Senior Biden Official Stood To Profit From Canceling Alaska Oil Leases, Watchdog Charges
- January 30, 2023
Nada Wolff Culver’s failure to divest was an ‘egregious’ ethics violation, according to complaint
Andrew Kerr, Washington Free Beacon
A senior Biden administration official who suspended drilling leases in Alaska stood to profit from the decision, which may put her in violation of federal law, a watchdog group says.
Protect the Public’s Trust on Monday said that then-acting director of the Bureau of Land Management Nada Wolff Culver could have benefited from a 2021 suspension of three Trump-era drilling leases. Culver owned up to $15,000 in bonds with the energy conglomerate ConocoPhillips, which the watchdog says stood to profit off the government strong-arming its competitors out of the region.
The bond Culver owned saw its market rate increase by about 1.5 percent after the announcement. But according to Protect the Public Trust, Culver violated the Interior Department policies by simply owning Conoco bonds. Her failure to divest from her energy investments is “the most egregious example yet of the considerable disregard for ethics compliance at the Department of the Interior under Secretary Deb Haaland,” said the group’s director, Michael Chamberlain.