BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — President Donald Trump nominated a former lawmaker from New Mexico on Wednesday to oversee the management of vast public lands that are playing a central role in Republican attempts to ramp up fossil fuel production.
The nominee for the Bureau of Land Management, former Rep. Steve Pearce of New Mexico, must be confirmed by the Senate. The agency manages a quarter-billion acres — about 10% of land in the U.S. It's also responsible for 700 million acres of underground minerals, including major reserves of oil, natural gas and coal.
The agency's policies have swung sharply 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 power in a bid to curb climate change.
Trump and Republicans in Congress have moved quickly to unravel Biden’s actions. In a matter of months they've opened millions of acres of public lands for mining and drilling and canceled land plans and conservation strategies that Biden's administration took years to formulate.
But some moves have fallen flat, including a proposal by Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee to sell more than 2 million acres of federal lands to states or other entities. In October, the largest government coal lease sale in more than a decade drew a dirt-cheap bid that was rejected.
A previous nominee to lead the agency, longtime oil and gas industry representative Kathleen Sgamma, withdrew in April following revelations that she 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 led a successful oil-services company in New Mexico. He was first elected to the House in 2003 and served seven terms in a district spanning oil fields and vast tracts of public land under federal oversight.
Pearce had a conservative voting record and advocated for ranchers in New Mexico when parts of Lincoln National Forest were closed to protect the endangered New Mexico meadow jumping mouse.
He ran unsuccessfully for U.S. Senate against Democratic incumbent Tom Udall in 2008, and lost a bid for governor in 2018 to Democrat Michelle Lujan Grisham.
Pearce later served as chair of the state Republican Party and was a strong supporter of Trump, who lost three times in New Mexico.
During Trump’s first term, Pearce urged the U.S. Interior Department to reduce the size of the Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument outside Las Cruces, New Mexico, as part of a nationwide review of monument designations. He said a reduction would preserve traditional business enterprises on public lands. That earned him lasting ire from environmentalists who called Wednesday for his nomination to be rejected.
The Sierra Club said in a statement that Pearce was “an opponent of the landscapes and waters that generations of Americans have explored and treasured."
Livestock industry groups expressed support. The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association and Public Lands Council said in a joint statement that Pearce “understands the important role that public lands play across the West.”
“Pearce’s experience makes him thoroughly qualified to lead the BLM and tackle the issues federal lands ranchers are facing,” the groups said.
The land bureau went four years without a confirmed director during Trump’s first term. The Republican president also moved its headquarters to Colorado before it was returned to Washington, D.C., under Biden.
The agency had about 9,250 employees at the start of the government shutdown on Oct. 1. That’s down by roughly 800 employees since the start of Trump’s term, following widespread layoffs and resignations driven by the administration’s efforts to downsize the federal workforce.
Oil, gas and coal permitting has continued during the shutdown and most land bureau employees were exempted from furloughs.
Lee reported from Santa Fe, New Mexico.
FILE - Republican Party of New Mexico Chairman Steve Pearce speaks during a news conference at party headquarters in Albuquerque, N.M., Sept. 12, 2023. (AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan, File)
