URL: https://www.indianz.com/News/archives/000699.asp

Thursday, August 7, 2003

Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, wrote a critical letter to Secretary of Interior Gale Norton, calling for an explanation of an "apparent cover-up" involving a land swap.

The swap between the Department of Interior and the state of Utah was canceled last month after an internal investigation showed that negotiators kept information from Congress. Whistleblowers reveled that the land was appraised far below its $100 million value.

Bureau of Land Management director Kathleen Clarke is being investigated for potential conflicts of interest. She has ties to Utah interests involved in the canceled swap.

Get the Story:
Senator to Norton: Explain land deal (The Denver Post 8/7)
Grassley Chastises Interior Employees (AP 8/6)

Related Stories:
Norton admits Interior hid facts from Congress (7/24))
Senior BLM land appraiser removed (10/18)
Confusion detailed at Interior (10/16)
DOI land swap program to be reviewed (10/11)
Norton land deal subject of dispute (10/01)
DOI approved $100M land 'giveaway' (8/19)

All stories in the Indianz.Com Archive are available for publishing under a Creative Commons License: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)