Interior finalizes public lands agency HQ move out West over congressional objections

Grand Junction, Colo., officially became the headquarters for the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) on Monday, capping a move that has cost the agency nearly 70 percent of its Washington, D.C.-based employees. An order signed by Interior Secretary David Bernhardt “completes the process of relocating the federal agency headquarters closer to both the land it administers and to its employees,” the BLM said in a release.  The move to the new headquarters leaves just 61 of the agency’s 10,000 employees in D.C. as part of a plan to move about 25 employees to the Colorado office while scattering roughly 200 at existing offices across the West. However, most of the BLM’s D.C.-based employees opted not to make the move, as public lands groups argued the relocation was designed to dismantle an agency that at times can stand in the way of energy development and ranching interests. The Hill learned in June that just 68 — or about 30 percent — of the roughly 225 employees designated to move had accepted their new assignments. Grand Junction, a roughly 60,000-person town in Colorado’s Western Slope, was a surprising choice to some. Though it is located in an area with many public lands, it is also about four hours from any major airport. “This relocation strengthens our relationship with communities in the West by ensuring decisionmakers are living and working closer to the lands they manage for the American people,” Bernhardt said in a release...MORE

You know it has to be a good move because Little Tommy YouDull opposes it.

“The BLM’s poorly-executed relocation effort is a transparent attempt to weaken the agency and undermine the public servants who work there—or used to work there. There’s little to celebrate here. The Trump administration has hollowed out an entire agency to score a political point. Shedding a generation of civil service leadership does not help the American public, and I fear we’ll be bearing the consequences for years to come,” Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.), a vocal critic of the move, told The Hill in a statement.

'Gutted' Interior agency moves out West with top posts unfilled

The Interior Department is struggling to fill top positions at the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) despite assurances from officials that the agency's relocation from Washington to Colorado is helping recruit top talent, according to an analysis by The Hill. Interior Department leaders have told Congress that moving the public lands bureau to new headquarters out West has helped recruit more and better qualified candidates than ever before. But a review of more than 100 job postings finds the agency has failed to fill several top posts just a month before it plans to finish the relocation. BLM has yet to hire four of the agency’s seven division directors. Each of the positions has been reposted after failing to hire a candidate. Other top postings, like a division chief to manage the wild horse and burro program in Reno, Nev., have been reposted twice. The relocation plans initially aimed to move some 220 D.C.-based positions to Grand Junction, Colo., while scattering the rest across existing offices and leaving just 61 employees in the agency’s Washington office. But figures provided to The Hill show that just 68 employees have agreed to make the move. The agency must now replace more than 100 BLM employees who have chosen to leave the agency rather than relocate. The upcoming presidential election may also give some employees pause, unsure if a change in administration would mean abandoning the relocation plans. Congressional Democrats have been opposed to BLM’s plans. But critics say the flight of longtime BLM employees combined with the more than 100 new jobs posted will allow the Trump administration to completely overhaul the agency regardless of November’s outcome...MORE

The article says 10,000 employees are already stationed in the West, and they have to fill 100 positions of folks who declined the move.  Only DC Deep Thinkers would think 1 percent fewer employees is "gutting" an agency.

Watchdog faults Bureau of Land Management for sending jobs to Colorado, the West

A U.S. government watchdog agency said Friday that 81 Bureau of Land Management employees have declined to relocate to Western states or left their positions as the Trump administration pursues a broad reorganization of the bureau’s headquarters staff. The Government Accountability Office issued a report that faulted the administration for failing to follow key reform practices such as involving employees and stakeholders in its plans. The bureau has about 10,000 employees, and most are already in field offices in the West with only about 400 in Washington, D.C. The Interior Department said last year it planned to move about 300 of them to the West. The transfers are part of the Trump administration’s decision to create a new national headquarters in Grand Junction. The move was championed by Republican U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner of Colorado, who is touting the relocation in his 2020 reelection bid. Democrats, including Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, also pushed for the move. The bureau oversees nearly 388,000 square miles of public land, 99% of it in 12 Western states. Out of 170 bureau staff who received relocation notices, 90 accepted, 81 declined or left their positions and eight fell into other categories, the GAO found. About 130 positions already were vacant when the relocation was announced. House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Raul Grijalva said the GAO investigation showed the administration was trying to drive out staff and destroy the bureau’s ability to carry out its mission. In response, Bureau of Land Management spokeswoman Megan Crandall said the relocation was “commonsense” and would better position officials to serve the public and allow multiple uses of public lands. LINK

