Deputy Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt addresses the executive council winter session of the National Congress of American Indians in Washington, D.C, on February 13, 2019. Photo by Indianz.Com (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

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Top official at Department of the Interior hit with ethics complaint

Friday, March 1, 2019

Democrats and watchdog groups are calling for an investigation into the official who has been tapped to lead the Department of the Interior.

According to critics, Deputy Secretary David Bernhardt violated his ethics pledge by making decisions that benefit the Westlands Water District in California. The district is one of his former clients and he vowed to stay away from such matters during his confirmation hearing to the second-in-command post at Interior.

“For years, Bernhardt lobbied to undermine protections for endangered species on behalf of his lobbying clients, and he continued working on the same exact issues after entering government,” said Paul Smith, the vice president of Campaign Legal Center, which has asked the Office of Inspector General at Interior, to look into the issue.

"As the acting head of a major government agency, it is incumbent upon Mr. Bernhardt to be held to the highest standards of ethical conduct and to avoid any appearance of impropriety, including the perception that he has given his former client an unfair advantage and favorable treatment in the formulation of government policy," Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) and Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut) wrote in a letters to Interior officials, also calling for an investigation.

Bernhardt, who served in key roles at Interior during the George W. Bush era, joined the Trump administration on August 1, 2017. He been serving as "acting" Secretary of the Interior following the resignation of Ryan Zinke, who left after facing ethics issues of his own.

President Donald Trump announced Bernhardt as Zinke's replacement in a post on Twitter on February 4. His nomination has not yet been officially submitted to the Senate, which must confirm him for the post.

"David Bernhardt is, as you know, going through the process — becoming Secretary of Interior, from Acting," Trump said at a Cabinet meeting on February 12, according to the White House transcript. "He’s done a fantastic job. And I think it will continue, and we look forward to that."

A day later, Bernhardt addressed the winter session of the National Congress of American Indians in Washington, D.C. He said he was pulling the plug on controversial land-into-trust regulations that had been proposed during Zinke's tenure. Additionally, he said he would not impose a reorganization on the Bureau of Indian Affairs even though the rest of the department is going through a process that Zinke announced on his first day on the job in March 2017.