[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 130 (Wednesday, July 31, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5210-S5211]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                      BLM Headquarters Relocation

  Mr. GARDNER. Mr. President, several years back, at a committee 
hearing of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Director Neil 
Kornze of the Bureau of Land Management under the Obama administration 
was testifying before our committee on a regulation that was coming out 
of the BLM that most, if not all, of the county commissioners and 
various organizations in Colorado were opposed to. In fact, the 
opposition was so uniform in Colorado and throughout the West that I 
couldn't understand why the BLM was going forward with that regulation.
  Out of frustration, at one point during the committee hearing, I 
said: Director Kornze, if you were just located in the West, if you 
were just out west, you would understand why this rule is a bad idea.
  The response at the time, several years ago, was kind of a chuckle 
and a laugh, and, yes, well, we should talk about that.
  It planted the seeds of an idea that actually was made into reality 
just last week with the announcement that the headquarters of the 
Bureau of Land Management will be moving out west and, indeed, to Grand 
Junction, CO.
  This announcement was made on July 16, and I commend the efforts of 
Secretary Bernhardt and the Department of the Interior for listening to 
the people of the West.
  This isn't a Republican issue. This isn't a partisan issue. In fact, 
this idea to move the BLM headquarters out to the land that it 
regulates and oversees has been embraced by Democrats and Republicans 
across Colorado and throughout the West.
  They also talked about their intention in this announcement to 
reorganize the Bureau of Land Management and to relocate a significant 
number of headquarters jobs throughout the West, not just in Grand 
Junction but in Lakewood, CO, in Montana, in Utah, and beyond.
  I think it is important to talk about the reasons why it makes so 
much sense to have this particular Agency located in Colorado, in the 
West.
  Look at this map here. The red on this map is a combination of both 
mineral rights and surface lands. You can see the red. Forty-seven 
percent of all the land out west is where 93 percent of all Federal 
land is located. The Federal Government owns roughly 47 percent of this 
land out west. It is where 93 percent of the Federal land is located. 
Think about that. Ninety-three percent of all Federal land, here in the 
red, makes up 47 percent of the land ownership in the West.
  Nationwide, the Bureau of Land Management is responsible for managing 
approximately 700 million acres of Federal mineral estates located 
underground. That is the entire country, of course, but 245 million 
acres are surface acres, or Federal surface lands. All but 100,000 
acres of those surface acres--all but 100,000 of those acres--are west 
of the Mississippi River, and located predominantly in the 11 
westernmost States and Alaska.
  One of the frustrations I hear from local and county officials and 
environmental activists and farmers and ranchers is that when they deal 
with their BLM local field office, they seem to have a very good 
experience that people are working together to solve problems, and they 
like the conversations they have and the cooperation they are getting 
from the local and regional offices. But something happens when that 
decision-making process then moves to Washington, DC. Something 
happens, and all of a sudden the conversation and communication can 
stop. It changes. All of a sudden, the outcomes aren't what they 
thought they would be based on those local, productive conversations.
  We have seen directives and management decisions coming more from 
Washington, DC, lately, instead of from the local field offices, where 
people know their communities best and understand the land best. So 
what happens is that the deep pockets and special interests in 
Washington often carry the day, make the convincing arguments, 
thousands of miles removed from where the Federal and the public land 
actually is.

  That is why it is important to have this BLM move. It changes that. 
Instead of having special interests in Washington, in a community that 
has none of these public lands located in it, you are able to make that 
decision right here, in Colorado, surrounded by public lands, in a 
community that is defined by the public lands that they oversee.
  I believe government is going to work better when it is local, when 
local decision makers are closest to the land that the decisions they 
are making affect the most. That is why this decision is so important--
whether it is issues of withdrawal of locatable minerals or the 
reduction of grazing permits; the concept of multiple use over time; 
the idea that we can use this land for preservation, conservation, or 
that we can use it for energy development, or that we can use it for 
grazing. That has somehow fallen out of favor.
  My friend Greg Walcher, who is a former Senate staffer for Senator 
Armstrong, who used to head the Colorado Department of Natural 
Resources, wrote an op-ed about this point, pointing out that the 
multiple-use mandate includes managing 18,000 grazing permits, 220 
wilderness areas, 27 national monuments, 600 national conservation 
areas, 200,000 miles of streams, 2,000 miles of wild and scenic rivers, 
6,000 miles of national scenic trails, 63,000 oil and gas wells, 25,000 
mines, and 50 million acres of forests.

[[Page S5211]]

  Not a square inch of that is in Washington, DC. It is in the 12 
Western States: Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, 
Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming. It has never 
made sense for leadership to work 2,000 miles away from these States, 
insulated by the inevitably different perspectives of life inside the 
beltway. That is what is so important about this decision.
  When you don't live in the communities that are among and surrounded 
by these lands, it is easy to make decisions that close off energy 
development or close cattle ranches and grazing opportunities, because 
the consequences are felt out west instead of in Washington, DC.
  But this strong push by westerners--Scott Tipton, myself, Secretary 
Zinke, and others--began the conversation about modernization and the 
organizational structure for the next 100 years of the Bureau of Land 
Management, and I appreciate Secretary Bernhardt's decision to make 
this happen.
  Grand Junction, where the new BLM will be located, is an incredibly 
beautiful place, with people who are so supportive of this decision--a 
community that knows that when these decision makers are in their 
community, they are not going to have to drive hours or take a flight 
for 4 hours out of Washington to see BLM lands. Just to look out the 
window and to see the lands they manage will result in better decision 
making.
  Mesa County, where Grand Junction is located, is the county seat. It 
is 73 percent Federal land, 46 percent of which is managed by the BLM. 
In total, the BLM manages 8.3 million acres of surface in Colorado and 
27 million acres of Federal mineral estates in Colorado.
  But we are not the only State that will benefit, obviously. There are 
a lot of other positions that will be moving across the country to the 
State and to the location where those jobs are a best fit. It makes 
sense.
  I know sometimes people think that Washington is the only place where 
people can do government's work or where people can find the kind of 
skilled workforce. That is one of the arguments that has actually been 
made against the BLM move--that only Washington has the skilled 
workforce able to do these jobs.
  Look, I am sorry, if you don't want to live in the counties and 
communities surrounded by public lands. Then, why are you working for a 
public land management agency?
  So I am excited about this. I thank the good people with the 
Secretary of the Interior who made this decision happen and the 
community of Grand Junction, which supported this from day one.
  In the same op-ed that Mr. Walcher wrote, he opened with a quote and 
said this: ``There is something more powerful than the brute force of 
bayonets: It is the idea whose time has come.''
  That is where we have finally arrived today, an idea whose time has 
come, locating the decision makers who affect our western communities 
the most out in the western United States.
  I thank the Presiding Officer for the opportunity to talk about this 
decision. I commend the Secretary of the Interior for doing what is 
right by our public lands, and I will continue to stand up for public 
lands throughout this process.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.