Trump Nominee Pledges No Major Sales of Public Land He’ll Manage

Former Rep. Steve Pearce (R-N.M.) said Wednesday he doesn’t envision supporting a large-scale sell-off of federal land if he’s confirmed as the nominee for director of the Bureau of Land Management.

As a member of Congress, Pearce supported some level of federal public lands divestment, something the Trump administration has backed as way to expand availability of land for housing.

“I do not believe we have too much federal land sitting in public hands,” Pearce told the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee during his confirmation hearing. However, he said it creates “great stress” for that land to be managed from Washington.

If confirmed, Pearce would oversee the BLM’s 245 million acres of federal land, mostly in the West, in addition to all federally-owned onshore oil and gas reserves. He’ll manage the federal oil, gas, and coal leasing programs, 263 Congressionally-designated wilderness areas and 31 national monuments, including Utah’s Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments.

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said in 2025 that the agency plans to sell federal land for housing around cities and towns in the West.

Pearce said local input is essential to land management decisions at BLM, and he fought in Congress against the federal government as an absentee landlord.

In Congress, Pearce advocated for selling federal land to pay down the federal deficit. He sponsored or co-sponsored bills to offer federal lands for sale to states or local governments, reduce endangered species protections, promote fossil fuels, require Congressional consent for new national monuments, and to transfer federal land to people who claim to have land rights under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.

A Personal Issue

Both Democrats and Republicans on Wednesday seized on Pearce’s past statements supporting public lands sales, but Pearce said he’d begun to change his mind.

“Idahoans do not want the public land sold,” Sen. Jim Risch (R-Idaho) told Pearce at the hearing. “They are really sacred to us. Any hint that could happen really raises the ire. It’s personal to me.”

Pearce said Burgum has said he doesn’t support large-scale land sales and the Federal Land Policy and Management Act prevents the BLM director from conducting such sales.

“We must preserve the natural spaces so all people have access to the spiritual beauty of the outdoors,” while also supporting mining for critical minerals, Pearce said.

Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), who has expressed openness to federal land sales in the past, called the question of a large-scale sell-off “moot” without Congressional action.

However, Pearce said he’d support sales of small scattered parcels of federal land, but would look to the committee for guidance on which isolated parcels should be sold for housing and other public purposes.

Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) asked if Pearce would support the ideas behind legislation she introduced that would expand an existing federal land disposal boundary around Las Vegas, allowing the BLM to sell more federal land for housing, economic development, recreation, and other uses.

Pearce said he’d read about “the economic boom that’s occurring on land that has very low value in the hands of the federal government,” and he’d align closely to Cortez Masto on the issue.

Monuments

Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) asked Pearce whether he’ll support the continued operation of New Mexico’s Organ Mountains Desert Peaks National Monument, which he opposed while in Congress.

“I rarely look in the rear-view mirror,” he said. “I don’t anticipate going back and reviewing that. That’s a presidential decision anyway. It’s been recognized and operating.”

“The monuments are something that I do support deeply,” Pearce said, responding to a question from Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) about whether he supports Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni National Monument. Arizona Republicans launched a legal challenge to the monument, which President Joe Biden created in 2023.

Pearce, 78, has lived most of his life in Lea County, N.M., part of the most productive oil field in the US, in the Permian Basin.

He served as a pilot in the US Air Force, owned an oil services company, and served in the New Mexico House of Representatives before representing southern New Mexico for seven terms in Congress between 2003 and 2019.