Interior Secretary Doug Burgum declined on Thursday to commit to keeping open a California oil and gas oversight office, telling lawmakers that his agency was looking to save money on real estate.
At a House Natural Resources Committee oversight hearing, Rep. Julia Brownley (D-Calif.) pressed Burgum to promise not to close the Pacific regional office for the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE), the Interior agency that oversees offshore drilling infrastructure. The office appeared on a “lease termination list” earlier this year that included dozens of federal offices, many at Interior, that the Trump administration believed were extraneous.
Burgum refused to say the office would remain open.
“The work they do is crucial. I won’t make any commitments about leases,” Burgum told the committee. “We’ve got way too much space across Interior.”
