the due 
process? What happened? Nothing came about to them.
    I will give you another example. Do you expect the DOJ to 
do everything? Tell me about the anti-collusion aspect in 
regards to the DOJ implementing a law that I had passed, the 
second-to-last one Trump actually signed, and to this day has 
not been implemented on anti-trust collusion in regards to 
medical insurance industries. Wow, that is pretty stark.
    Mr. Walter, yesterday the Daily Caller published a story 
complete with the links to e-mails discussing how a senior 
adviser at BOEM sought the advice of the Natural Resources 
Defense Council and the Ocean Conservancy when attempting to 
figure out a legal justification for BOEM to incentivize 
developers to invest in underserved communities as part of the 
Biden administration's Justice40 agenda. When they could not 
provide a sufficient legal opinion, she continued to reach out 
to other activist groups for a legal strategy, rather than the 
Solicitor's Office at the DOI.
    Now, I do think it is fair to say that every presidential 
administration should set its own agenda. I understand that. 
This is normal and to be expected. However, senior-level agency 
officials leaning on outside activist groups while in office 
for a legal strategy to implement the administration's 
priorities is not a generally accepted practice, I would 
assume. Is it?
    Mr. Walter. No. Obviously, you would normally go to your 
own experts. And if it is a legal matter, you could also, of 
course, go to the DOJ's appropriate section.
    Dr. Gosar. Why do you think BOEM initially sought illegal 
advice from the environmental and activist groups?
    Mr. Walter. Well, it is obvious, actually, in the e-mails 
themselves with those other groups. They did not have a leg to 
stand on legally, and the outside groups admitted that, and 
said, ``You are coming to us because you can't invent any legal 
leg to stand on for the policy you are trying to push here.''
    Dr. Gosar. Now, additionally, back in February 2021, NRDC 
emailed an exhaustive list of recommendations to BOEM for 
developing their offshore wind leasing program. Many of these 
recommendations are now implemented, such as in BOEM's North 
Atlantic Right Whale Offshore Wind Strategy, which included the 
NRDC's recommendations for avoiding leasing in areas that could 
impact the right whale and setting noise limits during 
construction to address potential impacts on marine life.
    Mr. O'Neil, what do you think of these documented close 
relationships between these activist groups and BOEM, and the 
potential for improper influence on the development of their 
offshore wind leasing programs?
    Mr. O'Neil. There is an extreme potential for improper 
influence. And what we have seen over and over again in this 
case in particular, as well, is this sue-and-settle strategy, 
where an activist group that shares the broad policy 
preferences of the administration sues an administrative agency 
for a change in the law, claiming that there is a legal 
requirement. And then what the agency ends up doing is settling 
that lawsuit, agreeing to implement the legal requirement while 
circumventing the natural requirements of the Administrative 
Procedure Act and the notice and comment period.
    And we have seen this happen over and over again. The Biden 
administration has just ratcheted it up. And the example with 
BOEM is a No. 1 example of that.
    Dr. Gosar. So, do you think that BOEM allowed the oil and 
gas industry a similarly high level of input to guide the 
development of the 2024 or 2029 oil and gas leasing program, 
which only scheduled three potential oil and gas leases under 
sales in the Gulf of Mexico program area?
    Mr. O'Neil. You are joking, right?
    Dr. Gosar. Right.
    Mr. O'Neil. Well, of course, the oil and gas industry does 
not have this kind of access. And we have seen where the access 
is in the Biden administration. It is all of these radical, 
left-wing groups funded by dark money that have a bone to pick 
against oil and gas as an industry overall, because they are 
following this climate alarmist agenda that believes that if 
you burn one drop of oil you are going to bring about the end 
of the world.
    Meanwhile, we have seen over decades all of the climate 
alarmist predictions fail to come to pass. The Maldives have 
yet to sink beneath the waves. Kilimanjaro has yet to lose all 
of the snow that Al Gore predicted would be gone by 2020. So, 
this agenda yet is influencing the administrative state in ways 
that go around Congress, in ways that allow the administration 
to implement its agenda without these checks that have been 
created by the law.
    And meanwhile, the Ranking Member brought up Project 2025. 
I just want to set the record straight. Project 2025, and I am 
not here as a representative of Heritage, or the Daily Signal, 
or Project 2025, but what Project 2025 is trying to do is 
trying to make the administrative state more accountable to the 
American people who elect a president every 4 years. When a 
Republican president enters office, the administrative state is 
so wedded to these left-wing groups and this left-wing agenda 
that the people's elected president is unable to fulfill his 
promises to the American people. And that is what Project 2025 
is focused on.
    Dr. Gosar. My time is expired. We are going to go to a 
third round, and I recognize the gentleman from Montana for his 
questions.
    Mr. Rosendale. I am going to go back to Mr. Painter because 
we are getting some breath of bipartisan condemnation from you.
    I understand that you share similar concerns as the 
Committee regarding foreign actors and dark money seeking to 
influence Federal policy. Do you believe there is an effort by 
foreign governments to exert influence over public lands and 
natural resource policy here in our country?
    Mr. Painter. I am sure there is an attempt by foreign 
governments to exercise influence. As I mentioned, President 
Vladimir Putin gave the Presidential Medal of Friendship to the 
Chief Executive Officer of Glencore Corporation in 2017, just 
as they were trying to petition for----
    Mr. Rosendale. Let me ask you this. I understand you have 
this fixation with Vladimir Putin, and I am sorry about that. 
But what I am trying to identify is, while there may be foreign 
entities that are trying to develop the resources here, what 
about the foreign entities that are trying to keep us from 
developing our natural resources?
    Mr. Painter. I am sure they are going to be active in that 
space, as well.
    Mr. Rosendale. OK, I am glad you say that. Now, let me ask 
you this. Do you feel that the United States, with the 
oversight that we provide through the different agencies that 
we have, is able to develop our domestic resources cleaner and 
with better labor standards than other countries?
    Mr. Painter. If we decide what our own rules are going to 
be. But we have more and more farmland in America owned by the 
Chinese----
    Mr. Rosendale. Excuse me, do you believe, based upon what 
is actually taking place, not theory, what is actually taking 
place in the development of our resources, that we do a better 
job as far as protecting the environment and taking care of our 
workers than the development of those exact same resources 
overseas?
    Mr. Painter. Not necessarily. If we don't fix our campaign 
finances----
    Mr. Rosendale. Would you please then cite to me some place 
that is doing a better job than one of the coal mines that I 
have visited in the Montana coal strip, where we have not only 
the safest development of those resources, but also reclamation 
efforts that actually can scientifically, quantitatively prove 
that the land is more productive after it has been reclaimed 
than it was before they extracted the resources? So, could you 
refer to me, cite something that is doing this----
    Mr. Painter. I am citing you to the repeated work I and 
many others have done about the corruption of our campaign 
finances----
    Mr. Rosendale. OK, so where is this country that is doing a 
better job of developing the resources and protecting the 
environment and the workers than we are?
    Mr. Painter. They will do a----
    Mr. Rosendale. Where is this----
    Mr. Painter. Countries such as China----
    Mr. Rosendale. Where is this country, sir?
    Mr. Painter. I am trying to explain this to you. If we 
don't fix our campaign finance system and our ethics rules----
    Mr. Rosendale. I understand geography. Please explain to me 
the geography of a country that is doing a better job of 
developing natural resources and protecting the environment and 
the people that are developing those resources----
    Mr. Painter. That is not the----
    Mr. Rosendale. Could you please cite that country?
    Mr. Painter. That is not the point. What I am saying is we 
are going to have----
    Mr. Rosendale. Well, then, I have no further questions for 
you.
    Mr. Painter [continuing]. Foreign countries dominating our 
country.
    Mr. Rosendale. That is the point. What you are trying to do 
is allow foreign countries to control the development of the 
resources here in our country when they are being developed 
more scientifically, sound, environmentally safe, and with 
better labor conditions than any other country on Earth. And 
meanwhile, you cannot cite to me another country that does a 
better job.
    I am moving on. I am----
    Mr. Painter. You are not moving on because you are not 
fixing the corrupt----
    Mr. Rosendale [continuing]. Reclaiming my time. Sir, I am 
reclaiming my time.
    Mr. Painter [continuing]. Campaign finance system.
    Mr. Rosendale. Sir, I am reclaiming my time.
    Mr. Walter, I would like to go back and spend a little bit 
of time on Secretary Haaland, because we hear about all the 
accusations. We hear about all the complaints that were filed. 
Look, you can file a lawsuit or a complaint against anybody in 
this nation at any time. What counts is convictions. And, 
again, we are in this country still innocent until proven 
guilty.
    But when you are running one of these agencies, and we have 
had Secretary Haaland before us many, many times, it is as much 
about the perception of a conflict of interest as it is an 
actual conviction by the Ethics Committee. I would like to go 
back to this Pueblo Action Alliance. In what ways are you aware 
that this organization has been influencing the actions and the 
decisions made by the Department of the Interior?
    Mr. Walter. Congressman, thank you for the question.
    As I said in my testimony, and the written version has more 
examples, I investigated the various things that you and your 
colleagues have written in your letters to the Department 
repeatedly with your concerns about Pueblo and the Secretary, 
and Pueblo and the rest of the Department. And I think those 
are very well documented.
    And the other thing I would say real quick is that it is 
worth noting that all the accusations of the previous 
administration, those accusations were made by multiple groups 
popped into existence by the Arabella Advisors Network.
    Mr. Rosendale. Thank you very much.
    Mr. Chair, I yield back.
    Dr. Gosar. The gentlelady from New Mexico is recognized for 
her 5 minutes.
    Ms. Stansbury. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Well, these 
hearings are always a very interesting fever dream, but I am 
hoping that we can bring it to a conclusion soon.
    First of all, I want to clarify how internal ethics 
investigations work at an agency. We have a former ethics 
attorney from the White House who worked during the Bush 
administration. These matters are generally investigated by an 
independent body within the agencies called the Office of the 
Inspector General. We created these after the Nixon 
administration because our agencies were engaged in 
unprecedented activities which raised ethical concerns.
    And one of the ways in which we tried to restore trust in 
American institutions was by creating independent investigative 
bodies that would look at ethics violations and then refer them 
to attorneys at the Department of Justice in order for them to 
be prosecuted.
    So, I appreciate the comments that were made. However, that 
is not how ethics investigations actually occur. So, to that 
end, I would like to ask unanimous consent to enter into the 
record an extensive analysis by Walter Shaub, formerly of the 
Office of Government Ethics, which shows without a doubt that 
the GOP's allegations against Secretary Haaland and these 
attempts to slander her and her family are without merit and 
evidence.
    Dr. Gosar. Without objection, so ordered.

