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david bernhardt
Turns Out That the Oil Industry Wasn't Interested in the Arctic Refuge After All
The Trump administration’s Arctic Refuge oil lease auction was a total bust.
Jan 15, 2021
On the afternoon of Wednesday, January 6--as many Americans were transfixed by the violent insurrectionists laying siege to the US Capitol--the Department of the Interior was undertaking what some conservationists have likened to another kind of plunder: the first ever oil and gas lease sale in one of North America's most iconic wilderness landscapes.
For more than 40 years, environmentalists and Republicans in Congress have battled over the fate of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge's coastal plain, a 1.6 million-acre stretch of fragile tundra at the edge of the Arctic sea. In 2017, with a two-page provision tucked into the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, Donald Trump achieved what no other Republican president had been able to: opening up the refuge to oil and gas exploration and development. The lease sale was, in a way, the culmination of one of the defining environmental struggles of the last half-century.
Not surprisingly, the Trump administration considered Arctic Refuge drilling among its biggest accomplishments, as Interior Secretary David Bernhardt told the Conservative Political Action Conference last year. The Alaska Congressional delegation viewed it as a major triumph. Industry boosters and the Congressional Budget Office claimed that the lease sales--the Tax Act requires two over the course of the next decade--would be a windfall for the US Treasury and the state of Alaska and that it would help to replenish the dwindling life-blood of the Trans Alaska Pipeline.
But, ultimately, the first lease sale was a flop. Only half of the parcels attracted a bid, many of them at bare minimum prices. The Alaska Wilderness League called the lease auction an "epic failure."
Even before last Wednesday's sale, there were signs that this idea was largely a fantasy. In 2019 British Petroleum sold off all of its assets on the North Slope, including the closely guarded results of the single test well drilled on refuge lands, in what many viewed as a sign of the inevitable long-term decline of Alaska's oil and gas industry. Meanwhile, more than a dozen banks in the US, Canada, and Europe pledged not to finance development projects in the Arctic. The rush to lease in the refuge was unfolding without a very clear understanding of the coastal plain's resource potential, making any investment that much more risky. To top it all off, Joe Biden's presidential election victory ensured that the incoming administration would do everything in its power to protect the region.
That's where things stood when DOI's Deputy Secretary Kate MacGregor, who had traveled to Anchorage for the lease sale, approached the lectern and began opening bids. "It is my honor to preside over this momentous occasion," she said before thanking those who had worked for decades to promote domestic energy production and job creation in Alaska.
But in less than ten minutes the sale was over. There were only 13 bids on 11 of 22 tracts. Most bids were at or just above the minimum of $25/acre and the sale netted only $14.4 million, a far cry from what the CBO had estimated. Even the pro-industry website Petroleum News described the results as "somewhat disappointing."
Perhaps most surprising and controversial was that nearly all of the bids--9 of the 11 awarded--were submitted by a state-owned investment corporation, not the oil and gas industry. The Alaska Investment Development and Export Authority (AIDEA) was created by the state legislature in 1967 to help foster economic growth largely by partnering with banks to provide low cost loans to businesses. Board members are appointed by the governor and profits are pumped back into the corporation or shared with the state. In recent years, however, AIDEA has come under fire for its lack of transparency and what many view as ill-advised investments in energy development projects.
The decision to bid on refuge leases was no exception. AIDEA made a cryptic announcement on Friday, December 18 that it would be meeting in executive session two days before Christmas to discuss "confidential matters" and vote on a resolution related to the Arctic Infrastructure Development Fund. The following Monday, under pressure from activists and journalists, AIDEA finally released the resolution on whether to spend up to $20 million on the lease sale. Despite an outpouring of criticism from the public, it passed unanimously.
The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge has always been a larger than life symbol, both to the environmentalists and Indigenous Gwich'in who have sought to protect it and the politicians who have tried for decades to open it to development.
Rick Steiner, a conservation biologist in Anchorage who tracks AIDEA closely, believes that the authority not only violated Alaska's public meeting law by not providing proper notice but also may not qualify as an eligible bidder. Because the state of Alaska receives half of the lease sale revenue, AIDEA has a competitive advantage, Steiner says. In addition the authority has presented no clear investment plan for the leases, which Steiner says is required by the corporation's own by-laws. Finally, the authority's board members have not been confirmed by the Alaska legislature adding another layer of legal uncertainty.
"AIDEA is clearly out of control," Steiner told me. "And they know it." Steiner filed a complaint with the Department of the Interior's inspector general in December alleging that the corporation is an ineligible bidder under federal law and that all of its bids should be rejected. According to Steiner, the inspector general's office has told him that they are hoping to issue a decision or referral before the end of this week.
