Land management HQ reversal marks the end of an error

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland announced on Friday that the Bureau of Land Management's top leadership will be located in Washington, D.C., alongside other agency heads at the Interior Department. The move marks the end of the Trump administration's failed effort to relocate the agency's headquarters to Grand Junction, Colorado.

Critics of the original move, including the Center for Western Priorities, said that the Trump administration always intended to break the agency and force out career expertise. Those concerns were borne out in the final numbers on Friday, as Interior confirmed that “of the 328 positions moved out of Washington, D.C., only 41 of the affected people relocated, with 3 moving to Grand Junction. This led to a significant loss of institutional memory and talent.”

Haaland also announced that the agency's Grand Junction office would remain open as a Western headquarters, a move praised by elected officials in Colorado.

Senator Michael Bennet said in a statement that he hoped the Grand Junction office would eventually staff up. “I’ve spoken to DOI leadership about the importance of both staffing up the office to fill current vacancies and continuing to grow the BLM’s presence in Grand Junction — in number of employees and significance,” Bennet said.

Podcast: Biden’s oil and gas fire sale

In the latest episode of CWP's podcast, The Landscape, Earthjustice Vice President Drew Caputo joins the CWP crew to collectively scratch their heads over how President Biden’s vision for addressing climate change can be so at odds with his administration’s plans to lease 80,000,000 acres in the Gulf of Mexico and 700,000 acres in Colorado and Wyoming to oil and gas companies. Listen now and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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...in a commodity state, and a state with the country’s smallest population, it’s not realistic to think we can alter demand for coal throughout the heavily populated West. Further, it would be a mistake to ignore what the market is telling us — that demand for coal is falling, while demand for renewable energy continues to grow.

In a conservative state like Wyoming, you’d expect that lawmakers would respect the market. Instead, they have continued to either ignore it or pretend it is theirs to control. But it’s not.”