The Senate on Monday confirmed former New Mexico Republican Rep. Steve Pearce to lead the Bureau of Land Management, marking the agency’s first permanent leader under either of President Donald Trump’s administrations.
The Senate voted 46-43 along party lines in favor of slate of 49 nominees en bloc — including Pearce as well as other energy and environment picks.
Pearce — whose nomination highlighted sharp division in the Senate, where lawmakers split over his close ties to the energy industry and past support for public lands sales — will take command of an agency undergoing a major realignment. BLM oversees 245 million acres of federal lands and 700 million acres of the nation’s mineral estate.
The Trump administration recently eliminated a Biden administration environmental policy that sought to put conservation efforts on par with extractive industry and other public lands uses, while also indicating it will overhaul regulations governing livestock grazing and rangeland health to make the process more favorable to ranchers.