A spokesperson with the Inspector General's office said the complaint is going through the standard intake process. AIDEA did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Meanwhile, the Bureau of Land Management is moving quickly to finalize the leases before Trump leaves office, which would make it more difficult for the incoming administration to delay or possibly invalidate them. An antitrust review coordinated with DOJ, and which usually takes up to two months, has been completed in just days according to an email obtained by Steiner and bid acceptance letters were sent out last week. AIDEA has 15 days to respond.
Larry Persily, who served on the AIDEA board from 1999 to 2002 and now owns a weekly print newspaper in Wrangell, said that bidding on refuge leases is not the first bad investment AIDEA has made. He points to the authority's decision in the late 1990s to finance a "value added" seafood processing plant in Anchorage that went bust. AIDEA ended up losing about half of the $50 million it had invested in the project. "That was their biggest boondoggle I can remember," Persily said. "It definitely gave them a black eye."
More recently, the authority put $70 million into financing a North Slope oil and gas operation, since purchased by a Singapore-based petroleum company, which has struggled to make its quarterly loan payments. They agency has also been criticized (and sued) for backing the Ambler Road project, a more than 200-mile mining access road through pristine wilderness lands including part of Gates of the Arctic National Park. Two days after the lease sale, AIDEA and DOI signed a 50-year right-of-way permit for the project.
"The [Arctic Refuge] thing was sort of their sticking their toe back into the waters of dumb ideas," Persily said.
Even if AIDEA is deemed to be an eligible bidder and the leases are signed before Biden takes office, the path forward for the state of Alaska is not a promising one. The leasing program will be tied up in courts for months if not years and a judge could send DOI back to square one, forcing the agency to redo the environmental impact statement. In theory a Democratic controlled Congress could vote to permanently protect the coastal plain, though the party's slim majority in the Senate will make this difficult. (See: Manchin, Joe; Senator from West Virginia.) Either way, AIDEA will be stuck with the leases and ultimately the legal fees required if they challenge whatever decisions the Biden administration makes.
It would be foolish to read too much into a single lease sale, held during a pandemic and at a time of historically low oil and gas prices. After all there's plenty of new oil and gas development on Alaska's North Slope, much of it on state land and to the west of the refuge in the National Petroleum Reserve.
But the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge has always been a larger than life symbol, both to the environmentalists and Indigenous Gwich'in who have sought to protect it and the politicians who have tried for decades to open it to development. How badly industry wanted it, however, was always a bit of a mystery. Now, it seems, we have our answer: industry didn't want it very much.
During the livestreaming of the lease sale, DOI's MacGregor said that developing the refuge would "reinvigorate" the Trans Alaska Pipeline, which Alaska's politicians have long promised. But the outcome of the sale presages a different future, one that by necessity doesn't rely so heavily on oil and gas extraction. And this is something the state may have no control over.
"If they had held the sale 20 years ago it would have turned out much differently," Persily said. "Regardless of whether it was a good idea then, its time has passed."
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Conservation Group to Sue Trump Officials and Agency Over Delayed Protections for 11 Species
The Center for Biological Diversity points out that Trump's presidency "is coming to an end with the worst record protecting species of any administration since the Endangered Species Act was passed."
Jan 04, 2021
With just over two weeks until President Donald Trump leaves office, the Center for Biological Diversity on Tuesday launched a lawsuit over the delay of federal protections for several species, including the imperiled monarch butterfly, and blasted the outgoing administration's record on at-risk animals, plants, and habitats.
In a statement announcing the suit, the conservation group said that Trump's presidency "is coming to an end with the worst record protecting species of any administration since the Endangered Species Act was passed." The group is accusing two Trump appointees and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), a division of the Interior Department, of violating the ESA by placing 11 species on a candidate list rather than providing them with protections under the 1973 law.
Along with the monarch, the center is focusing on the eastern gopher tortoise, Penasco least chipmunk, longfin smelt, Colorado Delta clam, three Texas mussels, magnificent ramshorn snail, bracted twistflower, and northern spotted owl. The group sent the requisite 60-day notice (pdf) of its planned suit to outgoing Interior Secretary Bernhardt and USFWS Director Aurelia Skipwith.
"To date, the Trump administration has listed only 25 species or just six species per year, the lowest rate of any administration since the act was passed," the group notes. "Such a low rate of listing clearly does not constitute expeditious progress and undermines any claim by the administration that the 11 species included in this notice are precluded by higher priority listing actions."
