Federal Government Policy and Business

Perspective | Interior’s ‘unusual’ transfer of senior executives spurs official probe

The Washington Post: It doesn’t smell right, so maybe an official probe will tell if it’s rotten.

The Interior Department’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) is examining the extraordinary and politically suspect reassignment of dozens of Senior Executive Service (SES) members.

The OIG’s review is in response to a request from eight Democrats on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. They asked for the probe after one Interior senior executive, Joel Clement, wrote a Washington Post article that said he was reassigned and “retaliated against for speaking out publicly about the dangers that climate change poses to Alaska Native communities.”

Nancy K. DiPaolo, an OIG spokesperson, said the assessment could take a few months and that “you can expect the review to list out what facts are found.”

Read article