 House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Raul Grijalva said the GAO investigation showed the administration was trying to drive out staff and destroy the bureau’s ability to carry out its mission.

If only that was true. 

BLM exodus: Agency loses half of DC staff slated for relocation

Here is the good news

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has lost more than half of its Washington-based employees who were slated to move out West as the agency pushes ahead with a controversial plan to relocate staff. New internal numbers from the Interior Department obtained by The Hill show 69 employees have left the agency rather than accept the new assignment. Another 18 left after the plans were announced but before they could be reassigned. Those 87 employees outnumber the 80 who have agreed to the move.

More good news 

“This is a huge brain drain,” said Steve Ellis, who retired from BLM’s top career-level post in 2016. “There is a lot of really solid expertise walking out the door.”

Brain drain? No, more like a Swamp Drain

In a meeting with Senate appropriators Wednesday, Interior Secretary David Bernhardt told lawmakers he was confident the agency would find quality candidates to replace the departing staffers, including those needed to fill top positions at the new headquarters.  “The caliber of people and number of people applying for these positions is through the roof and phenomenal,” he said.
But Ellis said the relocation “removes BLM from the sphere of direct influence in the nation’s capital and critically weakens the agency’s ability for career leadership and their staff to collaborate across disciplines and work closely with other key agencies.”

All that pablum about "sphere of direct influence", "career leadership" and "collaborate across disciplines" is pure: 

 Here is the link to the joyous news.

Trump: BLM leaders should live 'in the great American West'

President Trump told a boisterous crowd at a campaign rally in Colorado yesterday that moving the Bureau of Land Management's headquarters out West is part of his "historic regulatory reduction campaign" aimed at "ending the tyranny of Washington bureaucrats." "We repealed the ridiculous Waters of the United States rule, which was basically taking away your property," Trump said during the rally in Colorado Springs, Colo. "And we are taking the Bureau of Land Management out of Washington, D.C.; we've just done it." Trump — with Interior Secretary David Bernhardt nearby and flanked by Colorado Republican Reps. Ken Buck, Doug Lamborn and Scott Tipton — told the crowd of supporters that moving BLM headquarters to Grand Junction, Colo., is justified "because we believe that the people who manage the lands of the great American West should live right here in the great American West." BLM's move played a small part in Trump's two-hour speech, which was broadcast live by C-SPAN. The president is on a three-state campaign rally tour that wraps up today in Las Vegas — a day before Nevada's Democratic caucus. But his comments were noteworthy because Trump has rarely, if ever, publicly discussed his administration's reasoning behind relocating BLM's headquarters to Colorado, along with more than 200 other D.C.-based positions to state offices across the West. Trump's comments came as congressional Democrats have ramped up scrutiny of the BLM move...MORE