The center adds:
For comparison, an average of 45 and 65 species per year were listed by the Obama and Clinton administrations, respectively. Given there are hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of imperiled species in the U.S. that need protection under the ESA to avoid extinction, including more than 500 petitioned species awaiting 12-month findings from the service, there is no explanation for the very small number of species that received protection in the last two years.
"The Trump administration's undermining of the Endangered Species Act puts the monarch butterfly, eastern gopher tortoise, and hundreds more plants and animals at risk of extinction," said Noah Greenwald, the center's endangered species director.
As Common Dreams reported last month, the Trump administration's decision to only declare the monarch butterfly a "candidate" for threatened or endangered species status, even though the insect's numbers have dropped by 90% in recent decades, sparked a flood of condemnation from conservation groups.
In February, the center filed a lawsuit (pdf) in the U.S. District Court for Washington, D.C. over the Trump administration's failure to decide whether to list 241 species.
The group said Tuesday that it also "plans to initiate lawsuits for another nine species waiting for listing and 89 species waiting for designation of critical habitat. It hopes to work out a schedule with the Biden administration to ensure these species get protection and avoid extinction."
Greenwald, who signed the group's notice for the 11 species, emphasized the importance of President-elect Joe Biden's administration paving a new path.
"For newly nominated Interior Secretary Deb Haaland to successfully save these species from extinction, it will require more money for endangered species, new leadership at the Fish and Wildlife Service, and a renewed commitment to science and following the law," he said.
Environmental and Indigenous groups have celebrated Biden's selection of Haaland, a Democratic congresswoman from New Mexico, to be his secretary of the interior. However, party control of the Senate--which must confirm the president-elect's Cabinet members--will be determine by two runoff elections in Georgia on Tuesday.
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In 'Brutal Blow' to Wildlife and Gift to Big Oil, Trump Finalizes Rollback of Migratory Bird Treaty Act
"The Trump administration is signing the death warrants of millions of birds across the country."
Jan 04, 2021
"Even though a federal court already ruled that the Trump administration cannot eliminate protections for migratory birds, the administration continues its relentless campaign to undermine environmental protections and harm wildlife."
--Jamie Rappoport Clark, Defenders of Wildlife
Just over two weeks before President Donald Trump is set to leave the White House, his U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Tuesday finalized a rollback of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act--a law that's been in place since 1918 and which conservation groups credit with holding corporate polluters accountable for harming bird species.
In what the Western Values Project called a "parting gift to Big Oil by corrupt former oil lobbyist Interior Secretary David Bernhardt," the USFWS announced a new rule under which the federal government will no longer penalize or prosecute companies when their actions cause the inadvertent death of birds.
In the case of oil spills like the Deepwater Horizon disaster, which killed more than one million birds in 2010; electrocutions by power lines; ducks and other species stuck in fossil fuel tailings ponds; and illegal actions like the spraying of banned pesticides, companies will no longer be held to account as long as they don't intentionally kill birds.
When it was passed into law more than 100 years ago, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA) made it illegal to hunt, take, capture, or kill birds from endangered species "by any means or in any manner."
Bernhardt said Tuesday the new rule "reaffirms the original meaning and intent of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act," while the Center for Western Priorities called it a "radical interpretation of the law."
"The Trump administration wants to make sure extractive industries can continue to kill birds after they leave office," said Jennifer Rokala, executive director of the group. "Secretary Bernhardt's former oil industry clients have explicitly asked for this policy change, and now he is delivering, just days before returning to the private sector. By finalizing this proposal, the Trump administration is signing the death warrants of millions of birds across the country."
Conservation groups pointed to data showing that three billion birds have been lost in North America since 1970, while six million fewer birds were counted by the Audubon Society in 2019 than previous tallies showed.
As Common Dreams reported in September, the wildfires that overwhelmed the West Coast last year were thought to be behind the deaths of thousands of migratory birds in the southwest.
"This brutal blow hits America's birds when many populations are already plummeting, so it's really the last thing they need," said Noah Greenwald, endangered species director at the Center for Biological Diversity. "Trump officials are giving oil companies and other polluters a license to kill birds. Vast numbers of birds will be electrocuted by power lines, drowned in oil waste pits and killed in other easily preventable ways."
Advocates say the MBTA has worked in recent years to show the oil and gas industry that it will be held accountable if its activities kills birds. The federal government reached a $100 million settlement with BP after the Deepwater Horizon disaster.
