Public lands totaling about one-tenth of U.S. area would be more subject to the whims of Washington politics and fossil-fuel interests if the Bureau of Land Management headquarters are moved to a Western state, according to former agency officials and conservation groups.
The Interior Department plans to move BLM’s Washington headquarters—or “elements” of it—to a yet-undecided Western city as part of an Interior reorganization plan announced in 2018.
Decisions about developing public lands for fossil fuels and environmental safeguards would be affected by the move or if Interior scatters some BLM headquarters career staff across the West, Kit Muller ...