Today, Campaign for Accountability urged Congress to open an inquiry into serious and escalating ethics violations involving Karen Budd-Falen, the third highest-ranking official at the Department of the Interior (DOI), and into the apparent failure of DOI’s ethics office to prevent or address those violations.
CfA’s requests for investigation detail how FIRM failed to initiate litigation, as required by its $400,000 state contracts, and underreported the amount of money it received.
On May 7, 2020, CfA sent a complaint to Speaker of the Montana House of Representatives, Greg Hertz, urging him to refer the matter to the House ethics committee.
"On Friday, the Washington, D.C.-based Campaign for Accountability sent a complaint to the Internal Revenue Service claiming Citizens for Balanced Use has repeatedly violated laws that limit the amount of lobbying that tax-exempt nonprofit organizations are allowed to carry out."
"The Campaign for Accountability accused Citizens for Balanced Use of doing more lobbying than federal law permits of tax-exempt nonprofits and of inaccurately completing annual tax return forms for 2015, 2016 and 2017, according to a letter that executive director Daniel Stevens sent to the IRS on Friday."
"A Washington, D.C.,-based watchdog group said it has filed a complaint with the Internal Revenue Service against a Montana nonprofit, for what it said was 'substantial, unreported lobbying activity.'"
On September 27, 2019, CfA called on the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to investigate whether the Montana-based anti-public lands nonprofit, Citizens for Balanced Use, violated its nonprofit tax-exempt status by engaging in substantial, unreported lobbying activity.
Statement from Daniel Stevens, Executive Director of Campaign for Accountability, on the nomination of David Bernhardt for the position of Secretary of the Department of the Interior.
"Yet in the past he provided financial support to his cousin’s work. In 2012 he and his wife, Kathryn Ivory, made a $6,000 donation to a nonprofit called Where’s the Line, America? Foundation, according to documents HuffPost obtained from Campaign for Accountability, a watchdog group based in Washington, D.C. Ken Ivory served as executive director of the group at the time of their contribution."
"A government watchdog group called for a congressional investigation Friday into allegations that acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler violated transparency law in his previous work as a lobbyist, accusing him of hiding meetings with the Department of Interior about shrinking a national monument to allow for the reopening of a uranium mine."