Rep. Deb Haaland (D-N.M.), who was named as President-elect Biden's nominee for Interior Secretary last month, is expected to repeal the USFWS's rule, but that process could take time. Meanwhile, Rep. Alan Lowenthal (D-Calif.) introduced the Migratory Bird Protection Act last year as the administration was considering the rollback, with the aim of reaffirming the original law's intent of protecting vulnerable birds--not corporations.
Advocates also expressed hope that the federal courts will strike down what Greenwald called the Trump administration's "reckless attack on one of America's oldest and most important conservation laws," as Judge Valerie Caproni of the Southern District of New York did in August.
"There is nothing in the text of the MBTA that suggests that in order to fall within its prohibition, activity must be directed specifically at birds," Caproni said in her ruling at the time. "Nor does the statute prohibit only intentionally killing migratory birds."
Jamie Rappoport Clark, president and CEO of Defenders of Wildlife said the group would call on the Biden administration "to restore protections for birds immediately and affirm that the Migratory Bird Treaty Act prohibits incidental take."
"Even though a federal court already ruled that the Trump administration cannot eliminate protections for migratory birds, the administration continues its relentless campaign to undermine environmental protections and harm wildlife," said Clark.
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Firing a "Vindictive, Illegal Parting Shot," Trump's Interior Proposes Sabotage of Conservation Program
"The administration's proposal is unneeded, unwanted, and unacceptable."
Nov 13, 2020
The Trump administration was accused of firing a "vindictive, illegal parting shot" following Interior Secretary Bernhardt's Friday executive order sabotaging funding of a key conservation program.
At issue is the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF). Established in 1964, it has been hailed as the nation's most important conservation program. The Great American Outdoors Act (GAOA), bipartisan legislation President Donald Trump signed into law in August, was to permanently and fully fund the LWCF.
"Bernhardt is shamelessly imposing his extremist anti-public lands policy in a blatant end-run around Congress."
--Randi Spivak, Center for Biological DiversityMore specifically, as USA Today previously noted, the GAOA was set to "dedicate billions in revenue paid to the federal government from oil and gas exploration fees through the Land and Water Conservation Fund to cover a mounting backlog of park projects now approaching $12 billion."
That allocation drew cheers from "so many Americans who cherish our wide open spaces" and who believed the LWCF, "which has been an effective and popular program for decades, would no longer be underfunded," Steve Blackledge, senior director of Environment America's Conservation Program, said in statement Friday
"But now," Blackledge continue, "Secretary Bernhardt is creating a solution to a problem that doesn't exist."
With the secretarial order, the administration has added "a litany of new arbitrary provisions," explained (pdf) environmental advocacy group The Mountain Pact. Those include: allowing state veto of federal public land protection projects; eliminating funding for Bureau of Land Management land acquisition; and restricting future LWCF funds from helping to create new units of public land.
The order sparked a flurry of criticism.
Blackledge, in his statement, called for plan to be rescinded and touted the LWCF for having "helped conserve national treasures like Joshua Tree National Park, the Appalachian Trail, and the Great Smokeys."
"The administration's proposal is unneeded, unwanted, and unacceptable," he added.
Phil Francis, chair of the Coalition to Protect America's National Parks, rebuked the proposal as "an unconscionable violation of Congress' intent," because "Congress was clear and explicit about what it wanted from the Department of the Interior--specifically calling for 40% of LWCF funds to go to federal land protection that can be used to help parks begin to meet their land acquisition needs."
Years of under-funding of the National Park Service, said Francis, produced "an over $5 billion backlog in land acquisition."
"Our parks protect critical watersheds, viewsheds, and ecosystems. If these lands not acquired soon," he warned, "the opportunities could be lost forever."
According to Randi Spivak, public lands director at the Center for Biological Diversity, taking action to reverse this latest (pdf) conservation attack from the Interior Secretary--a former oil and gas lobbyist--must be a priority for the incoming administration.
"Bernhardt is shamelessly imposing his extremist anti-public lands policy in a blatant end-run around Congress," Spivak said in a statement, adding that the "order severely restricts conservation funding, violates bipartisan agreements, and undermines this wildly popular program."
"It's a vindictive, illegal parting shot from a corrupt administration that only approved this bill to give political cover to two Senate Republicans whose re-elections were in jeopardy," she said, referring to Cory Gardner of Colorado and Steve Daines of Montana.
"President-elect Biden should overturn this order as soon as possible," Spivak added.
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Alleging 'Cover-Up to Protect Secretary Bernhardt,' Lawmakers Demand Criminal Perjury Probe Into Top Interior Official
"Officials who violate the public trust and break the law must be held accountable."
