He Lobbied For Offshore Oil Drillers. Now He Runs The Agency That Regulates Them.
As BOEM’s new principal deputy director, former lobbyist Matt Giacona is shaping Gulf of Mexico oil policy and facilitating industry access. Ethics experts sound the alarm.
In March of this year, the Trump administration selected Matt Giacona for a top job at the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, an Interior Department agency responsible for overseeing offshore oil and gas drilling and energy extraction in the Gulf of Mexico and other American waters. It was a classic case of Washington D.C.’s revolving door, in which government officials go to work as industry lobbyists and industry lobbyists, in turn, land plum government appointments. Giacona came to BOEM directly from the National Ocean Industries Association, or NOIA, a powerful offshore oil industry trade group, where he worked as a lobbyist advocating for drillers and other offshore extractive interests.
The offshore oil industry quickly took advantage of their new high-ranking contact at BOEM.
Not long after Giacona’s appointment, he got a text message from a lobbyist for Chevron, which is one of NOIA’s member organizations. The lobbyist, Carrie Domnitch, wanted a favor.
In text messages that Public Domain obtained, Domnitch asked Giacona to take a meeting with a top Chevron official to discuss a high-stakes Endangered Species Act review of federal oil and gas operations in the Gulf of Mexico. That ESA review, known as a biological opinion or BiOp, regulates leasing, drilling and other industrial activities in the Gulf to ensure they comply with federal endangered species protections. It has been the subject of controversy and litigation in recent years due to the threat that offshore oil drilling in the Gulf poses to the endangered Rice’s whale, a species whose population is estimated at fewer than 100 individuals. Chevron wanted to discuss the Gulf BiOp with Giacona before an updated version was slated to be officially released by federal agencies in May 2025.
“Can you share your email? I’d like to request a meeting with you today or tomorrow on the BiOp with Chevron Vice President Brent Gros who is in town for [National Ocean Industry Association,” Domnitch wrote, in apparent reference to NOIA’s annual meeting in Washington D.C.
Giacona gladly shared his email with her, but told her he couldn’t meet because he hadn’t finished the ethics process that the Interior Department requires of new appointees. She asked if there was anyone else at the Interior Department who could meet with her and Gros.
“Yes let me get my chief of staff’s email and she can put everyone on a chain/find the best. Probably will be the [deputy assistant secretary],” he wrote. Then he shared a little inside information, writing that he would soon be getting briefed by his agency’s staff on the forthcoming biological opinion.
Giacona’s chief of staff subsequently set up an April 2nd meeting between Chevron and a bevy of top Interior Department officials, including acting assistant secretary Adam Suess, himself a former oil and gas executive, to discuss the biological opinion, which once finalized would determine the sort of wildlife protections that Chevron will have to comply with while drilling in the Gulf. “We are very happy to meet with you to listen to Chevron's highlights from the Draft BiOp,” wrote Giacona’s chief of staff to Domnitch on April 2.
Giacona’s willingness to facilitate government access for a member organization of NOIA, where he worked until March of this year, raises ethical concerns, said Delaney Marsco, director of ethics at the non-partisan Campaign Legal Center. “There is heightened concern when former lobbyists join the government and seemingly clear the path for former clients or take meetings with former clients or get the priorities done for people who paid your salary.”
“It certainly looks really bad at the very least,” she added.
It is not the only instance of such conduct on Giacona’s part. Records obtained by Public Domain show that Giacona has worked on a range of matters since joining the Interior Department that intimately overlap with his work as a lobbyist. At BOEM, he seems to be the offshore oil industry’s man on the inside.
Domnitch, the Chevron lobbyist, did not respond to requests for comment. An Interior Department spokesperson sent Public Domain the following statement: "Matt Giacona is a highly-qualified, impressive, and ethically sound employee who is working tirelessly on behalf of this administration to make real change for the American people. These ‘concerns’ from your supposed ethics experts are ridiculous,” and the statement went on to impugn one of Public Domain’s reporters.
“If you're going to waste everyone's time making baseless accusations, maybe think about getting a real job first,” said the statement, which was provided to Public Domain by DOI deputy press secretary Aubrie Spady.
The Offshore Industry’s Inside Man
Back when he was still a lobbyist for NOIA, Giacona played a key role advocating in Congress on issues related to the Gulf biological opinion, which was first issued in 2020, challenged in court by environmentalists for failing to protect the Rice’s whale adequately, and ultimately vacated by a federal judge in August 2024. That vacatur threatened to upend oil and gas leasing and drilling in the Gulf, and so Giacona, according to his resume, worked for NOIA on “advocacy and Hill education on the vacatur of the 2020 BiOp.”