BLM Acting Director Defends Agency's Controversial Move To Colorado

...At 6'5", Pendley is wearing a crisp white western shirt and black bolo tie. And he seems tired of the symbolic criticism. The General Services Administration, not him or the BLM, found this space to lease anyway, he says. "Let's be real," Pendley says. "The oil patch can always afford to fly to Washington and sit down with somebody, the people who can't do it are farmers and ranchers and people from small communities and county commissioners." The Bureau of Land Management decides who gets to do what on some 250 million acres of public land in the country, or to put it another way roughly one-tenth of all the land in the U.S. Relocating its headquarters to the West, where most of its actual land is, has been floated for years. But now the Trump administration is actually making it happen. For Pendley the move is part of a broader push by the controversial president to decentralize the federal government. "I think the more important story is we're out here, we're in the local community, and locals can come and see us," he says. "We're just a short day's drive away from a lot of people who would never think of flying to D.C. to sit down with the director." The 74-year-old attorney served in President Reagan's Department of Interior under controversial Secretary James Watt. But he spent most of his career at the conservative Mountain States Legal Foundation in Colorado. There, he frequently challenged the BLM in cases representing miners, ranchers and recently Utah counties who fought Bears Ears National Monument. Some westerners, Pendley included, have long complained that the agency's leaders in Washington are disconnected with rural, resource-dependent communities. Here in Grand Junction, Mesa County Commissioner Rose Pugliese pushed hard for the relocation. "We have had great relationships with our local field offices," Pugliese says. "But ultimately we have learned that the decisions are made in Washington, D.C., where they don't really even know where Mesa County is or the impacts of their decisions on our economy." Pugliese is a Republican. But there has been some bipartisan support in Colorado anyway for the relocation. In part because the government is moving higher paying leadership jobs out here...MORE

BLM staff 'charade' fills empty offices in new HQ

A handful of Bureau of Land Management employees in Colorado have been temporarily reassigned to BLM's new headquarters in Grand Junction, Colo., to give the appearance that the office is occupied and busy, bureau sources have told E&E News. A dozen or so employees last month began temporarily working in the new building, first from the nearby Grand Junction Field Office, which includes staffers in the Southwest District Office, according to multiple BLM sources with knowledge of the situation. BLM recently reassigned two other employees to the new headquarters from its Colorado River Valley Field Office in Silt, Colo., some 60 miles northeast of Grand Junction, a BLM source said. None of the reassigned employees is part of the ongoing effort by BLM to move its Washington-based headquarters to Grand Junction. The employees were told they would be in the new headquarters for only a few months and would move back to their original "duty station" when the new headquarters is fully operational this spring. "The temporary local staff move is a minor misuse of tax dollars and probably also a minor disruption to normal workflow, but I think noteworthy for the deception," a BLM employee who asked not to be identified told E&E News. "It does, however, allow BLM to truthfully say HQ staff are already working in Grand Junction. "It is unclear to me who this charade is supposed to impress," the employee said. BLM defended the temporary reassignments in a statement to E&E News. "Local staff helping in the new headquarters are predominantly doing their everyday jobs but are present and available to help BLM personnel rotating in as we get settled," the statement read. "It has been fantastic having them there to help out and their support has been invaluable."...MORE

Pendley: Dispelling False Narratives About BLM Move

In The Hill, William Perry Pendley defends the move by pointing out:

• The BLM manages 88,000 wild horses and burros, mostly in Nevada but also in neighboring western states, BUT the top officials who run that program are in Washington, D.C.
• The BLM leases land for energy development in New Mexico’s Permian Basin, the hottest area in the Lower 48 for these activities, BUT the officials who oversee that program are in Washington, D.C.
• The BLM operates a $1 billion alternative energy program in California, BUT the officials who approve these projects are in Washington, D.C. 

He then pretty well trashes the critics. With reference to the 11 members of congress who attempted to kill the funding for the move, Pendley says they have less than 2,500 acres of BLM land in their districts. They are D.C. area reps who don't want the jobs leaving their area. And as for a recent column by former BLM Directors. Pendley takes them to task for their many distortions and errors: 

• Despite the open way we have discussed the move, the thousands of words we have expended detailing it, and the boxes of documents we have provided in support of it, they falsely label it a “stealth plan” that was “below the radar;”
• Despite our policy to retain public lands, they incorrectly assert the BLM’s land is “quietly being taken away from [the American people];”
• Despite senior career BLM officials, including the BLM’s deputy director, assistant directors and state directors helping to decide the best location for all positions to best serve national, state and local needs, they wrongly blame “political appointees”;
• Despite filling scores of important positions that have remained vacant for years because the experts needed by BLM do not want to work in Washington, D.C., they inaccurately say we plan to “dismantle the organization” and “destroy the agency from the inside;” and
• Despite the director and a deputy director, along with a staff of nearly 40 senior decision makers moving to the new headquarters in Grand Junction, Colo., they disingenuously claim all decisions will be made by “politically appointed officials within the Office of the Secretary of the Interior,” without the BLM’s involvement.

