Docs Detail Trump BLM Nominee’s Vast Wealth, Financial Entanglements
Last year, Steve Pearce raked in up to $1.1 million off of frac tank leases and water sales — to whom remains unclear.
Former New Mexico congressman Steve Pearce built his wealth in the oil and gas sector. Now, President Donald Trump wants him to lead the country’s largest land management agency, where he would regulate a fossil fuel industry he profited from.
Over the holidays, as opposition to Pearce’s nomination mounted, the Office of Government Ethics released documents detailing the nominee’s extensive financial assets and steps he must take to avoid potential conflicts of interest at the helm of the Bureau of Land Management, which manages nearly 250 million federal acres.
Pearce’s ethics agreement, dated Dec. 19, requires him and his wife to divest millions of dollars in stock, including sizable investments in fossil fuel and energy companies, and their interests in several oil and gas leases. Yet some of his financial entanglements remain shrouded.
As for his own companies, including oilfield services firm Trinity Industries, Pearce will hand full control over to his wife, according to the documents.
Along with deep political and personal financial ties to the fossil fuel industry, Pearce has a long record of attacking America’s public lands and environmental laws. He has gone so far as to dismiss most federal lands as unneeded and to call for their divestiture, as Public Domain previously reported.
Pearce’s vast wealth is largely tied to energy and real estate. According to his financial disclosure, his extensive stock portfolio includes a combined $400,000 to $1 million in four major oil and gas companies: Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Constellation Energy and Oneok — all of which must be divested within 90 days if he is confirmed to the BLM post.
Last year alone, Pearce earned between $100,000 and $1 million from “Industrial equipment (Frac tanks lease to purchase),” his disclosure shows. Frac tanks are large, liquid storage tanks most commonly used in oil and gas operations. The document does not detail which companies Pearce leased his equipment to.
Pearce raked in as much as $2.1 million last year from residential rental and leased commercial real estate properties in Hobbs, New Mexico. He made over $1 million in capital gains interest from Lea County Bancshares Inc. And he brought in $114,000 from crop and water sales at Gassaway Farm, an agricultural operation in Hobbs that Pearce has a stake in and that “sells water from its associated water interest to various third party purchasers at a set price,” according to his ethics agreement. Again, the documents (attached below) do not list who those third-party buyers are.
Pearce’s nomination has drawn fierce backlash from public land advocates around the country. In a letter last week to top lawmakers on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, which will vet the nominee, more than 80 environmental groups decried Pearce’s support for liquidating public lands and accused him of having “sought to use public lands to enrich the fossil fuel industry — and himself.”
“If confirmed, Mr. Pearce will severely undermine protections for recreation and cultural resources, air and water, and the nation’s most imperiled wildlife — if he does not seek to outright sell off our shared natural heritage first,” they wrote.
Through their company Trinity Industries, Pearce and his wife had an interest in several oil leases in the Permian Basin, including one held by Mewbourne Oil Company that earned the Pearces between $15,000 and $50,000 last year. The couple recently divested those mineral interests, according to the documents. However, Pearce noted in his filings that he recently learned Mewbourne owes him outstanding royalty payments, although the amount owed “is not ascertainable as Mewbourne Oil Company needs to complete a valuation prior to issuing payment.”
Additionally, the Pearces have a fractional interest in a series of oil and gas wells in Oklahoma operated by energy investment firm MM Woodford, which Pearce committed to divest from within 90 days of his confirmation. Pearce pocketed between $5,000 and $15,000 from those mineral interests last year.
The ethics agreement Pearce signed forces him to divest numerous assets, including certain stocks, bonds and mineral holdings. However, it allows him to retain financial interest in several real estate development funds and investments associated with Titan Development, a real estate firm headquartered in Albuquerque. Pearce’s disclosure shows he earned as much as $2.13 million from those assets last year.
Not all of his wealth is tied up in stocks, fossil fuel production or real estate. Pearce has also stockpiled precious metals, reporting that he owns up to $2 million in gold bars and coins, up to $515,000 in silver and up to $50,000 in platinum. His personal aircraft is valued at between $500,000 and $1 million.
Pearce did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Aubrie Spady, a spokesperson for the Interior Department, said Pearce’s nomination “reflects not only his deep knowledge of the issues, but also his proven record of results.”
Spady did not address Public Domain’s specific questions about Pearce’s ethics documents, including who he leased frac tanks to and who purchased water from Gassaway Farm — an undisclosed list of clients that could pose potential conflicts of interest.
Karen Budd-Falen, a high-ranking Trump Interior Department official, is facing a growing scandal tied to the sale of water in the arid southwest. As Public Domain first revealed, her family ranching operation sold water rights to the company developing the Thacker Pass lithium mine in Nevada — a $3.5 million deal that she never disclosed and that dates back to her tenure in the first Trump administration.
The Senate Energy and Natural Resources committee is expected to soon consider Pearce’s nomination, although a confirmation hearing has not yet been scheduled. The committee is chaired by Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee, who last year failed to advance a scheme to sell off as many as 3.2 million acres of federal public land to make way for housing development.
If you have any information about Pearce and his ties to fossil fuels, or the unnamed parties he has done business with, please get in touch with us. Our contact information can be found on our ‘Reach Us’ page.
This is absolutely crucial reporting! The fact that he's profiting directly from frac tank leases and water sales to unnamed third parties is extremly concerning when he'd be overseeing the very industry making those payments. It's like asking a fox to gaurd the henhouse, except the fox gets paid by the companies raiding it. I hope the Senate takes these conflicts of interest seriously.