He Once Pushed to Divest Federal Lands. Now He's Trump's BLM Nominee.
Most federal land "we do not even need," wrote former Congressman Steve Pearce in a 2012 letter.
Last week, President Trump nominated Steve Pearce to lead the Bureau of Land Management. Pearce was a long-time Congressman from New Mexico — a Tea Party figure turned MAGA supporter who spent much of his time in Washington railing against conservation protections, promoting policies friendly to the oil industry and, in at least one notable instance, calling for the divestment of federal land. He left Congress in 2019 after a failed run to be Governor of New Mexico. If Pearce is confirmed to helm BLM, he will oversee nearly 250 million acres of federal land, as well as the government’s onshore oil and gas leasing program.
Pearce is a good friend of oil and gas interests. Over the course of his Congressional career, Pearce took more than $2 million in campaign contributions from oil and gas companies and related industries. His major donors included Yates Petroleum, Exxon Mobil and Koch Inc.
Indeed, Pearce himself comes out of the oil industry. Back in 2003, he sold an oil services company for millions, according to Roll Call. And in 2018, while he was running for Governor, the Pearce campaign confirmed to the Associated Press that he owned two other companies — one called LFT, the other called Trinity Industries — that actively leased oilfield equipment to an undisclosed collection of clients. On a 2016 financial disclosure that Pearce filed with Congress, LFT was listed as having an asset value between one and five million dollars, while Trinity Industries was listed as having an asset value between five and 25 million dollars.
Pearce’s nomination continues Trump’s tradition of selecting oil and gas industry operatives and allies for top posts within the Interior Department and its various agencies. Pearce will join such figures as Adam Suess and Tyler Hassen, both former oil industry executives serving in top jobs at DOI.
During his time in Washington D.C., Pearce was part of a cohort of Republican politicians serving on the House Natural Resources Committee who relentlessly attacked America’s public lands and environmental laws. Amid an outburst of fiscal cliff brinkmanship in Congress in 2012, for instance, Pearce and former Rep. Rop Bishop of Utah sent a letter to then-Speaker John Boehner urging him to divest federal lands to help reduce the government deficit.
“Divesting the federal government of its vast land holdings could pay down the deficit and reduce spending. The federal government owns roughly 650 million acres of land, or 1/3 of the entire landmass of our country. Over 90% of this land is located in the western states and most of it we do not even need,” they wrote. “Strategically transferring ownership of these lands where it makes sense would reduce duplicative land management costs, boost revenues through the resultant economic activity of more productive and local land management, and is consistent with the principles of federalism our founding fathers envisioned.”
Pearce did not immediately respond to request for comment, including queries about whether he still hopes to offload federal lands.
Pearce’s targets have also included the Endangered Species Act, the Wilderness Act and the Antiquities Act. In 2017,he sponsored legislation that would have thrown up major hurdles to listing new species under the Endangered Species Act, or ESA. In 2018, Pearce proposed an amendment to an appropriations bill that would have blocked the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service from listing or otherwise developing protections for the imperiled lesser prairie-chicken under the ESA. Another Pearce-sponsored amendment that year sought to prevent USFWS from protecting the New Mexico meadow jumping mouse. The 2017 legislation and both amendments ultimately failed.
Pearce co-sponsored another bill in 2017 that would have stripped the President of the ability to independently declare national monuments under the Antiquities Act of 1906, a bedrock conservation law that has been used to protect publicly-owned landscapes across the United States. The BLM manages numerous large national monuments across the United States, including Bears Ears National Monument and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, both of which President Trump sought to dismantle during his first term.
In 2018, he also sponsored legislation that would have effectively exempted a wide range of oil and gas activities on public lands from detailed environmental review under the National Environmental Policy Act. In 2017, he co-sponsored a bill that would have given states the sole authority to regulate fracking on federal lands within their borders. While in positions of power, Pearce has consistently pursued policies that benefit the oil and gas industry, while the industry in turn lavished Pearce with campaign contributions. What will his tenure at BLM look like?
Green groups have decried Pearce’s nomination. The Center for Western Priorities, a conservation watchdog, stated that Pearce is “committed to the exploitation, sell-off, and privatization of America’s public lands.” The oil, ranching and mining groups, meanwhile, have celebrated the selection. The Western Energy Alliance, which represents public lands oil and gas companies, called Pearce “a great pick.”