The land agency is moving back to DC, reversing the Trump -era decision

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WASHINGTON (AP) Interior Secretary Deb Haaland will move the national headquarters of the Bureau of Land Management, which oversees 245 million acres in Western states, back to the nation’s capital two years later in Colorado.

The land management agency lost nearly 300 employees in retirement or resignation after President Donald Trumps administration moved its headquarters to Grand Junction, Colorado, in 2019.

The bureau has extensive influence on energy and agricultural development in the West, managing public lands for use from fossil fuel extraction, renewable electricity development and conservation, to recreation and some. Its staff remained in turmoil after four years without a confirmed director.

The agencys space at Grand Junction will be the west headquarters, Haaland said. The Grand Junction office will strengthen western perspectives in decision-making and will play an important role in clean energy bureaus, outdoor recreation, conservation, and scientific missions, the Interior Department said in a news release.

The changes, to be made in Congressional coordination, will improve the agency’s land management function, help provide clarity for 7,000 BLM employees nationwide and enable the office to better serve the American public. and fulfill its mission as steward of nearly one-fifth of the nation’s public lands, Haaland said.

The Bureau of Land Management is critical of countries ’efforts to address the climate crisis, expand public access to our public lands and preserve our countries with a shared external heritage, he said in a statement. .

There is no doubt that BLM should have a leadership presence in Washington, DC like all other land management agencies to ensure it has access to policy, budget and decision -making levers to best execute the its mission, Haaland said. The presence of BLMs in Colorado and throughout the West will continue to grow, he added.

The past few years have been incredibly disruptive to the organization, to our public servants and to their families, Haaland said, referring to the actions of his predecessors, Ryan Zinke and David Bernhardt, to move BLM to the countryside. of Colorado, which provoked criticism that the Trump administration intended to destroy the agency that oversees vast public lands in the West. Hundreds of longtime employees have chosen not to move to Colorado. Only three workers were the last to move.

Haaland, who opposed the move as a member of Congress from New Mexico, visited Colorado headquarters in July.

Zinke, Trump’s first interior secretary, initiated Colorado’s move, calling it a restructuring that put the agency’s top officials close to the nearly one-billion-acres of public land it manages. The move was completed under Bernhardt, who replaced Zinke in 2019.

Colorado Governor Jared Polis and members of the congressional delegation to Colorados urged the Biden administration to keep the BLM based in Grand Junction. The US Democratic Sen. John Hickenlooper, who invited Haaland to visit Grand Junction, said the relocation of the headquarters was rushed quickly and abandoned the city, which is expected to boost the economy.

President Joe Bidens ’nominee to head the bureau, former Democratic aide Tracy Stone-Manning, received no Republican support in a Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee vote on his nomination in July. The GOP assassinated Bidens who picked up alleged links to an environmental sabotage investigation in 1989.

Stone-Manning will face a full vote in the Senate to become the new director. It will take every Senate Republican along with at least one Democratic lawmaker to block his or her confirmation in the equally divided chamber. Haaland, who will be the boss of Stone-Mannings, reiterated his full support for the nominee during his visit to Colorado.

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