The Senate confirmed Stevan Pearce on Monday to lead the Bureau of Land Management amid strong opposition from environmentalists and Democrats who criticized his views on selling off public land. The chamber voted 46-43 to confirm Pearce’s nomination along with 48 other presidential nominees as part of an en bloc package. In his new role, Pearce will oversee more than 244 million acres of federal land and over 700 million acres of subsurface minerals. Pearce, a former Republican congressman from New Mexico, received some pushback from Democrats during his confirmation hearings over his past comments about shifting ownership of public land to state or private entities.
In 2012, Pearce, alongside then-Rep. Rob Bishop, wrote a letter proposing to divest some federal land to help reduce the deficit.
“The federal government owns roughly 650 million acres of land, or 1/3 of the entire landmass of our country. Over 90% of this land is located in the Western states, and most of it we do not even need,” the two congressmen wrote at the time.
Pearce attempted to reassure Democrats during his committee hearings that he would not recommend rolling back national monument designations, and that laws like the Federal Land Policy and Management Act prohibit the sale of large swaths of public land.
