Morale at BLM cratered after move to Colorado

A survey conducted by the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) showed that during the Trump years the Bureau of Land Management was plagued by staff shortages, high turnover and partisan rancor. 

During an online summit, Mary Jo Rugwell, a former BLM state director for Wyoming said its relocation to Grand Junction, Colorado was designed to gut the agency and called on the Biden administration to move it back to DC.

Last year after the BLM held livestock production scoping sessions the Trump Organization ended protection for endangered species and public lands because Republican welfare ranchers insist grazing cattle reduces wildfire risks despite copious evidence and strong arguments to the contrary. Now, the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association and American Farm Bureau Federation are pushing for the capture and slaughter of some 130,000 feral horses over 10 years at an estimated cost of $1 billion.

After the Santa Fe-based Wild Earth Guardians joined other interested parties in suing the BLM to stop oil and gas encroachment on Chaco Culture National Historic Park New Mexico's congressional delegation celebrated the US House passage of Representative, now Senator Ben Ray Lujan's amendment to halt drilling on public lands near the monument. 

The BLM sale of federal land to the oil and gas industry originally scheduled for April 14 that would have included about 535 acres on four parcels in Lea County and one in Chaves County, New Mexico has been postponed indefinitely.

The US Fish and Wildlife Service, the Forest Service and at least 15 other federal agencies also suffered hits to morale from the Trump Organization.

“With no national leadership inside the beltway, the Bureau of Land Management will never be able to compete with and coordinate well with other organizations,” said Rugwell. The BLM moved 41 Washington positions to its new headquarters in Grand Junction, and hundreds more to other locations elsewhere in Colorado and the West, while keeping some 60 positions in Washington. Interior secretary nominee Deb Haaland has previously criticized the headquarters relocation but said during her confirmation hearing this week she has no intention “at this moment” to change things and if she is confirmed it would be an important issue to look at. Gov. Jared Polis, and U.S. Sens. Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper, all Colorado Democrats, all have written Biden to call for keeping the headquarters in the city. Haaland this week accepted an invitation from Hickenlooper to visit the headquarters. [Grand Junction Sentinel]

Denver environmental attorney Nada Culver will run the BLM temporarily replacing Earth hater William Perry Pendley but President Joe Biden has yet to nominate a permanent director. 

ip photo: petroglyphs and cliff swallow nests adorn a wall in Chaco Culture National Historic Park.