Aug 11, 2020
Sen. Ron Wyden and Rep. Raul Grijalva on Tuesday alleged a "cover-up" and demanded a criminal perjury probe into the Interior Department's top lawyer after an inspector general report concluded that political appointees at the agency withheld documents about Secretary David Bernhardt during his Senate confirmation process last year.
In a joint statement, Wyden and Grijalva called on the Justice Department to open a criminal investigation into Interior solicitor Daniel Jorjani, a former Koch brothers adviser who told the Senate last May that he did not personally review or make determinations about public information requests. Interior Department policy gives political appointees the authority to screen records requests before their release to the public.
"Officials at Interior are now on the record admitting what we suspected all along: they orchestrated a cover-up to protect Secretary Bernhardt during his confirmation, and all but lied to Congress about it."
--Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.)
The two Democratic lawmakers said the IG report (pdf) demonstrates that "Jorjani misled the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee about his role in reviewing Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) productions."
"Not since the Teapot Dome scandal have we seen a more corrupt Interior Department," said Wyden and Grijalva, referring to a scandal from the 1920s that ultimately led to the imprisonment of then-Interior Secretary Albert Fall for accepting oil industry bribes.
"Officials at Interior are now on the record admitting what we suspected all along: they orchestrated a cover-up to protect Secretary Bernhardt during his confirmation, and all but lied to Congress about it," the lawmakers added.
The seven-page IG report states that following Bernhardt's nomination in February of last year, then-Counselor to the Secretary Hubbel Relat instructed Interior staffers "to temporarily withhold documents related to Bernhardt from a release of FOIA documents" scheduled to take place under a court order.
"As a result of Relat's direction, 253 pages were withheld from the DOI's February 2019 release," the IG report notes. "The DOI ultimately released most of the 253 pages in December 2019, seven months after Bernhardt was confirmed."
One Interior Department lawyer "remembered that this direction from Relat was to remain in place until after Bernhardt's confirmation," the IG report says. "Jorjani told us that, as the DOI's top attorney, he owned the decision, not Relat."
Bernhardt's confirmation last April was viewed as a victory for Big Oil--and a major blow to America's public lands--given the former lobbyist's extensive ties to the fossil fuel industry. One environmental group dubbed Bernhardt "Trump's most conflict-ridden cabinet nominee."
In a tweet Monday, Grijalva wrote that the IG's findings warrant a criminal probe "because officials who violate the public trust and break the law must be held accountable."
"Political appointees at Interior put their ideologically-based personal interests over the interests of the American people," said Grijalva.
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Citing Fears of a Defeated Trump Who Won't Go Willingly, Warren Calls on Cabinet Officials to End Deployment of Federal Agents Against Protests
"This is an urgent matter for American democracy and for the safety of Americans peacefully protesting in their communities."
Jul 29, 2020
Specifically citing President Donald Trump's refusal to commit to leaving office if he is defeated in November as a potential flashpoint for nationwide demonstrations, Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Tuesday sent a letter to four senior Cabinet officials asking them to commit to not deploying any more federal agents to quell domestic protests either before or after the upcoming elections.
The president, Warren writes in the letter (pdf), "has used these forces--who are improperly trained, unsuited for their operation, and have engaged in legally questionable tactics and arrests--in American cities despite clear opposition from governors, mayors, and citizens who are exercising their First Amendment rights in the communities in which these federal personnel have been deployed."
The letter--addressed to Defense Secretary Mark Esper, Attorney General William Barr, Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf, and Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt--raises concerns that agents from the respective departments will be used for "future domestic actions against people exercising their right to protest."
"The deployment of federal paramilitary forces against civilians is a historic embarrassment for our nation, and harms the United States' standing in the world," writes Warren. "It has also contributed to the valid concern that President Trump--with the complicity of agency heads that agree to send these personnel--is turning your departments' personnel into tools of authoritarianism."
Warren adds:
The potential for President Trump to activate domestic forces as his "personal militia" (as former Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge put it) is even more disturbing given his ongoing refusal "to reassure the country that he would abide by the voters' will" and peacefully leave office if he is voted out--resulting in "an unprecedented test of American democracy." I therefore write to seek your assurances that you will not allow the military or civilian forces under your control to be used by the President to suppress dissent and democracy.
In addition to demanding answers from the agency heads on a number of related questions, the Massachusetts Democrat also asks them to "commit to refuse to deploy the military or federal law enforcement forces under your control domestically against peaceful protesters or otherwise against Americans in advance of the November elections, and refuse to deploy in a manner intended to intimidate voters on November 3."
