David Bernhardt's new firm is making big bucks lobbying for major energy corporations, agricultural giants and more

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Contact: Libby London (612) 227-8407

September 18, 2025

Last week, Jimmy Tobias, reporter and co-founder of the Substack Public Domain and contributing writer to The Guardian, published a powerful piece exposing the corruption and conflicts of interest driving efforts to open the Boundary Waters watershed to copper mining. The exposé highlights former Interior Secretary David Bernhardt, whose newly formed lobbying firm receives substantial payments from Twin Metals Minnesota (owned by Chilean conglomerate Antofagasta). His firm openly touts its “deep and meaningful relationships with the current administration and key congressional leaders,” – relationships that likely arose while Bernhardt was serving as the U.S. Secretary of Interior during the first Trump administration, raising serious questions about whether those ties are being exploited for private profit at the expense of the public good.

At the same time, anti-Boundary Waters Members of Congress have gone to extraordinary lengths to help Antofagasta/Twin Metals. Congressman Stauber has inserted provisions into federal legislation that would have granted the company mineral leases in perpetuity (contrary to regulations that authorize federal mineral leases for 10 years) and barred Americans from challenging Antofagasta/Twin Metals leases in court.

And in July, Trump’s Deputy Interior Secretary – who served as Deputy Secretary to Secretary Bernhardt during the first Trump administration – issued a legal memo that sets the stage to reissue federal mineral leases to Antofagasta/Twin Metals for a mine in the Boundary Waters watershed, leases that have been found to violate federal law.

Altogether, these actions reveal a deeply troubling pattern: a former official cashing in on his government ties, lawmakers working to benefit a foreign mining giant, and an administration willing to ignore federal law —while silencing the voices of the American public who overwhelmingly oppose sulfide-ore copper mining in the Boundary Waters watershed.

Revolving-door politics have long plagued the fight over the Boundary Waters. In the early days of the first Trump administration, the patriarch of the family that owns Antofagasta, Andrónico Luksic, bought a mansion in Washington, DC, that he immediately rented to Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump. Soon thereafter, the first Trump administration began removing protections for the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness and clearing the way for Twin Metals’ risky mine project. Bernhardt’s Department of the Interior unlawfully reinstated terminated mineral leases for the benefit of Twin Metals and fast-tracked their risky project. The Trump administration also cancelled an ongoing comprehensive study on the impact of copper mining on the Wilderness and subsequently hid the data from Congress and the public. Bernhardt was involved in most of those actions.

“As President Trump’s “Big, Beautiful” budget bill moved through Congress earlier this year, conservationists were aghast to learn that the House version of the bill included a massive handout to a foreign mining firm called Antofagasta Plc. The Chilean-owned company wants to build a controversial copper and nickel mine at the edge of Minnesota's Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, an iconic redoubt of pristine lakes and expansive forest. Conservationists have vociferously opposed the project, fearing mine contamination of the wilderness area. The Biden administration took steps to block the project. Congressional Republicans, however, slipped into the budget bill a provision that would have effectively given the company mining leases in perpetuity, while barring American citizens from suing to stop the project.

Though the provision was ultimately stripped out of the bill, it was curious to see Congressional Republicans bend over backwards to help a foreign-owned mining giant in such a targeted manner. And President Trump’s Interior Department is also catering to Antofagasta — recently re-issuing a legal opinion that will revive the beleaguered mine project.

Antofagasta and its subsidiary, Twin Metals Minnesota, know how to play the game. They have high-powered representation in Washington D.C.”

"Twin Metals, via the powerhouse law firm Brownstein Farber Hyatt Schreck (BHFS), recently retained The Bernhardt Group as one of its lobbying firms in Washington. Founded by David Bernhardt, who served as interior secretary during President Trump’s first term, The Bernhardt Group opened its doors earlier this year and has not been shy about touting its ‘deep and meaningful relationships with the current administration and key congressional leaders.’ Twin Metals, through BHFS, paid The Bernhardt Group some $40,000 to lobby Congress, the White House and the Interior Department on its behalf between April and late June, according to Senate lobbying disclosure records…”

“Now these former public officials are using their firm’s “unmatched influence” to generate lucrative contracts from a wide range of corporate clients…”

“These clients include Twin Metals, the gold-mining giant Barrick Gold and a rare earth mining company called USA Rare Earth. The Bernhardt Group has also registered to lobby for Chevron, among other industry players…”

…Indeed, during Bennhardt's tenure at DOI, the agency delivered policies favorable to such industries, including policies meant to boost the proposed Twin Metals mine in Minnesota. Now the work continues from the outside. Bernhardt and his coterie of aides and allies, having passed through the capacious revolving door at Donald Trump’s DOI, are now raking in cash.”

Read the full piece here.

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