A congressional committee is investigating if the Trump administration overruled a decision on a GOP donor's housing development that was found to be a threat to Arizona wildlife.
FILE - In this July 8, 2019 file photo President Donald Trump listens as Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt speaks during an event on the environment in the East Room of the White House in Washington. A congressional committee is investigating whether the U.S. Interior Department helped an Arizona developer and supporter of President Donald Trump get a crucial permit. U.S. Rep. Raúl Grijalva is leading an investigation into the proposed 28,000-home development.
“It’s not clear to me why top Interior officials would weigh in on a local land development unless someone was being done a huge favor,” Grijalva said in a statement Wednesday. A coalition of conservation groups challenged the permit in a federal lawsuit in January. Environmentalists argue the project’s need for groundwater will threaten the San Pedro River and surrounding wildlife, including birds like the southwestern willow flycatcher and yellow-billed cuckoo as well as the northern Mexican garter snake.
Emails and calendars show that Bernhardt, as deputy Interior secretary, had an unofficial meeting at a lodge in Billings, Montana, with Ingram, the developer, in August 2017, CNNLanny Davis, attorney for El Dorado Holdings, said Ingram did not lobby for the project. Then-Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, whom Ingram has known for several years, found out both men would coincidentally be at the same hunting lodge and suggested they meet.
Davis said Ingram got a refund so he could donate instead to a political action committee that allows contributors to give more money than campaigns do.In the wake of Spangle’s allegations, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers sent a letter to the Fish and Wildlife Service asking if its opinion on the permit had changed. Jeff Humphrey, an agency official in Arizona, said Spangle’s comments “do not change our previous determinations.
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