April, 04 2019, 12:00am EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Jayson O’Neill, Deputy Director
Western Values Project
jayson@westernvaluesproject.org
(406) 570-5019
Interior Secretary Nominee David Bernhardt One Step Closer to Joining Trump's Swamp-Filled Cabinet With Help of Key Western Senators McSally, Gardner, Daines and Heinrich
Western Values Project Statement on Committee Vote to Confirm Conflicted Ex-Lobbyist
Whitefish, MT
Today the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee voted 14-6 to move controversial Acting Interior Secretary David Bernhardt's nomination to a full Senate vote, setting up what is sure to be a contentious floor debate and final vote. Western Values Project's Executive Director Chris Saeger issued the following statement in response to the committee's vote:
"It's no surprise that a group of Senators who owe so much to special interest lobbyists would support this choice for Interior Secretary. For the last two years, conflict-ridden David Bernhardt has tipped the scales in favor of former clients, likely violating his ethics pledge and responsibilities to the American people.
Western Senators Heinrich, Gardner, McSally, and Daines greased the wheels to push Bernhardt's controversial nomination forward before getting clear answers to critical questions regarding his serious conflicts of interests. There is still time for them to reverse this mistake by voting to reject Bernhardt on the floor of the Senate. Until that happens, they will have to live with being known as full-throated supporters of Trump's conflicted ex-lobbyist pick to run our nation's public lands."
During Bernhardt's hearing, Senators were unable to get clarification on several key conflicts of interest questions raised by Western Values Project. Just as bad, calls by Senator Wyden and others to delay his vote based on serious concerns regarding Bernhardt's culture of corruption were ignored. Two Democrats, Senator's Joe Manchin (WV) and Mark Heinrich (NM), with Independent Angus King (ME) joined with every Republican on the committee in voting to confirm Trump's most conflicted cabinet nominee to date. Western Senator's Martha McSally (AZ), Cory Gardner (CO), and Steve Daines (MT) also joined is supporting the former lobbyist.
This week, The Washington Post reported that, at the request of two watchdog groups and several Senators, Interior's Office of Inspector General is reviewing evidence that Bernhardt violated his ethics pledge when he acted on behalf of a former client, Westlands Water District. New details released today by the New York Times found that Bernhardt had continued to associate with the water district at least until his deputy secretary nomination on April 28, 2017.
Westlands is the largest agricultural district in the country according to their website and has water delivered to producers through the Central Valley Project (CVP), a federal water project. The District is a local-government entity formed in 1952 which makes it subject to California's Public Records Act (CPRA).
Within four months of his confirmation as Interior Deputy Secretary, Bernhardt pushed for a decision that would be beneficial for his former client.
Western Values Project (WVP) filed suit against the Interior Department in July of 2018 for public documents related to Bernhardt's involvement with his former lobbying firm and clients. Interior has been stonewalling the release of the documents and only now begun releasing preliminary documents related to the ten requests and comply with the joint status agreement.
WVP previously launched davidbernhardt.org, a website that details Bernhardt's conflicts of interest and highlights instances of Interior policies he has worked on that benefit his former clients.
Western Values Project brings accountability to the national conversation about Western public lands and national parks conservation - a space too often dominated by industry lobbyists and their allies in government.
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Anthropic CEO 'Cannot in Good Conscience Accede' to Pentagon's AI Demand
"Anthropic and Dario deserve credit for standing up for two very basic and obvious principles: no mass surveillance and no autonomous killer robots," said one progressive commentator.
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Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth gave Anthropic until Friday evening to agree to let the Pentagon use the company's artificial intelligence technology however it wants, or else. Roughly 24 hours ahead of the deadline, CEO Dario Amodei announced that "we cannot in good conscience accede to their request," and reiterated opposition to enabling autonomous weapons or surveillance of US citizens.
Anthropic's Claude was the first AI model allowed to handle classified US military data. While the Department of Defense (DOD) has now signed an agreement with Elon Musk's xAI and "is getting close to making a deal with Google," as the New York Times reported Monday, Hegseth demanded "unfettered" access to Claude during a Tuesday meeting with Amodei.
Hegseth threatened to declare the Anthropic a "supply chain risk," effectively blacklisting it for military use and ending its current contract, or invoke the Defense Production Act, which would force Anthropic to tailor the product to the DOD’s needs, if Amodei refused to drop the company's guardrails.
The CEO responded publicly with a Thursday blog post. Using President Donald Trump's preferred name for the Pentagon, he wrote that "Anthropic understands that the Department of War, not private companies, makes military decisions. We have never raised objections to particular military operations nor attempted to limit use of our technology in an ad hoc manner."
"However, in a narrow set of cases, we believe AI can undermine, rather than defend, democratic values. Some uses are also simply outside the bounds of what today's technology can safely and reliably do," Amodei continued. He explained the company's position that "using these systems for mass domestic surveillance is incompatible with democratic values."
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Amodei concluded by expressing hope that the Pentagon revises its position, writing that "our strong preference is to continue to serve the department and our warfighters—with our two requested safeguards in place. Should the department choose to offboard Anthropic, we will work to enable a smooth transition to another provider, avoiding any disruption to ongoing military planning, operations, or other critical missions."
