{"id":1647229,"date":"2022-09-19T12:49:07","date_gmt":"2022-09-19T16:49:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1647229"},"modified":"2022-09-19T12:52:42","modified_gmt":"2022-09-19T16:52:42","slug":"nonprofit-activist-turned-interior-official-is-using-federal-power-to-shut-down-arctic-drilling-ethics-watchdog-alleges-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/nonprofit-activist-turned-interior-official-is-using-federal-power-to-shut-down-arctic-drilling-ethics-watchdog-alleges-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Nonprofit Activist-Turned-Interior Official Is Using Federal Power To Shut Down Arctic Drilling, Ethics Watchdog Alleges"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">30<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fnonprofit-activist-turned-interior-official-is-using-federal-power-to-shut-down-arctic-drilling-ethics-watchdog-alleges-2%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1647229&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><\/div>\n<p>A government watchdog group filed a complaint with the inspector general\u2019s office at the U.S. Department of the Interior last week, accusing a senior land administrator of crossing the ethics line on Arctic leases. <\/p>\n<p>The transparency nonprofit Protect the Public\u2019s Trust accused Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Land and Minerals Management Laura Daniel-Davis of improper influence over the Interior Department\u2019s cancellation of oil and gas leases in Alaska\u2019s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Prior to joining the Biden administration, Daniel-Davis was chief of policy at the National Wildlife Federation, which had sued the department over the leases under President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n<p>In a <a href=\"https:\/\/protectpublicstrust.org\/press-releases\/watchdog-files-ig-complaint-over-possible-ethics-violation-involving-anwr-leasing-plan\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">press release<\/a>, Protect the Public\u2019s Trust wrote that based on whistleblower reports and a Freedom of Information Act request, \u201cMs. Daniel-Davis\u2019 involvement in the issue may have crossed the line into personal and substantial involvement in a particular matter involving her former employer.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWithin six months at Interior, Ms. Daniel-Davis had exercised her official authority to achieve practically all of the legal remedies sought by her former employer in court,\u201d the group explained. \u201cEven worse, the legal arguments she relied on to do so were strikingly similar to those developed for and included in her former employer\u2019s legal filings.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As the principal deputy assistant secretary for land and minerals at the Department of the Interior, Daniel-Davis enjoys wide-ranging influence over agency policy navigating a myriad of public lands issues involving controversial projects. Arctic oil and gas operations, which the Biden administration has been aggressive in shutting down, are no exception. Last summer, the Interior Department <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2021\/06\/01\/biden-to-cancel-oil-and-gas-leases-in-alaskan-arctic-national-wildlife-refuge\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">suspended<\/a> the nine leases for oil and gas extraction in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge that were issued under the Coastal Plain program during the Trump administration. Drilling in the refuge would open access to an estimated 4.3 to 11.8 billion barrels of untapped recoverable oil reserves. <\/p>\n<p>Leasing on the small northern portion of the 19-million-acre refuge once opened for oil and gas exploration has now become a political football contingent on the party in power more than 3,000 miles away, with Democrats being near-unanimously opposed. Last year, Democrats <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2021\/10\/29\/a-ban-on-arctic-drilling-remains-in-democrats-new-reconciliation-framework-while-gas-prices-soar\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">tried <\/a>to make executive protections for the refuge permanent under the original \u201cBuild Back Better\u201d plan. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cOn an issue that has been such a huge magnet for controversy, one would think the Department of the Interior would want to make sure that all the t\u2019s were crossed and the i\u2019s dotted,\u201d Protect the Public\u2019s Trust Director Michael Chamberlain said in a statement. \u201cBut, as evidenced by the recent IG report revealing an ethics violation by one of the Department\u2019s top leadership as well as the potential missteps PPT has uncovered, adherence to ethics obligations does not appear to be at the top of the priority list at Secretary Haaland\u2019s Department. It\u2019s little wonder the American public\u2019s trust in government is at an all-time low.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In August, the Interior inspector general found that a top official in the Bureau of Land Management <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2022\/08\/23\/doi-inspector-general-finds-top-biden-land-management-official-violated-ethics-pledge\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">failed<\/a> to comply with a federal ethics pledge when meeting with a former employer. <\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\" \/>\n<p>\n  Tristan Justice is the western correspondent for The Federalist. He has also written for The Washington Examiner and The Daily Signal. His work has also been featured in Real Clear Politics and Fox News. Tristan graduated from George Washington University where he majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow him on Twitter at @JusticeTristan or contact him at Tristan@thefederalist.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A government watchdog group filed a complaint with the inspector general\u2019s office at the U.S. Department of the Interior last week, accusing a senior land administrator of crossing the ethics<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":494,"featured_media":1647234,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1647229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1647229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/494"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1647229"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1647229\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1647234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1647229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1647229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1647229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}