Moving US land agency west brings praise, prompts questions

DENVER (AP) - The Trump administration's plan to move the government's largest land management office from Washington to Colorado evoked a mix of praise, criticism and questions on Tuesday.

The Bureau of Land Management confirmed the bureau's headquarters would move to Grand Junction, Colorado, to get it closer to the lands it oversees.

The Interior Department, which oversees the bureau, said about 300 jobs would move to Western states, but fewer than 30 appeared headed to Grand Junction.

The department said about 85 jobs would be shifted to Colorado, with most of them going to suburban Denver, where the federal government has a large campus with regional offices for several agencies, including the Bureau of Land Management.

Nevada was in line for nearly 50 jobs, Utah about 45, and Arizona and New Mexico about 40 each, the department said.

The bureau oversees nearly 388,000 square miles (1 million square kilometers) of public land, and 99% is in 12 Western states. Those lands produce oil, gas and coal, and ranchers graze livestock on them as well.

"This is a victory for local communities, advocates for public lands and proponents for a more responsible and accountable federal government," Colorado GOP Sen. Cory Gardner said.

Gardner released a letter from the Interior Department Tuesday confirming the move to Grand Junction, a city of about 63,000 people 250 miles (400 kilometers) west of Denver.

It is nestled against the Colorado River with views of the orange and brown rock cliffs that are part of nearby Colorado National Monument. The city has a small college and a minor league baseball team affiliated with the Colorado Rockies and touts its wineries that sprung up from the area being a fruit-growing region.

Bill Stringer, a Uintah County, Utah, commissioner and retired Bureau of Land Management employee, said it's a good idea to put more agency employees "closer to where the action is" and in the same time zone as many of the ranchers who seek permits on public land.

But Stringer said he wants to hear the details.

"Theoretically, it sounds like you might have better access," said Stringer, who retired in 2014 from the BLM. "But I'm interested in seeing what it really looks like."

He noted that flying in and out of Grand Junction could be logistically difficult for people coming from Washington.

Steve Ellis, another retired bureau official who served as deputy director of the agency, questioned how effective senior leaders could be if they are in western Colorado while budget negotiations and briefings for Congress take place in Washington.

"Those functions are critical, and they're time-sensitive," he said. "My concern is, they're not going to operate well with key people west of the Rockies."

Ellis dismissed the argument that Bureau of Land Management staff will make better decisions if the headquarters is in the West, saying 95% of the agency's staff is already in field offices.

The bureau has 9,000 employees, most of them scattered among 140 state, district or field offices.

"This move will further remove BLM career leadership from policy decisions that will still be made in Washington by the (Interior) department," Ellis said.

The Center for Western Priorities, an environmental group, also scoffed at the argument that moving the headquarters west would lead to better decisions.

"This announcement is nothing but a PR stunt," the group's executive director, Jennifer Rokala, said in a written statement." Moving senior BLM leadership would only turn the agency into an afterthought, rather than a core piece of the Interior Department."

Interior Department officials have said they also considered Denver; Salt Lake City; Albuquerque, New Mexico; and Boise, Idaho, for the new headquarters.

The move is part of a broader plan to reorganize the Interior Department, launched by then-Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke. Zinke stepped down in January amid ethics allegations, and his successor, David Bernhardt, continued the planning but with less fanfare.

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This story has been corrected to say the Bureau of Land Management oversees nearly 388,000 square miles (1 million square kilometers) of public land.

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McCombs reported from Salt Lake City.