- A high-ranking Department of the Interior official did not disclose financial ties to a project that required the agency's approval.
- Karen Budd-Falen, a long-time Cheyenne lawyer, worked for the first Trump administration and turned down an opportunity to head the BLM.
- Her husband sold water rights from a ranch in northern Nevada to what will become the world's largest lithium mine.
The third-highest ranking official at the Department of the Interior did not disclose in her mandatory ethics filing that her family has financial connections to what will become the world’s largest lithium mine dug on Bureau of Land Management property.
In 2018, when Karen Budd-Falen was the deputy solicitor of the Interior for wildlife and parks, her husband, Frank Falen, sold $3.5 million worth of water rights from a large ranch property they own in Nevada to Lithium Nevada Corp. — a subsidiary of Lithium Americas — the company that owned the rights to the Thacker Pass mine.
The mine required permitting from the Interior to begin operations and those approvals were a stipulation of the deal between Falen and Lithium Americas, according to The New York Times. If the permitting fell through, so would have the deal.
In January 2021, at the end of that period of Budd-Falen’s tenure with the DOI and the first Trump administration, the mine received its permits.
Then in March 2025, Budd-Falen was appointed associate deputy secretary of the Interior, a position that doesn’t require Senate approval. A few months later in September of last year, the Trump administration acquired a 5% equity stake in both the Thacker Pass mine and the parent mining company that Budd-Falen’s husband contracted with.
That federal ownership stake was agreed upon when the Department of Energy decided to release more than $430 million of a $2.5 billion loan the government extended to speed up the mine development earlier than planned.
Those findings were first reported in December by Public Domain and High Country News, which obtained Budd-Falen’s disclosures through a Freedom of Information Act request that waited months for a response. The copies they received were missing signatures from the DOI’s ethics officials ensuring that “the filer is in compliance with applicable laws and regulations.”
In a statement to Public Domain, Charlotte Taylor, an Interior deputy communications director said that Budd-Falen “is a proven leader bringing decades of experience and knowledge to the department. She leads this administration’s efforts to manage America’s public lands effectively and responsibly delivering real results for the American people — all while firmly upholding the standards expected of the department and the executive branch.”
In a separate statement for Times, another DOI spokesperson said, “Karen Budd Falen has exemplified hard work, dedication and exceptional skill throughout her years of service across not just one, but three presidential administrations.” The statement added that, “her long record of professionalism and excellence in her work speaks louder than any baseless accusation.”
Is this an ethics violation?
The Ethics in Government Act requires financial disclosures from certain high-ranking government officials to prevent potential conflicts of interest and to foster greater accountability. There is another law, too, that prohibits officials from working on matters that would financially benefit them.
“This law says that you may not work on an assignment that you know will affect your own financial interests or the financial interests of your spouse or your minor child,” reads the Department of the Interior webpage on conflicts of interests.
Frank Falen also told the Times that his wife met with executives from Lithium Americas in Washington, D.C., on his behalf in 2019 after the water deal was signed. Though both the mine company and Falen said that they did not discuss the business dealings between the Falens and the mine and the meeting was a social call, some questioned its optics.
Robert Weissman, the co-president of Public Citizen, a government ethics watchdog group, told the Times that, “it’s not clear that Karen Budd-Falen knew she had a conflict, but it’s clear she should have known, and that the public should have known.” He added that, “it’s also clear that she should not have met with Lithium Nevada.”
Who is Karen Budd-Falen?
A longtime Wyoming attorney, Budd-Falen has represented land owners’ rights in her home state and the West for decades. She is a fifth generation Wyoming rancher, and has been known to refer to herself as a “cowboy lawyer.”
Between stints with the federal government, she and her husband opened the Budd-Falen Law Offices, in Cheyenne. Though she is no longer affiliated, her husband is still the principal there. The firm describes itself as “lawyers for the West,” who have been “saving property owners for over 30 years.”
Prior to her current role with the Trump administration, Budd-Falen worked for Ronald Reagan and the previous Trump administration.
In 2018, she nearly accepted the nomination to be the director of the Bureau of Land Management but turned it down once the concessions on her life got to be too much. She was OK recusing herself from her business, her clients, among others, but told The Fence Post in 2018, that she could not accept that the BLM wanted her to give up her family ranch. She said that was when she drew the line.
Budd-Falen has yet to publicly comment on her financial disclosures and any perceived conflicts of interests. She has, however, received the full endorsement of the Interior.