Trump’s Pick To Lead BLM: ‘A First Real Test’ For New Senate Public Lands Caucus
Will lawmakers put a man who has argued that “we do not even need” the vast majority of federal lands in charge of 250 million acres of them?
The recently formed Senate public lands caucus is facing its first test of whether Republicans and Democrats can come together to defend America’s shared lands and waters.
So far, it’s looking unlikely.
Several members of the Senate Stewardship Caucus also sit on the powerful Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, which will take up President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Bureau of Land Management, Steve Pearce, as soon as next month. The former congressman from New Mexico has a long record of working to roll back public land protections and environmental laws, going as far as advocating for federal land divestment, as Public Domain previously reported.
Most caucus members have held their tongues on Pearce’s nomination. The two that have taken a stand for or against him have done so on party lines.
Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.), a member of both the caucus and the committee that will vet Pearce, became the first senator to reject Pearce for the job. In a Dec. 4 statement, Hickenlooper condemned his nomination as “proof that the Trump administration still views our public lands as assets for sale” and promised to vote against him.
Meanwhile, Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.), also a member of both bodies, has signaled his likely support, calling Pearce “a great pick.”
“I particularly like the fact that it’s a Westerner,” Daines, who has pledged not to support the sale of federal public land, told E&E News last month. “I think it’s helpful when we have leaders in those important positions that come from the West, when they understand uniquely the challenges we face as it relates to federal land, state land, private land. And Steve Pierce has lived it and breathed it.”
A bipartisan group of senators — four Democrats and four Republicans — formed the caucus in October, in the wake of Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee’s failed and wildly unpopular attempt to sell off as many as 3.2 million acres of federal land to make way for housing development. The group’s stated goal is to advance efforts to “protect and expand access to public lands.”
“A bipartisan senate caucus on conservation shows that in spite of everything else that we may disagree on, that there’s one issue — at least — that we can have some consensus: America’s beauty,” Benji Backer, the CEO of the group Nature is Nonpartisan, said at an event to launch the caucus.
A vote to confirm Pearce would be a vote to put a man who has argued that “we do not even need” the vast majority of federal lands in charge of overseeing nearly 250 million acres of them.
Aaron Weiss, deputy director of the Center for Western Priorities, views Pearce’s nomination as the caucus’s “first real test.” To back Pearce for the job, caucus members “would have to tie themselves in rhetorical knots” to ignore his well-documented anti-public lands record, he told Public Domain.
Public Domain reached out to every member of the Senate Stewardship Caucus — excluding Hickenlooper, who had already made his position clear — to ask where they stand on the nominee. Sens. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) and Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nevada) were the only two who responded. Neither signaled how they plan to vote.
Heinrich, who co-chairs the caucus and is the ranking Democrat on the Senate ENR Committee, told Public Domain he will consider Pearce’s nomination “the same way I would any other.”
“With all nominations, I look at whether they will faithfully uphold the law,” he said in an email. “And for the position to lead the Bureau of Land Management, I want to know whether they will respect the public land protections we have in New Mexico and across the West. We need a person in this position who will be a good steward of our public lands for all of us, not divvy them out as political favors.”
A spokesperson for Cortez Masto, who also sits on the ENR committee, said the senator “looks forward to reviewing Steve Pearce’s record” and “remains committed to ensuring the responsible stewardship of Nevada’s public lands.”
The other caucus members — Sens. Sheehy, Daines, Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), Chris Coons (D-Del.) and Katie Britt (R-Ala.) — did not respond to Public Domain’s inquiry.
Michael Carroll, the BLM campaigns director at The Wilderness Society, shares Weiss’s views about Pearce’s record and the caucus’s responsibility to oppose his nomination.
“Steve Pearce has been an avowed supporter of selling or giving away our public lands for decades,” he said in an email. “The Senate Stewardship Caucus should not be able to stomach a nominee with those views running the largest land management agency in the country.”
Colorado Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet, who is not a member of the caucus or the ENR committee, appears to be the only other senator to publicly come out against Pearce, calling his nomination “an insult to Colorado and anyone who cares about the lands that sustain our economy and Western way of life.”
“He will be the first to sell off our public lands, promote Trump’s misguided ‘drill baby drill’ policies, and demolish the protections that ensure our kids and grandkids will benefit from public lands as we do now,” Bennet said in a statement. “He is unfit for this position and a threat to Colorado.”
I don’t have any faith in these people to protect our lands, waters, and wildlife…..AT ALL
Our lands are about to get botched :/