This week the Senate finally confirmed the new Director of the Bureau of Land Management, former New Mexico Congressman Steve Pearce. The firestorm surrounding his nomination a few weeks earlier has not yet cooled and probably won’t. The volume is louder than the situation justifies, though, and the vast western sky above BLM land is not falling.
I met Steve Pearce several times when he was a congressman and always found him to be well informed, reasonable, and friendly – nothing like the demon portrayed by political opponents. He has deep roots in southeast New Mexico, where he grew up surrounded by BLM land, so he knows the agency well. He was a combat pilot in Vietnam, built an oilfield services business, and served 18 years in the state legislature and Congress as an outspoken advocate for rural perspectives. Some of the BLM staff will not agree with his views on every issue, but he is no novice on public lands.
The criticism is unnecessarily vitriolic, as we are sadly becoming accustomed to. Several environmental industry groups have already criticized Pearce’s confirmation, one calling it “part of a combined assault by Congress and the Trump administration on America’s public lands.” A common accusation is that the administration is “hollowing out BLM’s senior leadership” because 8 of the 12 state office directors are “acting” and not permanently appointed. There is nothing unusual about that – six of those states had “acting” directors during the Biden Administration, too. All 12 posts are temporarily filled by qualified career BLM leaders, so there is no management crisis.
Opponents are equally shrill about BLM rescinding the Biden-era “Conservation and Landscape Health Rule,” which federal courts had blocked as blatantly illegal. Under that scheme, the previous Administration tried to lease federal lands to environmental groups to be used for no purpose at all. Except to block previous uses of the land that were authorized and directed by Congress.
BLM’s primary governing statute, the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 (FLPMA) requires most BLM land that has not otherwise been restricted by Congress to be available for potential leasing, for very specific purposes. Those include grazing, mining, timber, production of oil, gas, coal or other minerals, pipelines, transmission lines, ditches, canals and water systems, roads, trails, and other specified public interests. FLPMA contains the word “lease” 49 times, not one of which contemplate leasing public land for no use. Yet the prior administration cancelled existing grazing leases, and then issued them to groups that merely allowed wildlife to roam and tried to claim they were grazing. Numerous lawsuits demanded that BLM administer the land according to the law, and courts paused the cases knowing the new Administration would withdraw the rule.
The Trump Administration has now formally withdrawn the illegal rule, returning BLM management to the same process used for the previous 45 years. The environmental industry is crying foul, as if something unheard of is being done. The same activist mouthpiece now trashing Steve Pearce (who had nothing to do with this decision) calls the new leasing rule (i.e. the reinstated old rule) a giveaway of public resources.
“Together, these changes will further erode the public’s ability to have a say in how their public lands are managed,” the environmental lobbyist said, “and make it easier for Pearce and his allies to lease out and sell off public lands.” The accusation is beyond incorrect – it is irrational. The law has not changed. The requirement for public involvement in land management decisions has not changed. Nor does anything in the leasing rules allow for “selling off” any public lands.
It is true that Pearce has often said the government owns too much land in the West, and has supported various proposals to sell some of it to local governments, which he believes in many cases could do a better job. Reasonable people may debate that, but it is not a unique idea, in the sense that millions of westerns share that opinion. But in any case, only Congress could make a decision like that, not the BLM Director, who works for the Interior Secretary, the President, and the American people, not just the people in one corner of New Mexico. Pearce understands that well, as he assured senators during his confirmation hearings.
Steve Pearce is an honorable guy, and will conscientiously do the best job he can in a very contentious climate. Nothing horrible is about to happen, and the best way westerners can help
is to turn down the volume and work together to ensure responsible management that benefits everyone.
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