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Tag: Bureau of Land Management

Roan Plateau Acreage Included In Potential December Oil and Gas Lease Auction
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Grand Junction Sentinel, Approved, Local

Roan Plateau Acreage Included In Potential December Oil and Gas Lease Auction

By: Dan West | Grand Junction Daily Sentinel This screenshot shows acreage on the Roan Plateau being considered by the Bureau of Land Management for a December lease sale.Source: BLM This week, the Bureau of Land Management opened a 30-day public scoping period on a proposed oil and gas lease sale of up to 126,744 acres, including acreage on the Roan Plateau between De Beque and Rifle. The BLM is seeking public input on 114 oil and gas parcels in Colorado that could be included in a December 2026 lease sale. Several parcels included are on the Roan Plateau north of Parachute, an area that has been the focus of past legal battles over oil and gas development. READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT GRAND JUNCTION DAILY SENTINEL
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Turn down the noise: Why Steve Pearce’s BLM confirmation isn’t the crisis critics claim
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GregWalcher.com, Approved, Commentary, National

Turn down the noise: Why Steve Pearce’s BLM confirmation isn’t the crisis critics claim

By Greg Walcher | Commentary, GregWalcher.com This week the Senate finally confirmed the new Director of the Bureau of Land Management, former New Mexico Congressman Steve Pearce. The firestorm surrounding his nomination a few weeks earlier has not yet cooled and probably won’t. The volume is louder than the situation justifies, though, and the vast western sky above BLM land is not falling. I met Steve Pearce several times when he was a congressman and always found him to be well informed, reasonable, and friendly – nothing like the demon portrayed by political opponents. He has deep roots in southeast New Mexico, where he grew up surrounded by BLM land, so he knows the agency well. He was a combat pilot in Vietnam, built an oilfield services business, and served 18 years in the sta...
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Is every government employee a cop now? Supreme Court case tests federal power
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GregWalcher.com, Approved, Commentary, National

Is every government employee a cop now? Supreme Court case tests federal power

By Greg Walcher | Commentary, GregWalcher.com I don’t know anyone else who tracks the number of federal cops, but the watchdog group Open the Books occasionally reports on the burgeoning number of federal agencies with law enforcement divisions. The latest report, “The Militarization of Federal Bureaucracy,” detailed the astonishing scope of federal police power. There are over 200,000 federal officers with guns, badges, and arresting authority, in a whopping 103 different federal agencies. The federal government has more law enforcement officers than America’s 25 largest cities combined. Those 103 federal agencies – half of which are not primarily law enforcement – spent $3.7 billion on guns, ammunition, and military-style equipment between 2006 and 2023. The FBI and ICE have always...
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Look what they’ve done to her BLM mess: A policy reversal hits a nerve
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GregWalcher.com, Approved, Commentary, National

Look what they’ve done to her BLM mess: A policy reversal hits a nerve

By Greg Walcher | Commentary, GregWalcher.com The New Seekers are best remembered for wanting to buy the world a Coke in their classic hit, "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing." But a year earlier, they first hit the charts with another standard, "Look What They've Done to My Song," featuring the sad lyric, "It's the only thing that I can do half right, and it's turning out all wrong." That must be the lamentation of Tracy Stone-Manning, who ran the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) under President Biden. I know because she is complaining so loudly about her successors in the current Administration. They are steadily unraveling the mess she left behind, and she is not happy. In an online editorial, she bitterly complains that the agency is in dire straits because of staffi...
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What CPR left out of Colorado’s BLM oil and gas lease auction coverage
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Colorado Accountability Project, Approved, Commentary, State

What CPR left out of Colorado’s BLM oil and gas lease auction coverage

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project Bureau of Land Management recently held an auction for oil and gas leases in Colorado and, per the CPR story linked below, no one bid. Quoting with link intact: “On Thursday, the Bureau of Land Management auctioned off leases on more than 20,000 acres of public land in Colorado for oil and gas drilling. The land, divided into 23 parcels, was offered at the minimum starting price, just $10 an acre, and could be leased indefinitely once oil and gas starts flowing. But during the sale: crickets. Not a single parcel received a bid, and only two companies had even registered for the sale.” If you read the article, you’ll note a lot of space given over to environmentalists who crowing about the lack o...
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Colorado State Land Board Approves La Jara Deal Aimed at Protecting Open Space
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The Fence Post, Approved, State

