NPS Director Jarvis stripped of ethics post after unauthorized book

National Park Service Director Jonathan Jarvis is being stripped of his responsibility to oversee the agency's ethics program after publishing an unauthorized book with a nonprofit group that operates stores in numerous national parks. He will also receive a written reprimand for having violated federal employee ethics standards and be required to attend monthly ethics trainings for the remainder of his tenure, Deputy Interior Secretary Michael Connor said. Connor's actions come in response to a report released late yesterday by Interior's Office of Inspector General that found Jarvis intentionally avoided seeking approval from Interior's Ethics Office before writing "Guidebook to American Values and Our National Parks." Published in June 2015 by Eastern National, the operator of 138 national park stores, the book was intended to raise awareness about NPS's 2016 centennial and bring in money for the National Park Foundation, a nonprofit that raises funds for NPS. Jarvis took the unusual step of asking Eastern National to grant him the copyright for the book but told the OIG he intended to donate it to the foundation. "Although the [OIG's report of investigation] does not expressly draw any conclusions about the results of the OIG investigation, the Department has reviewed the ROI [report of investigation] carefully and come to the conclusion that Director Jarvis did violate Federal employee ethics standards," Connor said in a letter Tuesday to Mary Kendall, who leads the OIG...more