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Two-Thirds of Interior Dept Meetings Attended by Fossil Fuel Interests as Trump Lavishes Industry With Covid Relief: Report
"With energy corporations mounting an intense lobbying campaign to receive emergency bailouts from the government, it is important to know who has the ear of the Trump administration."
May 20, 2020
President Donald Trump's loyalty to the fossil fuel sector has been unremitting throughout his term, with government watchdog Public Citizen reporting Wednesday that nearly two-thirds of high-level meetings at the Interior Department since Trump took office have been attended by oil, gas, and coal companies and lobbyists.
In the group's new report, "Fossil Filled," Public Citizen revealed that out of 679 meetings between non-governmental groups and Interior Secretary David Bernhardt, his predecessor, Ryan Zinke, and five top aides in the first two years of Trump's term, 443 were attended by players in the fossil fuel sector.
The report comes as the industry is working to secure benefits from the coronavirus economic relief packages passed in Congress, even as Wall Street analysts and renewable energy advocates alike warn that fossil fuels are in "the death knell phase."
"With energy corporations mounting an intense lobbying campaign to receive emergency bailouts from the government, it is important to know who has the ear of the Trump administration," said Alan Zibel, research director of Public Citizen's Corporate Presidency Project and author of the report.
Oil and gas companies met with Bernhardt and his senior staffers 225 times, or at 33% of the meetings.
During the same period, the Interior Department--which is tasked with conserving the nation's natural resources--met with conservation groups only 9% of the time and with renewable energy groups just 3% of the time.
The lobbying firm which formerly employed Bernhardt--who carried an index card with a list of all his energy conflicts of interest when he began working at the Interior Department--met with officials 13 times, more than any other lobbying firm.
Now, the companies and representatives who held the Trump administration's attention for more than two years before the pandemic began stand to benefit from economic relief, even as 75% of Americans say the government should prioritize giving financial aid to the renewable energy sector instead.
"In an effort to stabilize its finances, the oil industry and congressional oil state allies have been desperately pushing for federal assistance, including relief from the 12.5% federal royalty payment, which is already lower than typical royalties for land owned by states," Public Citizen reported. "The Trump administration, which has been eager to do favors for friends in the oil and gas industry, has moved to speed up requests for relief on royalty payments."
Trump has said he opposes blanket relief for the industry, but after meeting with Bernhardt in April, Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) said the secretary had "promised to quickly process targeted royalty relief."
Such relief is likely to cut down on funds available for public services and be aimed at helping fossil fuel executives and shareholders rather than rank-and-file workers in the industry, the group said.
"Though laid-off oil workers may indeed need government help, there is no doubt that the Trump administration's sympathies lie with the executives who call Trump a personal friend," Zibel wrote.
In addition to royalties relief, the fossil fuel industry now stands to gain massive tax refunds thanks to the $2 trillion CARES Act that was signed into law in March.
"Tucked into the bill was a massive tax benefits for corporate America, letting all businesses use losses to offset profits for the past five years," the report said. "This tax benefit, while available to all businesses, is especially helpful for industries such as oil that rack up significant losses in bad years."
After aggressive lobbying from the energy industry and the White House, the Federal Reserve opened a lending program to oil and gas companies, and the administration is also reportedly considering bridge loans for the oil industry.
While Trump personally intervened in international oil markets last month to stabilize oil prices--which plunged to below $0 per barrel--the administration has slapped penalties on the steadily-growing renewable energy sector, ending a rent holiday and demanding $50 million in back payments from solar and wind companies this week.
"Under Bernhardt, the Trump administration has been able to exert influence at the highest levels and has consistently favored industry over conservation groups," said Zibel.
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"Cruel:" Trump Admin. Moves to Take Land of Mashpee Tribe--Whose Casino Plans Irked President's "Special Interest Friends"--Out of Trust
The tribal chairman said the announcment came "on the very day that the United States has reached a record 100,000 confirmed cases of the coronavirus."
Mar 29, 2020
The Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe vowed Friday to fight for its land after the Trump administration announced its reservation would be "disestablished" and its land trust status removed.
The announcement came "on the very day that the United States has reached a record 100,000 confirmed cases of the coronavirus," tribal Chairman Cedric Cromwell said in a Friday statement, calling the move "cruel" and "unnecessary."
Cromwell said the Bureau of Indian Affairs informed him of the order from Interior Secretary David Bernhardt.
"The secretary is under no court order to take our land out of trust," Cromwell said in his statement. "He is fully aware that litigation to uphold our status as a tribe eligible for the benefits of the Indian Reorganization Act is ongoing."
"It begs the question, what is driving our federal trustee's crusade against our reservation?" he added.
