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      Campaign Against Corporate Complicity Cautions Previous Lobbying Firm and Clients of Former Interior Secretary David Bernhardt

      Former Interior Secretary may look to cash in on Trump experience and return to corporate lobbying.

      Newswire Editor
      Feb 10, 2021

      Today, government watchdogs Accountable.US and American Oversight called on former Interior Secretary David Bernhardt's previous lobbying firm -- and its clients -- to carefully scrutinize Bernhardt's time in the Trump administration if he seeks to return to his lobbying career. The groups sent the letter as part of their Campaign Against Corporate Complicity, an effort to prevent the normalization of the Trump administration's anti-democratic and inhumane policies by ensuring that companies thoroughly vet any former officials who come looking for jobs.

      In the letter to more than 200 principals, partners, shareholders, and clients of the firm Brownstein Hyatt Farber Shreck, where Bernhardt was a prominent energy and extractive industries lobbyist prior to joining the Trump administration, the watchdog groups specifically cited his role in spreading misinformation about the June 2020 assault on peaceful protesters in Lafayette Square in Washington, D.C.
      The letter states:
      "Bernhardt's continued refusal to acknowledge basic facts and his penchant for dishonesty underscores his willingness to cover up and deflect the truth in blind support of Trump. You and your colleagues should think carefully about whether you want to associate with--to entrust your brand to--someone with that reputation. You should further consider whether hiring Bernhardt would reward his lies with your business and whether you want to send the signal to the public (and your clients or customers) that the abuses of power he enabled and the lies he told were not only acceptable but laudable. You can do better."
      In his role as Interior secretary, Bernhardt oversaw the U.S. Park Police, one of the agencies involved in using chemical munitions to expel peaceful protesters from Lafayette Square moments before President Donald Trump walked through the park to stage a photo opportunity in front of a nearby church. Following the incident, Bernhardt continued to publicly deny that tear gas was used on the protesters, contributing to the Trump administration's misinformation campaign even after a police spokesperson acknowledged the facts.

      The letter also highlights reports that under Bernhardt's leadership, Interior interfered with transparency rules for political purposes.

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      Turns Out That the Oil Industry Wasn't Interested in the Arctic Refuge After All

      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.

      Adam Federman
      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.

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      Opinion

      Former Oil Lobbyist-Turned Interior Secretary to Ignore Judges Ruling on Sage-Grouse Rollbacks

      Bernhardt continues to prioritize big oil and gas special interests despite pandemic and calls for invoking the 25th amendment.

      Newswire Editor
      Jan 12, 2021

      Earlier this week, Trump's Interior Department and Bureau of Land Management indicated that the administration's final sage-grouse habitat rollbacks done at the behest of Big Oil and Gas special interests are complete -- despite a district judge's order to provide further analysis and justification for the moves based on the best available science. The rollbacks are set to ease protections in critical greater sage-grouse habitat on public lands across seven Western states for industrial oil and gas drilling and mining interests.

      "Absent reasonable justifications and sound science, self-proclaimed sophisticated natural resource lawyer and former oil lobbyist turned-Interior Secretary David Bernhardt and former industry front-group lawyer leading the BLM, William Pendley, appear to be completely ignoring the court rulings at a great cost to American taxpayers and our wildlife. The legal morass and regulatory uncertainty created by these conflicted Trump officials are an utter disservice to our public lands," said Jayson O'Neill, Western Values Project director.
      The announcement by Interior and the Bureau of Land of Management (BLM) claimed 'that no further land use planning or environmental analysis is warranted' in a direct rebuke to the Wyoming district judge's order. Audubon previously reported on the judge's ruling that temporarily halted the rollbacks of essential protections for sage-grouse habitat--home also to some 350-plus other species, including mule deer, elk, and pronghorn.

      Conflicted Interior Secretary Bernhardt quickly began working with dispatch to roll back habitat protections shortly after being appointed by the Trump administration to be the agency's deputy secretary in 2017. Western Values Project previously exposed the oil industry and Bernhardt's former clients' close working relationships with Interior and the BLM that raised serious ethical and conflict of interest questions. Bernhardt and the BLM's William Pendley have nearly 80 known industry related conflicts of interest between them. The duo is arguably the most conflicted land managing appointees in U.S. history.

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