Steve Pearce's Confirmation Tested The Senate Public Lands Caucus. It failed.
Members of the purportedly bipartisan caucus voted on party lines to confirm Trump’s controversial pick to lead the Bureau of Land Management.
The Senate on Monday narrowly confirmed Steve Pearce, a former New Mexico congressman with a long history of pushing for federal public land sell-offs, to serve as director of the Bureau of Land Management.
The vote, entirely on party lines, puts a man who has argued that “we do not even need” most federal lands in charge of overseeing nearly 250 million acres of them. It also lays bare the extent to which public lands remain wildly partisan in the halls of Congress, despite overwhelming public support.
Pearce’s nomination was widely seen as a major test for the Senate Stewardship Caucus, which formed in October with the stated goal to advance efforts to “protect and expand access to public lands.” But instead of speaking with one voice on their issue, the caucus’s membership fractured along party lines.
On Monday, three of the four Republican members of the caucus — Sens. Tim Sheehy (Mont.), Steve Daines (Mont.) and Katie Britt (Ala.) — voted to confirm Pearce to the powerful post. Sen. Thom Tillis (N.C.), the fourth Republican caucus member, did not vote.
All four Democratic caucus members — Sens. Martin Heinrich (N.M.), Catherine Cortez Masto (Nev.), John Hickenlooper (Colo.) and Chris Coons (Del.) — voted against him.
Pearce’s confirmation to helm the largest federal public land agency was included in a bill advancing a bloc of dozens of nominees that passed 46-43. Eleven senators did not vote.
“It’s telling that Senate leadership had to package Pearce’s vote with nearly 50 other nominees in order to get him confirmed,” Aaron Weiss, executive director of the Center for Western Priorities, a public land advocacy group, said in a statement. “We will not allow self-proclaimed pro-public lands senators to shirk responsibility for this vote. The Senate Stewardship Caucus had a chance to stop Pearce from becoming BLM director, and they failed.”
At his confirmation hearing back in February, Pearce was pressed about his public lands record. He did not disavow his past positions, telling senators, “I’m not so sure that I’ve changed.”
Anna Peterson, executive director of The Mountain Pact, a public land advocacy coalition, said she was “deeply disappointed” in Monday’s vote.
“Pearce’s confirmation will be a disaster for our communities, and puts precious natural landscapes, and irreplaceable cultural resources, in serious jeopardy,” she said in a statement.
Pearce will enter BLM following an exodus of agency leadership. Only four of BLM’s 12 state offices currently have a permanent director, E&E News reported Monday.
At least seven BLM state directors or associate state directors, including Nevada state director Jon Raby, a 37-year veteran of the agency, left last month after accepting the Trump administration’s latest round of buyout and early retirement packages, according to a list compiled by the Center for Western Priorities. The group confirmed many of the recent departures through autoreplies from the former BLM officials’ government email addresses.
Phony, greenwashed idiocy