Rep. Bill Keating (D-Mass.), who last year introduced legislation to protect the tribe's reservation as trust land in Massachusetts, called the order "one of the most cruel and nonsensical acts I have seen since coming to Congress."
The legislation has stalled in the Senate, the congressman said, since "President Donald Trump tweeted his opposition in an attempt to assist his lobbyist and special interest friends."
Among the projects put into limbo with the order, as the Cape Cod Times reported Saturday, are "the tribe's plans to build a $1 billion casino in Taunton, which was part of a yearslong litigation that led to the questioning of whether the tribe qualified for land-in-trust status."
"The planned gaming operation," as HuffPost noted Sunday, "would have competed for business with nearby Rhode Island casinos with strong ties to Trump, who once owned, then bankrupted, casinos in Atlantic City, New Jersey."
As David Dayen outlined at The American Prospect last year, Trump intervened to shore up opposition to Keating's reservation reaffirmation bill because of the tribe's plans for the casino on the land.
[Trump] was asked to do so by Matthew Schlapp, the chair of the American Conservative Union, the folks who put on CPAC. Schlapp is the husband of White House strategic communications director Mercedes Schlapp and a longtime Trump ally. He's also a lobbyist--hey, we all have to make a living--and among his clients is Twin River Management Group, a company that manages two casinos just over the Massachusetts state line in Rhode Island. The casinos are about 26 miles from Taunton, and Twin River obviously sees the prospect of a Mashpee-run casino as a threat to their market share.
Author and Intercept co-founder Jeremy Scahill suggested the disestablishment move would have cronies of the president "waiting in the wings to cash in."
Cromwell said whatever the motivation for the order may be, he remains undeterred in his fight for his tribe to continue having the special legal status afforded by having the land "held in trust."
"We the People of the First Light have lived here since before there was a Secretary of the Interior, since before there was a State of Massachusetts, since before the Pilgrims arrived 400 years ago. We have survived, we will continue to survive. These are our lands, these are the lands of our ancestors, and these will be the lands of our grandchildren," he said.
"This administration has come and it will go. But we will be here, always," Cromwell continued. "And we will not rest until we are treated equally with other federally recognized tribes and the status of our reservation is confirmed."
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With Bedrock Environmental Law Under Threat, Video Billboard Casts Interior Secretary as Trumpian 'Swamp Monster'
"If this rollback happens, it will weaken communities' efforts to protect their air, water, and public health."
Feb 24, 2020
As activists and experts descended on the U.S. Department of the Interior building in Washington, D.C. Tuesday for a public forum and rally about the Trump administration's recent attack on one of the nation's landmark environmental laws, the advocacy group Public Citizen parked a truck with a massive screen nearby to play a video of a top official morphing into a "swamp monster" on loop for eight hours.
"The video, accompanied by spooky music, will show that it's difficult to distinguish between Interior Secretary David Bernhardt--a former oil and gas lobbyist--and a creature of the Washington, D.C., 'swamp' of lobbyists and corporate cronies that President Donald Trump derided as a candidate but now embraces wholeheartedly," Public Citizen explained.
The protests and hearing (pdf) Tuesday centered on the Trump administration's proposed changes to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). The historic law signed by President Richard Nixon 50 years ago forces federal agencies to produce environmental assessments for major planned actions, including permits for infrastructure projects like fossil fuel pipelines.
Advocacy groups that have raised concerns with the administration's proposal reiterated those critiques Tuesday. Friends of the Earth president Erich Pica said in a statement that NEPA "ensures communities have a right to know the environmental and fiscal impacts, and whether less destructive alternatives exist," and Trump's attack on the law "silences the communities across the nation fighting corporate polluters."
"If this rollback happens, it will weaken communities' efforts to protect their air, water, and public health," Pica warned. "We must not allow this critical tool for public engagement to be eliminated by the businesses determined to destroy our environment for profit. We will not tolerate efforts to dismantle our bedrock environmental laws."
As a Natural Resources Defense Council blog post outlined Monday, the Trump administration's proposed changes include: limiting the actions covered by NEPA, restricting the geographic scope of a review, scrapping conflict-of-interest requirements, and curtailing a directive that agencies rigorously consider reasonable alternatives.
Greenpeace USA senior climate campaigner John Noel said in a statement Tuesday that the changes--which would mean agencies don't have to consider the climate impacts of new infrastructure projects--would significantly curb input from communities that would be most affected by such development.
