ALBUQUERQUE — The Senate confirmed President Trump’s pick to oversee the management of a quarter-billion acres of public lands last week, as the administration pushes ahead with more mining and drilling while reversing conservation plans.
Former Rep. Steve Pearce (R-N.M.) will lead the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management after Monday’s 46-43 confirmation vote. Pearce’s background as a Republican Party leader in New Mexico known for supporting public land leasing and industry made him a contentious pick. Democrats and environmental groups were strongly opposed.
He attempted to assuage any fears during his February confirmation hearing by noting that he grew up on a family farm where conserving the land and water was a necessity.
“The security and economic health of the country, especially the Western states, rests squarely with the BLM,” he testified. “We can and must balance the different uses of public land. Local economies and future generations depend on us doing our job right.”
The land bureau has about 10,000 employees who manage roughly 10% of land in the U.S. It’s also responsible for 700 million acres of underground minerals, including major reserves of oil, natural gas and coal.
Trump and Republicans in Congress have been unraveling regulations from former President Biden’s administration that are viewed as burdensome to industry. They have opened millions of acres of public lands for mining and drilling and canceled land plans and conservation strategies formulated under Biden.
The Democratic Party of New Mexico in the past has called Pearce “an outright enemy of public lands,” suggesting he’s beholden to the oil and gas industry.
The Center for Western Priorities said Pearce’s confirmation was part of a broad assault by Trump and Republicans on public lands, pointing to the recent cancellation of grazing rules and other changes.
Pearce, a former fighter pilot and Vietnam War veteran, served seven terms in the U.S. House representing a district that spans oil fields, including portions of the Permian Basin and vast tracts of other public land.
He had a conservative voting record and advocated for ranchers when parts of Lincoln National Forest were closed to protect the endangered New Mexico meadow jumping mouse.
Pearce has said that his time in Congress and his visits to constituents showed him that the federal government had become what he called an absentee landlord. Instead of partnering with states and local communities on land management, he said, the government was ruling over them.
As director, he vowed he would ensure that local input would be part of his decision-making process.
While in Congress, Pearce urged the Interior Department to reduce the size of the Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument outside Las Cruces, N.M., as part of a nationwide review of monument designations during Trump’s first term. He said a reduction would preserve traditional business enterprises on public lands. That earned him lasting ire from environmentalists who called for his nomination to be rejected.
Bryan and Brown write for the Associated Press. Brown reported from Billings, Mont. AP writer Morgan Lee in Santa Fe, N.M., contributed to this report.