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The top watchdog at the Interior Department found that political appointees misled Congress when they testified that high rent was a factor in moving the Bureau of Land Management headquarters out of Washington, DC.
William Perry Pendley, the de facto head of the bureau, wrote that BLM wouldn't be able to keep its existing office because a new lease would exceed the cost limit set by the General Services Administration. That was irrelevant, though. The Inspector General found that the agency had been planning since 2016 to move BLM staff into the main Interior building or other government offices—a fact that Pendley and then Assistant Secretary Joe Balash hid from Congress.
The Interior Department is still refusing to reveal how many BLM employees have actually moved to Grand Junction or other offices across the West, instead only pointing to planned positions at the new ostensible—but mostly vacant—headquarters.
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There are a lot more barriers to hiking that people, who have been in it to for a while, don’t think about anymore. The entry level cost to backpacking is very expensive.”
