New Mexico Republican Steve Pearce, a former congressman for the state, is one step closer to leading the federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) following a March 4 party-line vote in a U.S. Senate committee.
Senators on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee voted 11-9 to advance Pearce’s confirmation to the full U.S. Senate. The vote occurred without debate, though senators had a chance a week earlier to question Pearce about his record and public lands views.
If confirmed by the Senate, Pearce, who represented New Mexico’s 2nd Congressional District from 2011 to 2019, would lead an agency that oversees 245 million acres of public lands, including for recreation, cattle grazing and extraction of oil and natural gas.
A hearing date for Pearce’s Senate Floor confirmation has not yet been set. A spokesperson for the committee told Source New Mexico that Senate Majority Leader U.S. Sen. John Thune (R-SD) decides the schedule.
On March 4, Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-NM), the committee’s ranking member, was the first to vote “no,” followed by eight other Democrats. After the vote, Heinrich reiterated his opposition to Pearce’s nomination, reading from a statement he issued earlier in the week that notes Pearce’s previous support of public land selloffs and opposition to the 2014 designation of the Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument east of Las Cruces.
“Like my constituents, I cannot ignore Congressman Pearce’s record,” Heinrich said.
State and national environmentalist groups swiftly denounced Pearce’s nomination to the BLM post right after President Donald Trump put his name forward in November. After the vote March 4, groups including the Center for Western Priorities and the Wilderness Society urged the Senate to reject his confirmation.
“New Mexicans overwhelmingly believe these lands belong in public hands, not on the auction block,” said Michael Casaus, New Mexico state director of the Wilderness Society, in a statement. “Pearce’s record raises serious doubts about whether he would defend our national monuments or resist efforts to sell off our shared lands.” — Patrick Lohmann, Source New Mexico
Republished under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.
