David Bernhardt
David Bernhardt was Trump’s Secretary of the Interior from 2019-2021 and Deputy Secretary from 2017-2019. Bernhardt, who spent his career representing the fossil fuel industry, was called a “walking conflict of interest” at an agency stewarding 20% of the country’s land.
Under his leadership, the DOI decimated environmental safeguards and protections. Over the course of the Trump Administration, Bernhardt’s DOI reversed Obama-era conservation protections, opening more than 18 million acres of land for drilling in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska and announcing plans for an oil and gas leasing program in the 1.5 million acre Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. In 2019, Bernhardt blocked the release of an agency report on risks to endangered species, which found that two pesticides were so toxic they “jeopardized the continued existence” of more than 1,000 endangered species. And in 2020, Bernhardt’s DOI reversed rules established under the Obama Administration that prevented hunters on public lands in Alaska from using bacon and doughnuts to lure hibernating brown bears.
While overseeing the department’s components, Bernhardt ensured they were led by Trump loyalists, repeatedly extending the allegedly unlawful assignments of David Vela to act as Director of the National Parks Service and William Perry Pendley to act as head of the Bureau of Land Management. He also, in August 2020, relocated the national headquarters of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) from D.C. to Grand Junction, Colorado, a move seen as an attempt to consolidate power in the Interior by reducing BLM’s D.C. presence that ultimately “reduced diversity, created unacceptable vacancies, and drove many experienced employees out of the bureau.”
The U.S. Government Accountability Office released a report in September 2019 that found that the Department of the Interior under Bernhardt violated federal law twice earlier that year when he was acting secretary by instructing the National Park Service to use park entrance fees for maintenance during a government shutdown and moving the funds without receiving Congressional authorization.
Although Bernhardt was confirmed by the Senate, it was later revealed that documents the Interior Department released under a federal court order before Bernhardt’s confirmation had hundreds of pages withheld in an effort “to strategically release that information,” according to one agency official. This was not the only occasion Trump’s Interior Department allegedly sought to manipulate publicly available information. In May 2019, the House Oversight Committee and the National Archives and Records Administration investigated allegations that Bernhardt was keeping meetings off his official calendars and did not supply information about meetings to the public. Bernhardt also prevented employees from completing interviews with Oversight in the process.
Bernhardt previously held several roles in Bush’s Interior Department, including solicitor general and counselor and deputy chief of staff to then-Secretary Gale Norton. In 2011, Bernhardt became a lawyer and lobbyist for Brownstein Hyatt Farber Shreck LLP, leading the firm’s natural resources law division which regularly represented California’s Westlands Water District. He spent years lobbying on their behalf to rollback the Endangered Species Act among other anti-environmental policies. Before joining the Trump administration’s transition team, Bernhardt, who was a Republican campaign donor around the time, terminated his registration as a lobbyist for Westlands Water District. Notably, though, numerous former clients of Bernhardt received favorable decisions from the Department during his time there.
After leaving the Trump administration, Bernhardt rejoined his former firm, Brownstein, as senior counsel. He also joined the America First Policy Institute, a large pro-Trump outside group led by Brooke Rollins that has been called a “White House in waiting.” He chairs the group’s “Center for American Freedom,” which supports deregulation and claims it “exists to defend American freedom from both government and non-governmental threats.” He was also temporarily a board member for another non-profit, Advancing American Freedom, which was launched by Mike Pence.
This profile has been updated.