{"id":262351,"date":"2026-02-25T17:20:50","date_gmt":"2026-02-26T00:20:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/montanafreepress.org\/?p=262351"},"modified":"2026-02-27T15:41:17","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T22:41:17","slug":"blm-nominee-talks-land-sales-local-management-in-senate-confirmation-hearing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montanafreepress.org\/2026\/02\/25\/blm-nominee-talks-land-sales-local-management-in-senate-confirmation-hearing\/","title":{"rendered":"BLM nominee talks land sales, local management in Senate confirmation hearing"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

President Donald Trump\u2019s pick to lead the Bureau of Land Management attempted on Wednesday to reassure U.S. senators that neither he nor Interior Secretary Doug Burgum favor a large-scale selloff of federal land.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Steve Pearce, a Republican who spent seven terms in the U.S. House of Representatives and chaired New Mexico\u2019s Republican Party, <\/strong>appeared before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee to pitch lawmakers on his suitability for the job. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was also an opportunity for Pearce to outline his vision for the BLM, which oversees 245 million acres of land and 700 million acres of subsurface minerals in the U.S., including 8 million acres of land in Montana. If Pearce\u2019s nomination is approved by the full Senate, he will assume the helm of the country\u2019s largest land management agency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pearce has been nominated to the role formerly held by Tracy Stone-Manning, the Montanan who led the BLM under the Biden administration after narrowly clearing a Senate vote in 2021<\/a>. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pearce, who served in the Vietnam War and owned an oil and gas well-servicing company prior to his political career, has come under fire from conservation groups and Democratic lawmakers who have questioned his intentions for the BLM. <\/strong>An agency with a \u201cmultiple use\u201d mission, the BLM balances recreational and cultural resources alongside various forms of commercial enterprise, ranging from livestock grazing and fossil fuel development to hard-rock mining and logging.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the Wednesday hearing, Pearce said he garnered an appreciation for \u201cconserving and preserving\u201d land by growing up on a small farm and during backpacking trips in wilderness areas after his return from the Vietnam War. He also suggested that the federal government has been largely misguided in its land management approach by acting as an \u201cabsentee landlord\u201d that \u201crules over\u201d states and local communities rather than partnering with them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shortly after Trump announced Pearce as his BLM pick<\/a> in November, conservation groups opposed to his nomination began surfacing concerns about Pearce\u2019s plans. A coalition of advocacy groups including Wild Montana, Montana Conservation Voters and Montana Wildlife Federation highlighted a 2012 letter that Pearce and others penned to then-House Speaker John Boehner as part of a federal deficit reduction proposal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDivesting the federal government of its vast land holdings could pay down the deficit and reduce spending. 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,\u201d the letter read. \u201cStrategically transferring ownership of these lands where it makes sense would reduce duplicative land management costs, boost revenues through the resultant economic activity of more productive and local land management, and is consistent with the principles of federalism our founding fathers envisioned.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sen. Martin Heinrich, the ranking Democrat on the committee, who also hails from New Mexico, raised the issue of whether \u201cthe new BLM agenda\u201d includes the large-scale sale of agency-administered land \u2014 an issue that both Republican and Democratic senators on the committee returned to repeatedly during the two-hour hearing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pearce responded that Interior Secretary Doug Burgum has said \u201cthat he does not visualize any sales of land.\u201d Pearce added that he would \u201cgladly\u201d accept the help of the senators on the committee in identifying the \u201cisolated\u201d parcels that might be appropriate for sale.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Asked by Oregon Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden if Pearce still holds a view that he previously expressed \u2014 that there is too much land under public ownership in the West \u2014 the nominee rationalized his past statements and referenced laws such as the Federal Land Policy and Management Act.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m not so sure that I\u2019ve changed. I\u2019m not sure that I was not speaking out of sheer frustration with an agency on behalf of people that were being overwhelmed,\u201d he said. \u201cI do not believe that we\u2019re going to go out and wholesale land from the federal government. That, again, has been stated by the [Interior] Secretary, and federal law says that we can\u2019t do that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Montana\u2019s representative on the committee, Republican Sen. Steve Daines, took a wide berth around the land transfer issue, instead asking Pearce if he supports the Land and Water Conservation Fund, the 60-year-old funding pot supported by offshore oil and gas revenues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAbsolutely,\u201d Pearce said, responding to Daines\u2019 question about using LWCF money to expand hunting, fishing and recreational access to BLM land.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Daines also asked Pearce about his vision for forested BLM lands, a category that includes more than 1.3 million acres managed by the agency\u2019s office spanning Montana and the Dakotas. Pearce echoed Daines\u2019 preference for \u201cactive forest management,\u201d arguing that it needs to be done at scale, and that the right approach is to \u201caggressively thin\u201d forests rather than clear-cut them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Daines intends to support Pearce\u2019s nomination, his spokesperson, Gabby Wiggins, wrote in an email to Montana Free Press.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shortly after the Wednesday hearing wrapped up, Wild Montana released a statement saying the organization is not convinced that Pearce\u2019s priorities have changed, and that federal land will be safe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPearce has a 15-year track record of wanting to privatize public lands \u2014 including the BLM lands he\u2019d be responsible for. Halfhearted lip service doesn\u2019t erase that history,\u201d Wild Montana staff attorney Aubrey Bertram said in an emailed statement. \u201cPearce is just saying what he thinks will get him confirmed, but the truth is the same as it was yesterday: he\u2019s unfit to serve at the BLM.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Pearce\u2019s  nomination to advance, it must be approved by a majority of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and the larger U.S. Senate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This story was updated on Feb. 26, 2026, to include a comment from a spokesperson for U.S. Senator Steve Daines.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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