Trump taps ex-New Mexico congressman to head the Bureau of Land Management amid environmental backlash

Patrick Lohmann, Source New Mexico

This article was originally published by Source New Mexico.

President Donald Trump has nominated Steve Pearce, a Republican former member of Congress from New Mexico, to lead the federal Bureau of Land Management, the White House announced Wednesday.

Pearce would be in charge of an agency that oversees 245 million acres of public lands, including for recreation, cattle grazing and extraction of oil and natural gas. 

His nomination drew swift criticism from environmental groups in New Mexico and across the country. They urged Congress to reject Trump’s nomination. 

“Pearce’s entire political career has been dedicated to blocking Americans’ access to public lands while giving the oil and gas industry free rein to drill and frack anywhere they wanted,” said Jennifer Rokala, executive director of the Center for Western Priorities, in a statement Wednesday afternoon. 

Pearce, who founded an oilfield services company before getting into politics, represented New Mexico’s Second Congressional District in the southern part of the state between 2003 and 2009, then again from 2011 to 2019. He was most recently chair of the state Republican Party until late last year. 

Trump’s Wednesday nomination to the United States Senate neither explained why Pearce would be fit to lead the agency nor provided details about when the Senate could meet to confirm him. The nomination occurs amid an ongoing federal government shutdown, when neither chamber of Congress is meeting. 

According to the Center for Western Priorities, Pearce amassed a “lengthy anti-public lands record” while in Congress, including co-sponsoring bills undermining the Antiquities Act and opening national forests to industry. 

If the Senate confirms him, Pearce would take over at an agency that is seeking to boost domestic oil and gas production and roll back the “Public Land Rule,” which sought to ensure conservation of public lands received due consideration along with mining, timber, grazing, recreation or other uses.

The BLM controls about 13.5 million acres of federal land in New Mexico. 

“It’s appalling that Trump would nominate a political has-been who so despises the natural world to oversee millions of acres of our public lands and waters,” said Brian Nowicki, Southwest deputy director of the Center for Biological Diversity, in a statement.

While environmental groups were unified in condemning Pearce’s nomination, the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association Executive Director Kaitlynn Glover said in a statement that Pearce’s “experience makes him thoroughly qualified to lead the BLM and tackle the issues federal lands ranchers are facing.”

Patrick Lohmann is a reporter for Source New Mexico.