| David Hayes | |
| Office: | 2nd and 5th United States Deputy Secretary of the Interior |
| President: | Barack Obama |
| Term Start: | May 22, 2009 |
| Term End: | June 30, 2013 |
| Predecessor: | Lynn Scarlett |
| Successor: | Michael L. Connor |
| Term Start2: | January 3, 1999 |
| Term End2: | January 20, 2001 |
| President2: | Bill Clinton |
| Predecessor2: | John Garamendi |
| Successor2: | J. Steven Griles |
| Birth Place: | Rochester, New York, U.S. |
| Party: | Democratic |
| Education: | University of Notre Dame (BA) Stanford University (JD) |
David J. Hayes (born 1953) is an American attorney and legal scholar who serves in the Biden Administration as Special Assistant to the President for Climate Policy. Hayes has led White House work on clean energy deployment issues (including offshore wind, onshore renewable energy, and transmission siting and permitting), climate resilience (including establishing new interagency structures, funding, data and mapping tools to address cross-cutting resilience issues) and greenhouse gas emission reduction and carbon sequestration initiatives. Hayes also has assisted in developing and implementing the climate-related provisions included in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the Inflation Reduction Act.
Hayes served as Deputy Secretary of the United States Department of the Interior during the Obama and Clinton administrations.
Hayes was born in Rochester, New York. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Notre Dame in 1975 and a Juris Doctor from Stanford Law School in 1978.
Hayes served as counselor to Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, and then as the Senate-confirmed Deputy Secretary of the Interior, during the Clinton Administration (1997–2001). Before and between his service in the Clinton and Obama administrations, Hayes practiced environmental and energy law as Global Chairman of the Environment, Land and Resources department at the firm of Latham & Watkins (1990–1997; 2001–2008). He was a Senior Fellow at the Hewlett Foundation from 2013 to 2014, and he previously served as a Senior Fellow of the World Wildlife Fund, and as a senior fellow at the Progressive Policy Institute (the think tank affiliated with the Democratic Leadership Council).
Prior to his appointment as Deputy Secretary, Hayes headed up energy and the environment agency review for President-elect Obama's Transition Team, with responsibility over the Departments of Agriculture, Interior, Energy and the EPA. He was a lead environmental and energy advisor to the Kerry campaign in 2004; acted as special emissary for Vice President Gore to advise the new president of Bolivia on sustainable development issues in 1993 and 1994; and served on the EPA Transition Team for President-elect Clinton in 1992.
During Hayes' first tenure as Deputy Secretary of the Interior, he focused on environmental priorities, including the acquisition and protection of threatened lands (e.g., the Headwaters old-growth redwood forest in Northern California); the restoration of threatened ecosystems (e.g. the Bay-Delta ecosystem restoration project in California); the introduction of modern water management approaches in the west (e.g. the Colorado River initiatives undertaken by the Clinton administration); the negotiation of habitat conservation plans under the Endangered Species Act; energy-related issues associated with federal lands and resources (e.g. oil and gas development, hydropower licensing, etc.); and the settlement of long-standing Indian water and land disputes.
From 2009 to July 2013, he was the Deputy Secretary and CEO of the United States Department of the Interior in the Obama administration. His nomination was confirmed by unanimous consent on May 20, 2009[1] [2] by the United States Senate and he took office on May 22, 2009.[3] Hayes’ confirmation was delayed, and subject to a cloture vote, based on then-Senator Bob Bennett’s objections to Secretary Salazar's cancellation of an oil and gas lease sale in Utah.[4] [5]