Heinrich Raises Concerns About Trump BLM Nominee Pearce and Efforts to Sell-Off Public Lands
WASHINGTON — In his opening statement at a U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing to consider pending Trump administration nominees, U.S. Senator Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), the Committee’s Ranking Member, expressed his concerns about Trump’s nominee to lead the Bureau of Land Management, former New Mexican Congressman Steve Pearce. As an elected official, Steve Pearce pushed to sell off public lands, opposed a national monument designation, and advocated for downsizing national monuments.
“The Federal Land Policy and Management Act says that our public lands are to be retained in Federal ownership and managed to best meet the present and future needs of the American people, and where appropriate, preserved and protected in their natural condition, without permanent impairment.” Heinrich continued, “They belong to the public—not to any special interest, but to the American people. And not to our generation alone, but to future generations as well.”
On BLM Director Nominee Pearce, he continued, “Unfortunately, many of the positions [Pearce] has taken and the statements he has made about selling off public lands make it hard for me to believe that he will be a good steward of our public lands and that he will faithfully uphold the public land protections written into our laws.”
In addition to Pearce, the Committee also considered Trump’s nominees for the U.S. Department of Energy Under Secretary and the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Commissioner, Kyle Haustveit and David LaCerte, respectively.
A video of Heinrich’s opening remarks is here.
A transcript of Heinrich’s remarks as delivered is below:
The Committee has previously considered nominations for two of the nominees before us this morning.
The Senate confirmed Mr. Haustveit’s nomination to be the Assistant Secretary of Energy for Fossil Energy last September, and Mr. LaCerte’s nomination to serve the final year remaining on a vacant seat on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
But the Committee still has an obligation to examine Mr. Hausveit’s qualifications for the broader responsibilities that he will have if confirmed to be the Under Secretary of Energy. And we must consider whether Mr. LaCerte has earned an additional 5-year term on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
Our third nominee poses a somewhat greater challenge for us. Congressman Pearce, who I’ve long known and often worked with, has been nominated to be the Director of the Bureau of Land Management. If confirmed, he will become the steward of more than 244 million surface acres of public land and another 700 million acres of subsurface minerals.
The Federal Land Policy and Management Act, the law that established the Bureau of Land Management, prescribes how the Director is to perform his important duties. It says that he is to manage the lands and resources under his jurisdiction as “public lands.”
They belong to the public—not to any special interest, but to the American people as a whole. And not to our generation alone, but to future generations as well.
The public lands’ charter calls for them to be managed for fish and wildlife as well as for energy and mineral production; for recreation as well as resource development.
Their value is to be measured not in economic returns or unit output alone, but also in the intangibles of scenic, scientific, historic, and archeological values.
A friend of mine likes to describe public lands as the anvil on which our collective Western identity was forged. I think that kind of sums it up.
The Federal Land Policy and Management Act says that our public lands are to be retained in federal ownership and managed to best meet the present and future needs of the American people, and where appropriate, preserved and protected in their natural condition, without permanent impairment.
The Act tells us that the Director must be someone who will carry out these functions and perform these duties in accordance with these principles.
Congressman Pearce has had a long career in public life, and he is well-known to many of us. He served seven terms in the House of Representatives and three terms as head of the Republican Party in New Mexico. As a public official, he’s cast many votes and made many public statements.
Some of these positions he has taken, he called for the selling off of public lands, and that makes it challenging for me to view his tenure, his potential tenure at the BLM, as one of stewardship.
And so my questions today will largely reflect not just those reservations, but the conversations that we had in my office yesterday.
And it is, of course, the President’s prerogative to nominate who he wants, but it is also the responsibility of those of us on this Committee to assess Mr. Pearce’s nomination and to recommend whether or not the Senate should confirm him.
For much of our nation’s history, our predecessor committee proudly bore the title of “the Public Lands Committee.” Oversight of the public lands was our original purpose, and it remains one of our foremost responsibilities.
To discharge this trust, we depend heavily on the dedicated public servants at the Bureau of Land Management, who devote their careers and their lives to the care of our public lands. And we depend upon the Director of the Bureau to carry out the functions of his office in accordance with our laws and with FLPMA.
Our hearing today is Congressman Pearce’s opportunity to make his case for his nomination and to share his vision of how he would manage the public lands if confirmed, and to allay our concerns.
I look forward to hearing from him.
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