DC-area Democrats push to block funding for Bureau of Land Management relocation

A coalition of representatives largely from the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area is asking House appropriators to ensure that funds will not be used to move the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) outside of the nation’s capital. The push comes after BLM sent 159 letters to employees informing them they would be moving to various offices across the West as the public lands agency decentralizes its D.C. office and opens a new headquarters in Grand Junction, Colo. The controversial plan would leave just 61 of BLM’s 10,000 employees in D.C. The D.C.-area lawmakers, all Democrats, wrote a letter to Rep. Betty McCollum (D-Minn.), the lead on the subcommittee handling the Department of the Interior's budget, which includes BLM...MORE