Ryan Zinke’s potential replacement at Interior Department has extensive oil lobbying conflicts

Since Bernhardt became Zinke’s No. 2 in August 2017, an analysis by the Center for Western Priorities released Monday found the agency has completed or moved forward with at least 19 policy actions that have been requested or supported by at least 16 of his former clients.

Rep. Raul Grijalva of Arizona, the Democrat set to take over the House Natural Resources Committee next Congress, alluded Monday that he will probe Bernhardt’s work conflicts.

“I intend to conduct vigorous oversight of how Interior political appointees arrive at major policy decisions, who they consult, who they ignore & who stands to benefit financially,” Grijalva said in a Twitter post.

Trump is reportedly considering Bernhardt as a candidate not only to run the agency on an acting basis, but also to be nominated permanently for the Interior secretary role, a jump that would require him to be confirmed by the Senate a second time. He was confirmed narrowly for his deputy position in a 53-43 vote.

“David Bernhardt has so many conflicts of interest that he would be too conflicted to serve effectively as an acting or Senate confirmed Interior secretary,” Matt Lee-Ashley, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and former deputy chief of staff at the Interior Department, told the Washington Examiner. “We are hoping for someone else.”

If Trump did pick Bernhardt, Bernhardt would follow the path of Environmental Protection Agency Acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler, a fellow technocrat, former energy lobbyist, and career government employee who took over when Scott Pruitt resigned in July over ethics charges. Trump recently said he intends to formally nominate Wheeler, who was Pruitt’s deputy, to be EPA administrator.

Interior Department observers say Bernhardt has already been leading the day-to-day policymaking process at the agency, specifically focusing on easing permitting processes and environmental reviews to open more federal land to oil and gas drilling, and reforming endangered species protections to make the law less cumbersome and restrictive to developers.

He also oversaw a proposed move at the Interior Department this month to roll back protections for the sage grouse, an imperiled chicken-like bird, by opening some 9 million acres of public lands in Western states to oil and gas drilling.

The heads of the department’s main agencies report to him, including the National Parks Service, Fish and Wildlife Service, and Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.

“David is a very strong leader,” Ann Navaro, who worked with Bernhardt at the Interior Department until September as a senior attorney with the deputy secretary’s office, told the Washington Examiner. “He really knows the agency’s mission. He also is very detail oriented and effective at getting things done at the agency.”

But critics say Bernhardt’s hands-on work is riven with conflicts.

Bernhardt, 49, is a former Interior Department official in the George W. Bush administration. He eventually became the agency’s top lawyer in 2006.

Prior to his new role at Interior, he directed the natural resources division of Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, a law firm that provides lobbying and legal services.

His former clients include offshore oil and gas drillers like Statoil Gulf Services (which has since been renamed Equinor) and Eni Petroleum; onshore drillers like Noble Energy and Halliburton; and industry trade associations, particularly the Independent Petroleum Association of America and the National Ocean Industries Association.

Four months into Bernhardt’s tenure, the agency approved permits for Eni to drill off of Alaska’s coast, the first such permit granted to a company since 2015.

IPAA, meanwhile, pushed for weaker protections of the sage grouse, according to the Center for Western Priorities, and is among five of Bernhardt’s former clients that lobbied for the Interior Department’s draft proposal to open nearly all federal waters to oil and gas drilling.

Bernhardt, if he is leading the agency, would oversee the department’s release next year of the final version of that plan. The proposal drew outrage from coastal lawmakers and governors from both parties, and Zinke has since suggested he would scale it back.

Bernhardt also represented the state of Alaska in a 2014 lawsuit against the Interior Department that aimed to allow oil exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Republicans last year used the tax reform law to open the refuge in Alaska to oil and gas drilling, and the Interior Department has since eased regulations to accept applications for seismic testing, a precursor to energy development.

In addition, Bernhardt lobbied for California’s Westlands Water District, and at the Department of Interior he is pushing the state to divert more of its water from conservation to agricultural interests.

Bernhardt is quite aware of his potential conflicts. The Washington Post has reported he carried with him a notecard listing former clients to remind him.

In August of last year, Bernhardt signed an ethics letter saying he would recuse himself from policy decisions that benefit specific former clients.

“He has constructed an ethical wall as it relates to his activities so he is in compliance with all the rules governing his work in the government,” Navaro said.

But critics say he has interpreted recusal decisions narrowly, and acted in ways that benefit broad industries he represented.

“He has showed no restraint in getting involved in policy decisions that directly benefit his previous employers,” Lee-Ashley said.