Acting Deputy Director
Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Department of the Interior
Biographical Sketch: Neil Kornze is the Acting Deputy Director of the Bureau of Land Management in Washington, D.C., where he helps develop policy on a broad range of public land issues including conservation and renewable energy development. From 2003 until early 2011, he worked as a policy adviser to U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on natural resource issues including renewable energy, public lands, mining, water, rural development, and wildlife. Mr. Kornze played a central role in the development and passage of the Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009 which designated two million acres of wilderness, over 1,000 miles of wild and scenic rivers and three national park units. Raised in Elko, Nevada, he is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Whitman College (Walla Walla, WA) with a degree in Politics. He went on to earn a master’s degree in international relations at the London School of Economics. Mr. Kornze has worked in East Africa, served as an international election observer in Macedonia, Ukraine, and Georgia and was a contributor to The Oxford Companion to American Law.