Democrats denounce pick for No. 2 post at Interior
WASHINGTON — President Trump has nominated a former top lobbyist for Westlands Water District, the San Joaquin Valley farming powerhouse in Washington and the nation’s largest water district, to be deputy secretary of the Interior Department.
If David Bernhardt wins Senate confirmation, he will be the No. 2 official at the department, which overseas public lands, wildlife and the West’s vast water system of dams and canals.
The nomination, which was submitted Friday, met intense criticism from Bay Area Democrats and environmental and fishing groups. Bernhardt, who had been on a $20,000a-month retainer for Westlands, was a member of President Trump’s transition team overseeing staffing of the Interior Department, a job he shared with with Rep. Devin Nunes, the Tulare Republican primarily known for his advocacy for California farmers before he became chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.
Bernhardt’s Washington law firm, Brownstein, Hyatt, Farber, Schreck, has also done work on the Cadiz water project, a controversial groundwater mining proposal in California’s Mojave Desert. Bernhardt heads the firm’s natural-resources practice and also has represented mining, oil and other extractive industries. Bernhardt delisted himself as a lobbyist in November after Trump won the election to avoid running afoul of the new president’s ban on lobbyists joining his administration.
Westlands spokesman Johnny Amaral praised Bernhardt as “a man of impeccable integrity and knowledge. The department and the country will be better off once he’s confirmed.”
But Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., wasn’t convinced.
“I have serious concerns about the nomination of Mr. Bernhardt due to his numerous conflicts of interest, particularly his lobbying ties to the terrible Cadiz water extraction project that would drain a critical aquifer in California’s Mojave Desert,” she said. “He is now being asked to help lead the very department that would oversee approval of that project.
“Mr. Bernhardt’s nomination is yet another example of President Trump breaking his promise to ‘drain the swamp.’ Instead, the president continues to pack his administration with corporate lobbyists who will now regulate the same companies they took money from.”
Bay Area lawmakers who represent the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, where Westlands gets its water, also denounced the appointment.
“What an unmitigated disaster,” said Rep. Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena. “Talk about wolves guarding the chicken house.”
Rep. Jared Huffman, D-San Rafael, said that when Bernhardt was the Interior Department’s top lawyer under former President George W. Bush, political appointees were caught illegally rewriting scientific opinions on endangered species by the Fish and Wildlife Service so as to benefit landowners.
“In one case, they drew critical habitat lines around one individual person’s property,” Huffman said. “The courts didn’t allow it to stand, thankfully, but it was with Bernhardt as the solicitor that it happened. And then he was part of the review team that decided to give Julie MacDonald (a Bush official who resigned over the issue) a cash bonus at the end of all that.”
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke said Bernhardt’s experience in the Bush administration “and his legal career is exactly what is needed to help streamline government and make the Interior and our public lands work for the American economy.”
“What an unmitigated disaster. Talk about wolves guarding the chicken house.” Rep. Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena