A senior Interior Department official has acknowledged her role in reducing federal regulations that directly benefited her family's cattle ranching operations, valued at over $5 million. Associate Deputy Secretary Karen Budd-Falen, the third-highest-ranking official at the department, expressed enthusiasm about easing rules that made it harder for ranchers to obtain grazing permits on public land.
At a Senate Western Caucus event in December, hosted by Republican Senator Cynthia Lummis, Budd-Falen stated: 'I mean, people talk a lot about oil and gas... but my job in Interior is really the everything else. I’m a rancher, and so the thing that was probably the closest to my heart was grazing regulations.' The remarks, captured on video and first reported by The Washington Post, have drawn scrutiny from the watchdog group Campaign for Accountability.
According to Budd-Falen's financial disclosure, she and her husband own at least five cattle or ranch operations in Wyoming and Nevada, each valued at a minimum of $1 million. They also hold allotments allowing them to graze cattle on federal land managed by the Interior Department.
Campaign for Accountability has sent letters to congressional committees urging an investigation into potential ethical violations. The group stated: 'Ms. Budd-Falen has been actively directing federal public lands policy in ways that appear to benefit her family’s extensive ranching operation, and the DOI ethics office, in dereliction of its mandate, seems eager to ratify, rather than remedy, the behavior.'
During the December meeting, Budd-Falen also noted that relaxed regulations through 'categorical exclusion' directly helped her father-in-law in Nevada. In response, the Interior Department defended her, saying: 'All appointed Department of Interior personnel undergo rigorous ethics screenings... including Karen Budd-Falen, who has complied, and continues to comply, with any and all legal requirements, ethical standards and ethics guidelines.'
Budd-Falen previously served in the Interior Department during President Donald Trump's first administration in 2018. At that time, she signed an ethics document barring her from working on grazing policy to retain her ranching interests. However, upon returning to the government, she received a waiver allowing her to engage in grazing policy despite the conflict, according to the Substack publication Public Domain. The waiver was issued only after inquiries from the publication.
This is the second call for an investigation into Budd-Falen's ethics. In January, congressional Democrats asked the Interior Department's inspector general to probe whether her personal financial ties to a lithium mine developer influenced permit approvals during the first Trump administration. They alleged she failed to disclose that her husband sold water from a family ranch to a mining subsidiary for $3.5 million a year before she met with company executives.
