Look West: Public lands and energy news from the Center for Western Priorities


** Bernhardt corruption case sent to DOJ
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Thursday, May 12, 2022
Former Interior Secretary David Bernhardt, US Bureau of Reclamation ([link removed])

The House Natural Resources Committee asked the justice department to investigate ([link removed]) a “likely quid pro quo” arrangement involving then-Deputy Interior Secretary David Bernhardt and an Arizona real estate developer. The criminal referral is a first for the committee, which uncovered $241,000 in coordinated donations ([link removed]) from associates of developer Mike Ingram to the Trump Victory Fund and Republican National Committee.

The donations came in as the Interior Department reversed its long-standing position that Ingram's proposed Villages at Vigneto mega-development would require a full-scale analysis of its impacts on the San Pedro River and protected species. The author of that decision, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service supervisor Steve Spangle, later turned whistleblower and revealed that he had been “rolled” by Interior officials.

“The findings of this investigation show us yet again that the previous administration cast career staff expertise aside while they handed out federal agency decisions to Trump’s buddies and big donors on a pay-to-play basis,” Natural Resources Committee Chairman Raúl Grijalva said ([link removed]) in a statement.

Jennifer Rokala, executive director of the Center for Western Priorities, added that CWP “said all along that David Bernhardt was too compromised and too corrupt to be a cabinet secretary.”


** Lease sales cancelled in Alaska, Gulf of Mexico
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The Interior Department announced it would not move forward with planned oil and gas lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska's Cook Inlet this year. The Alaska sale was called off due to insufficient interest from the oil and gas industry ([link removed]) , while offshore sales for the rest of the year were pulled due to contradictory court rulings. The previous offshore sale was thrown out by a judge because the Interior Department failed to consider ([link removed]) how the leases could impact global climate change.
Quick hits


** “Heartbreaking and undeniable” — initial report finds burial sites at 53 Native American boarding schools
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Reuters ([link removed]) | Axios ([link removed]) | NPR ([link removed]) | CPR News ([link removed]) | OPB News ([link removed]) | ABC News ([link removed]) | PBS NewsHour ([link removed]) | Native News Online
([link removed])


** Democrats push to overhaul 150-year-old mining law
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Washington Post ([link removed]) | States Newsroom ([link removed])


** The desert's fragile crust can't take much more heat
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Wired ([link removed]) | The Land Desk ([link removed])


** House committee seeks criminal charges in Bernhardt quid pro quo case
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Politico ([link removed]) | Arizona Daily Star ([link removed]) | Yahoo! News ([link removed]) | E&E News ([link removed])


** Interior calls off oil and gas lease sales in Alaska, Gulf of Mexico
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The Hill ([link removed]) | Washington Post ([link removed]) | CBS News ([link removed]) | Axios ([link removed])


** Oil companies posted huge profits. The cash definitely won’t go to addressing climate change
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TIME ([link removed])


** Colorado snowpack melting at a ‘ridiculous’ rate
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Denver Post ([link removed])


** Why a growing number of Asian Americans are staking their claim to the great outdoors
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NBC News ([link removed])
Quote of the day
” This is not new…to many of us as Indigenous people. We have lived with the intergenerational trauma of federal Indian Boarding School policies for many years. We must shed light on the unspoken traumas of the past. Today is a critical step forward in that work.”
—Interior Secretary Deb Haaland ([link removed])
Picture this


** @McAfee ([link removed])
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Meanwhile at America’s largest reservoir… #water ([link removed]) #watercrisis ([link removed]) #cclb ([link removed]) #snedca ([link removed])

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