Interior Secy Met Secretly W. Arizona Developer Before Overturning Rules On Massive RE Deal

[hatrack]

Interior Secretary David Bernhardt was directly involved in a federal decision to overturn another official’s insistence on a thorough analysis of a 28,000-home Benson project’s impact on the imperiled San Pedro River, a court document shows. In August 2017, when Bernhardt was deputy interior secretary, he met secretly with a top official of El Dorado Holdings, the developer of the planned Villages at Vigneto, says the Justice Department document.

The meeting was part of what the Justice Department called an “extended legal conversation” among federal policymakers. The meeting led to a decision to scrap a previously imposed requirement for analysis of the entire development’s environmental effects, the court document shows. The document is the first public admission by the federal government that Bernhardt was involved in actions to reverse a previous ruling by Fish and Wildlife Service official Steve Spangle requiring that analysis.

Spangle, a former Arizona field supervisor for the service, has said that in fall 2017 — under political pressure from higher-ups — he reversed a 2016 ruling he had made ordering the analysis. Interior officials have denied political pressure was involved. Spangle’s reversal led directly to a 2019 decision by the Army Corps of Engineers to reinstate a 13-year-old Clean Water Act permit for the development that had been suspended since 2016. The permit reinstatement has since been challenged in a lawsuit filed by environmental groups that is still pending.

Last year, after Spangle made his allegations, first to the Arizona Daily Star and then to other media outlets, Interior officials would not respond to questions about Bernhardt’s involvement. Spangle has long suspected that Bernhardt was the “high-ranking political” appointee who told an Interior Department attorney to tell him that “your position (on Vigneto) is not the administration’s position,” in Spangle’s words.

EDIT

https://tucson.com/news/local/interior-secretary-was-involved-in-vigneto-whistleblower-case-document-shows/article_2a8ed766-5cb4-5f85-9e86-9fdac36c6768.html?utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=user-share

[enough]

1. Imagine how many times this kind of story has played out in the past 4 years. NT