Colorado State Land Board Approves La Jara Deal Aimed at Protecting Open Space

By Rachel Gabel | The Fence Post After what seemed like a rock-solid deal was thrown into a tailspin by some commissioners, the Colorado State Land Board ultimately voted to sell the La Jara property, a deal that has unanimous stakeholder support that has been in the works for nearly a decade. Ultimately, the SLB commissioners, save for Commissioner Josie Heath, voted for the disposal of the property. The 46,000-acre La Jara property in the San Luis Valley will be sold to the Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Forest Service and Colorado Parks and Wildlife. The USFS and the BLM will purchase 43,526 acres with $43.5 million appropriated through the federal Land and Water Conservation Fund. The remaining 2,427 acres, around La Jara Reservoir, will be sold to CPW for $6.1 million. ...
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Congress uses little-known law to roll back Biden-era BLM public lands lockup
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Approved, Commentary, National

Congress uses little-known law to roll back Biden-era BLM public lands lockup

By Greg Walcher | Commentary, GregWalcher.com Last week, the Senate passed three Congressional Review Act resolutions overturning BLM resource management plans. What would have been called an earth-shattering precedent not so long ago was this time hardly noticed except by those who closely follow Interior and energy issues. The Biden-era resource management plans were designed to lock up millions of acres of public lands from the “multiple uses” required by law. The Congressional Review Act (CRA) was part of a small business package signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1996. It provided a tool Congress sometimes uses to overturn federal regulatory agency actions. It requires agencies to report any new rules to Congress and provides special procedures under which Congress can...
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Rep. Hurd refuses pay, passes first bill and earns Trump endorsement in decisive week
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

Rep. Hurd refuses pay, passes first bill and earns Trump endorsement in decisive week

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice President Trump’s “Complete and Total Endorsement” of Congressman Jeff Hurd on Saturday capped a remarkable week for the freshman lawmaker from Colorado’s Third District. Trump praised Hurd's “strong Record of SUCCESS,” for “fighting tirelessly to… Advance American Energy DOMINANCE, Grow the Economy, Cut Taxes and Regulations...” and “HE WILL NOT LET YOU DOWN.” Hurd has characterized his first term as a test of performance over politics. “If you look at all that we’ve accomplished in the first eight months of this Congress, it’s more than a lot of congresses accomplish in their entire two years,” Hurd told Rocky Mountain Voice before returning to session after the summer recess. “We’ve passed 27 pieces of legislation that have actually gotten...
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A Seat at the Table, Not Just a Chair in the Room
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American Policy, Approved, Commentary, State

A Seat at the Table, Not Just a Chair in the Room

By Aimee Tooker | Commentary, American Policy Center Coordination is the key to harmonizing land management plans and the strategies of the communities that live and work on federal public lands From the San Juan Mountains in Southwest Colorado the Dolores River flows through Montezuma, Dolores, San Miguel, Montrose and Mesa counties until the state line with Utah.  National and local environmental and rewilding advocates had pushed for almost 50 years for a Wild and Scenic designation on the Dolores River.  It never went through because over the course of the years it was decided by the generational locals, municipalities and tax districts that that was not the correct way to manage the river. The talk of Wild and Scenic designation (most restrictive designation for a river) cau...
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Western Cattlemen Push Back on Federal Land Restrictions
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The Fence Post, Approved, National

Western Cattlemen Push Back on Federal Land Restrictions

By Carrie Stadheim | The Fence Post Several groups of cattle producers could be seen walking the halls of Congress and the U.S. Department of Agriculture in recent weeks. No, they weren’t lost. They were detailing some of the ways government prevents cattle producers from being profitable and identifying solutions that could help. Jack Payne, owner of Nevada Livestock Marketing, was one of five ranchers from western states to meet with U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins to describe the drastically diminished cattle numbers on federal lands. Grazing is needed on rangelands to maintain plant and soil health, reduce fire danger and provide economic stability to communities, Payne said. Secretary Rollins posted on X (formerly Twitter) on Sept. 6, 2025, “Earl...
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