Land Bureau Power Stays in Washington as Headquarters Moves West

A review team is consolidating major Bureau of Land Management decision-making at Interior headquarters in Washington at a time when department officials are saying public lands decisions should be made in the West, according to former BLM officials.

Interior says it is moving BLM headquarters to Grand Junction, Colo., beginning in mid-September so that officials making decisions about federal lands, oil, gas, and coal can be close to the people and places those decisions affect.

But the opposite is happening, said a former high-level BLM official who left the agency during the Trump administration and spoke on condition of anonymity. ...