    [The information follows:]

                        Statement for the Record
                          WALTER M. SHAUB, JR.

    Chairman Gosar and Ranking Member Stansbury, I offer the following 
statement for the record to aid the subcommittee in its consideration 
of legal issues pertaining to government ethics requirements for 
federal executive branch employees. I served in the U.S. Office of 
Government Ethics (OGE) for nearly 14 years, as a staff attorney, 
program manager, Deputy General Counsel, and the office's Senate-
confirmed Director. Based on this background and my continuing advocacy 
for government ethics and accountability, I can offer insights into 
issues you are considering in the above-captioned hearing.
    The subcommittee's hearing notice expresses concerns about the 
applicability of government ethics requirements to what it 
characterizes as the ``relationships'' of officials in the U.S. 
Department of the Interior with nonprofit organizations.\1\ The notice, 
however, reveals a misunderstanding of the applicable legal 
authorities.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ Memorandum from Michelle Lane and Lucas Drill to Subcomm. on 
Oversight & Investigations Republican Members, H. Comm. on Natural Res. 
(Apr. 30, 2024), https://tinyurl.com/mtcv9cd9.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    To address the subcommittee's apparent misunderstanding, this 
statement discusses requirements of the primary conflict of interest 
statute applicable to executive branch employees, 18 U.S.C. Sec. 208; 
OGE's impartiality regulation, 5 C.F.R. Sec. 2635.502; the Ethics 
Pledge that President Joe Biden has required his appointees to sign 
under an executive order pertaining to ``Ethics Commitments by 
Executive Branch Personnel,'' Executive Order 13989, Section 1; and 
OGE's general appearance standard 5 C.F.R. 2635.101(b)(14). This 
statement then applies these legal authorities to 12 case studies 
raised in, or suggested by, the hearing notice and correspondence that 
members of the committee have sent the Department of the Interior.\2\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \2\ To avoid confusion, I have numbered these 12 case studies 
serially.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

                      THE CONFLICT OF INTEREST LAW

    As a starting point, it important to understand a few key points 
about the primary conflict of interest law applicable to the executive 
branch, 18 U.S.C. Sec. 208. That law is explicit regarding its coverage 
and applicability.
Basic Restriction

    The conflict of interest law prohibits an executive branch employee 
from participating personally and substantially in a ``particular 
matter'' if the employee knows that the particular matter will directly 
and predictably affect the employee's financial interests or those of 
any person whose financial interests are imputed to the employee, 
unless the employee first obtains a waiver.\3\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \3\ 18 U.S.C. Sec. 208(a). The language ''directly and 
predictably'' does not appear in the statute but has been understood to 
be inherent in the language ``particular matter in which . . . he . . . 
has a financial interest'' since the law was enacted over six decades 
ago. 5 C.F.R. Sec. 2635.402. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alita 
provided the Interior Department with guidance explaining this language 
when he was serving in the Department of Justice's Office of Legal 
Counsel. Memorandum from Samuel Alita, Dep'y Asst. Atty. Gen., Off. of 
Legal Counsel, Dep't of Justice, to Solicitor of the Interior, Scope of 
the Term ``Particular Matter'' Under 18 U.S.C. 208 (Jan. 12, 1987), 
https://tinyurl.com/2p8xftum.

    The phrase ``particular matter'' is a legal term of art. Restating 
the long-standing consensus as to the term's meaning, OGE has provided 
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the following definition in its regulations:

        The term ``particular matter'' includes only matters that 
        involve deliberation, decision, or action that is focused upon 
        the interests of specific persons, or a discrete and 
        identifiable class of persons. The term may include matters 
        which do not involve formal parties and may extend to 
        legislation or policy making that is narrowly focused on the 
        interests of a discrete and identifiable class of persons. It 
        does not, however, cover consideration or adoption of broad 
        policy options directed to the interests of a large and diverse 
        group of persons. The particular matters covered by this part 
        include a judicial or other proceeding, application or request 
        for a ruling or other determination, contract, claim, 
        controversy, charge, accusation or arrest.\4\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \4\ 5 C.F.R. Sec. 2640.103(a)(1).

    Not everything a government official does involves a particular 
matter. If a matter does not focus on the interests of a discrete and 
identifiable class of persons or parties, it is not a particular 
matter. For instance, a decision pertaining to government land that 
focuses broadly on the interests of the general public, Native American 
tribes, mining companies, universities, scientific researchers and 
others may not be a particular matter.\5\ A decision focused 
specifically on the financial interests of mining companies as a class 
or the financial interests of a specific mining company may be a 
particular matter.
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    \5\ OGE's regulations offer this example: ``A change by the 
Department of Labor to health and safety regulations applicable to all 
employers in the United States is not a particular matter.'' 5 C.F.R. 
Sec. 2640.103(a)(1), example 4.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    There are two kinds of particular matters. ``Particular matters of 
general applicability'' are matters that focus on the interests of a 
discrete and identifiable class of persons (e.g., a specific 
industry).\6\ ``Particular matters involving specific parties'' are 
matters that focus on the interests of identified parties (e.g., 
consideration of individual permit applications).\7\ A decision focused 
narrowly on the interests of the oil extraction industry is a 
particular matter of general applicability,\8\ while a decision to 
grant or revoke an individual permit for a company is a particular 
matter involving specific parties.\9\ OGE's regulations explain that a 
particular matter involving specific parties ``typically involves a 
specific proceeding affecting the legal rights of the parties or an 
isolatable transaction or related set of transactions between 
identified parties, such as a specific contract, grant, license, 
product approval application, enforcement action, administrative 
adjudication, or court case.'' \10\ The term ``party matter'' is often 
used as shorthand for a particular matter involving specific parties.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \6\ 5 C.F.R. Sec. 2640.102(m) (``Particular matter of general 
applicability means a particular matter that is focused on the 
interests of a discrete and identifiable class of persons, but does not 
involve specific parties.'').
    \7\ 5 C.F.R. Sec. 2640.102(l) (``Particular matter involving 
specific parties includes any judicial or other proceeding, 
application, request for a ruling or other determination, contract, 
claim, controversy, investigation, charge, accusation, arrest or other 
particular matter involving a specific party or parties. The term 
typically involves a specific proceeding affecting the legal rights of 
the parties, or an isolatable transaction or related set of 
transactions between identified parties.'').
    \8\ OGE's regulations offer this example: ``A regulation published 
by the Department of Agriculture applicable only to companies that 
operate meat packing plants is a particular matter.'' 5 C.F.R. 
Sec. 2640.103(a)(1) (example 3).
    \9\ See 5 C.F.R. Sec. 2641.201(h)(1), example 1 (referring to 
approval of a specific city's application for Federal assistance for a 
renewal project).
    \10\ 5 C.F.R. Sec. 2641.20t(h)(1). This regulation interprets the 
term as used in 18 U.S.C. Sec. 207, but OGE applies the same concept to 
its impartiality regulation at 5 C.F.R. Sec. 2635.502.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Imputed Financial Interests

    The conflict of interest law imputes only certain specified 
financial interests to an executive branch employee. Imputed financial 
interests are the financial interests of the following persons:

     a spouse;

     a minor child;

     the employee's general partner;

     an organization in which the employee is currently serving 
            as officer, director, trustee, general partner or employee; 
            or

     any person or organization with whom the employee is 
            negotiating or has any arrangement concerning prospective 
            employment.\11\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \11\ 18 U.S.C. Sec. 208(a).

    Absent from this list are the financial interests of a spouse's 
employer, an adult child, an adult child's employer, or a former 
employer of an official. The conflict of interest law does not impute 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
the interests of these person to an executive branch employee.

    Congress made a decision not cover the financial interests of these 
persons. If there is dissatisfaction with this law, Congress could 
expand its coverage to include former employers. Doing so, however, 
would limit the ability of anyone who has worked in a particular 
industry regulated or affected by an agency to serve in that agency. 
Trump's first Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, was able to perform 
the full range of his duties as Secretary of State because he had 
resigned his position Exxon, which had interests affected by the 
Department of State's work, and he had divested his financial interests 
in that company.\12\ If the interests of former employers had been 
imputed to executive branch employees, Secretary Tillerson would have 
needed to recuse from all matters affecting Exxon during his entire 
time in office, even after completing his divestitures.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \12\ See Ethics Agreement of Rex Tillerson (Jan. 3, 2017), https://
tinyurl.com/4bzHv8m7.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Likewise, the financial interests of Secretary David Bernhardt's 
former lobbying firm employer were not imputed to him under the 
conflict of interest law because he had resigned from the firm.\13\ 
Even without having his former employer's financial interests imputed 
to him, Secretary Bernhardt had to recuse from matters affecting his 
own former lobbying clients. The Washington Post contemporaneously 
reported: ``Having worked for years as a lobbyist representing many of 
the very businesses he now regulates, he walked into the No. 2 job at 
Interior with so many potential conflicts of interest he has to carry a 
small card listing them all.'' \14\ If his former employer's interests 
had been imputed to him, his conflicts of interests would have 
multiplied exponentially. That employer describes itself as ``the 
nation's No. 1 federal lobbying firm based on revenue,'' and Open 
Secrets indicates that the firm had 323 known clients in 2023--
including energy and mining companies.\15\ Secretary Bernhardt would 
have had to carry around not a card but a tome listing all of the 
firm's lobbying clients, and he would have need to update it daily.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \13\ See Ethics Agreement of David Bernhardt (May 1, 2017), https:/
/tinyurl.com/289us5jk.
    \14\ Juliet Eilperin, Zinke's #2 has so many potential conflicts of 
interest he has to carry a list of them all, WASH. POST (Nov. 19, 
2018), https://tinyurl.com/2m42n4zf.
    \15\ Open Secrets, Lobbying Firm Profile: Brownstein, Hyatt et al, 
https://tinyurl.com/2ebkxask (last viewed Apr. 29, 2024).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Types of Interests Covered

