Retired BLM leaders head to Capitol Hill to block HQ move

Retired senior Bureau of Land Management leaders are ratcheting up efforts to stop the agency from relocating its headquarters and hundreds of senior positions out West. A coalition that includes Bob Abbey, who served as BLM director during President Obama's first term, and Henri Bisson, who served as deputy director of operations during the George W. Bush administration, is visiting with congressional leaders and staffers today through Thursday to express concerns with the relocation plan. The campaign comes just days before Washington, D.C.-based staffers must decide whether to move or leave BLM. The coalition organized by the Public Lands Foundation, a BLM retirees' group, is scheduled to meet with House Natural Resources Chairman Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.), as well as Colorado Sen. Cory Gardner (R) — a vocal proponent of the plan to move BLM's headquarters to Grand Junction, Colo. The coalition also includes former BLM Wyoming directors Mary Jo Rugwell, who retired in August, and Don Simpson, who retired in 2015; Ray Brady, who retired in 2015 as manager of BLM's National Renewable Energy Coordination Office; and Jenna Whitlock, who retired in 2017 as acting deputy director of operations. They are set to meet this week with Sens. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) and Steve Daines (R-Mont.), as well as Reps. Mark Amodei (R-Nev.), Joe Neguse (D-Colo.) and Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.). The goal of the "outreach meetings" with lawmakers and their staff — including staffers with Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R), who chairs the Energy and Natural Resources Committee — is to prompt Congress to add language in any Interior appropriations bill blocking the relocation plan and the use of federal funds to pay for it...MORE

Many will remember the ethically- challenged Abbey, see: 

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