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For the first time since the beginning of 2017, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) will have a Senate-confirmed director. Yesterday, in a 50-45 vote, the Senate confirmed Tracy Stone-Manning as the director of the BLM after an extended confirmation process.
The Bureau of Land Management manages about 10% of the land in the United States, making it absolutely essential to ensuring that public lands are part of the solution to both the nature and climate crises. “Few agencies are as important for protecting and promoting America’s public lands, and in the years to come, the BLM will play an even greater role in our government’s efforts to fight climate change,” said majority leader Chuck Schumer.
With proper leadership, the agency will be central to President Biden's goal of curbing fossil fuel extraction on public lands and transitioning to renewable energy. Currently, the BLM's oil and gas leasing system is woefully broken, allowing oil and gas companies to nominate leases anonymously, scoop up leases at absurdly low prices, and abandon wells to be dealt with by taxpayers. The Biden administration is working to finalize a major review of the program, but an associated report has been significantly delayed, raising questions about the priority being placed on climate change and public lands within the administration.
The Biden administration has also made a commitment to protecting 30% of America's lands and waters by 2030, a goal that will need to be turned to by all land management agencies, including the BLM. However, the administration has thus far made few actions to move towards this goal.
Stone-Manning's leadership will come at a time when the BLM has been undermined for years by former Interior Secretary David Bernhardt and de facto director and public-lands extremist William Perry Pendley, who was ordered to leave the post by a federal judge. Under the Trump administration, the BLM headquarters was moved to Colorado, resulting in a mass-exodus of career talent within the agency and shifting it away from the center of power in Washington D.C. Last month, the Biden administration announced that the agency will move its headquarters back to Washington while leaving a regional hub in Grand Junction.
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President Biden is doing Donald Trump’s bidding today. This lease sale will be devastating for the Earth’s climate, and set America back years on our path to a climate solution. Next month, President Biden will travel to Glasgow for the UN climate conference, where he will encourage other countries to do as he says, not as he does. Just days later, he will set the timer on a carbon bomb in the Gulf of Mexico.”
