Acting Interior Secretary David Bernhardt, who faces a Senate confirmation hearing Thursday after President Donald Trump nominated him to head Interior permanently, acted to block a report that found that two pesticides "jeopardize the continued existence" of more than 1,200 endangered species, according to documents obtained by The New York Times and the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD).

In 2017, Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) scientists completed a report on the threat posed by three pesticides to endangered species. But before they could make it public that November, they were stopped by top political appointees including then-Deputy Secretary Bernhardt, who instead initiated a new process using a narrower standard for assessing risk, The New York Times reported. The Times' investigative report is based on more than 84,000 pages of Interior Department and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) documents obtained via a Freedom of Information Act requests by the Times and CBD.

One of the pesticides covered in the FWS study was the controversial chlorpyrifos, which Trump's EPA has separately fought attempts to ban after its own scientists warned of its dangers to children.

"It's outrageous that Trump, Bernhardt and the industry hacks inhabiting this administration are speeding the extinction of nearly 1,400 endangered species by refusing to take any action on chlorpyrifos," CBD environmental health director Lori Ann Burd said in a statement. "If political appointees weren't stopping the government's own scientists from doing their jobs, this brain-damaging, wildlife-killing horror of a pesticide would already be banned."

The original study was part of a re-registration of the three pesticides, a process that takes place every 15 years. It found that chlorpyrifos put 1,399 species at risk while the pesticide malathion put 1,284 at risk and diazinon put 175 at risk. One species put at risk by pesticides was the San Joaquin kit fox, a five pound animal that had once been widely present in the California valley until pesticides like diazinon poisoned the grasses and birds it fed on. The FWS also found that the Cape Sable seaside sparrow in Florida was put in danger by the spraying of chlorpyrifos.

"For many vulnerable species, a single exposure could be catastrophic," the original report said.