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A Washington, D.C.-based environmental group is expected to file an ethics complaint today charging that Bureau of Land Management Director and Utah native Kathleen Clarke violated conflict of interest laws and regulations, and showed improper favoritism during her involvement in a dispute over grazing rights in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.
In a letter to the Interior Department's inspector general obtained by The Salt Lake Tribune, the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) says that Clarke encouraged Utah ranchers to sue the BLM to halt the proposed retirement of grazing allotments in the monument that were purchased by the Grand Canyon Trust, a conservation group based in Flagstaff, Ariz.
The letter also states that Clarke, a former director of the Utah Department of Natural Resources, complained that she was "rolled" by her superiors at the Interior Department on the monument grazing issue and said she was "against grazing elimination anytime" on BLM land - a position that PEER claims runs counter to the agency's charge under the Federal Land Management Policy Act.
The charges are based on court testimony given during a hearing on the grazing transfers last May in Kanab. Garfield and Kane counties have appealed the BLM's decision to shift grazing rights for 1,200 cattle to the Grand Canyon Trust.
Clarke, through a BLM spokesman Sunday, denied any improprieties.
"It is Ms. Clarke's duty and obligation to deal with the many issues and constituencies involved in managing the complexities and conflicts inherent to the BLM's multiple use mission," said Bob Johns, the agency's deputy assistant director of communications. "Ms. Clarke has no financial connections or conflicts of interest relating to the ranching industry, and acted appropriately and professionally in responding to the serious issues and questions raised by the cattlemen in this matter."
Earlier this summer, Clarke was cleared of wrongdoing over her role in an aborted San Rafael Swell land exchange. The BLM director had been accused of violating a recusal agreement she entered into to prevent conflicts of interest over a proposed state-federal land swap that would have resulted in the creation of a San Rafael Swell National Monument. The deal was quashed when it was discovered that Utah would have received lands worth as much as $117 million more than it was giving up.
Beginning in August 2003, the Inspector General's Office scrutinized 14 meetings or contacts Clarke had with parties involved in the land swap, ultimately finding no violations of laws or conflict of interest regulations.
Based upon the testimony of Fremont rancher Richard Nicholas, PEER executive director Jeff Ruch argues that Clarke has committed a clear ethical breach on the monument grazing issue.
"Let's put it this way: if a BLM employee was found to be counseling environmental groups to sue the agency, from the other side of this issue, that employee would be drawn and quartered. Of that there is no doubt," said Ruch, whose organization is comprised of federal and state resource employees. "The thrust of our complaint is that Kathleen Clarke owes her primary duty to the people of the United States, not to her special friends."
Attempts to reach Nicholas, a former public lands chairman of the Utah Cattlemen's Association, were unsuccessful. But in hearing transcripts obtained by PEER, Nicholas testified that in spring 2002, Clarke said she would do what she could to scuttle the decision to allow the Grand Canyon Trust to retire its grazing allotment. Like the cattlemen, she said, she opposed "grazing elimination anytime."
Nicholas told the court: "I promised I'd give her some time, and she said if she couldn't get it done and things bogged down, I would be the first one called and she would turn me loose and we could go after them, sue them, [a] news story or whatever."
In a follow-up conversation, according the rancher's testimony, Clarke called Nicholas and told him that the prospects of getting the Grand Canyon Trust proposal overturned were slim. She was letting him know, Nicholas testified, so that the Cattlemen's Association could file a protest and gain standing in any future legal proceeding.
Finally, in a face-to-face meeting during a cattle ranchers' convention in Nashville, Nicholas testified that Clarke told him she had exhausted all her options.
"Richard, I have done all I can to help you and all I got was rolled for it," Clarke said, according to Nicholas. "I said to her, 'You know what I have to do.' She said, 'Go get them.' "
But BLM spokesman Johns says that those discussions hardly add up to a conflict of interest. Clarke, he said, merely laid out a series of possible alternatives for the ranchers.
"After carefully reviewing the issue, the director advised Mr. Nicholas that the bureau's position would not likely change," Johns said. "Mr. Nicholas did not agree with the bureau's position and expressed an interest in appealing.
"In talking to the director, he inquired about options to appeal, including taking the matter to court. The director responded by advising him of those options and recommended Mr. Nicholas and the cattlemen to take whatever actions they felt necessary to protect their interests."
Grand Canyon Trust spokesman Richard Mayol declined to comment, citing the ongoing litigation.
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Tribune reporter Robert GehrÂke contributed to this story.