President Donald Trump has renominated contentious picks to lead the Bureau of Land Management and to help run the Tennessee Valley Authority.
The Senate returned former Rep. Steve Pearce and Tennessee businessman Lee Beaman at the end of last year after Democrats objected to keeping them in contention.
Pearce, a former seven-term Republican congressman from New Mexico who was a staunch ally of the oil and gas industry while in office, is awaiting his turn before the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. President Donald Trump initially nominated him to lead BLM in November.
His bid has generated strong resistance from conservation groups and some Democrats. Critics have highlighted his legislative record opposing stronger oil and gas industry regulations, while supporting limits to presidential designations of national monuments and selling targeted BLM and Forest Service lands.
