BILLINGS, MT – Conservation groups in Montana and across the West are raising concerns about Steve Pearce, a former New Mexico representative who is President Donald Trump’s newest nominee to lead the Bureau of Land Management.
The nomination has reignited a fight over the management of public lands which was highlighted during negotiations over Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” due to proposed amendments to sell off federal land. The fight also spawned two new bipartisan caucuses in Congress, both co-chaired by Montanans, and predicated on public land access and management.
In Montana and the two Dakotas, the BLM manages more than 8.3 million acres of federal land. Nationwide, the BLM oversees 245 million acres of federal land, along with 700 million acres of subsurface rights for extraction and energy development, putting the position directly in the crosshairs of energy developers and outdoor industry groups.
According to the Center for Western Priorities, Pearce amassed a “lengthy anti-public lands record,” sponsoring bills to shrink national monuments and increase extraction on national forest land.
Many conservation groups are specifically honing in on Pearce’s long record of advocating to sell off federal lands, including sponsoring legislation in Congress to authorize land sales or exchanges with local governments.
In a letter to then-House Speaker John Boehner in 2012, Pearce wrote that of the federal lands located in the West, “most of it we do not even need.”
He proposed using land sales to reduce the deficit, similar to rhetoric heard earlier when Interior Secretary Doug Burgum equated federal lands to the nation’s “balance sheet.”
“We cannot afford to hand the keys to 245 million acres of our public lands over to someone who has spent his career trying to auction them off to the highest bidder,” Aubrey Bertram, staff attorney and federal policy director at Wild Montana, said. “Steve Pearce’s record is crystal clear: he believes public lands should be privatized for billionaires’ benefit, not protected for the people’s.”
But Pearce’s nomination has been greeted with enthusiasm by mining and energy companies that operate on federal land, as well as by many Republican officials, including Montana Sen. Steve Daines.
“I knew Steve in the House days, and Steve is a great pick. And I particularly like the fact that it’s a Westerner,” Daines said in an interview. “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 Pearce has lived it and breathed it.”
Daines is a member of the newly formed Senate Stewardship Caucus, which is co-chaired by Montana Sen. Tim Sheehy.
The two Montanans also bucked their party earlier this year by joining Senate Democrats in a resolution that would have prevented the use of public land sales to reduce the deficit.
Representatives for Daines and Sheehy did not respond to questions about Pearce’s nomination.
Sheehy has not publicly stated whether he will support Pearce.
But Montana’s federal delegation has been supportive of increasing coal and energy extraction in the state.
In eastern Montana, Congress recently voted to overturn a Biden-era restriction on resource extraction on federal land, reopening nearly 1.7 million acres to future coal leasing.
All members of the state’s delegation supported the move calling it vital to the state’s economy and the nation’s energy security.
Pearce has roots in the oil and gas industry that stretch beyond his political work.
In the 1980s, Pearce founded an oilfield services company in New Mexico, which he later sold when he won his first election.
Starting in 2003, he represented New Mexico in Congress for seven terms.
He lost races for the U.S. Senate in 2008 and governor in 2018.
While conservation and public land advocates have pushed back against Pearce’s nomination, industry groups have applauded Trump’s pick.
The National Cattleman’s Beef Association said Pearce’s experience makes him “thoroughly qualified to lead the BLM and tackle the issues federal lands ranchers are facing.”
The Western Energy Alliance, comprising oil and gas companies across nine western states, also put out a statement of support for Pearce.
“As a westerner coming from a state that’s nearly 20 percent BLM land, he understands the bureau’s mission. As a former congressman and chair of the Congressional Western Caucus, his record shows he’s been a champion of multiple-uses of public lands. Steve has been a longtime friend who understands the value of energy development among other uses,” the Alliance said.
This story was originally produced by Daily Montanan, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network which includes Idaho Capital Sun, and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.
Idaho Capital Sun is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Idaho Capital Sun maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Christina Lords for questions: info@idahocapitalsun.com.
