"Karen Budd-Falen, a top official at the Department of Interior, has financial ties to the controversial Thacker Pass lithium mine in northern Nevada - a project that the Trump administration worked to fast-track during its first term. In recent months, the administration took an equity stake in the mine and the mine's parent company. After an unexplained delay, Public Domain and High Country News obtained Budd-Falen's financial disclosure earlier this month, which details her family's extensive land holdings."
"In November 2018, not long after Karen Budd-Falen joined the first Trump administration as a top legal official at the Interior Department, Home Ranch LLC agreed to sell water rights to Lithium Nevada Corporation, the company developing the Thacker Pass mine, for an undisclosed amount of money, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing. Frank Falen is listed on the document."
"A Home Ranch also appears in planning documents that Lithium Nevada submitted to federal regulators during Trump's first term. A monitoring plan for Thacker Pass, dated July 2021, notes that the company intended to use existing stock water wells owned by Home Ranch LLC to "monitor potential drawdown impacts" from its mining operations."
Karen Budd-Falen holds a senior Department of the Interior position and her family's financial disclosure lists extensive land holdings including Home Ranch LLC, a Nevada ranch valued over $1 million. Public records show Frank Falen, who shares her last name, listed as Home Ranch LLC manager. In November 2018 Home Ranch LLC sold water rights to Lithium Nevada Corporation, the developer of the Thacker Pass lithium mine, per an SEC filing. Planning documents and a July 2021 monitoring plan indicate Lithium Nevada intended to use Home Ranch stock water wells to monitor potential drawdown impacts, prompting conflict-of-interest concerns.
Read at High Country News
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