READ ENTIRE OP_ED

Cost analysis backing BLM move comes under scrutiny

Experts say the cost-benefit analysis used by the Interior Department to justify its plan to relocate the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) outside of Washington is incomplete and does little to back the agency’s reasoning that the move will save taxpayers millions. “This is a highly incomplete basis for informing a policy decision,” said Craig Thornton, an economist and president of the Society for Benefit-Cost Analysis, who reviewed the documents at the request of The Hill. The cost-benefit analysis created by Interior, which was obtained by The Hill, is just two pages — a brief synopsis when breaking down the financial pros and cons of a decision that could typically fill a binder. The figures, shared with members of Congress in August about a month after Interior announced it would move nearly all of BLM’s D.C.-based staffers to offices out West, estimates the relocation will save $123 million over 20 years through reduced salary and lease costs. But the document lacks key details to explain the savings, giving only top-line figures without explaining how many employees they believe will move, nor how much it will cost to move each employee...MORE

BLM claims most staffers will willingly relocate

In a missive to staff before the close of the year, acting Bureau of Land Management (BLM) chief William Pendley boasted about the number of staff who would be willingly going along with the agency’s controversial decision to move dozens of employees from Washington, D.C., to locations around the country. Pendley wrote that nearly two-thirds of the 153 people who had been told they would need to relocate have said they will do so. “As of today, I’m encouraged and happy to advise you that nearly two-thirds of the 153 people who received MDR [management directed reassignment] letters have indicated they will relocate with their positions,” Pendley wrote in an email to staff late Friday that was obtained by The Hill. If two-thirds of BLM staffers agreed to move that would be an impressive figure, but the email raised eyebrows among many current and former BLM employees, particularly since many staffers have privately stated they don’t intend to move. BLM employees still have roughly 80 days before they must show up for work at their new post, but an internal BLM website reviewed by The Hill showed the agency would allow some staff members to extend their time in Washington in order to allow children to finish the school year or if an employee has holiday travel or medical concerns. Much like at USDA, it’s possible staff may commit to the move on paper while continuing to look for a new job in D.C. Pendley’s email comes as lawmakers have appropriated another $5.9 million to help with the move, despite objections from Democrats...MORE

Pendley: The reality of the BLM's move west

Ever since I joined the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in mid-July, things have been pretty hectic here in Washington, D.C. Around this time, Interior Secretary David Bernhardt announced the relocation of the BLM, leaving many Washington insiders asking, “Why?”

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.

Casper Star-Tribune

Grand Junction to get 40 BLM jobs

The Bureau of Land Management is now definitively saying it plans to locate about 40 jobs at its new national headquarters in Grand Junction next year, up from the 27 initially announced. The agency’s acting director, William Perry Pendley, had suggested the higher number in an interview in Grand Junction with the Daily Sentinel in early November. He said then that he thought as many as 40 positions might be located at the new headquarters, although 27 remained “the most solid number.” A subsequent BLM news release updating the status of the relocation of agency headquarters jobs to Grand Junction and other western locations said that Pendley had confirmed that 40 BLM jobs are going to Grand Junction. Responding by email to an inquiry from the Daily Sentinel last week, the BLM’s Washington office said that “approximately 40” positions will be based in the city. Altogether, the agency is moving some 300 jobs from its Washington, D.C., headquarters to Western states, with top-level positions including the BLM director, deputy director for operations and all assistant directors being based in Grand Junction at its new national headquarters. The agency plans to keep 61 jobs in Washington. The BLM plans to begin working out of its new headquarters office on Horizon Drive at the start of the year. “There will be people working in the Grand Junction headquarters on Jan. 2, but that is not the official grand opening,” the BLM said in its email to the Sentinel. Robin Brown, executive director of the Grand Junction Economic Partnership, said that based on communications with the Department of Interior, she believes about 10 of the employees are expected to begin working in the new office on Jan. 2, with the number continuing to grow through June...MORE