Amodei's blog post followed CBS News reporting earlier Thursday that "Pentagon officials on Wednesday night sent Anthropic their best and final offer in negotiations for use of the company's artificial intelligence technology."
It also came just hours after Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell responded to a related post from a Google scientist on Musk's social media platform X. The DOD official claimed that "the Department of War has no interest in using AI to conduct mass surveillance of Americans (which is illegal) nor do we want to use AI to develop autonomous weapons that operate without human involvement. This narrative is fake and being peddled by leftists in the media."
"Here's what we're asking: Allow the Pentagon to use Anthropic's model for all lawful purposes. This is a simple, commonsense request that will prevent Anthropic from jeopardizing critical military operations and potentially putting our warfighters at risk. We will not let ANY company dictate the terms regarding how we make operational decisions," Parnell added, noting the Friday deadline and the threat to "terminate our partnership with Anthropic and deem them a supply chain risk."
While Amodei and observers await the Pentagon's next move, several Anthropic employees, other tech experts, and critics of the Trump administration praised the CEO for "standing on principle" and choosing "war with the Department of War."
"Anthropic and Dario deserve credit for standing up for two very basic and obvious principles: no mass surveillance and no autonomous killer robots," said progressive commentator Krystal Ball. "Perhaps this is a low bar but it isn’t clear any of the other leading AI companies would put principle above profits in ANY scenario. The Pentagon is sure to make Anthropic pay for daring to defy them."
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The DOL's Wage and Hour Division proposal would replace the Biden administration's widely celebrated 2024 policy for when employers can treat workers as independent contractors under the Fair Labor Standards Act with business-friendly guidance that resembles a rule adopted just before the end of Trump's first term.
"This rule will have profound real-world consequences for working people," warned NELP. "Misclassification is common in many labor-intensive, poorly paid jobs—jobs like home healthcare, janitorial work, landscaping, personal services, and increasingly, app-dispatched ride-hail and delivery—where people of color and immigrants are overrepresented, and workers lack the bargaining power to negotiate higher wages and better working conditions."
NELP pointed to research showing that low-paid independent contractors "lag behind their employee counterparts," and some "do not even earn the federal minimum wage." The organization stressed that "this rule threatens to enshrine a two-tiered labor system where similarly situated workers receive vastly different rights and protections based on the classification chosen by the business employing them."
The new rule—which now faces a 60-day public comment period—focuses on two "core factors" to determine an employee's classification: the nature and degree of control over the work, and the worker's opportunity for profit or loss based on initiative or investment.
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As NELP and other critics sounded the alarm over the DOL proposal on Thursday, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) also revived an effort from Trump's first term, reinstating that administration's 2020 rule on joint employers.
During Trump's initial administration, the NLRB required joint employers to "possess and exercise substantial direct and immediate control" over at least one aspect of the workers' employment. In 2023, under former President Joe Biden, the board decided that two or more entities could be considered joint employers if they had an employment relationship with the workers and helped to determine their terms and conditions of employment. However, the latter was blocked by a Trump-appointed judge the next year.
Unlike the DOL proposal, the board's rule is final. The NLRB—which has two Trump appointees, one Biden appointee, and two vacancies—said in the Federal Register that "the 2023 rule was vacated by the district court, and the action the board takes today merely implements the court's decision. Our action is ministerial and therefore will have no separate economic effect."
US Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), a senior member and former chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, declared in a Thursday statement that "every day, little by little, the Trump administration is rigging the system to benefit giant corporations and shortchange workers—it's an outright grift and working people should be furious."
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"At the same time, today, the Trump administration announced they're working to rescind the independent contractor rule," Murray continued. "Trump wants to let giant corporations classify workers as contractors so that they don't have to pay them minimum wage and overtime—these workers deserve fair pay."
The senator then took aim at the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act that congressional Republicans passed and the president signed last summer, saying that "under the Trump administration, giant corporations get giant tax breaks paid for by cutting Medicaid—the healthcare that the poorest workers are forced to rely on."
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Murray isn't up for reelection in November's closely watched midterms, but could lead the Senate Appropriations Committee if Democrats reclaim the chamber. On Thursday, she vowed that "I am going to keep fighting for laws on the books that protect workers and build an economy that grows the middle-class, not just profit margins for the largest corporations on Earth."
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The report also finds an increase in the use of drones to attack journalists, with Israel accounting for more than 70% of the 39 documented instances of reporters killed by drone strikes.
The number of journalists killed by Israel is remarkably high even when compared to the number of journalists killed in other conflict zones.
Only nine journalists were killed in Sudan, for example, while just four journalists were killed in Ukraine, despite both countries being in the midst of brutal conflicts that have collectively killed hundreds of thousands of people.
A report issued in December by Reporters Without Borders similarly found that Israel was responsible for the most journalists deaths in 2025, the third consecutive year that the country had held that distinction.
The CPJ report also points the finger at governments for not taking their responsibilities to protect journalists seriously.
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CPJ CEO Jodie Ginsberg said that attacks on the media are "a leading indicator of attacks on other freedoms, and much more needs to be done to prevent these killings and punish the perpetrators," adding that "we are all at risk when journalists are killed for reporting the news.”
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