Efforts to move top U.S. land managers west gain a strong ally

From its headquarters in Washington, D.C., the U.S. Bureau of Land Management oversees some of the nation’s most prized natural resources: vast expanses of public lands rich in oil, gas, coal, grazing for livestock, habitat for wildlife, hunting ranges, fishing streams and hiking trails. But more than 99 percent of that land is in 12 Western states, hundreds of miles from the nation’s capital. Some Western politicians – both Republicans and Democrats – are asking why the bureau’s headquarters isn’t in the West as well. “You’re dealing with an agency that basically has no business in Washington, D.C.,” said Colorado Republican Sen. Cory Gardner, who introduced a bill to move the headquarters to any of those dozen states: Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington or Wyoming. The Bureau of Land Management manages a combined 385,000 square miles (997,000 square kilometers) in those states. Colorado Republican Rep. Scott Tipton introduced a similar measure in the House, and three Democrats signed up as co-sponsors: Reps. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, Jared Polis of Colorado and Ed Perlmutter of Colorado. The bureau manages more public land than any other federal agency, ranging from about 1 square mile (3 square kilometers) in Virginia to nearly 113,000 square miles (293,000 square kilometers) in Alaska. That doesn’t include national parks or national forests, which are managed by other agencies. It has approximately 9,000 employees, with fewer than 400 in Washington. The rest are scattered among 140 state, district or field offices. “The larger issue is that states and counties that are predominated by public lands are deeply affected by decisions made by BLM,” said Kathleen Sgamma, president of the Western Energy Alliance in Denver, which represents the oil and gas industry. “So it makes sense (for the headquarters) to be in a state where there are a high percentage of public lands.”...more