Government watchdog to probe movement of land management bureau out of DC

The Government Accountability Office (GAO), will probe the Trump administration’s decision to relocate Bureau of Land Management (BLM) staff from Washington, D.C., to Colorado, House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.) announced Wednesday. Grijalva described the plan to relocate the BLM’s headquarters as an attempt to “undermine” the agency’s mission and said it is “not being made in good faith” during a Wednesday press conference. “The Government Accountability Office has agreed to review this move and determine if it was properly planned, analyzed, and whether it will deliver the benefits that the administration has been claiming,” Grijalva said. Opponents have criticized the change as an attack on career officials, while proponents have said that it will move employees closer to the lands that they manage...MORE

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: 

Former BLM chief may share $528,000 payday from land sale he backed

Henderson lawsuit links developer Milam, ex-BLM chief Abbey

Relocated BLM staff face salary cuts

A new internal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) website designed to answer employees’ questions about the agency’s upcoming relocation out West says staffers should expect a drop in their overall pay. The information was included in an internal page available to staff seen by The Hill that contained questions and answers about the controversial plan to move most D.C.-based BLM employees and establish a new headquarters in Grand Junction, Colo. In the page, BLM leaders lay out their rationale for the move, touting one of the benefits of relocating as “general cost savings for the bureau because of less expensive office space, in most cases, and decreasing travel costs.” The agency will also save on pay, as D.C. employees will not keep the portion of their salary tied to cost of living in Washington. “An employee reassigned to a relocated position will remain at the grade and pay of his or her current position; however the respective locality pay will vary based on the location of the position,” the website says. Locality pay in Washington boosts base salaries by nearly 30 percent. Locality pay in many other parts of the country increases pay by about 15 percent...MORE

If you change your location, your locality pay changes. Seems pretty simple.

BLM employees who buck relocation out West must leave by early next year

Bureau of Land Management (BLM) employees who choose severance over accompanying the agency as it moves out West will have to be out of their job by Jan. 31 of next year. In an email to BLM staff, acting Director William Pendley said eligible employees may begin applying for early retirement or voluntary separation incentive payments as early as next week. “Once approved, your separation from federal service must occur no later than January 31, 2020,” he wrote in an email to staff obtained by The Hill. The email is just the latest sign that BLM will be proceeding with its controversial relocation despite objections from lawmakers, including a group yesterday who asked appropriators to block funding for the move. BLM’s relocation plans would move the majority of the agency’s D.C.-based staff to various offices across the West, leaving just 61 of its 10,000 employees in the nation’s capital...MORE

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

Interior Department Delivers Hundreds of Relocation Notices to Employees

The Interior Department delivered hundreds of relocation notices on Tuesday, starting a 30-day clock for employees to either agree to move to a location in the western United States or face removal. The official “management directed geographic reassignments” were delivered in-person today to each of the employees at the Bureau of Land Management headquarters facing relocation. BLM is moving 27 employees to a new headquarters in Grand Junction, Colorado, and about 220 more Washington, D.C.-based workers to field offices in western states. The employees will have until Dec. 12 to agree to their specific new post or they will be placed into removal proceedings. BLM held an all hands meeting Tuesday morning to go over the details of the plans, according to multiple employees who attended. Staffers pressed management on what extensions might be available as many of those affected are still looking for new jobs in Washington. Top officials at BLM said “special consideration” for more time would be considered on a case-by-case basis and those making such a request must be prepared to provide both a personal and business justification. Each impacted employee was slated to have a one-on-one meeting with a top BLM official on Tuesday to receive their letter and additional details on the process. If an employee agrees to move, they will have an additional 90 days to arrive at their new duty post. Those who decline the relocation will have certain appeal rights to challenge the resulting termination notice. BLM told employees the administration has granted its requests to offer early retirement and buyouts to at least some employees who do not relocate. The agency did not offer details on exactly who would qualify, but promised to hold information sessions next week to go over more details of the incentive offers. Employees currently at BLM have told Government Executive they know of very few colleagues who plan to relocate, and even some of those who do are still looking for jobs in Washington and will come back home as soon as possible. Many employees have already found new jobs and departed the agency. The workers all suggested morale at the Washington office has plummeted, mistrust of leadership has grown and a sinking feeling that the Trump administration is seeking to sideline important work has set in.
Interior previously said it would provide employees who agree to move 25% of their base salaries as an incentive, as well as free temporary housing in their new locations, but has subsequently threatened to withdraw those perks due to a lack of funding...MORE

