Even with Zinke gone, a drill-everywhere regime remains at Interior

With the announcement of Secretary Ryan Zinke departing the Department of the Interior, The Wilderness Society expects a drill-everywhere agenda to continue with the agency's next in line, David Bernhardt.

The following statement is from Wilderness Society president, Jamie Williams: 

"Deputy Secretary Bernhardt has made it his mission to stifle climate science and silence the public so polluters can profit. Unfortunately, even with Secretary Zinke out, the Interior Department remains disturbingly biased in favor of special interests over the health of American communities and the public lands that they love.”

Since becoming Deputy Secretary of the Interior, David Bernhardt has been the on-the-ground implementer of the Trump Administration’s ‘energy dominance’ regime. Under Bernhardt’s tenure, policies for subverting science, the public’s voice and lands policy include:  

• Leading efforts across the Department of the Interior to sweep aside environmental protections and severely limit public participation and feedback—deeming them “burdens” on fossil fuel developments. 
• Revising historic conservation plans for the greater sage-grouse despite requests from western governors and stakeholders across the country to avoid major changes, and in spite of a finding by the Fish and Wildlife Service that these plans were the basis for finding the grouse no longer warranted listing under the Endangered Species Act. 
• Vowing to move ‘pretty quickly’ to lease and develop oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge by requiring environmental review be completed in a year, an arbitrary timeframe generally accepted as unreasonable, and, under President Bush, misleading Congress about oil drilling impacts in the Refuge. 
• Imposing arbitrary time and page limits on environmental impact statements, which provide the American public the ability to have a say in how lands, waters and wildlife are managed; they are now subject to waivers that only he can grant. 
• Striking climate change from the Departmental Manual and three other internal policies, after famously testifying at his confirmation hearing that the President’s policy goals for fossil energy trump climate science.  

Track the cumulative array of damaging policies to public lands during the Trump Administration here.   

Blog: If Zinke is out, his potential replacement may be just as bad (or worse)

Contacts:  

Drew McConville, Senior Managing Director, Government Relations, DC: drew_mcconville@tws.org;  202-556-0490 

Kate Mackay, Senior Director - Communications Strategy: kate_mackay@tws.org; 602-571-2603

The Wilderness Society is the leading conservation organization working to protect wilderness and inspire Americans to care for our wild places. Founded in 1935, and now with more than one million members and supporters, The Wilderness Society has led the effort to permanently protect 109 million acres of wilderness and to ensure sound management of our shared national lands. www.wilderness.org.