When Arizona’s new Senator Kyrsten Sinema joined Joe Manchin (WV) and Martin Heinrich (NM) as the only Democrats to vote in favor of former oil-industry lobbyist David Bernhardt to head the Department of Interior, I fired off a letter to her office, as did many others. What we received was not helpful: a five-paragraph reply explaining how presidential appointments are made (reads like the script from another Schoolhouse Rock civics lesson), and one sentence that mentions her Bernhardt vote.
Before casting that vote, she surely knew that as Deputy Secretary, Bernhardt had made at least a dozen policy changes that benefit his former industry clients, like shrinking Bears Ears and other National Monuments for mineral extraction or weakening EPA regulations on endangered species. Yet the only passage in the Senator’s letter that even mentions Bernhardt says he is “qualified” and “supports the mission.”
Neither of those things is true, as many environmental, tribal, and public lands groups told Sinema and the other Senators charged with confirming or rejecting Trump’s nominee. Another grifter who will use his office to pad his pockets while dismantling his agency and its charge, David Bernhardt is the last person who should oversee our nation’s majestic lands, which Arizonans know too well.
From 2011 to 2015, Bernhardt represented Rosemont Copper and lobbied for a massive open-pit mine just 30 miles from Tucson. To no one’s surprise, now that Trump is in the White House and Bernhardt is Secretary of Interior, the mining company is moving ahead full-steam, even as lawsuits are pending and Interior’s own reports document serious environmental damage. If completed, the mile-wide hole would be the third largest open-pit mine in the country.
Then last week we learned that the Department of Interior pressured wildlife officials to reverse rulings that were delaying a huge development for 70,000 people in southern Arizona—not far from the Mexico border and near one of the only free-flowing rivers in the Southwest, the magnificent San Pedro. In a front-page story Saturday, the Arizona Republic spells out very clearly the direction Interior is taking with Bernhardt at the helm. The incident they describe occurred in 2017 when he was Deputy Secretary.
Steve Spangle, a nearly 30-year official with Fish & Wildlife, says he was pressured by Trump higher-ups to reverse a decision concerning the 12,000-acre housing development. Spangle originally ruled that environmental impact studies must take into account the lower San Pedro basin, because the thousands of new homes, golf courses, and businesses will tap into groundwater that feeds the river. Assessing river impact also means accounting for wildlife that depends on the rare sliver of water. The Nature Conservancy, which oversees conservation corridors along the San Pedro, reports that the 140-mile river is home to at least 84 species of mammals, 41 reptiles, and 14 fish. Additionally, millions of birds depend on the river; ecologists call it “the most significant migration flyway remaining in the Southwest.”
Screw that, sez Bernhardt.
[I]n 2017, Spangle said, he received an unusual call from a lawyer at the Interior Department’s headquarters, who urged him to change a decision he had made about a proposed 28,000-home development in Arizona.
Spangle recalled that she told him “a very high-ranking political” — a political appointee in the Trump administration — believed he had made an incorrect decision, and that he would be “wise to reconsider it.”
Feeling pressured, Spangle reversed the ruling that says impact to the San Pedro must be factored in, and clearly he and other wildlife officials believe the giant new community will undermine watershed health. Well, duh, it’s no place to plop down a city larger than Palo Alto. But not long after the homebuilder called his friend David Bernhardt, Spangle got the phone call and now the San Pedro doesn’t have to be considered when applying for a permit (which was granted), even though sucking groundwater will eventually kill the river and much of the life that depends on it. (The revised assessment only has to consider the effects to 51 acres used for overflow washes during construction.)
There’s more to the story, like the homebuilder’s relationship to TrumpWorld. Thugs all. Welcome to the Trump-Bernhardt playbook, which isn’t too different from Trump’s other business models: lease, sell, and otherwise exploit whatever you can, regardless of consequences. In addition to the obscene mine south of Tucson, Bernhardt is again making noises about uranium mining near the Grand Canyon. In February, as the Canyon was celebrating its 100th birthday as a National Park, Arizona Rep. Raul Grijalva visited the South Rim and stood with tribal peoples, who consider the deep gorge sacred, to announce a bill banning uranium mining in the region. If Bernhardt will destroy the Grand Canyon, what won’t he piss on?
So Senator Sinema said Bernhardt “supports the mission.” Sure, if the mission is to exploit every square inch of public land and transfer the profits to former industry clients. By the way, Senator, how is that YES vote for William Barr working out? Today Republic reporter EJ Montini summed up her situation: “Either she was conned by Barr prior to his confirmation, which is bad. Or he’s doing exactly what she expected him to do. Which is worse.”
The Senator’s letter about her Bernhardt vote began by saying she’s “proud to serve the people of Arizona.” Bull. Nearly 70 percent of Arizonans want public lands protected more, not less. If the Senator is serving anyone, it’s land devourers and political ambition.