Giacona’s lobbying disclosures from 2023 and 2024 are filled with details of his work on issues related to the Gulf biological opinion, and especially on matters concerning the Rice’s whale. NOIA, on behalf of its member organizations like Chevron, has persistently lobbied against protections for Rice’s whales.
In 2023, for instance, Giacona lobbied for the so-called WHALE Act, legislation that would have hampered government regulations meant to protect Rice’s whales, including strict constraints on the government’s ability to impose speed limits on oil and gas vessels operating in the whale’s Gulf habitat. Collisions with marine vessels are a particular threat to the Rice’s whale, but the industry staunchly opposes regulations that limit vessel speeds or otherwise inconvenience its operations in the Gulf.
In 2024, Giacona again advocated for numerous legislative provisions that would have limited or prohibited government regulations to protect Rice’s whales. One such provision would have barred the Interior Department and the Commerce Department from using appropriations to restrict Gulf oil and gas industry operations for the purpose of preventing disturbances to the Rice’s whale. He also did “extensive advocacy educating officials and staff on vacatur of biological opinion and need for legislation to address gaps in programmatic permits,” according to his lobbying disclosures from 2024.
After Giacona joined BOEM in March, he quickly went to work on issues directly related to both the Rice’s whale and the broader Gulf biological opinion. On April 17, for instance, his calendar includes a meeting with the “BOEM directorate” on “Rice whale issue.” On May 19, his calendar contains a scheduled meeting on the “GOA BiOp,” a reference to the Gulf biological opinion. Giacona’s calendar also lists a May 8 meeting involving Adam Suess on the NMFS Biological opinion, another likely reference to the Gulf ESA review that he’d worked on as a lobbyist.
He also appears to have met with member organizations of NOIA, his former employer. On May 8, for instance, his calendar includes an entry for a meeting with Chevron on offshore oil and gas leasing. His calendar also lists a May 7 meeting with Transocean. On its website, NOIA lists drilling contractor Transocean as one of its member organizations.
And these weren’t the only matters he worked on as both a lobbyist and a BOEM official. While at NOIA, Giacona lobbied for a legislative provision that would require the Interior to hold a lease sale, dubbed 262, in the Gulf of Mexico within the 2025 fiscal year, according to his disclosures. As BOEM Deputy Director, Giacona is now directly involved in that same lease sale. On April 29, his calendar indicates he received a briefing on the “Gulf of America Lease Sale 262 Proposed Notice of Sale” in a meeting with the “BOEM Directorate.” On April 24, his calendar includes an entry titled “Surname 262,” a likely reference to the same matter. On May 12, his calendar notes a meeting with Suess on “Lease Sale 262 Quick Tag Meeting” and another meeting with Suess on the “BOEM Lease Sale 262” on May 21. On June 25, 2025, BOEM issued a public statement announcing the lease sale in the Gulf.
Giacona’s emails, obtained by Public Domain via a FOIA request, shed additional light on his direct involvement in these matters. On May 5, for instance, he emailed Erik Noble, a deputy assistant secretary at NOAA, the federal agency that oversees the National Marine Fisheries Service, which was responsible for writing the Gulf BiOp in consultation with BOEM and other federal agencies. “Thanks again for taking the time to meet last week,” Giacona wrote. “Who is the best [point of contact] for issues related to the 2025 NMFS biological opinion for oil and gas activities in the Gulf of America? … happy to hop on the phone to explain more, or get a note over to/call whoever.” Noble responded with the names of three NOAA officials.
On that same day, BOEM’s chief of staff emailed him to say that she had received a “critical update from recent meeting/comms with NMFS,” a reference to the National Marine Fisheries Service. The rest of the message is redacted, but in a follow-up email to colleagues, the chief of staff added that she had just chatted with Giacona. “He is going to elevate to the [Assistant Secretary for Land and Minerals Management],” she wrote.
Earlier, in an April 4 email to his colleagues, Giacona had laid out in greater clarity his involvement with the Gulf biological opinion, writing that he and another colleague “had a great conversation with the politicals at NOAA yesterday afternoon on several fronts including biop. They seem very open to coordination as we move into the two-week window for NMFS to address the Bureaus’ & applicants’ concerns in the draft, and I suspect we will be able to work closely with them as we all look to ensure this gets done right and gets done on time.”
