A Fox Guarding the Henhouse at the Interior Department?
What Next | Daily News and Analysis
Slate Podcasts
4.3 • 2.4K Ratings
🗓️ 18 April 2019
⏱️ 20 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The new head of the Department of the Interior has close ties to industry and a penchant for relaxing environmental regulations. He’s also the subject of an ethics investigation. Interior Secretary David Bernhardt represents a new phase in the Trump administration: the shift from a cabinet of flashy, venal outsiders to savvy, ideological insiders.
Guest: Lance Williams, senior reporter for Reveal and the Center for Investigative Reporting.
Podcast production by Mary Wilson, Jayson De Leon, and Anna Martin.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Lance, are you there? |
| 0:06.0 | I'm here. Is this Mary? |
| 0:07.9 | It is. It's so nice to talk to you. |
| 0:10.4 | I called up Lance Williams at the Center for Investigative Reporting because I wanted to ask about the first time he'd heard this name, David Bernhardt. |
| 0:19.5 | Turns out it was a couple years ago. |
| 0:21.5 | It was a voicemail from a guy. I've known a long time around water issues in California, |
| 0:27.9 | and it really was, you've got to call me, you've got to look at these emails we have. |
| 0:33.1 | They're really interesting. They concern this guy is about to be the number two man at |
| 0:37.6 | Interior. David Bernhardt was a lobbyist for the oil and gas industry, for agribusiness, too. |
| 0:43.7 | He was about to become the second in command at the Department of the Interior. And a source was |
| 0:47.8 | giving Lance these emails exchanged by business executives, legislators, and Bernhardt. |
| 0:56.7 | And these emails, they were revealing. |
| 1:00.1 | He had told the Senate he had ceased lobbying, |
| 1:04.3 | but the emails showed that he was continuing to work for these guys for months after the date where he said he had stopped, |
| 1:08.2 | writing parts of a California water bill that the House passed back in 16. |
| 1:15.0 | It was just a great glimpse into how environmental policies and water development policies get made in Washington. |
| 1:24.1 | And how they sort of flow from industry to government and back again. |
| 1:29.3 | Yeah. |
| 1:30.3 | Lance likes this story because it shows how lobbyists do their work, especially really good lobbyists, |
| 1:38.3 | like David Bernhardt. Great lobbyists are students of bureaucracy. |
| 1:43.3 | And Bernhardt, he was almost monkish in his devotion. |
| 1:47.1 | He might be a better lawmaker than the lawmakers. |
... |
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