David L. Bernhardt

Growing up in Rifle, Colorado, David Bernhardt was active in Colorado politics at the age of sixteen, when he made his case to the Rifle City Council to not levy taxes on arcade games at a teen center he was starting in his hometown. He earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Northern Colorado in 1990. While at the University of Northern Colorado, he applied and received an internship at the U.S. Supreme Court. He graduated with honors from the George Washington University National Law Center in 1994. He was admitted to the Colorado bar later that year.

DOI Solicitor

He started his career as a lawyer in Colorado. Early on he worked for U.S. Representative Scott McInnis, a Grand Junction Republican. He worked for McInnis in the 1990s, and then in 1998 he became an associate with Brownstein Hyatt and Farber, a Denver law and lobbying firm. He began working for the United States Department of the Interior (DOI) in 2001. Early in his career with the DOI, he was deputy chief of staff and counselor to then-Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton. He also served early on at the DOI as director of congressional and legislative affairs. Then he was solicitor at the DOI, after unanimous confirmation from the United States Senate. He was also the United States Commissioner to the International Boundary Commission, U.S. and Canada.

He served as United States Department of the Interior Solicitor from 2006 to 2009. President George W. Bush selected him in November 2005 to serve in the role, subject to Senate confirmation. At the time, he was deputy solicitor at the DOI. The Senate unanimously confirmed him to the new position, and he was sworn into office in November 2006.

Legal work and lobbying

Serving as DOI Solicitor until 2009, that year he rejoined the Colorado-based law firm Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck. Becoming a shareholder in the firm, Berhardt also became chairman of the natural resources law practice at Brownstein Hyatt Farber and Schreck.

Through Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, Bernhardt represented San Joaquin Valley’s Westlands Water District in “a lawsuit that sought to undo court-imposed protections for endangered salmon in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.” Berhardt has also represented entities such as the proposed Rosemont Copper open pit mine in Arizona. Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck was involved in representing other mining, oil, and extractive industries, as well as projects such as the Cadiz, Inc. water project in the Mojave Desert around Cadiz, California. Cadiz later refuted that Bernhardt had lobbied directly for Cadiz, although "some environmentalists" said they suspected Bernhardt's involvement when the DOI changed its views to be positive towards the project in March 2017.

In 2011, Bernhardt filed a lawsuit for Westlands that “sought to force the feds to make good on a commitment to build a multibillion-dollar system to dispose of the poisoned water” resulting from toxic irrigation in the Westlands district. Later, through the 2017 bill HR 1769, Westlands agreed to drop the lawsuit in exchange for forgiven debt and long-term access to water from Central Valley Project facilities. In April 2017, the House Natural Resources Committee approved the settlement, but rejected an amendment that would have “barred former Westlands officials or lobbyists — meaning Bernhardt — from working on the drainage issue for five years.”

DOI transition team

Until the end of 2016, he remained an attorney and lobbyist for the San Joaquin Valley’s Westlands Water District. In November 2016, Bernhardt delisted himself as a lobbyist, to avoid “running afoul of the new president’s ban on lobbyists joining his administration.” While remaining a lawyer at Brownstein Hyatt Farber and Schreck, after November 2016 Bernhardt was briefly in charge of the Interior Department transition team for President Donald Trump. In that role, he was in charge of overseeing staffing in the DOI along with Devin Nunes. In recent years, he served on the Board of Game and Inland Fisheries for the Commonwealth of Virginiabut resigned before January, 2017. By April 2017, he was on a $20,000-a-month retainer for Westlands.

Until resigning by early 2017, he was on the board of Center for Environmental Science Accuracy and Reliability.

Deputy Secretary of the Interior

On April 28, 2017, Trump nominated Bernhardt to be the United States Deputy Secretary of the Interior of the Trump administration. If confirmed by the US Senate, the role would make Bernhardt the "top deputy to Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke and COO of the federal lands and energy agency." The appointment was praised by Zinke, as well as US Representative David Valadao of California, Representative Scott Tipton of Colorado, and Senator Cory Gardner of Colorado. Former Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne also supported Bernhardt with his comments.

However, other groups criticized Bernhardt as a “high-powered lobbyist” with conflict-of-interest concerns, due to his firm’s work on regulation issues with the DOI and his history of representing oil companies and agricultural interests. The appointment met with strong criticism from conservationists and fishing interests in California, where Bernhardt had long worked as a lobbyist and attorney. Also criticizing the choice, the Western Values Project sued the Interior Department to obtain documents about Bernhardt’s tenure for the department under George Bush. The head of the Center for Biological Diversity expressed that Bernhardt had “always sided with big business at the expense of our most imperiled wildlife. If confirmed he’d be a disaster for all endangered species.” In the middle of May 2017 before his confirmation hearing, the Outdoor Recreation Industry Roundtable sent letters to Senators Maria Cantwell and Lisa Murkowski expressing support for Bernhardt. Letters of support were also received from Ducks Unlimited and the Boone and Crocket Club.

He had his Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee confirmation hearing on May 18, 2017. During his questioning, he stated that “we will apply the law and be honest with the science” in reference to the Interior department. During the hearing, he said the president's views, rather than the recommendations of scientists, would guide the Interior Department's policies whenever possible. Ethics issues were raised by Senators such as Maria Cantwell, with Bernhardt replying he took ethics very seriously. He said that unless he received authorization to do so, he would not involve himself substantially in any matter involving his former clients.

He lives in Arlington, Virginia with his wife Gena and two children. Bernhardt is a hunter and fisher.