The Bureau of Land Management’s acting leader held regular meetings with senior officials on a proposed mining project and plans to consolidate firefighting resources under a new Interior Department office during the federal government shutdown, according to a calendar of meetings obtained by POLITICO’s E&E News through a public records request.
Bill Groffy, BLM’s acting director, also met with ConocoPhillips officials in the days leading up to the shutdown concerning the company’s proposed activities in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska, according to the calendars covering September and October. That includes ConocoPhillips’ massive oil project in the NPR-A.
The calendars do not provide details about what specifically was discussed at these meetings. But they provide further evidence that despite the record 43-day shutdown, which resulted in Interior placing at least 29,000 staffers on furlough, BLM and Interior continued to work on big-ticket items related to President Donald Trump’s “energy dominance” agenda. Those included advancing a suite of policy directives opening hundreds of thousands of acres in Alaska to drilling, as well as smaller-scale moves like planned oil and gas lease sales.
A BLM spokesperson declined to comment “on these private meetings” outlined in the calendars.
