The Trump administration is tapping the Colorado oil and gas industry to fill a key leadership post at the Bureau of Land Management that’s vital to President Donald Trump’s energy dominance campaign.
Bill Groffy, senior director of legislative and regulatory affairs for the Denver-based Colorado Oil and Gas Association, is BLM’s new principal deputy director, according to internal documents reviewed by POLITICO’s E&E News and two Interior Department officials granted anonymity because they are not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.
The principal deputy director is a political appointee and the second-highest-ranked position at BLM next to the director. The position does not require Senate confirmation.
Groffy will be responsible for implementing the administration’s agenda at the bureau, which oversees roughly 700 million acres of subsurface mineral estate that both Trump and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum have vowed to tap into as part of the administration’s energy dominance campaign.
