Pebble Told to Halt Use of DOI Insignia

Interior Department officials have identified unauthorized use of the insignia of that federal agency and others in an advertising campaign in support of the proposed Pebble mine and demanded that the Pebble Limited Partnership (PLP) cease such activity.

Lisa A. Kilday of the Interior Department’s Branch of Acquisitions and Intellectual Property advised Tom Collier, chief executive officer of the PLP, in her letter dated Dec. 13 that the company had until Dec. 27 to take action and agree not to use the names and logos of the Interior Department, Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, Fish & Wildlife Service or National Park Service.

Kilday also advised that the DOI reserves the right to require that the PLP prominently display a disclaimer that the PLP has no affiliation with any of these agencies. The issue came to DOI’s attention through advertisements sent by mail and published in Alaska newspapers, which included reproductions of department insignia, including a mailer in which the PLP incorrectly shows logos of 16 federal, state and tribal entities as being involved in the Pebble mine project draft environmental impact statement.

“It is misleading for PLP’s advertisements to attribute “production” of the DEIS to the bureaus, thereby suggesting that the department or other federal agencies endorse the DEIS,” she said.

“The bureaus have participated and will continue to participate in the NEPA (National Environmental Policy Act) review of the proposed Pebble mine project in their respective roles as cooperating agencies. But their participation does not rise to the level of producing or controlling the documents released by the USACE (U.S. Army Corps of Engineers) and their involvement in the environmental review of the proposed Pebble mine project does not represent the bureaus’ endorsement of the DEIS or any future FEIS (final environmental impact statement),” she told Collier.