Bureau of Land Management staff face relocation or resignation as agency moves west

Employees at the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) were given reassignment letters Tuesday as the agency marches toward its relocation across the West, giving staff 30 days to accept the move or face being booted from the federal workforce. The delivery of the letters means BLM employees will begin moving over the next four months, cementing a controversial plan that spreads about 300 Washington-based staffers across various offices out west and leaves just 61 of the bureau’s 10,000 employees in the nation’s capital. A copy of the letter obtained by The Hill makes clear that employees who do not choose to move could lose their jobs. Current BLM employees said the agency has not done enough to help employees who wish to remain in D.C. find another job elsewhere within the Department of the Interior as promised. “If you do not accept this directed geographic reassignment, you may be subject to a removal from federal service,” the letter reads. An official for BLM said it is “working hard to make sure every affected employee has information on all options available.” That includes career counseling, résumé-writing and interviewing workshops, and “identification of vacancies for interested and qualified employees within the BLM nationwide and within the Department of Interior in the DC area.” The agency, however, appears poised to lose a number of the employees Perry said he hopes to retain...MORE

BLM staffers face looming deadline to relocate or quit

The Bureau of Land Management is expected next week to hand employees in its D.C. headquarters formal notices of relocation to Colorado and other states in the West, according to multiple sources. The letters will kick off a 30-day period in which staffers must decide to move or potentially leave the bureau. BLM managers have been instructed to ensure that as many staffers as possible are in town the week of Nov. 12, when the notices will be hand-delivered to the roughly 30 positions moving to BLM's new headquarters in Grand Junction, Colo., and to the nearly 200 others being relocated to state offices across the West as part of a broad reorganization plan, the sources said. Delivery of the formal "management directed geographic reassignment" forms — as outlined by BLM acting chief William Perry Pendley in an email to staff last month — starts the 30-day clock for affected employees "to decide whether to accept reassignment." Those who check the box on the standard forms committing to relocate will then have "an additional 90 days in which to report to your new duty station," Pendley wrote in the email that notified employees the forms would be delivered "in the coming weeks". A BLM spokesman declined to confirm that the reassignment letters would go to employees next week. But the bureau said in an emailed statement to E&E News, "We sincerely hope employees will be able to follow their positions to the new locations but there are many factors that an individual may consider when deciding whether or not to relocate." The BLM statement also echoed previous assurances by Pendley, both in the email to staff last month and in testimony to Congress in September, that Interior and BLM would help employees who want to stay in D.C. find jobs within the bureau if possible. "Our desire is to retain the knowledge, skills, and abilities of our experienced staff, but we recognize that your personal desires or situations may not be compatible with our decisions," Pendley wrote in the staff email. "We stand ready, willing, and able to be of assistance to you."...MORE 

"We expect many employees to leave the agency, and, in fact, several already have," said Ed Shepard, president of the Public Lands Foundation, a BLM retirees' group. "The loss of talent at the BLM headquarters will have a long-term impact on the management of the public lands."

Talent to do what?? Cuddle up to enviro lobbyists and Congressional staffers? 

Shepard is right about one thing: there will be a long-term impact on the management of federal lands. A very positive impact.