    The conflict of interest law is applicable only to financial 
interests.\16\ It is not applicable to the views, hopes, aspirations, 
ideologies, or policy objectives of executive branch employees. For 
example, the conflict of interest law covers an Assistant to the 
President's financial interests in real estate companies and investment 
funds, but it does not cover that official's views on peace in the 
Middle East, relations with foreign allies, or federal criminal 
sentencing guidelines. The conflict of interest law is inapplicable 
even to policy objectives that an executive branch employees happens to 
share with others, such as a former employer. If this were not true, 
former Interior Secretaries like Ryan Zinke and David Bernhardt would 
have been unable to serve based on their real or perceived sympathy 
with industries whose work the Interior Department affects.\17\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \16\ 18 U.S.C. Sec. 208(a).
    \17\ See, e.g., Devan Cole, New York Times: Acting interior 
secretary worked to block report on endangered species, CNN (Mar. 26, 
2019) (``The [New York Times] reported that the new approach from 
Bernhardt, a former fossil fuels lobbyist who currently serves as the 
department's acting secretary, was `one that pesticide makers and users 
had lobbied intensively to promote.' ''), https://tinyurl.com/39ba6fmu; 
Ben LeFebvre, Trump Interior secretary crossed lines in land dealings 
with Halliburton executive, watchdog finds, Politico (Feb. 16, 2022) 
(``The report from the department's inspector general confirms a series 
of issues POLITICO brought to light in 2018 during Zinke's tenure as 
former President Donald Trump's Interior Secretary. These issues 
include Zinke's attempts to aid Halliburton's then-chair David Lesar 
and other developers in creating a commercial development known as 95 
Karrow on land adjacent to a vacant lot in Montana that Zinke 
controlled through a family-run nonprofit foundation, a deal that would 
have led to Zinke potentially running a microbrewery on the site. . . . 
The inspector general concluded Zinke did not comply with obligations 
in his ethics agreement, recusal memorandum and accompanying documents. 
. . . But the investigation did not find evidence that Zinke violated 
formal conflicts of interest laws or that Interior granted Halliburton 
any specific favors.''), https://tinyurl.com/5n87ca6p: Jimmy Tobias, 
The Zinke effect: how the US interior department became a tool of big 
business, GUARDIAN (Nov. 12, 2018) (``Zinke rapidly installed a slew of 
conservative operatives and industry sympathizers in key positions 
throughout the agency.''), https://tinyurl.com/y4e64zxf.
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Financial Interests of Nonprofits

    Of relevance to the discussion of issues raised in this hearing is 
an understanding of the inapplicability of the conflict of interest law 
to the policy objectives of nonprofit organizations. During the 
administration of President George W. Bush, the Justice Department's 
Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) issued an opinion on the degree to which 
the law implicated the advocacy work of nonprofits. At the time, the 
head of OLC was Steven G. Bradbury, who clerked for Supreme Court 
Justice Clarence Thomas and is currently listed as a Distinguished 
Fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation.\18\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \18\ Heritage Foundation, Steven G. Bradbury, https://
www.heritage.org/staff/steven-g-bradbury (last viewed Apr. 29, 2024).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Under Mr. Bradbury's leadership, OLC rejected the notion that, for 
purposes of the conflict of interest law, nonprofits have financial 
interests in their lobbying activities. ``We conclude that a nonprofit 
organization does not have . . . a `financial interest' merely because 
it spends money on advocacy.'' \19\ OLC explained that nonprofits 
advocate on various matters because they ``care about these matters, 
and spend money to advocate in favor of their preferred outcome, 
because they support or oppose certain policies, not because the 
policies at issue will have a financial or pecuniary impact on [them] 
as organizations.'' \20\ For this reason, the conflict of interest law 
is inapplicable to the interests of nonprofits in their advocacy work.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \19\ Off. of Legal Couns., Dep't of Justice, Memorandum Opinion for 
the General Counsel, Office of Government Ethics, Financial Interests 
of Nonprofit Organizations for Purposes of 18 U.S.C. Sec. 208, 30 
O.L.C. 64 (2006), https://www.justice.gov/file/494541/dl.
    \20\ Id., at 67. OLC found irrelevant any claim that nonprofits 
might have to spend more or less on their advocacy efforts depending on 
the government's actions: ``Any other financial consequences for 
[nonprofits] that may flow from these matters are speculative.'' Id., 
at 69.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Native American Birth Rights

    At 18 U.S.C. Sec. 208(b)(4), the conflict of interest law exempts 
the following financial interests from its coverage:

        (4) if the financial interest that would be affected by the 
        particular matter involved is that resulting solely from the 
        interest of the officer or employee, or his or her spouse or 
        minor child, in birthrights----

                (A) in an Indian tribe, band, nation, or other 
                organized group or community, including any Alaska 
                Native village corporation as defined in or established 
                pursuant to the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, 
                which is recognized as eligible for the special 
                programs and services provided by the United States to 
                Indians because of their status as Indians,

                (B) in an Indian allotment the title to which is held 
                in trust by the United States or which is inalienable 
                by the allottee without the consent of the United 
                States, or

                (C) in an Indian claims fund held in trust or 
                administered by the United States, if the particular 
                matter does not involve the Indian allotment or claims 
                fund or the Indian tribe, band, nation, organized group 
                or community, or Alaska Native village corporation as a 
                specific party or parties.

    Therefore, it would be inappropriate for members or witnesses in 
the hearing to attribute a conflict of interest to any financial 
interests flowing from a covered birthright in a Native American tribe.
Case Studies

    The subcommittee's hearing notice, as well as the correspondence of 
members of the subcommittee with the Interior Department, suggest that 
it would be helpful to discuss how the primarily conflict of interest 
law, 18 U.S.C. Sec. 208, applies in the context of the following case 
studies.
1. Secretary Debra Haaland's adult child or the adult child's employer
    Under the conflict of interest law, Secretary Haaland does not have 
a conflict of interest with the financial interests of either her adult 
child or her adult child's employer because the law does not impute 
those interests to Secretary Haaland.
2. Secretary Haaland's spouse or the spouse's employer
    Secretary Haaland's 2023 financial disclosure indicates that her 
spouse has consulted for Laguna Development Corporation. Under the 
conflict of interest law, the financial interests of this company are 
not imputed to Secretary Haaland. Only her spouse's financial interests 
in his compensation are imputed to her, not the financial interests of 
her spouse's employer. The report indicates he was paid ``consulting 
fees'' and has deferred compensation in the form of cash.\21\ There is 
no indication that this compensation is a variable financial interest 
based on the company's future profitability, so there is no indication 
that any particular matter would be likely to have a direct and 
predictable effect on his compensation.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \21\ Public Financial Disclosure Report of Debra Anne Haaland (OGE 
Form 278e), 3 (May 9, 2023), https://tinyurl.com/38vccv6u.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
3. Acting Deputy Secretary Laura Daniel-Davis' former employer
    Acting Deputy Secretary Daniel-Davis does not have a conflict of 
interest with her former employer, the National Wildlife Federation, 
under the conflict of interest law because its financial interests are 
not imputed to her.\22\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \22\ 18 U.S.C. Sec. 208(a).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
4. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Principal Deputy Director Nada Wolff 
        Culver's former employer
    Principal Deputy Director Culver does not have a conflict of 
interest with her former employer because its interests are not imputed 
to her.\23\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \23\ 18 U.S.C. Sec. 208(a).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

                      THE IMPARTIALITY REGULATION

    It is also important to understand some key aspects of OGE's 
impartiality regulation, 5 C.F.R. Sec. 2635.502, which imposes an 
appearance-based recusal obligation.
Basic Restriction

    OGE's impartiality regulation establishes the following basic 
restriction:

        (a) Consideration of appearances by the employee. Where an 
        employee knows that a particular matter involving specific 
        parties is likely to have a direct and predictable effect on 
        the financial interest of a member of his household, or knows 
        that a person with whom he has a covered relationship is or 
        represents a party to such matter, and where the employee 
        determines that the circumstances would cause a reasonable 
        person with knowledge of the relevant facts to question his 
        impartiality in the matter, the employee should not participate 
        in the matter unless he has informed the agency designee of the 
        appearance problem and received authorization from the agency 
        designee in accordance with paragraph (d) of this section.\24\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \24\ 5 C.F.R. Sec. 2635.502(a).

