[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 63 (Thursday, April 11, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Page S2409]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                     Nomination of David Bernhardt

  Mr. President, I am here today to join many of my colleagues in 
discussing the nomination of David Bernhardt to be Secretary of the 
Department of the Interior.
  I have serious concerns about many of the actions that Mr. Bernhardt 
has taken while serving as both Deputy Secretary of the Department, 
since 2017, and as Acting Secretary, since the resignation of Secretary 
Zinke in January. Some of the most concerning actions include defending 
the administration's budget request, which zeroed out funding for the 
newly reauthorized Land and Water Conservation Fund; rolling back 
protections for public lands, including proposals to reduce the size of 
some of our national monuments; limiting opportunities for public input 
into Agency rulemakings; and weakening enforcement of the Migratory 
Bird Treaty Act.
  These actions have threatened the responsible and sustainable 
management of our public lands, imperiled laws designed to protect and 
conserve wildlife, and stacked the deck in favor of fossil fuel 
industries.
  One particular area that I would like to focus on today is how Mr. 
Bernhardt has played a role in the Department of the Interior's 
decisions to rescind Obama-era climate and conservation policies that 
directed Agency employees to minimize the environmental impact of 
activities on Federal land. In a secretarial order published just 
before Christmas in 2017, which was signed by Mr. Bernhardt, the 
Department limited how its employees at sub-Agencies, like the Bureau 
of Land Management, can factor climate and environmental effects into 
their decision making. What does this mean, exactly? Well, it means 
that manuals, handbooks, and other lists of best practices that were 
compiled by Agency employees over the years--career Agency employees--
that were meant to minimize activities that would harm species or 
accelerate climate change were thrown out or their instructions were 
rendered obsolete.
  Mr. Bernhardt has not only downplayed climate science and prevented 
efforts to mitigate it within the Department of the Interior, but he 
has also advanced policy and rulemakings that will accelerate its 
effect. We all know what we are up against here with climate change. We 
have seen the weather events throughout the country--the heating of our 
ocean waters; the increase in hurricanes; the predictions of how many 
metropolitan areas are going to be experiencing significant flooding in 
just the next few decades; the wildfires that we have seen in Arizona, 
Colorado, and California; and the video of the dad in Northern 
California driving his daughter through lapping wildfires, leaving 
their house burning behind them as they drove and he sang to her to 
calm her down. Those are the big effects and the little effects, but 
Americans know this is happening.
  So the question is not, Is it happening? We know it is because every 
one of these things was predicted by our scientists and was predicted 
by our military. The question is, What do we do about it? That is why I 
am so opposed to the administration's decision to get out of the 
international climate change agreement, and I am opposed to its 
decision to get us out of the Clean Power rules that we had just 
started to put forward and to implement, and why I am opposed to the 
decision it made to reverse the gas mileage standards.
  Unfortunately, Mr. Bernhardt has not only downplayed climate change, 
but he has also helped, as I said, to advance policy that accelerates 
it. For example, in September 2018, the Bureau of Land Management 
announced a draft rule that would relax the Obama-era methane rules 
that regulated flared, leaked, and vented natural gas from oil and gas 
operations on Federal and Tribal lands. Methane is an extremely potent 
greenhouse gas that according to the United Nations Intergovernmental 
Panel on Climate Change has an impact that is 34 times greater over a 
100-year period than carbon dioxide. It is also important to remember 
that these proposed rescissions to methane rules are in direct 
opposition and run counter to the Senate's vote in 2017 to reject an 
effort at full repeal under the Congressional Review Act. Instead of 
going backward, we should be taking real action to combat climate 
change. We need a comprehensive approach to greenhouse gas emissions, 
and we need energy efficient technologies and homegrown energy 
resources. I also believe, as I noted, that we should reinstate the 
Clean Power rules and the gas mileage standards.
  Under Mr. Bernhardt's leadership, the Department of the Interior has 
been taking us in the wrong direction on climate, conservation, and 
public lands. I will oppose his nomination.