Trump nominates ex-New Mexico lawmaker to oversee public lands | Trump administration

Donald Trump on Wednesday nominated a former New Mexico lawmaker to oversee management of vast public lands that play a central role in Republican attempts to ramp up fossil fuel production.

Bureau of Land Management (BLM) nominee, former Rep. Steve Pearce of New Mexico, must be confirmed by the Senate. The agency manages a quarter of a billion acres, or about 10 percent of U.S. land. It is also responsible for 700 million acres of underground minerals, including significant reserves of oil, natural gas and coal.

The agency’s policies have changed dramatically as control of the White House has shifted between Republicans and Democrats.

Under Democratic President Joe Biden, former bureau director Tracy Stone-Manning curbed oil drilling and coal mining on federal lands while expanding renewable energy in an effort to curb the climate crisis.

Trump and congressional Republicans moved quickly to dismantle Biden’s actions. In a matter of months, they opened millions of acres of public lands to mining and drilling and rolled back land plans and conservation strategies that the Biden administration had spent years formulating.

But some initiatives have failed, including Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee’s proposal to sell more than 2 million acres of federal land to states or other entities. In October, the largest government sale of coal leases in more than a decade resulted in a low-price offer that was rejected by the BLM.

A previous nominee to lead the agency, longtime oil and gas industry official Kathleen Sgamma, withdrew in April following revelations that she had criticized Trump in 2021 for inciting the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Pearce is a former fighter pilot and Vietnam War veteran who ran a successful oilfield services company in New Mexico. He was first elected to the House of Representatives in 2003 and served seven terms in a district spanning oil fields and vast swathes of federally supervised public lands.

Pearce had a conservative voting record and championed the interests of New Mexico ranchers when parts of the Lincoln National Forest were closed to protect the endangered New Mexico meadow jumping mouse.

He unsuccessfully ran for U.S. Senate against Democratic incumbent Tom Udall in 2008, and lost his gubernatorial bid in 2018 to Democrat Michelle Lujan Grisham.

Pearce later served as chairman of the state Republican Party and was a strong supporter of Trump, who lost three times in New Mexico.

The land office went four years without a confirmed director during Trump’s first term. The Republican president also transferred his seat to Colorado before returning it to Washington DC, under Biden.

The agency had about 9,250 employees at the start of the government shutdown on October 1. That represents a drop of about 800 employees since the start of Trump’s term, following widespread layoffs and resignations driven by the administration’s efforts to reduce the federal workforce.

Licensing for oil, gas and coal continued during the shutdown and most land office employees were exempt from furlough.