The U.S. Senate tonight, on a party-line vote, confirmed controversial former New Mexico congressman Stephan Pearce to the top post at the federal Bureau of Land Management.
Pearce’s nomination to BLM director was among 49 executive and judicial branch nominees that the Senate confirmed in a single vote Monday evening. They include U.S. attorneys, U.S. marshals, nominees to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, among others.
The vote, with 46 Republicans in favor and 43 opposed, installs Pearce as the head of the nation’s largest land-management agency. (Eleven senators, including seven Republicans and four Democrats, did not vote.) The BLM manages 245 million acres of surface land and more than 700 million acres of subsurface minerals in the U.S. and its territorial waters.
Pearce has been criticized by conservation groups for his stance, both as a Republican congressman from New Mexico and as leader of the New Mexico Republican Party, in favor of selling off the very public lands he will now oversee. In his congressional testimony before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Pearce refused to distance himself from comments suggesting the U.S. “did not need” as much federal land as he would oversee as BLM director.
Pearce told the committee that as BLM director he would not pursue broad-scale sales of federal lands, but noted that he “was not so sure” his views on the matter had changed in the years since he made those pro-sale comments. He explained that his characterization of the BLM as “an absentee landlord” were made to New Mexico constituents clamoring for more local control of federal lands.
Last week the Department of the Interior formally rescinded the BLM’s “Public Lands Rule,” a Biden-era revision of the multiple-use compact to include conservation in the pantheon of approved uses of BLM lands. The rule had elevated conservation of public lands to the same level as livestock grazing, hunting and angling, and oil-and-gas development.
Related: The Public Lands Rule Has Been Marked for Death
Pearce’s confirmation, which was prematurely announced on May 11 after confusion around a procedural vote, immediately slammed by conservation groups. Chris Hill, CEO of the Conservation Lands Foundation, said Pearce threatens the stability and durability of long-held public-land protections.
“Everyone who cherishes their access and the natural values of the country’s public lands needs to be on high alert and fully engaged moving forward,” said Hill in a statement. “The Director of the BLM is tasked to be a neutral arbiter of our shared resources. Unfortunately, Mr. Pearce’s recent Congressional testimony, coupled with his past record in Congress supporting the sell-off of America’s public lands, and his efforts to reduce national monuments in his home state, demonstrate that he will be coming into this position with full bias against the public’s ownership and access to their public lands.”
On the other hand, the Public Lands Council, a consortium of livestock grazers and property-rights organizations, rallied members to support Pearce’s nomination.
“From his long tenure in the House to his leadership of the Congressional Western Caucus, Pearce has a long history of leadership in public lands management,” the council emailed members earlier this month. “Contact your Senate delegation and urge them to vote ‘yes’ to confirm his nomination!”
Pearce becomes President Trump’s first permanent BLM director. In his first term, the Senate failed to confirm a director. Instead, the agency was led by “acting directors,” notably William Perry Pendley, who has consistently advocated for selling large amounts of federal land. Last year, Trump’s pick to lead the agency withdrew from consideration after a memo surfaced that showed Kathleen Sgamma criticized Trump’s role in the Jan. 6 riots at the U.S. Capitol following the 2020 election.
In Trump’s first administration, the BLM’s headquarters were moved to Grand Junction, Colorado, over the objections of many agency line employees. In Trump’s second administration, the U.S. Forest Service consolidated regional offices and is in the process of moving its national headquarters from Washington, D.C., to Salt Lake City, Utah. Whether the BLM, under Pearce’s leadership, makes a similar decentralized move, has been mentioned by several agency watchdogs as a priority of the administration.