Acting Interior Secretary David Bernhardt’s daily schedules have some interesting entries. Photo: Tom Williams / CQ Roll Call
Acting Interior Secretary David Bernhardt’s daily schedules have some interesting entries. Photo: Tom Williams / CQ Roll Call

By Jacob Holzman
8 April 2019

(Roll Call) – Recently posted versions of acting Interior Secretary David Bernhardt’s daily schedules contain at least 260 differences from his original schedules, with the newest records showing meetings previously described as “external” or “internal” were actually with representatives of fossil fuel, timber, mining, and other industries, according to a review by CQ Roll Call.

Events left out of the original calendars but now disclosed or detailed further include a keynote address at the Trump International Hotel in Washington for the industry group Domestic Energy Producers Alliance, encounters with executives at Chevron Corp. and Royal Dutch Shell, and a meeting with the chairman of a conservative group Bernhardt previously represented in litigation that environmentalists believe was geared toward weakening the Endangered Species Act.

Lawmakers are interested in his calendars because of his previous career as an energy lobbyist, which required him to sign an ethics agreement when he joined the Interior Department in August 2017 that prohibits him from “personally and substantially” participating in “any particular matter” involving groups he used to represent.

Bernhardt’s original schedules only vaguely described with whom he met. Interior quietly posted the new documents on 2 April 2019, two days before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee approved his nomination to become the secretary in a non-acting capacity. The full Senate could vote on his nomination as soon as this week. […]

More than 100 of the previously undetailed interactions involved meetings on policy items, including the federally protected American burying beetle and sage grouse, implementation of public records law, litigation around national monuments and numerous specific environmental impact statements.

Versions of the daily card for 27 February, 2018, shows Bernhardt had a 10:30 a.m. meeting with Jean Sagouspe, chairman of the Center for Environmental Science, Accuracy and Reliability, or CESAR, which is supported by conservative and libertarian groups who oppose many federal environmental regulations.

Bernhardt was a director at CESAR, and represented the group in litigation against the Fish and Wildlife Service to enforce protections of the American eel. Environmentalists have said the case was a legal tactic to make the Endangered Species Act unworkable and force lawmakers to rewrite it. [more]

Newly disclosed meetings with industry create ethics questions for Interior secretary