Top Interior official sizes up Ogden as possible site for BLM HQ

A top Interior official toured Ogden Tuesday, marveling at the painted horse statues, the multiple flower boxes, the street side pianos and the community pride. "It's a really pretty town," said Susan Combs, the U.S. Department of the Interior’s assistant secretary for policy, management and budget, over a lunch of pizza at Roosters. Combs had a specific list of amenities she wanted to see in Ogden as she sized up the city as a potential candidate for the relocation of the Bureau of Land Management headquarters from Washington, D.C. She wanted to see neighborhood parks, the airport, residential housing, Weber State University and local health care services. Combs was in Utah to tour Ogden and participate in a roundtable discussion with Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, on the reorganization of the U.S. Department of Interior. She said the department's present organizational structure evolved over the last 100 years to include eight distinct bureaus featuring 49 regions — something that would never have been designed that way from the outset. Combs said Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke wants Western headquarters for the BLM, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as well the Bureau of Reclamation, which manages many of the dams, in the West. She's visited multiple sites in an assessment tour, including Grand Junction, Colorado, Denver, Albuquerque and Salt Lake City. Boise is also on her list to visit. At the roundtable discussion, Combs noted that a new map approved last week breaks up the Interior into 12 distinct land-based regions that will allow closer coordination on the ground. "If we don't deliver better services to you, we have messed up," she said...MORE