Julie A. MacDonald

Julie A. MacDonald (born July 14, 1955) is a former deputy assistant secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks at the United States Department of the Interior. MacDonald was appointed by former Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton on 3 May 2004 and resigned on 1 May 2007 after an internal investigation found that she had "injected herself personally and profoundly in a number of Endangered Species Act decisions", a violation of the Code of Federal Regulations under Use of Nonpublic Information and Basic Obligation of Public Service, Appearance of Preferential Treatment.

MacDonald graduated from University of California, Davis in 1978 with a degree in civil engineering. She joined the Department of the Interior in 1979 as a hydraulic engineer with the Bureau of Reclamation. Starting in 1987, MacDonald worked as a government administrator, including at the California Resources Agency. MacDonald returned to the U.S. Department of the Interior in 2002 as an aide to the assistant secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks, the official who oversees the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and the National Park Service, two of the eight bureaus in the Department of the Interior. On 3 May 2004, Interior Secretary Gale Norton promoted MacDonald to be deputy assistant secretary for fish and wildlife and parks in the Department of the Interior.

On 30 October 2006, the Union of Concerned Scientists, a nonprofit politically active group that advocates for scientific integrity, alleged that MacDonald had "personally reversed scientific findings, changed scientific conclusions to prevent endangered species from receiving protection, removed relevant information from a scientific document, and ordered the Fish and Wildlife Service to adopt her edits."

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