BLM’s planned move to Grand Junction makes no sense
Iam one of the 30 former career senior executives of the Bureau of Land Management who wrote to Interior Secretary David Bernhardt to object to the dismantling of the BLM’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. I signed my name because I served as the Colorado state director for the BLM from 1997 to 2002, and I think the reorganization proposal is a disaster for our public lands — here in Colorado and across the country.
The proposal would move 27 jobs from Washington to Grand Junction, 54 more jobs to Lakewood and scatter the rest across at least nine other states. The BLM manages 245 million acres of public land across the country, with only 8.3 million acres here in Colorado. Yet, the reported rationale for this move was to get decision-makers closer to the people they serve — even though 97% of BLM’s 9,000 employees currently live and work in Western states and even though the vast majority of the decisionmaking authority is delegated to the leadership in those states.
Does this move make fiscal sense? Surprisingly, no real data or fiscal analysis has been done that shows the move makes sense, although there is no doubt that office-lease rates are lower here than in Washington. It is even likely that the increased travel time and costs for these executives to do their jobs could offset lease savings. Direct flights from Grand Junction to Washington or many of the cities with BLM offices don’t exist, which would result in considerable extra time and expense.
Does this move make organizational effectiveness sense? Splitting up executive team members into widespread offices does not favor effectiveness. BLM staff members are responsible for implementing hundreds of laws, utilizing dozens of technical career fields. If we are to have our laws fairly, consistently, efficiently and transparently implemented, close coordination and synergy are required. Eliminating in-person daily legislative, budget and policy discussions with the Department of the Interior, other agencies, Congress and the Office of Management and Budget is not more effective governance.
Does this move make political sense? Only if you favor crippling and dismantling the agency’s leadership expertise or driving career staff to quit their jobs, which is what the administration did with several Department of Agriculture agencies recently. In addition, without the agency’s top leadership in Washington, there will be the inevitable tendency to have key decisions made by political appointees in the Department of the Interior instead of through recommendations by career employees who have spent decades working across the Western field offices.
It is ironic that as states and the public are realizing the importance of our nation’s public lands, political forces are de-emphasizing their contributions and significance and dismantling their infrastructure, science capabilities and budgets.
We should oppose efforts to strangle and starve agencies that provide Western communities important services. From 2010 to 2018, recreational visits to BLM lands increased by 15%, but their recreation budget was reduced 18% during the same time. Budgets were cut; the agency is inefficiently organized; and senior staff are isolated from peers and cut off from Congress — all giving BLM’s detractors the opportunity to say the agency isn’t doing a good job of managing our lands and resources.
While I understand the allure of more jobs moving to Colorado, our elected officials should be looking well beyond bringing several dozen jobs to Colorado. They should look at how to support the critical role our nation’s public lands play in providing wildlife habitat, clean water, outstanding recreational opportunities, quality of life for local communities, opportunities for local small businesses, and healthy lands to sequester carbon and build climate resiliency. The reorganization is detrimental to the agency’s ability to properly manage our public lands, and by extension, it’s harmful to Colorado.