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[Page S2379]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
NOMINATION OF DAVID BERNHARDT
Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. President, President Trump has nominated David
Bernhardt to be Secretary of the Interior.
The Department of the Interior has broad management responsibilities
over our public lands and waters, wildlife, and is also responsible for
maintaining the trust responsibilities on behalf of the United States
with Indian Country. They also have over 70,000 Federal employees.
There have been significant questions raised about Mr. Bernhardt's
decisions and priorities in his position as Deputy Secretary and Acting
Secretary that have directly benefitted his former clients, while
harming our public lands and wildlife.
There are a number of troubling issues with Mr. Bernhardt's record on
the critical issues before the Department of the Interior, but there
are two that are of particular concern to me.
First, I am particularly concerned about Mr. Bernhardt's role in the
Solicitor's Opinion, M-37050, on the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, MBTA.
The Solicitor's Opinion, or M-Opinion, on the MBTA was released on
December 22, 2017, without any public or scientific input or
environmental analysis, abruptly removing longstanding protections for
migratory birds. These protections have been implemented in a
bipartisan manner from every administration since the early 1970s. It
is likely that millions of birds have been saved thanks to this law and
the leadership of the Department. The MBTA has significantly reduced
the number of birds killed from oil waste pits and other threats, and
it has provided accountability and recovery funds after oil spills such
as Deepwater Horizon. This change has been opposed by 17 former
Interior officials from every Republican and Democratic administration
since the early 1970s, as well as Flyway Councils representing nearly
every State wildlife agency in the country.
In letters exchanged between me and the Department of the Interior,
they have admitted that due to the M-Opinion on the MBTA, they will no
longer be able to secure fines or penalties for violations of the MBTA
from companies responsible for an oil spill that non-intentionally
kills migratory birds similar to the British Petroleum (BP) Deepwater
Horizon disaster of 2010, which killed an estimated 1,000,000 migratory
birds.
Furthermore, despite the MBTA's strong record in saving birds through
reasonable enforcement, one of Mr. Bernhardt's former clients, the
Independent Petroleum Association of America, IPAA, urged the
Department of the Interior to gut the MBTA and remove protections for
birds and any requirements to take actions to minimize impacts to birds
from their activities.
Just this week, we learned that there have been at least three oil
spills recently that appear to have killed migratory birds, in which
the Department of the Interior admitted in internal emails they can't
respond to due to the MBTA M-Opinion.
So in the case of the MBTA, we see a dramatic change in the
Department of the Interior's legal interpretation of a key wildlife law
that appears to have benefited a former client of Mr. Bernhardt.
The second issue of critical concern to me is offshore drilling. I
hail from a coastal State and a State that is firmly opposed to any oil
and gas drilling off of our coastline. Mr. Bernhardt has overseen the
Bureau of Ocean Energy Management's, BOEM, development of an oil and
gas leasing plan that dramatically expands risky offshore drilling and
that has prompted bipartisan criticism at all levels of government. The
Department of the Interior, under Mr. Bernhardt's leadership, has
simultaneously been working to weaken offshore drilling safety
standards put in place in response to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill
and at the recommendation of a bipartisan commission that investigated
the disaster.
I have serious questions about whether Mr. Bernhardt can do his job
without confronting conflicts of interest at every turn, and I fear
that he will put powerful special interests before the public interest.
For these reasons, I opposed David Bernhardt's nomination as
Secretary of the Interior.
____________________
