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Acting Bureau of Land Management Director William Perry Pendley speaks at a conference on Oct. 11, 2019, in Fort Collins.
Judith Kohler / The Denver Post
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This June 16, 2015, aerial file photo, shows the Badger-Two Medicine area near the Blackfeet Indian Reservation and Glacier National Park, rear, in Montana. President Donald Trump’s public lands steward, acting U.S. Bureau of Land Management Director William Perry Pendley, has recused himself from dealings with a company seeking to drill in the Badger-Two Medicine following criticism from U.S. Sen. Jon Tester and environmentalists.
Tristan Scott / Associated Press file photo | Flathead Beacon
FORT COLLINS — Acting Bureau of Land Management Director William Perry Pendley, speaking at a conference Friday, insisted that moving his agency’s headquarters to Colorado will make the staff more responsive to the public despite concerns that public involvement is being curtailed.
Pendley, a longtime Colorado resident and attorney who has argued against federal lands protections, spoke at the Society of Environmental Journalists annual conference in Fort Collins. He said Interior Secretary David Bernhardt wants to move the BLM’s top executives to the West to ensure the public is heard on decisions on public lands.
“The decsion-makers in Washington, that’s where it’s centralized. And I’m afraid they’re out of touch with what’s going on out on the land,” Pendley said.
He said 222 positions in Washington, D.C., will move out to the states where the BLM lands are to do “headquarters work in the states.”
BLM will move its headquarters and 27 top staffers to Grand Junction, while other Washington-based staffers will transfer to Lakewood and other offices in the West.
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