David Bernhardt
Director of Congressional and Legislative Affairs, Department of the Interior

Then: As an attorney with Brownstein, Hyatt, and Farber, Bernhardt lobbied Congress and federal administrative agencies on behalf of Delta Petroleum Corp., Timet-Titanium Metals Corp., NL Industries (international chemical company), and the Shaw Group (maker of piping for oil companies and power plants). Bernhardt also worked for 6 years on the staff of Rep. Scott McInnis (R-CO), serving as point person for the federal water rights settlement with Colorado's Ute Indian tribe. Critics of the settlement claim that its true purpose was not to appease native groups, but to benefit developers.

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Now: Bernhardt has been one of the administration's point people in the push to promote oil drilling from the Arctic to Wyoming; in 2001, he helped prepare congressional testimony on Arctic drilling for Interior Secretary Gale Norton that dismissed warnings from the government's own scientists and relied on reports funded by BP. The Fish and Wildlife Service, the agency that runs the wildlife refuge, had reported that drilling could have a negative impact on the region's caribou herds. According to published reports, Bernhardt rewrote the FWS findings, and Norton, in answering questions before a Senate panel, misrepresented the research, relying instead on a report funded by BP Exploration.

© 2003 The Foundation for National Progress

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