Enviros not happy with Bernhardt's nomination

“Bernhardt got this nomination as a reward for months of work cramming America’s natural heritage into a wood chipper,” Kieran Suckling, executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement. “He’s already done more damage to our environment than anyone else in Interior Department history. Confirming him as Interior secretary would be a boon to polluters and a colossal disaster for our public lands and endangered species.”

Center for Western Priorities' Executive Director Jennifer Rokala called Bernhardt's nomination "an affront to America's parks and public lands." "As an oil and gas lobbyist, Bernhardt pushed to open vast swaths of public lands for drilling and mining," she said in a statement. "As deputy secretary, he was behind some of the worst policy decisions of Secretary Zinke's sad tenure, including stripping protections for imperiled wildlife. Bernhardt even used the government shutdown to approve drilling permits for companies linked to his former clients."

“Trump has once again nominated a corrupt industry hack to lead a critical federal agency,” said Nicole Ghio, senior fossil fuels program manager for Friends of the Earth. “Instead of another puppet for corporate polluters, Americans want real leaders who will protect our public lands, natural resources and cultural heritage.”

“Bernhardt might as well be an ideological clone of Ryan Zinke,” said Ana Unruh Cohen of the Natural Resources Defense Council. She called Bernhardt “another industry shill who will continue to sell our precious natural resources to the highest bidders for exploitation.”

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 “David Bernhardt is the most dangerous man in America for endangered species and public lands,” said Noah Greenwald, the endangered species director at the Center for Biological Diversity, an advocacy group, adding that he “has been dismantling basic protections for lands that belong to all of us and the vulnerable species, like the sage grouse, that depend on them.”

 "The ethical questions surrounding David Bernhardt and his commitment to pandering to oil, coal, and gas executives make former Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke look like a tree-hugging environmentalist in comparison," Greenpeace USA climate campaigner Vicky Wyatt said in a statement.