    For purposes of this hearing, several phrases in this language are 
important to note, due to their operative effect on the regulation's 
applicability. These phrases are ``particular matter involving specific 
parties,'' ``covered relationship,'' ``is or represents a party,'' 
``employee determines'' and ``reasonable person with knowledge of the 
relevant facts.''
``particular matter involving specific parties''
    The recusal obligation under OGE's impartiality regulation applies 
only to particular matters involving specific parties.\25\ As discussed 
in the preceding section, the term particular matter involving specific 
patties covers only a matter focused on the interests of identified 
parties.\26\ ``The term typically involves a specific proceeding 
affecting the legal rights of the parties, or an isolatable transaction 
or related set of transactions between identified parties.'' \27\ This 
type of recusal obligation is sometimes called a ``party-matter 
recusal'' as a useful, albeit imprecise, shorthand.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \25\ Id.
    \26\ Off. Of Gov't Ethics, ``Particular Matter Involving Specific 
Parties,'' ``Particular Matter,'' and ``Matter'', Legal Advisory 06x09 
(2006), https://tinyurl.com/26r7sjym.
    \27\ 5 C.F.R. Sec. 2640.102(1); see also 5 C.F.R. Sec. 201(h)(1) 
(using the same language).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The party-matter recusal does not apply to a ``particular matter of 
general applicability.'' An employee subject to a party-matter recusal 
with respect to a former corporate employer could choose to participate 
in the issuance of an industry-wide regulation affecting the former 
employer along with all other members of the employer's industry. This 
is true, for instance, when a former mining company executive chooses 
to participate as a government official in a regulation affecting all 
mining companies.\28\ The official could always choose to recuse from 
the industry-wide regulation, but OGE's impartiality regulation would 
not make recusal mandatory.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \28\ The conflict of interest law, however, would impose a separate 
recusal obligation if that official held stock in any such company.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The concept of a party-matter recusal is narrow in scope compared 
to an obligation to recuse from all particular matters, including 
particular matters of general applicability. ``When this language is 
used,'' OGE has explained, ``it reflects `a deliberate effort to impose 
a more limited ban and to narrow the circumstances in which the ban is 
to operate.' '' \29\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \29\ U.S. Off. of Gov't Ethics, Legal Advisory 06x09 (2006) 
(quoting Bayless Manning, Federal Conflict of Interest Law 204 (1964)), 
https://tinyurl.com/26r7sjym.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
``covered relationship''
    OGE's impartiality regulation defines the term ``covered 
relationship.'' Only the portions of that definition relevant to this 
hearing are discussed here, but the full definition can be found at 5 
C.F.R. Sec. 2635.502(b)(1).
    The regulation establishes a covered relationship with an 
individual ``who is a relative with whom the employee has a close 
personal relationship.'' \30\ This could be presumed to include an 
adult child in most instances. The regulation does not, however, 
establish a covered relationship with the employer of an independent 
adult child of an executive branch employee.\31\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \30\ 5 C.F.R. Sec. 2635.502(b)(1)(ii).
    \31\ See 5 C.F.R. Sec. 2635.502(b)(1)(ii)-(iv). The regulation 
establishes a covered relationship with the employer of only a 
``dependent child.'' In 2023, OGE implicitly acknowledged that the 
impartiality regulation does not currently apply to the employer of an 
independent adult child by proposing to expand the coverage to cover 
all children of an executive branch official. Specifically, OGE 
proposed to remove the word ``dependent'' in the phrase ``dependent 
child'' in 5 C.F.R. Sec. 2635.502(b)(iii). To date, however, OGE has 
not issued a final regulation, and, because at least one federal agency 
has objected to this change, it is not clear what OGE plans to do. 
Comment of National Aeronautics and Space Administration on RIN 3209-
AA43, https://tinyurl.com/ms4nc2dm. Unless and until OGE decides to 
adopt this proposed change when it issues a final regulation, the 
impartiality regulation remains inapplicable to an adult child's 
employer. If OGE does make this change, it will not have retroactive 
effect. U.S. Off. of Gov't Ethics, Modernization Updates to Standards 
of Ethical Conduct for Employees of the Executive Branch, 88 Fed. Reg. 
10774, 10781 (Feb. 21, 2023) (referring to the ``first year in which 
the regulations become effective ``), https://tinyurl.com/3ydk9n7b.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Also of relevance is the regulation's coverage of the former 
employer or client of an executive branch employee. The regulation 
imposes a recusal obligation, in the case of an employer, for a period 
of one year from the date on which the executive branch employee 
resigned from the former employer or, in the case of a client, ceased 
to provide services to the client.\32\
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    \32\ 5 C.F.R. Sec. 2635.502(b)(1)(iv).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Finally, the regulation establishes a covered relationship with an 
organization or individual ``for whom the employee's spouse . . . is, 
to the employee's knowledge, serving or seeking to serve as an officer, 
director, trustee, general partner, agent, attorney, consultant, 
contractor or employee.'' \33\ Unlike the covered relationship with an 
employee's own former client, the covered relationship with a spouse's 
former client ceases when the spouse is no longer performing services 
or seeking to perform services for the former client.\34\
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    \33\ 5 C.F.R. Sec. 2635.502(b)(1)(iii).
    \34\ Compare 5 C.F.R. Sec. 2635.502(b)(iii) (``serving or seeking 
to serve'') with 5 C.F.R. Sec. 2635.502(b)(iv) (``has, within the last 
year, served'').
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``employee determines'' and ``reasonable person with knowledge of the 
        relevant facts''
    By its very terms, OGE's impartiality regulation applies when the 
employee has determined that recusal is necessary. Although the phrase 
``reasonable person'' is usually understood to require the application 
of what is known in law as an objective standard, OGE's regulation 
applies a hybrid subjective-objective standard. It is the employee who 
must consider whether a reasonable person would be concerned about the 
employee's participation in a matter. If the employee has considered 
the appearance of participating in a particular matter involving 
specific parties and has determined that a reasonable person would not 
be concerned, the employee may participate in the matter.
    The government is not powerless to mandate recusal when the 
employee has determined that a reasonable person would not be concerned 
about the employee's participation. The government can take the 
``reasonable person'' inquiry out of the employee's hands by having an 
ethics official make the determination.\35\ For the recusal obligation 
to apply in that case, the ethics official must make the determination 
and must communicate that determination to the employee before the 
employee participates in a matter. If the ethics official has not 
communicated this determination to the employee, the employee's 
participation in the matter will not violate OGE's impartiality 
regulation.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \35\ 5 C.F.R. Sec. 2635.502(c).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Case Studies

    The subcommittee's hearing notice, as well as the correspondence of 
members of the subcommittee with the Interior Department, suggest that 
it would be helpful to discuss how OGE's impartiality regulation, 5 
C.F.R. Sec. 2635.502, applies in the context of the following case 
studies.
5. Secretary Debra Haaland's adult child or the adult child's employer
    Under OGE's impartiality regulation, Secretary Haaland has a 
covered relationship as to her adult child; however, the regulation 
does not establish a covered relationship with her adult child's 
employer.\36\ Therefore, the impartiality regulation does impose a 
recusal obligation on Secretary Haaland with respect to her adult 
child's employer.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \36\ 5 C.F.R. Sec. 2635.502(b)(ii),(iii).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
6. Secretary Haaland's alleged involvement with the adult child's 
        employer
    A complaint filed by an outside complainant alleged that Secretary 
Haaland has been involved directly with the adult child's employer with 
respect to an interview she gave that employer during the Trump 
administration.\37\ The complainant, however, concedes that Secretary 
Haaland recorded the video as a member of Congress before she was 
appointed to the executive branch.\38\ This concession is dispositive 
of the issue with respect to the video because, as this subcommittee is 
well aware, neither OGE's impartiality regulation nor its separate 
misuse of position regulation apply to Members of Congress.\39\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \37\ Letter from Michael Chamberlain, Director,Protect the Public's 
Trust to Mark Greenblatt Inspector General, U.S. Dep't of the Interior 
(Aug. 17, 2023), https://tinyurl.com/yv462ecb (hereinafter 
``Chamberlain I'').
    \38\ Id. at 2-3.
    \39\ 5 C.F.R. Sec. Sec. 2635.502, 2635.702.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The complainant tries to link Secretary Haaland's appearance in the 
interview to her executive branch position by pointing out that the 
group later added footage of her to the video after the Senate 
confirmed her appointment as Secretary.\40\ The problem with this 
attempt to establish a linkage is that OGE's regulations restrict only 
the activities of executive branch employees. OGE has no authority, and 
does not purport to, regulate the activities of private citizens or the 
nonprofit organizations they form. Any attempt by the executive branch 
to control the content of the video produced by the employer of the 
Secretary's adult child would implicate First Amendment concerns.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \40\ Chamberlain I, at 3.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    In any event, absent a covered relationship with the adult child's 
employer, Secretary Haaland had no recusal obligation as to that 
organization under OGE's impartiality regulation. To the extent that 
the complainant and subcommittee members may contend that Secretary 
Haaland shares views with that organization, the impartiality 
regulation is inapplicable. This situation is no different than an 
Interior Secretary holding views that an energy company also happens to 
hold. The ethics rules do not regulate thought.
7. Secretary Haaland's spouse and the spouse's employer
    OGE's impartiality regulation establishes a covered relationship 
with Secretary Haaland's spouse. It also establishes a covered 
relationship with Laguna Development Corporation (LDC), but only during 
the period when her spouse was serving or seeking to serve as a 
contractor or consultant of that firm.\41\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \41\ 5 C.F.R. Sec. 2635.502(b)(iii).

    The subcommittee must be mindful of the narrow scope of the recusal 
obligation as to LDC. During the period in which the spouse was 
providing services or seeking to provide services to LDC, Secretary 
Haaland had an obligation to recusal from particular matters involving 
specific parties in which LDC was a party or represented a party. This 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
recusal obligation under the impartiality regulation did not apply to:

     broad policy matters,

     particular matters of general applicability,

     particular matters involving specific parties in which LDC 
            was not a party and did not represent a party, or

     particular matters affecting LDC's interests that did not 
            directly and predictably affect the spouse's compensation 
            and in which LDC was not a party or the representative of a 
            party.\42\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \42\ 5 C.F.R. Sec. 2635.502(a).

    There seems to be no allegation that Secretary Haaland participated 
in a covered particular matter involving specific parties in which LDC 
was a party or represented a party while her spouse was providing 
services or seeking to provide services to LDC.
8. allegation pertaining to Acting Deputy Secretary Laura Daniel-Davis' 
        alleged participation in the development of an order issued by 
        Secretary Haaland
    Acting Deputy Secretary Laura Daniel-Davis had a covered 
relationship with her former employer, National Wildlife Federation 
(NWF) for a period of one year from the date of her resignation. A 
complaint filed by an outside complainant suggested that she violated 
OGE's impartiality regulation with respect to NWF, but the complaint 
does not support even a reasonable suspicion of a violation much less a 
finding that a violation occurred.\43\ That is because the complaint 
does not allege facts establishing her participation in a particular 
matter involving specific parties in which NWF was a party or 
represented a party.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \43\ Letter from Michael Chamberlain, Director, Protect the 
Public's Trust to Mark Greenblatt Inspector General, U.S. Dep't of the 
Interior (Sep. 13, 2023), https://tinyurLcom/3pb3rpmj (hereinafter 
``Chamberlain II'').
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The complaint suggests that Acting Deputy Secretary Daniel-Davis 
may have influenced an order that Secretary Haaland issued in May 2021, 
which temporarily halted all activities related to the Coastal Plain of 
the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (``Arctic Refuge'') and required 
the department to conduct a new study of affected programs based on 
deficiencies in a prior administration's study. The complaint seeks to 
link development of the Secretary's order to litigation filed by NWF 
based on a perceived relatedness of the two distinct matters. NWF is 
one of several parties to a lawsuit challenging the prior 
administration's environmental analysis and decision pertaining to oil 
and gas leases in the Arctic Refuge. The complaint alleges that 
deficiencies identified in the order are ``very similar'' to 
deficiencies identified by the plaintiffs in the litigation.\44\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \44\ Chamberlain II, at 3.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The complaint also alleges that ``Ms. Daniel-Davis participated 
personally and substantially in decisions relating to the suspension of 
activities related to the Coastal Plain Oil and Gas Lease Program,'' 
specially that she issued letters canceling several leases on the day 
the Secretary issued the order.\45\ The complaint seeks to link the 
issuance of these letters to the litigation by arguing that ``[s]everal 
legal arguments'' articulated in the letters were ``similar'' to 
arguments raised by the plaintiffs in the litigation.\46\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \45\ Id., at 1-2.
    \46\ Id., at 3-4.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    There are several problems with this complaint.

