As
Westerners, you immediately understood why: plain common sense! After
all, 99.99 percent of the 245 million acres of federal land managed by
the BLM is in 11 western States and Alaska. While BLM’s employees work
in the West, its top officials work in a high-rise office building just
steps from the Washington Nationals baseball stadium. BLM Headquarters’
staff is located thousands of miles and at least two time zones away
from the lands they manage; the representatives of state, local and
tribal governments with which they are required — by law — to interact
with; and the people whose lives are affected mightily by their
decisions.
So,
with the support of the administration, Congress and local leaders, we
announced a new BLM headquarters in Grand Junction, Colorado and the
relocation of about 150 top posts to the West in close proximity to the
work they perform: oil and gas experts were assigned to New Mexico to
assist with the Permian Basin; wild horse and burro experts were
assigned to Nevada, the epicenter of that activity; renewable energy
experts were assigned to California, where wind and solar power play
such a big role; and so forth.
One would think the move is a no-brainer, right?
However,
I keep remembering the way my former boss, President Reagan,
characterized Washington D.C. as “a small plot of lands on the banks of
the Potomac surrounded on all sides by reality.”
Consistent
with Reagan’s warning, there has been much hyperventilating about our
plans. Every day, one of the D.C. “news” outlets serving Capitol Hill
and the vast federal bureaucracy is given the vapors over our efforts to
move west. Even when a news story is fair and balanced, the
accompanying “Sky is falling” headline is meant to provoke angst and too
often does.
Little surprise that recently eleven
congressmen from the District of Columbia, Maryland, Massachusetts, New
Hampshire and Virginia, wrote a letter to the chairman of the House
Appropriations Committee demanding that the BLM be denied the funds to
complete its move west.
Their
letter is a curious one because only Maryland and Virginia hold any BLM
land, just 2,000 acres, in two special recreation areas. On the other
hand, Wyoming, for example, has 18.4 million acres of BLM land. For
goodness sake, some Wyoming voting precincts have more BLM land than
does Maryland or Virginia.
The
congressmen asserted that our plan is “designed to harm public lands
and limit congressional oversight,” and they demand “the roughly 300
D.C.-based staffers stay in [Washington D.C.] to continue assisting
Congress in writing laws and engaging in oversight by providing
unvarnished facts to lawmakers.”
To the extent that they are even
interested in oversight, Congress need only ask and we will appear. That
is just what I did on September 10, when I answered every question from
the Committee on Natural Resources regarding our move.
The
“reality” is that it goes without saying that the D.C. metro area is
notorious for political nonsense, bad traffic and a very high cost of
living. Conversely, our senior BLM officials stationed in the West will
enjoy a lower cost of living, shorter commuting times and closer
proximity to the West’s wide-open spaces and recreational pursuits on
public lands.
I understand the representatives are
disappointed that the BLM is taking some high-paying jobs out of the
Washington, D.C. area, but there is the offsetting prospect of placing
these high paying, quality jobs in western communities eager for
economic development.
I
want to assure you that when we complete this move in the spring, the
BLM, the West and the American people all will be better for it. We look
forward to saying “Howdy” to our new neighbors, not just at our new
headquarters in Grand Junction or at our various offices throughout the
West, but as a welcomed addition to our community.
1 comment:
Fire the sissy's that don't want to leave the swamp!
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