"Fossil fuel infrastructure projects are overwhelmingly located in underrepresented, working class communities," Noel said. "No oil company wants to put an oil well on top of a Trump golf course, or a fracked gas compressor station next to Mar a Lago--they're building pipelines through Indigenous territory and refineries next to Black and Brown neighborhoods. Based on its attempts to roll back NEPA, it's clear the Trump administration views these communities as sacrifice zones."
"Gutting NEPA is an attempt to silence the communities on the frontlines of fossil fuel industry pollution," he charged. "If Trump truly cared about clean air and water for anyone other than his billionaire buddies, he'd strengthen laws like NEPA. Instead, he's handing out favors to oil and gas executives like candy."
Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.), chair of the House Natural Resources Committee, as well as leaders of environmental and labor groups spoke at the D.C. rally Tuesday afternoon.
Activists, advocacy groups, and reporters shared updates from the rally and forum on social media with the hashtags #ProtectYourVoice and #ProtectNEPA:
Grijalva, who also testified at the public hearing, said in a statement Tuesday that "the administration's efforts to gut NEPA through this proposed rule will make it easier for corporate polluters to hide the climate impacts of major projects, including oil and gas projects."
"NEPA's also a critical civil rights tool--it gives all Americans a voice in federal decision-making by allowing communities to be informed and weigh in on major proposed projects affecting their communities," the congressman added. "When the NEPA process is cut short or weakened, ill-conceived projects advance that can have devastating public health and environmental consequences for American communities."
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Video Reveals Threat of "Wholesale Transfer and Privatization of America's Public Lands" on Trump's Agenda, Says Watchdog Group
The event in question, which took place June 2019 and was hosted by the Interior Department, featured a keynote address by climate-denier Myron Ebell.
Feb 13, 2020
Watchdog group Western Values Project said Friday that audio it obtained of a June 2019 event at Trump's Interior Department provides more evidence that public lands are under threat of being privatized by the former reality star and his crew of "anti-public land zealots."
The event (pdf) in question was the American Agri-Women Symposium entitled "Federal Land Policies: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly," which took place at Interior's Sidney Yates Auditorium. Myron Ebell--the climate crisis-denying former head of President Trump's EPA transition team who serves as head of environmental and energy policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute--was keynote speaker.
HuffPost, with whom Western Values Project shared the video, described the remarks as "a 40-minute rambling assault" on the agency where the event was taking place.
As HuffPost reported, two other high level Interior officials also gave speeches at the symposium: Brenda Burman, commissioner of the Bureau of Reclamation, and Andrea Travnicek, deputy assistant secretary of land and minerals management.
Ebell was introduced by the Interior Deparment's Susan Combs, Assistant Secretary for Policy, Management, and Budget. Combs is an anti-government, Endangered Species Act foe who's taken in as much as $2.1 million from oil and gas royalties on her property.
In his remarks, Ebell took swipes at the Land and Water Conservation Fund and National Park Service and suggested the government has "a constant incentive to fail."
Privatization, he made clear, is the apporach he favored for federal lands. From HuffPost:
"I think the real solution to the federal lands is eventually to either transfer them to the states or," he paused to acknowledge two lawmaker friends who don't support the second option he was about to mention, "privatize them, put them into private ownership."
He shared a Power Point Presentation that included his desire--since fulfilled by the Trump administration--to weaken the Endangered Species Act.
HuffPost added:
Shifting to lands already under federal control, Ebell fumbled to locate a slide about transferring and selling off lands in the West. Undeterred, he declared that the "ultimate solution" was being championed by Ken Ivory, a former Republican state representative from Utah and longtime leader of the pro-land-transfer movement, and the American Lands Council. The Utah-based nonprofit, which Ivory co-founded in 2012 and led until 2016, advocates for the "timely and orderly transfer of federal public lands to willing states for local control that will provide better public access, better environmental health, and better economic productivity."
Ebell praised Interior Secretary David Bernhardt, a former fossil fuel lobbyist, and his deregularly approach. Ebell also confirmed that he'd met with Bernhardt during "chance encounters" at the deparment--a phrasing Western Values Project said could be evidence of Bernhardt's strategy for keeping secret his meetings with ethicical question-posing figures.
"It is clear that selling off and privatizing America's public lands has been part of the Trump administration's agenda since day one. Now, with the completion of historic rollbacks to public land protections, all at the behest of their corporate pals, appeasing anti-public land zealots is next up on the list," said Jayson O'Neill, deputy director of Western Values Project, in a statement.
"This is another indicator that if President Trump and Secretary Bernhardt are given enough time, the wholesale transfer and privatization of America's public lands will happen in the blink of an eye. Once our public lands are gone," he warned, "they're gone for good."
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