    First, it is not clear that the complaint focuses on particular 
matters involving specific parties, which raises a question as to the 
applicability of OGE's impartiality regulation.\47\ There are three 
possibilities with respect to development of Secretary Haaland's order:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \47\ Secretary of Interior Debra Haaland, Comprehensive Analysis 
and Temporary Halt on all Activities in the Arctic National Wildlife 
Refuge Relating to the Coastal Plain Oil and Gas Leasing Program, Order 
No. 3401 (June 1, 2021), https://tinyurl.com/4zbxrywn.

     Matter--The order was merely a ``matter'' and not a 
            ``particular matter'' if it focused broadly on a variety of 
            interests. In that case, Sec. 2635.502 did not apply to 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
            development of the order.

     Particular Matter--The order was a ``particular matter of 
            general applicability'' if it focused on the interests of 
            both existing and prospective lessees (i.e., the oil and 
            gas industry, which is a discrete and identifiable class) 
            or even all lessees (i.e., the parties to several different 
            particular matters involving specific parties, namely the 
            leases). In that case, Sec. 2635.502 did not apply to 
            development of the order.

     Particular Matter Involving Specific Parties--The order 
            was a ``particular matter involving specific parties'' if 
            it focused narrowly on an existing lease. In that case, 
            Sec. 2635.502 would apply to development of the order.

    The order's focus was clearly broader than that just one lease. It 
ordered the cessation of ``all activities of the Federal Government 
relating to the implementation of the Coastal Plain Oil and Gas Leasing 
Program.'' \48\ This program-wide order involved all existing leases. 
It may also have involved all prospective leases by ceasing activities 
of an entire program under which a lease application could be filed. 
This makes the order a ``particular matter of general applicability'' 
if it focused narrowly on the interest of all existing lessees or on 
the interests of existing and prospective lessees. It makes the order a 
mere ``matter'' if the order is focused on the interests of more 
classes of persons than only existing and prospective lessees. In 
either case, the order is not a particular matter involving specific 
parties and the impartiality regulation did not apply to development of 
the order.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \48\ Id., at 1.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Implementation of the order through the cancellation of leases 
might have been part of the same ``particular matter of general 
applicability'' or ``matter'' as the order itself. The order expressly 
provided that ``[t]he Assistant Secretary for Land and Minerals 
Management and the Director of the BLM shall, as appropriate and 
consistent with applicable law, take appropriate action with respect to 
existing leases in light of the direction provided herein.'' \49\ The 
cancellation of some leases on the same day that the order was issued 
suggests that this action was specifically provided for in the order. 
In that case, the cancellation of leases also may not have been a 
particular matter involving specific parties, in which case the 
impartiality regulation did not apply.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \49\ Id.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    On the other hand, the department appears to have canceled other 
leases on a later date, suggesting that the cancellation of leases 
might have been subject to Acting Deputy Secretary Daniel-Davis' review 
and discretion on a case-by-case basis.\50\ If so, the cancellation of 
each lease would be a separate particular matter involving specific 
parties.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \50\ See Becky Bohrer and Matthew Daly, Biden administration 
cancels remaining oil and gas leases in Alaska's Arctic Refuge, Assoc. 
Press (Sep. 7, 2023), https://tinyurl.com/mvk2a26m.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Second, if each lease cancellation was a separate particular matter 
involving specific parties, the impartiality regulation would have 
applied only if NWF was a party to the lease at issue or represented a 
lessee. NWF, of course, was not a party to any of the leases and did 
not represent any lessee. There is no allegation that Acting Deputy 
Secretary Daniel-Davis had a covered relationship any of the companies 
that were lessees or with their representatives. Therefore, the 
impartiality regulation would not have restricted her participation in 
any of the lease cancellations.
    The impartiality regulation does not require recusal when a person 
with whom an employee has a covered relationship is neither a party nor 
the representative of a party. NWF's litigation was a separate 
particular matter involving specific parties distinct from the leases 
themselves; cancellation of a lease was one particular matter involving 
specific parties, and the litigation was a another particular matter 
involving specific parties.\51\ Acting Deputy Secretary Daniel-Davis's 
obligation was to recuse from the litigation. The regulation restricted 
her from appearing in court on behalf of the Interior Department and 
from making recommendations or decisions as to who should be called as 
witnesses, what motions should be filed, or whether to enter into a 
settlement agreement. There appears to be no allegation that she did 
any of these things.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \51\ See 5 C.F.R. Sec. 2641.201(h)(1) (explaining that ``a specific 
proceeding affecting the legal rights of the parties'' is one 
particular matter involving specific parties).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Third, the flaw in the complainant's analysis is obvious. The 
complaint alleges that ``Ms. Daniel-Davis' actions suspending leases 
and lease operations pursuant to the Coastal Plains ROD had a direct 
and predictable effect on litigation concerning the Coastal Plains 
ROD.'' \52\ But the applicable standard under the impartiality 
regulation does not ask whether her actions had ``direct and 
predictable effect'' on NWF's litigation. The applicable standard asks 
whether NWF was a party to a lease or the representative of a party to 
the lease.\53\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \52\ Chamberlain II, at 6.
    \53\ 5 C.F.R. Sec. 2635.502(a).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The complainant has mistakenly cited the standard for the conflict 
of interest law, which addresses the direct and predictable effect of a 
particular matter on an executive branch employee's financial interests 
or those of a person whose financial interests are imputed to the 
employee.\54\ This conflation of the impartiality regulation with the 
conflict of interest law distorts both of these authorities. As 
discussed in the previous section on the conflict of interest law, 
NWF's financial interests are not imputed to Acting Deputy Director 
Daniel-Davis--if NWF even has any financial interests in the 
litigation, a question not addressed in the complaint.\55\ The conflict 
of interest law does not impute the financial interests of a former 
employer to an executive branch employee, and the impartiality 
regulation is not concerned with the financial interests of NWF.\56\ 
The impartiality regulation is focused only on the identities of the 
parties to the particular matter involving specific parties in which 
the executive branch employee is alleged to have participated. In this 
instance, Acting Deputy Secretary Daniel-Davis participated in the 
cancellation of leases to which NWF was not a party and with respect to 
which NWF did not represent a party. The impartiality regulation did 
not apply.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \54\ 18 U.S.C. Sec. 208(a).
    \55\ As explained above, OLC explained during the Bush 
administration that nonprofits like NWF have no financial interests in 
their advocacy work for purposes of the conflict of interest law. Off. 
of Legal Couns., Dep't of Justice, Memorandum Opinion for the General 
Counsel, Office Of Government Ethics, Financial Interests of Nonprofit 
Organizations for Purposes of 18 U.S.C. Sec. 208, 30 O.L.C. 64 (2006), 
https://www.justice.gov/file/4945411dl. Whether that opinion leaves 
room for a finding that a nonprofit plaintiff has a financial interest 
in litigation, when the nonprofit is not seeking damages, presents 
questions of law and fact not addressed in the complaint.
    \56\ 18 U.S.C. Sec. 208(a); 5 C.F.R. Sec. 2635.502(a).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
9. allegation pertaining to Acting Deputy Secretary Laura Daniel-Davis' 
        alleged participation in a meeting at which litigation may have 
        been discussed
    As mentioned earlier, NWF is involved in litigation with the 
department. The complaint raised a second allegation, which was that 
Acting Deputy Secretary Daniel-Davis may have violated the impartiality 
regulation by participating in a meeting at which some unspecified 
litigation was discussed. The complaint says that she scheduled a 
meeting vaguely titled ``Meeting re: Arctic Litigation Update.'' The 
complaint acknowledges that the complainant does not know whether this 
meeting focused on the case in which NWF was a party. This meeting 
could have addressed a different case.
    If the meeting did involve an update on NWF's case, there is no 
indication that Acting Deputy Secretary Daniel-Davis participated in 
the case itself. The meeting is titled ``update,'' which suggests that 
she merely received information about the status of a case and possibly 
its effect on other activities. If there was no deliberation, 
recommendation or decision made regarding the handling of the case, the 
impartiality regulation would not have applied because she did not 
participate in the case.\57\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \57\ If she had participated in the case--perhaps by deciding what 
witnesses to call or drafting a motion--the next step would have been 
for her to either consult an ethics official or assess whether the 
circumstances would cause a reasonable person with knowledge of the 
relevant facts to question her impartiality in the matter. 5 C.F.R. 
Sec. 2635.502(a), (c).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
10. BLM Principal Deputy Director Nada Wolff Culver's former employer
    The Inspector General found a violation by BLM Principal Deputy 
Director Nada Wolff Culver when she met with a former employer, but the 
violation pertained to the Ethics Pledge and not OGE's impartiality 
regulation.\58\ There is no indication that she violated OGE's 
impartiality regulation by meeting with her former employer.\59\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \58\ Off. of the Insp. Gen., U.S. Dep't of the Interior, Bureau of 
Land Management Official Did Not Comply With the Federal Ethics Pledge, 
Report No. 21-0728 (Aug. 18, 2022), https://tinyurl.com/52u5cec8.
    \59\ Id. at 4 (``We did not, however, substantiate the allegations 
that the BLM Official violated 5 C.F.R. Sec. 2635.502 or the Ethics 
Pledge by participating in the PLOs or the Federal lawsuits; we drew 
this conclusion because the PLOs were not particular matters involving 
specific parties and because neither Former Employer 1 nor Former 
Employer 2'').
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

                           THE ETHICS PLEDGE

    It is also important to understand some key aspects of the ethics 
pledge under President Biden's executive order titled ``Ethics 
Commitments by Executive Branch Personnel.'' \60\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \60\ Exec. Order 13989 (Jan. 20, 2021), https://tinyurl.com/
43ry2dxk.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Basic Restriction

    Though the Ethics Pledge uses different language than OGE's 
impartiality regulation, the Ethics Pledge tracks that regulation with 
two differences: the Ethics Pledge covers a different period than the 
regulation, and it restricts participation in certain meetings 
regardless of the subjects of those meetings. Paragraph 2 of Section 1 
of Executive Order 13989 requires political appointees to sign Ethics 
Pledges in which they commit to the following restriction:

        I will not for a period of 2 years from the date of my 
        appointment participate in any particular matter involving 
        specific parties that is directly and substantially related to 
        my former employer or former clients, including regulations and 
        contracts.\61\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \61\ Exec. Order 13989, Sec. 1, para.2.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The Executive Order supplies the following two definitions:

        (j) ``Particular matter involving specific parties'' shall have 
        the same meaning as set forth in section 2641.201(h) of title 
        5, Code of Federal Regulations, except that it shall also 
        include any meeting or other communication relating to the 
        performance of one's official duties with a former employer or 
        former client, unless the communication applies to a particular 
        matter of general applicability and participation in the 
        meeting or other event is open to all interested parties.

