David Bernhardt joined the US Department of the Interior at the most logical moment. By that point, he had already spent twenty years revolving around the department, sometimes as a lawyer, sometimes as a lobbyist, and sometimes as a person who knew how to quietly but effectively move the complex mechanisms of Washington.
For some, he became a symbol of consistency and competence. For others, he was an example of how business and politics in America are more intertwined than the vines on the trees in Yellowstone, one of the parks for which he was responsible.
From Rifle to Washington
Bernhardt was born in 1969 in the tiny town of Rifle, Colorado, a name that seemed to foreshadow his love of hunting and guns. His father was an agricultural agent, his mother was in real estate. He realized early on that he wanted to go into politics, and at the age of 16, he attended a city council meeting to convince officials not to tax slot machines at the youth center.
After school, he didn’t wait around. After receiving his GED instead of a diploma, he enrolled at the University of Northern Colorado, where he later secured an internship at the U.S. Supreme Court. There, he saw for the first time how the big machine of American bureaucracy works and seems to have been captivated by it forever. In 1994, Bernhardt graduated from George Washington University Law School and immediately received his law license in Colorado.
The Bush era
He arrived in Washington in the late 1990s, when the Republican Party regained power. In the George W. Bush administration, Bernhardt quickly rose through the ranks at the Department of the Interior (DOI), the agency responsible for federal lands, national parks, and natural resources.
He was both an advisor to the secretary and a congressional liaison, and in 2006 he became the chief lawyer, Solicitor of the Interior Department. In this position, he was responsible for the legal side of decisions involving billions of dollars, oil, water, and, of course, politics.
Bernhardt was a man who knew how to write laws so that they would work. Or, as his opponents later quipped, so that they would work for the right people.
After Bush
When the administration changed, Bernhardt returned to Colorado and became a partner at the law firm Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck. There, he headed the natural resources practice and advised clients such as Westlands Water District, Halliburton, and the Independent Petroleum Association of America.
His portfolio looked like a textbook on the American economy: energy, agriculture, mineral extraction. And everywhere, interests closely intertwined with politics.
Critics accused Bernhardt of lobbying on behalf of corporations that wanted to relax environmental regulations. He responded that he was defending the “rational use of natural resources.”
In any case, his influence only grew. And when Donald Trump promised in 2016 to “bring industry back to the center of the American economy,” it became clear that Bernhardt would soon be back in Washington.
The perfect bureaucrat for the Trump era
In 2017, Bernhardt was appointed Deputy Secretary of the Interior, second in command to Secretary Ryan Zinke. Formally, he was responsible for managing federal lands, but in practice, he focused on regulatory reform and expediting business permits.
Under his leadership, the Department of the Interior significantly accelerated the sale of oil and gas licenses on federal lands. In two years, the area of new plots grew by almost a third.
Bernhardt said he was simply making the system “more efficient.” Environmentalists, however, saw this as a threat to nature and further proof that former lobbyists are now writing the rules for their clients.
When Zinke resigned in early 2019, Bernhardt became acting secretary and was then officially confirmed by the Senate. President Trump introduced him as “the man who knows the system best.” And that was probably true.
The era of decisions
As Secretary of the Interior, Bernhardt acted as a technocrat. His style was quiet but effective. Among his key moves were:
- Moving the headquarters of the Bureau of Land Management from Washington to Grand Junction, Colorado, to “bring power closer to the land”;
- Launching a drilling program in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, one of the administration’s most controversial environmental decisions;
- Supporting the Great American Outdoors Act, which provided historic funding for national parks.
And while the first two points drew a storm of criticism, the third received rare bipartisan approval. Even his opponents acknowledged that Bernhardt was skilled at navigating between the interests of industry and the public sector.
After Washington
After his term ended, Bernhardt returned to his familiar office at Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck as a senior advisor. He became chairman of the America First Policy Institute’s Center for American Freedom, where he continued to promote the ideas of deregulation and reducing the role of the state in the economy.
In 2023, he published the book You Report to Me: Accountability for the Failing Administrative State, in which he described American bureaucracy as a monster that can only be defeated through discipline and accountability. His message is simple: officials must serve the citizens.
Man who knew how to wait
David Bernhardt is the type of politician who works more quietly than most, and that is why he has remained in the spotlight for so long. In every generation, Washington produces figures who know where the real lines of power lie.
He is an architect of rules. And, as his career and ability to survive three administrations show, such people in the American system of government live longer than any slogans.