Lawmakers Seek Ethics Probe Into Top Offshore Oil Regulator
Citing a Public Domain exposé, House Democrats ask Interior’s watchdog to investigate potential ethics violations by acting BOEM director Matt Giacona
Matt Giacona is a young offshore oil industry operative who has risen fast in Trump’s Washington. Formerly a lobbyist for the powerful National Ocean Industries Association, he was selected earlier this year to serve as the acting director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, a key Interior Department agency that oversees resource extraction on the Outer Continental Shelf. Giacona’s appointment puts an offshore oil lobbyist in charge of the very federal agency responsible for regulating offshore oil interests. It is classic Washington D.C. swamp stuff — and typical of Trump’s Interior Department, where former fossil fuel lobbyists now staff key government offices and work to fulfill the policy priorities of Big Oil and other industry sectors. Giacona, though, seems to be stumbling in the muck.
On Thursday, Congressional Democrats sent a letter to the Interior Department’s Inspector General asking for an investigation into the up-and-coming former lobbyist. Specifically, Rep. Jared Huffman of California and his Democratic colleagues on the House Natural Resources Committee want a probe into “whether Mr. Giacona violated federal ethics requirements or guidance by using his position to give his former industry association or its Big Oil member companies special access to the agency that regulates them.” The request comes on the heels of a Public Domain investigation published in June that detailed Giacona’s use of his new government position to work on specific policy matters that were previously the focus of his pro-oil lobbying career.
“Matt Giacona is a highly qualified and ethically sound employee who is working tirelessly on behalf of this administration to make real change for the American people,” an Interior Department spokesperson said in an email statement.
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, or BOEM, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In their letter, the Democrats cited Public Domain’s exposé while detailing a pattern of potential misconduct on Giacona’s part.
“Before entering government, Mr. Giacona lobbied on consequential offshore oil and gas issues before BOEM, including the Gulf of Mexico Endangered Species Act Biological Opinion (BiOp), protections for the endangered Rice’s whale, and Lease Sale 262,” the letter states. “Shortly after arriving at BOEM, he appears to have engaged on the same subject-matter areas within BOEM leadership.”
The letter also highlights how Giacona serves as a key point of contact at BOEM for oil and gas industry groups, including companies like Chevron that are official members of the National Ocean Industries Association, where Giacona used to work.
“Elevating a former oil and gas lobbyist into a regulatory role over the same industry is emblematic of an Administration that has abandoned even the pretense of impartiality,” the House Democrats wrote. “This conduct undermines public confidence that federal regulators are acting in the public interest and demands close scrutiny by your office.”
You can read the full letter here.
Giacona has played a prominent role in executing the Trump administration’s so-called “energy dominance” agenda. Beyond working on offshore oil industry priorities, he has helped lead the Trump administration’s crackdown on wind energy. In August, he issued a stop work order for the Revolution Wind project off the coast of Massachusetts and Rhode Island, despite the fact that the project was nearing completion. Though the order was ultimately blocked in court, it was one of the administration’s most aggressive moves yet to undermine wind energy development in the United States.
The current government shutdown has further highlighted the extent to which the Trump administration will go to prioritize fossil fuels. Interior has maintained staff to process oil, gas and mining permits during the lapse in federal funding while halting all work on renewable energy projects.
“BOEM will cease all renewable energy activities but continue limited work on conventional and marine minerals based on available resources,” reads the bureau’s shutdown plan.
For more insight into Giacona, you can find his financial disclosure here, as well as some of his recent stock market trades here.
The Trump administration has sought to curtail the power of Inspectors General, part of a broader effort to undermine independent oversight functions in the federal government. It will be revealing to see how the IG handles the Democratic request for a probe into Giacona. Failure to conduct an investigation could signal a fundamental weakening of the internal watchdog function at DOI.
This story has been updated with a statement from the Interior Department.
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