{"id":1314580,"date":"2019-09-13T10:05:35","date_gmt":"2019-09-13T16:05:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/?p=987585"},"modified":"2019-09-13T10:05:35","modified_gmt":"2019-09-13T16:05:35","slug":"congress-debates-bureau-of-land-management-move-to-grand-junction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/local-news\/congress-debates-bureau-of-land-management-move-to-grand-junction\/","title":{"rendered":"Congress debates Bureau of Land Management move to Grand Junction"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The acting director of the Bureau of Land Management on Tuesday defended his agency\u2019s decision to&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.denverpost.com\/2019\/07\/16\/bureau-land-management-grand-junction-lakewood\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"(opens in a new tab)\">move its headquarters to Grand Junction<\/a>in the face of criticisms that it will cause career employees to depart, will needlessly cost federal coffers and will harm tribal interests.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNearly every Western state will realize significant benefits from this reorganization,\u201d&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.denverpost.com\/2019\/08\/30\/william-perry-pendley-rebutting-a-popular-myth-about-my-position-on-public-lands\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"(opens in a new tab)\">William Perry Pendley<\/a>, a longtime Colorado resident and lawyer, told the House Natural Resources Committee.<\/p>\n<p>In mid-July,&nbsp;<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"(opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/www.denverpost.com\/2019\/07\/15\/bureau-land-management-grand-junction\/\" target=\"_blank\">it was announced<\/a>&nbsp;that BLM will move its headquarters and 27 top staffers to Grand Junction. Supporters of the plan, led by Republican Sen. Cory Gardner of Yuma, say it moves decision-making closer to the federal lands that BLM oversees. Critics say the real goal is to cut the size of BLM, effectively weakening the public lands agency.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s a question of distrust in the people of Grand Junction,\u201d said Rep. Raul Grijalva, an Arizona Democrat who chairs the House Natural Resources Committee,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/naturalresources.house.gov\/hearings\/-blm-disorganization-examining-the-proposed-reorganization-and-relocation-of-the-bureau-of-land-management-headquarters-to-grand-junction-colorado\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"(opens in a new tab)\">during the hearing Tuesday<\/a>. \u201cIt\u2019s the distrust that\u2019s centered on this (Trump) administration, their motivations, and what is really behind the move that we\u2019re here trying to get at.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Tuesday\u2019s hearing was solely for oversight purposes; there is no current legislation to stop the BLM move to Grand Junction. Some Democrats&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.eenews.net\/stories\/1060749573\">have vowed to do so<\/a>&nbsp;through the appropriations process, but it\u2019s not yet clear whether they will have the votes or time to accomplish that.<\/p>\n<p>Read more via&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.denverpost.com\/2019\/09\/10\/blm-grand-junction-headquarters\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"(opens in a new tab)\">The Denver Post<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/news\/congress-debates-bureau-of-land-management-move-to-grand-junction\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">via:: Post Independent<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The acting director of the Bureau of Land Management on Tuesday defended his agency\u2019s decision to&nbsp;move its headquarters to Grand Junctionin the face of criticisms that it will cause career employees to depart, will needlessly cost federal coffers and will harm tribal interests. \u201cNearly every Western state will realize significant benefits from this reorganization,\u201d&nbsp;William Perry [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[160],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1314580","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-27 10:29:57","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSKE Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1314580","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1314580"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1314580\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1314580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1314580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1314580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}