And an April 8 email regarding the “GOA BiOp,” sent by a DOI official to Carrie Domnitch, the Chevron lobbyist, named Giacona as a point of contact regarding the Gulf BiOp. “Adam Suess, Matt Giacona, Smythe Anderson, and Brittany Kelm are leading this effort on our side,” the email reads.
As Giacona worked on the Gulf biological opinion, it wasn’t just Chevron that sought his ear. On April 29, a representative of the American Petroleum Institute, the oil and gas industry’s top trade group, wrote Giacona and his DOI colleagues, asking for a meeting with Giacona, Adam Suess, and Smythe Anderson, herself a former lobbyist for API. The API official, Holly Hopkins, wanted “to discuss our concerns with the NMFS draft biological opinion due May 21.”
“We look forward to working with you on this request,” she wrote.
Earlier in April, another API official had shared with Giacona and other top Interior Department officials an industry wish list of sorts, titled “Enabling Energy Dominance: Federal Policy Levers.” Included on the wish list:
As with his work on the BiOp, Giacona also directly engaged in the forthcoming 262 lease sale in the Gulf after arriving at BOEM, according to his emails. In an April 24 email to his BOEM colleagues, he wrote that he had “reviewed all documents in the 262 [proposed notice of sale] package …” The rest of the email is redacted, as were many of the emails released in response to Public Domain’s FOIA request. You can find the full set of Giacona’s emails here.
The records obtained by Public Domain show a clear track record of Giacona working on specific policy matters — the Rice’s whale, the BiOp, and lease sale 262 — that had also been the focus of his work as a lobbyist. When asked by Public Domain about the robust overlap between Giacona’s lobbying work and his duties at BOEM, ethics experts expressed concern.
"If you worked for an employer within the past year, you should not be working on what the law calls particular matters involving specific parties, things like cases, litigation, agreements, contracts, anything like that. He should not be working on that for one year going forward,” said Cynthia Brown, senior ethics counsel at the non-partisan Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. “I cannot say for certain whether he violated any ethics rules, but it definitely raises red flags.”
In May, the federal government finally released a new version of the Gulf biological opinion, meant to address the issues that led to the vacatur of the earlier 2020 version. As with older iterations of the BiOp, it found that Gulf oil and gas operations are likely to jeopardize the existence of the Rice’s whale.
“It is NMFS’ biological opinion that the proposed action is likely to jeopardize the continued existence of the Rice’s whale”, due to vessel strikes, said the National Marine Fisheries Service, or NMFS, the federal agency that issued the biological opinion in consultation with BOEM and other offshore regulators.
To avoid that outcome, NMFS laid out a plan to use technology to help oil and gas vessels avoid collisions or other disturbance to Rice’s whales. That plan, according to wildlife advocates, does not go nearly far enough. Shortly after the Gulf BiOp was unveiled, a coalition of environmental groups, including the Sierra Club and Earthjustice, sued to challenge it. They argue that the new BiOp, finalized under the Trump administration, fails to “require concrete measures to protect the whales” and instead “relies on vague future promises.”
NOIA, meanwhile, mostly cheered the new biological opinion. ”We appreciate the Trump administration’s timely efforts to improve a Biological Opinion that was originally developed through a flawed, opaque process,” the organization said in a statement. “Their willingness to revisit and revise the document reflects a strong commitment to restoring scientific rigor and regulatory balance.” NOIA did push back on the finding that oil and gas operations in the Gulf jeopardize the survival of the Rice’s whale, calling it “inconsistent with the best available science.”
The American Petroleum Institute also lauded the release of the new biological opinion. “With a new biological opinion in place, the administration has helped ensure that the Gulf of America will remain the backbone of our nation’s energy supply,” said API Vice President Holly Hopkins in a statement.
Giacona, for his part, remains at BOEM — a long-time offshore oil industry lobbyist regulating his former colleagues and allies.
Norah Findley contributed research to this story.
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Our government does its best to avoid interfering with business as usual. The tale of the Rice's whale biological opinion is consistent with the federal government's response to the imminent climate collapse. In both cases the government essentially puts the crisis on hold as to not interfere with corporate interests. The government's likely climate response appears to be CO2 overshoot the internationally agreed upon CO2 target and let as yet unknown future technology remediate the atmospheric CO2 increase. The outlook for the Rice's whale is just as grim and hence, the lawsuit. Rather than require concrete measures to protect the whales, the biological opinion relies on vague future promises. All three branches of the US government (the executive, judicial and legislative) are corrupted by an economic system that externalizes costs for profits.