        ...
        (m) ``Directly and substantially related to my former employer 
        or former clients'' shall mean matters in which the appointee's 
        former employer or a former client is a party or represents a 
        party.\62\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \62\ Exec. Order 13989, Sec. 2(j), (m).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
11. Case Study: Inspector General's finding regarding BLM Principal 
        Deputy Director Nada Wolff Culver
    The Inspector General (IG) found that BLM Principal Deputy Director 
Nada Wolff Culver violated the Ethics Pledge by meeting with a former 
employer in 2021. However, the IG also found ``that there are facts 
mitigating the significance of our finding of an Ethics Pledge 
violation in this case.'' \63\ The IG identified the following 
mitigating facts:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \63\ Off. of the Insp. Gen., U.S. Dep't of the Interior, Bureau of 
Land Management Official Did Not Comply With the Federal Ethics Pledge, 
Report No. 21-0728, at 6 (Aug. 18, 2022), https://tinyurl.com/52u5cec8.

     The conduct was inadvertent. The IG found that the ethics 
            official ``provided the BLM Official with inaccurate 
            interim ethics guidance that failed to identify Former 
            Employer 1 as one of the BLM Official's former employers 
            for purposes of the Ethics Pledge, and the BLM Official 
            stated that they relied on this ethics advice before the 
            meeting with Former Employer 1.'' \64\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \64\ Id.

     Principal Deputy Director Culver turned herself in. The IG 
            found that ``the BLM Official self-disclosed the meeting 
            with the former employer to the (ethics official) after 
            receiving updated ethics guidance correctly identifying 
            Former Employer 1 as a former employer for purposes of the 
            Ethics Pledge.'' \65\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \65\ Id.

     Principal Deputy Director Culver violated the rule once 
            and did not violate it again. The IG ``identified no other 
            meetings the BLM Official attended with former employers 
            that did not include a multiplicity of parties after 
            receiving the updated and corrected ethics guidance from 
            the [ethics officials.'' \66\ (The reference to a 
            ``multiplicity of parties'' relates to the exception to the 
            restriction on meetings in the definition of ``particular 
            matter involving specific parties'' in the Executive Order 
            for any ``meeting or other event is open to all interested 
            parties.'') \67\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \66\ Id.
    \67\ Exec. Order 13989, Sec. 2(j).

12. Case Study: Secretary Haaland and Acting Deputy Secretary Daniel-
        Davis
    Paragraph 2 of the Ethics Pledge addresses only former employers 
and clients of the executive branch appointee. Therefore, this 
provision is not relevant to allegations concerning Secretary Haaland's 
adult child, her adult child's employer, her spouse, or her spouse's 
employer. The Ethics Pledge applies to Acting Deputy Secretary Daniel-
Davis' former employer, but the analysis with respect to the Ethics 
Pledge is the same as the analysis with respect to the impartiality 
regulation discussed above.

    The only differences are that the Ethics Pledge applied for a 
period after the impartiality regulation ceased to apply, and the 
Ethics Pledge covered some meetings that the impartiality regulation 
did not cover because they did not qualify as particular matters 
involving specific parties. If any allegations arising at the hearings 
pertain to meetings involving persons with whom these officials had 
covered relationships, OGE's guidance on the Ethics Pledge specifically 
addresses an exception to the obligation to recuse from meetings under 
the Ethics Pledge:

        The expanded party matter definition has a two-part exception 
        for communications with an appointee's former employer or 
        client, if the communication is: (1) about a particular matter 
        of general applicability and (2) is made at a meeting or other 
        event at which participation is open to all interested parties. 
        Although the exception refers to particular matters of general 
        applicability, it also is intended to cover communications and 
        meetings regarding policies that do not constitute particular 
        matters. An appointee may participate in communications and 
        meetings with a former employer or client about these 
        particular or non-particular matters if the meeting or event is 
        ``open to all interested parties.'' Exec. order No. 13490 sec. 
        2(h). Because meeting spaces are typically limited, and time 
        and other practical considerations also may constrain the size 
        of meetings, common sense demands that reasonable limits be 
        placed on what it means to be ``open to all interested 
        parties.'' Such meetings do not have to be open to every comer, 
        but should include a multiplicity of parties. For example, if 
        an agency is holding a meeting with five or more stakeholders 
        regarding a given policy or piece of legislation, an appointee 
        could attend such a meeting even if one of the stakeholders is 
        a former employer or former client; such circumstances do not 
        raise the concerns about special access at which the Executive 
        Order is directed. Additionally, the Pledge is not intended to 
        preclude an appointee from participating in rulemaking under 
        section 553 of the Administrative Procedure Act simply because 
        a former employer or client may have submitted written comments 
        in response to a public notice of proposed rulemaking. In any 
        event, agency ethics officials will have to exercise judgment 
        in determining whether a specific forum qualifies as a meeting 
        or other event that is ``open to all interested parties,'' and 
        OGE is prepared to assist with this analysis.\68\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \68\ U.S. Off. of Gov't Ethics, Legal Advisory DO-09-011 (Mar. 26, 
2009), https://tinyurl.com/3vantf48. Although this guidance originally 
addressed an earlier executive order, OGE has added the following note 
at the top of the first page: ``All substantive legal interpretations 
in this Legal Advisory are applicable to Executive Order 13989, sec. 1, 
par. 2. See LA-21-03, LA-21-05, and LA-21-07.'' Id. at 1.

    Based on this official guidance, the subcommittee cannot 
meaningfully consider the applicability of the Ethics Pledge to any 
meetings attended by these officials without first knowing whether 
there the requisite multiplicity of stakeholders participated in the 
meetings. That may be difficult at the hearing, given that no officials 
from the Department of the Interior have been called to testify. One 
optic may be to defer discussion of any such meetings until after these 
officials have been consulted regarding the multiplicity question.

                       APPEARANCE OF IMPROPRIETY

    Finally, it bears noting that OGE's regulations include a general 
appearance standard at 5 C.F.R. Sec. 2635.101(b)(14). That standard 
provides that ``[e]mployees shall endeavor to avoid any actions 
creating the appearance that they are violating the law or the ethical 
standards set forth in this part.'' \69\ With respect to impartiality 
concerns, however, OGE's impartiality regulation is the executive 
branch's specific implementation of this appearance standard.\70\ When 
OGE proposed 5 C.F.R. Sec. 2635.502 in 1991, it explained: ``Proposed 
Sec. 2635.502 is addressed to the troublesome area commonly referred to 
as appearance problems.'' \71\ An employee can elect to go beyond the 
requirements of Sec. 2635.502, but an employee who has complied with 
that section cannot be said to have violated the principle articulated 
at Sec. 2635.101(b)(14).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \69\ 5 C.F.R. Sec. 2635.101(b)(14).
    \70\ 5 C.F.R. Sec. 2635.502.
    \71\ Off. of Gov't Ethics, Standards of Ethical Conduct for 
Employees of the Executive Branch, 57 Fed. Reg. 33778-85 (1991), 
https://tinyurl.com/35fymjnj.

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                                 ______
                                 

