David J. Hayes is the Executive Director of the State Energy and Environmental Impact Center at the NYU School of Law. He also is a Distinguished Visiting Lecturer at the Stanford Law School, where he has been teaching courses focused on renewable and conventional energy, wildlife trafficking, NEPA reform, natural resources, and climate change.
Hayes is a Research Scholar at Stanford’s Precourt Institute for Energy and Woods Institute for the Environment. He serves as on the Advisory Council for Stanford’s Lane Center for the American West and is a member of Pacific Gas & Electric Company’s Sustainability Advisory Council.
Hayes served both Presidents Obama and Clinton as the Deputy Secretary of the Department of the Interior from 2009 to 2013 and from 1999 to 2001, respectively. As Deputy Secretary, Hayes was the Chief Operating Officer and second in command to the Secretary with authority over Interior’s 70,000 employees and $14 billion dollar budget. During his tenure as Deputy Secretary, Hayes led the Department’s climate change-related activities, including renewable energy project siting and permitting reforms; Interior’s response to the 2010 Gulf oil spill; reforms in deepwater drilling, fracking and other conventional energy matters; negotiations in major water conflicts in California and the west; and the $3.4 billion Cobell Indian trust fund settlement.
From 1990-97 and 2001-09, Hayes was a partner at Latham & Watkins, where he was Global Chair of the Environment, Land & Resources Department. From 1997-99, he served as Counselor to Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt. Hayes graduated summa cum laude from the University of Notre Dame; he received his J.D. from Stanford Law School.
