For more than 40 years, the U.S. Arctic Research Commission has advised Congress and the president on what to study in the frigid and dynamic far north, from the environment to military security. It’s typically done so without making waves, led by people well-versed in science and public policy.

That was until December, when President Donald Trump appointed a Texas venture capitalist and MAGA influencer with no formal background in science as the commission’s chair. Since then, Thomas Dans has traveled the globe generating headlines. Serving as the administration’s main voice on the Arctic, he’s advanced some of the president’s wildest ambitions, like a takeover of Greenland, and rankled NATO allies in the process.

Yet as Dans holds forth in the U.S. and abroad, it’s not always clear where the administration’s agenda ends and his own begins.

He has repeatedly said, for example, that the U.S. needs more icebreakers, ships that Trump has long viewed as critical to dominating the Arctic. In doing so, Dans has championed one shipbuilder in particular — Damen Shipyards, a Dutch company with which he had a business relationship.

“They’re the largest builder of icebreakers and ice-class vessels in the world,” Dans said at an event in Anchorage, Alaska, in April. At the time, his consultancy was working to help Damen land an icebreaker contract with the federal government.

As he’s spoken to audiences of government officials, diplomats, academics and journalists, Dans — who wears his Arctic commission lapel pin and exudes a professorial air — has also waded into foreign policy.

In the media and at public events, he’s backed Trump’s push to take over Greenland. And he’s advocated enthusiastically for closer U.S. relations with Russia — even as a bipartisan group of lawmakers calls for tougher sanctions on the country and more aid to Ukraine. Dans and Damen have long done business in Russia, and Dans has regularly shared social media posts that reflect a pro-Kremlin viewpoint.

“We want a peaceful Arctic, we want a peaceful world,” he said at an event a few days after he announced plans to travel to Moscow. “Russia and the United States gotta get along for that to happen.”

Opining so broadly on foreign policy is “far beyond” the Arctic Research Commission’s scientific mandate, said Fran Ulmer, who served as commission chair for more than nine years before being replaced by Trump in 2020. “And certainly outside the bounds of what the U.S. Arctic Research Commission has done in the past.”

Dans, whose consultancy Almiranta Strategies “advises investors and businesses working in the Arctic,” according to his profile on the Arctic commission’s website, is far from the first in the Trump administration to mingle public and personal interests. The finances of many senior officials and the industries they regulate have drawn scrutiny as Trump has disarmed government safeguards against conflicts.

“It’s become standard for people to pursue their personal financial interest,” said Robert Weissman, co-president of the nonprofit watchdog Public Citizen.

Under the law, Dans’ position gives him access to government information from other federal agencies — an arrangement that could benefit his private interests. Such potential conflicts are typically governed by federal ethics rules. But the nature of Dans’ role affords him more leeway than other appointees. Commission members are not considered government employees and thus not required to file an ethics form disclosing conflicts.

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Indeed, a White House official told ProPublica that Dans’ consulting work did not constitute a conflict of interest for that very reason.

“Tom Dans is doing a great job leading the Arctic Research Commission, and his shipbuilding expertise has helped him succeed in this role,” said White House spokesperson Anna Kelly. “The President appreciates all he is doing to advance American interests in the Arctic.”

The White House official said Dans is one of two commission members the law designates as representatives of “the interests of industry.”

Even so, Dans’ lack of research experience stands out. The other industry rep is a Ph.D. and former director of the United States Geological Survey.

Dans declined multiple requests to be interviewed for this story and did not respond to written questions from ProPublica, but he told The New York Times this year that his post did not preclude him from working in private business.

The Arctic commission has arguably never been more important. The region is warming at........

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