President Donald Trump on Wednesday nominated a new leader for the Bureau of Land Management and a member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Steve Pearce, a former New Mexico Republican congressman who has supported reducing the size of national monuments and expanding oil and gas drilling on federal lands, is the president’s pick to lead the Bureau of Land Management, according to the White House.
Pearce unsuccessfully ran for New Mexico governor in 2018 and lost to Democrat Michelle Lujan Grisham, the state’s current governor.
He is Trump’s second nominee for the job of BLM director, a position that oversees much of the energy development on federal land.
BLM never had a Senate confirmed bureau director during Trump’s first term.
The selection comes more than six months after Trump’s first pick — Kathleen Sgamma, the former president of Denver-based Western Energy Alliance, an oil and gas industry trade group — abruptly withdrew following the publication of a message she wrote criticizing Trump for the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
Trump also nominated Douglas Weaver of Maryland to serve on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
