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President Donald Trump has nominated former U.S. Representative Steve Pearce of New Mexico to run the Bureau of Land Management, the federal agency that oversees 245 million acres of national public lands.
As a congressman, Pearce amassed a lengthy anti-public lands record, co-sponsoring numerous bills that would have undermined the Antiquities Act, made it easier to sell off national public lands, and open national forests to road-building and clear-cutting. He opposed the designation of Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument in his own congressional district, which is now recognized asa major economic driver for the Las Cruces economy.
“Pearce’s entire political career has been dedicated to blocking Americans’ access to public lands while giving the oil and gas industry free rein to drill and frack anywhere they wanted,” said Jennifer Rokala, executive director of the Center for Western Priorities. New Mexico Senator Martin Heinrich serves on the committee that will review Pearce's nomination and said he will want to know what Pearce thinks about the BLM plan to possibly overturn a Biden-era order that prohibited new oil and gas leasing within a 10-mile buffer area around Chaco Culture National Historical Park in northwestern New Mexico.
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When the only question we ask of public lands is what they can do for us economically, we stop asking what they do for us spiritually, socially, and existentially. We begin to forget that value and utility are not always the same.”