    Ms. Stansbury. Great, thank you, I appreciate that.
    I think there has been an interesting discussion this 
morning about foreign influence on our policies. And I know, 
Mr. Painter, you were just asked about this a few moments ago, 
and in my personal opinion were very disrespectfully 
interrupted. So, I would love if you could share with us what 
you believe can be done to attenuate the influence of foreign 
actors over policies that the Department of the Interior is 
engaged in, whether that is mining, oil and gas leasing, and 
other areas that these multi-national corporations may have an 
interest in.
    Mr. Painter. First, a lot of the influence comes from the 
White House, and this is over Democratic and Republican 
administrations. In my 2009 book about ethics in Washington, 
``Getting the Government America Deserves,'' I recommended we 
have an Inspector General in the White House. That would help.
    I have also recently recommended an Inspector General at 
the U.S. Supreme Court, but that is maybe beside the point of 
this hearing.
    Furthermore, the Foreign Agents Registration Act needs to 
be enforced, and also needs to be amended to be very clear as 
to who is covered and who is not, and which activities need to 
be disclosed. This was passed in 1938 to protect the United 
States against German, Japanese, and Soviet influence, and 
there has been very haphazard enforcement of FARA, and the 
Congress needs to revisit the statute.
    The ethics rules need to be revised.
    I plead with this Committee to not engage in partisan 
attacks in a competition to figure out whether Republicans or 
Democrats do a better job of corrupting the Interior Department 
or other agencies.
    I implore this Committee to fix our campaign finance system 
that makes us vulnerable to foreign infiltration. The Citizens 
United opinion of the Supreme Court opened the floodgates, and 
I can assure you there is a lot of foreign money there, foreign 
lobbying money coming into this country.
    Our democracy is at risk, and the partisan food fights 
aren't helping. This is not to be a spat between MSNBC and Fox 
News, I hope. I hope this is a Congress that will protect the 
interests of the American people.
    And the Interior Department holds these lands in trust for 
the American people. There are lands, almost 2 acres for every 
American. They don't belong to the oil companies, the gas 
companies, and the mining companies. Now, I am fine with 
resource extraction when it benefits the American people, but I 
want to see this Congress pass ethics rules that will allow the 
Interior Department to make its decisions based on science, 
based on economics, not based on who had lunch with the Deputy 
Secretary of the Interior.
    Ms. Stansbury. Well, truly, Mr. Painter, I couldn't have 
said it any better than you. I appreciate your commentary here 
today.
    And I will note, since you brought it up during your 
testimony, that we actually just introduced a judicial ethics 
bill 2 weeks ago to bring an Inspector General to the Supreme 
Court because not only have we seen these sort of ethical 
violations across administrations within our agencies, but we 
are also seeing unprecedented tampering with the highest court 
of the land right now. So, I couldn't agree more 
wholeheartedly. Thank you very much.
    I yield back.
    Dr. Gosar. I thank the gentlewoman. I am going to go back 
to the U.S. Department of the Interior. This is this letter 
that has been referenced over and over again, and I want to 
read two parts.
    Based on the information provided to the Department of 
Ethics office, the Secretary does not have any direct or 
imputed financial interest under U.S.C. Code 208 with her child 
or her child's employer. Accordingly, Secretary Haaland was not 
required to disclose her child's employment and other business 
relationships on her nominee OGE Form 278e, Public Financial 
Disclosure Report, or on her subsequent annual OGE Form 278e 
Public Financial Disclosure Reports.
    Additionally, it is the understanding of the DOE that the 
Secretary's child is not currently a member of her household, 
and the Secretary therefore does not have a covered 
relationship as defined in 5 CFR 2635.502B with the Pueblo 
Action Alliance.
    However, further down, ``If the Secretary personally 
determines that a reasonable person with knowledge of the 
relevant facts would not question her impartiality in 
performing her official duties in this particular matter, then 
she may participate in the particular matter as part of her 
official duties.'' To date it is my understanding that the 
Secretary has not determined that a recusal under 5 CFR 
2635.502 is appropriate as a result of her child's employment. 
So, we got that as text from the aspect here.
    Mr. Painter, whose voice counts?
    Mr. Painter. Whose voice? The American people.
    Dr. Gosar. OK, so when it comes down to a Native American 
tribe, whose voice counts?
    Mr. Painter. I don't understand the point of your question. 
I mean, you just cited a code of Federal regulations provision, 
and I am happy to explain how it works.
    Dr. Gosar. Well, I am not interested in that aspect.
    Mr. Painter. I guess not. You just read it, but you don't 
want to hear how it works.
    Dr. Gosar. I have a lot of questions for you. I am going to 
use my time accordingly.
    Do you realize that there have been Members of Congress, 
including me, that went out to talk to the Navajo Nation, and 
we had over 700 families attend and give us a discourse in 
regards to what their allotments are, or these oil allotments?
    So, my question is, whose voice rules? Is it these 
environmental groups, or is it the actual Native allottee?
    Mr. Painter. Well, you are going to have to decide, and 
then the voters will decide in November whether they want to 
keep you here. That is the way it works.
    Dr. Gosar. OK. Good, good. So, you say, ``the American 
people.'' Under the Taylor Grazing Act, there were some Federal 
lands set aside. And what were they set aside for, 
conservation?
    Mr. Painter. Well, grazing, I mean, but responsible.
    Dr. Gosar. They specifically cite that, don't they?
    Mr. Painter. Yes.
    Dr. Gosar. That they cannot be used for conservation at 
all. I think everyone would utilize that, but you have to 
improve the Grazing Act from one year to the next, it has to be 
improved.
    Second, access to energy and minerals, cleaning out the 
forest, thinning the forest, and then making sure that this is 
all acceptable. Because why? This land is held in trust, right?
    Mr. Painter. Yes, and Congress makes those decisions. And 
Congress passed a statute, and the statute should be complied 
with.
    Dr. Gosar. I am glad you said that. Explain to me how you 
sell this amortization of Federal lands that just recently 
disclosed under the Biden administration, where we try to use 
the New York Stock Exchange on our public lands, a conservation 
easement across there. Are you really for that, or are you----
    Mr. Painter. I haven't looked at that specific instance you 
are speaking of.
    Dr. Gosar. Well, you were so anti about foreign investors. 
Here is your sign right now. This is a perfect scenario. This 
should never happen because, really, the states are next in 
line, and the American people. It is not a Federal Government 
across the world. Would you agree?
    Now, the gentleman, Mr. O'Neil, would you agree?
    Mr. O'Neil. Would I agree that the American people make the 
decision? Yes.
    Dr. Gosar. And what did you think about this amortization 
of Federal lands?
    Mr. O'Neil. Yes, I think it is a really harebrained idea, 
and it will abuse the lands that are held in trust by the 
American people.
    And what we are seeing here is an attempt to weaponize the 
value in those lands, to change our financial system, and to 
make it so that these green activist groups are able to upend 
capitalism and turn it into a weapon of their environmental 
agenda.
    Dr. Gosar. Mr. Walter, would you agree with that 
assessment?
    Mr. Walter. Yes, absolutely. I mean, it is obvious in all 
these things that multiple sides and interests need to be taken 
into account and weighed rationally.
    Dr. Gosar. Now, I guess this will be my last question. What 
was the question that you wish was asked today, and what is its 
answer?
    I will start with you, Mr. Walter.
    What wasn't asked, the question wasn't asked.
    Mr. Walter. Well, I think one of them would be to ask about 
the ocean, the article that was mentioned in the news yesterday 
with the ocean subagency of Interior.
    First of all, again, with the reporter, the refusal to have 
honest, rational debate, right? They won't speak to the 
reporter to discuss what they have done.
    And the other thing that is valuable there is that one of 
the groups involved was the Ocean Conservancy, which I note has 
paid millions of dollars to Senator Sheldon Whitehouse's wife, 
interestingly, which would raise ethics questions if the Senate 
had a rule saying you can't do things that benefit your 
spouse's employer.
    Dr. Gosar. Mr. Painter, what was the question that didn't 
get asked that you wish was asked, and what is its answer?
    Mr. Painter. The question would be whether the Office of 
Government Ethics covered relationship rule, which you cited, 5 
CFR 2635.502, should be expanded not only to cover particular 
party matters in which one's previous employer is a party or 
represents a party, but also regulatory matters, and whether 
such a change should be embodied in Federal statute.
    If Congress were to enact such a change, that would mean 
that the Interior Department and other public officials who 
come to Washington from their previous employers, whether they 
be the Wilderness Society, Goldman Sachs, or Shell Oil, would 
not participate in regulation or de-regulation of the industry 
in which their previous employers engage. This would be a 
fundamental change to ethics in government.
    I believe there are many good arguments for it, but you 
will get a lot of pushback, predominantly from industry groups, 
perhaps from environmental groups, as well, that such a change 
in ethics rules might make it more difficult for the government 
to hire, bring in senior officials with the needed expertise. 
But I have seen way, way too much influence on Washington 
coming from the previous employers of high-ranking Federal 
officials, presidential appointees who come for 2 or 3 years, 
and then they go right back on out into the private sector.
    And yes, some of them may go to environmental groups, as 
well. I believe this influence is excessive, and is detrimental 
to the American people, and that we need to give serious 
consideration to whether to expand the scope of the conflict of 
interest rules of the Office of Government Ethics, the very 
ones that you cited in 5 Code of Federal Regulation 2635.502.
    Dr. Gosar. Thank you, Mr. Painter.
    Mr. O'Neil?
    Mr. O'Neil. I would say the question I would like to have 
seen asked, with all due respect to everyone who asked, is how 
broad exactly is this far-left infiltration of the Department 
of the Interior under President Biden?
    And I can count at least six organizations that really set 
my radar off: the Sierra Club, the National Wildlife 
Federation, the Pueblo Action Alliance, the Wilderness Society, 
Earth Justice, and, of course, the Southern Poverty Law Center. 
I think we need to have more of a discussion of exactly how 
many of these groups are using sue-and-settle to achieve their 
policies in this Administration. And I have been glad to see a 
lot of that exposed today.
    Dr. Gosar. Yes, you bring up kind of an interesting point. 
If there are collusive ideas in regards to legislation being 
introduced and then an Executive Order coming over and taking 
that exact language and putting it in an Executive Order--and 
it is on both sides of the aisle, I have seen this on both 
sides. I just want to make sure that we are not exempting the 
behavior of those folks.
    Thank you very much. I want to thank the witnesses for 
their valuable testimony today and the Members for their 
questions.
    The members of the Committee may have some additional 
questions for you, and we will ask you to respond to those in 
writing. Under Committee Rule 3, members of the Committee must 
submit their questions to the Subcommittee Clerk by 5 p.m. on 
May 3. The hearing record will be held open for 10 business 
days for these responses.
    If there is no further business, we are adjourned.

    [Whereupon, at 11:41 a.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]

            [ADDITIONAL MATERIALS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD]

Submissions for the Record by Rep. Stansbury

                United States Department of the Interior

                        OFFICE OF THE SOLICITOR

                                                 August 9, 2023    

Hon. Bruce Westerman, Chairman
Committee on Natural Resources
1324 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515

    Dear Chairman Westerman:

    Thank you for your letter dated June 5, 2023, signed by you and 
Republican Members of the Committee, regarding Secretary of the 
Interior Deb Haaland's compliance with her ethics obligations. In 
addition to a response from the Department of the Interior (Department) 
providing documents under separate cover, Secretary Haaland asked that 
I also respond on her behalf and provide further information about the 
Departmental Ethical Office (DEO) and her efforts to comply with her 
personal ethics obligations.

    Within the Department, the DEO in the Office of the Solicitor 
undertakes important work to enhance ethics compliance and prevent 
conflicts of interest throughout the Department. The DEO provides 
ethics guidance to all Department employees through ethics training, 
the collection and review of financial disclosure reports, and the 
provision of advice and counsel to employees on questions related to 
their ethics obligations under applicable laws and regulations.

    In one of her first actions, Secretary Haaland sent a message to 
all Department employees highlighting her participation in ethics 
training, noting that the Department's ethics officials serve as a 
valued resource, and encouraging employees to consult with the DEO 
regarding their own ethics obligations. As the DEO's staffing has 
increased in recent years, a more robust DEO is helping the Department 
to ensure personnel, programs, and operations comply with critically 
important ethics laws and regulations. The DEO's goal is to build one 
of the finest ethics programs in the Federal government and to ensure 
the personnel, policies, and resources are firmly in place to maintain 
it for future generations of the Department's employees.

    As a nominee to a Presidentially appointed, Senate-confirmed (PAS) 
position, Secretary Haaland worked closely with the Biden/Harris 
Transition Team, the DEO, and the U.S. Office of Government Ethics to 
complete her nominee ethics materials, including a Nominee OGE Form 
278e, Public Financial Disclosure Report, and an ethics agreement. 
After being confirmed by the Senate on March 15, 2021, Secretary 
Haaland signed the Ethics Pledge implemented by Executive Order No. 
13989, titled ``Executive Order on Ethics Commitments by Executive 
Branch Personnel,'' on March 17, 2021.

    Also on March 17, 2021, Secretary Haaland attended an initial 
ethics training and a senior leader ethics briefing required for PAS 
officials. The goal of this training was to provide Secretary Haaland 
with an overview of applicable ethics laws and regulations and to 
provide a foundation for her to use when assessing her ethics 
obligations. In addition to formal ethics trainings, Secretary Haaland 
regularly meets with senior ethics officials in the Department to 
discuss ethics issues and questions.

    On April 14, 2021, Secretary Haaland signed an Ethics Recusals & 
Screening Arrangement memorandum. This memorandum documented the steps 
that she agreed to undertake to meet her personal ethics obligations 
and formally identified both staff and a process to assist her in 
meeting those obligations. A second Ethics Recusals & Screening 
Agreement memorandum was signed on October 26, 2021, following her 
marriage to Mr. Skip Sayre. After the submission of her annual OGE Form 
278e, Public Financial Disclosure Report, Secretary Haaland signed a 
third Ethics Recusals & Screening Arrangement memorandum on May 18, 
2022. Secretary Haaland has neither sought nor been granted any waivers 
of her ethics obligations.
    After the Secretary married Mr. Sayre, Mr. Sayre provided the DEO 
with information regarding his employment, other positions, and 
investments. The DEO used this information to determine the scope of 
the Secretary's new recusals under applicable ethics laws. Mr. Sayre 
has also provided information to the DEO for the Secretary's annual OGE 
Form 278e, Public Financial Disclosure Reports, and on his potential 
new employment or clients.

    Although your letter requested information about the Secretary's 
disclosures regarding Somah Haaland, it is important to note that Somah 
is the adult non-dependent child of Secretary Haaland. Somah is not 
employed by the Department and is not otherwise a federal employee and 
is thus not covered by the ethics laws and rules which govern Executive 
Branch employees. Nevertheless, when the DEO was made aware of Somah's 
employment by the Pueblo Action Alliance, the DEO considered that 
information as part of the ethics review of any meeting, event, or 
travel attended or completed by the Secretary where the Pueblo Action 
Alliance was identified as a participant and when appropriate provided 
specific guidance.

    Based on the information provided to the DEO, the Secretary does 
not have any direct or imputed financial interests under 18 U.S.C. 
Sec. 208 with her child or her child's employer. Accordingly, Secretary 
Haaland was not required to disclose her child's employment and other 
business relationships on her Nominee OGE Form 278e, Public Financial 
Disclosure Report, or on her subsequent annual OGE Form 278e, Public 
Financial Disclosure Reports. Additionally, it is the understanding of 
the DEO that the Secretary's child is not currently a member of her 
household and the Secretary therefore does not have a ``covered 
relationship'' as defined in 5 C.F.R. Sec. 2635.502(b) with the Pueblo 
Action Alliance.

    Although the DEO determined that the Secretary's child' s 
employment with the Pueblo Action Alliance does not trigger the recusal 
requirements in 18 U.S.C. Sec. 208 or 5 C.F.R. Sec. 2635.502(a), the 
Secretary--like all other employees of the Department--is tasked by the 
Standards of Ethical Conduct for Employees of the Executive Branch with 
considering whether she believes that her participation in any 
particular matter would raise questions regarding her impartiality even 
when there is not a required recusal. In making such a consideration, 
as reflected in 5 C.F.R. Sec. 2635.502, if the Secretary personally 
determines that a reasonable person with knowledge of the relevant 
facts would not question her impartiality in performing her official 
duties in the particular matter, then she may participate in the 
particular matter as part of her official duties. To date, it is my 
understanding that the Secretary has not determined that a recusal 
under 5 C.F.R. Sec. 2635.502 is appropriate as a result of her child's 
employment.

    I hope that the information above, as well as the documents 
produced by the Department under separate cover, provide the requested 
information on the steps that Secretary Haaland has taken to comply 
with her personal ethics obligations, and the ways that the DEO has 
worked to support her in those efforts. Our goal in the DEO is to 
ensure that all employees have the information and resources that they 
need to comply with all applicable ethics laws and regulations. The 
DEO, through its committed staff of career ethics professionals, stand 
ready to assist employees with questions about how to best meet their 
personal ethics obligations.

    Thank you for contacting me and I appreciate your interest in the 
work of the Departmental Ethics Office. Should you have additional 
questions, please feel free to contact Perrin Cooke in the Office of 
Congressional and Legislative Affairs at perrin_cooke@ios.doi.gov.

            Sincerely,

                                         Heather C. Gottry,
                              Director, Departmental Ethics Office 
                                & Designated Agency Ethics Official

                                 ______
                                 

                United States Department of the Interior

                        OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY

                                               February 2, 2024    

Hon. Bruce Westerman, Chairman
Committee on Natural Resources
1324 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515

    Dear Chairman Westerman:

    This letter responds to your October 23, 2023, letter addressed to 
Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland and the Department of the 
Interior's Designated Agency Ethics Official and Director of the 
Departmental Ethics Office (DEO) Heather Gottry, which was cosigned by 
Representative Paul Gosar, Chairman of the Oversight and Investigations 
Subcommittee, that seeks additional documents and information related 
to ethics compliance at the Department.

    In August 2023, the Department provided both a written response 
and, under separate cover, documents that were responsive to your 
initial June 5, 2023, request in this matter. The Department has not 
identified any further materials that were responsive to the 
Committee's previous requests from that time. As discussed below, with 
this letter we are providing the Committee with documents responsive to 
this new request. In addition, we are continuing to search for 
potentially responsive material.

    At the outset, we note that your October letter makes a number of 
assertions about the Pueblo Action Alliance (PAA). The Department 
cannot speak to these claims, but we do voice overall support for 
Americans' First Amendment rights to participate in public debate, 
civic life, and to petition their government. This letter responds to 
the statements and requests by the Committee regarding matters most 
related to the Department' s responsibilities.

    In doing so, we found several incorrect or inaccurate 
characterizations in your letter. From the first days of her nomination 
to be Secretary, Secretary Haaland has made clear her commitment to 
leading the Department ethically and with honor and integrity. As one 
of her first acts, Secretary Haaland sent a message to all Departmental 
employees highlighting her participation in ethics training and 
encouraging Department employees to consult with the DEO on their 
ethics obligations.

    As a Senate-confirmed official, Secretary Haaland has fully 
committed to following all applicable ethics laws, regulations, and the 
ethics pledge. She has actively sought and consulted with the DEO for 
ethics advice and has put in place a robust screening process to help 
ensure that she does not participate in matters relating to any of the 
individuals or entities listed in her Ethics Recusals & Screening 
Arrangement. The Department's August 2023 Response to your earlier 
letter laid out the relevant ethics guidelines and process that the 
Secretary continues to follow. As of this date, Secretary Haaland has 
neither sought nor been granted any waivers of her ethics obligations.

    The Department's review of scheduling to date indicates only a few 
limited engagements relevant to your questions. In one case, Secretary 
Haaland provided pre-recorded remarks at a virtual event where several 
hundred people were invited, including a member of PAA. The Department 
was not made aware of the event's final attendee list and cannot 
confirm if the individual attended virtually. In another case, a member 
of PAA was one of approximately 15 individuals invited to attend an 
Environmental Justice roundtable in 2022 in the State of New Mexico 
where Secretary Haaland was a virtual participant due to COVID. The 
individual from PAA did not attend the event. Documents regarding these 
engagements are included in the production accompanying this letter.

    Other encounters with the PAA, such as the ones cited in your 
letter, include ceremonial and large group events such as the 
Secretary's swearing in as the first Native American cabinet Secretary, 
the delivery of a totem pole by Native groups to the Department, and in 
her congressional office before she was confirmed as Secretary of the 
Interior. Along with many other attendees, PAA members also joined 
widely attended events that the Secretary participated in regarding 
conservation of landscape around Chaco Canyon Historical Park.
    Regarding the film featuring Chaco Canyon referenced in your 
letter, Secretary Haaland's appearance in that film pre-dated her time 
as Secretary. During her time in Congress, then-Representative Haaland, 
along with all the other members of the New Mexico delegation, were 
active on legislative activities related to the protection of the 
natural and cultural resources in the Chaco Canyon area. As Secretary, 
she was subsequently invited to attend a screening of this film but did 
not attend. Furthermore, while Secretary, she did not take steps to 
promote the film, and, in fact, the Department took active steps to 
ensure that ethics guidelines were followed appropriately.

    As noted above, we are enclosing to this letter documents that are 
responsive to your October 2023 letter, which include an updated Ethics 
Recusal's & Screening Arrangements signed August 17, 2023 (though 
erroneously dated August 17, 2022) and other responsive documents.

    If you or your staff needs any additional assistance regarding this 
production, please contact me andrew_wallace@ios.doi.gov.

            Sincerely,

                                            Andrew Wallace,
                                 Director, Office of Congressional 
                                            and Legislative Affairs

                                 [all]