Former New Mexico Rep. Stevan Pearce’s energy interests and industry experience will make him a central figure in expanding oil and gas development on federal lands if he’s confirmed as Bureau of Land Management director, industry representatives say.
But Pearce’s ownership in shares of oil and gas wells in New Mexico and his legacy in Congress of opposing federal lands protections, among other issues, prompted 81 conservation groups led by the Center for Biological Diversity to urge the Senate to oppose Pearce’s nomination.
His confirmation hearing is scheduled for Feb. 25 before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
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.
Pearce, a Republican, can be expected to ensure oil and gas, and agricultural and ranching interests are represented and maintained on federal lands, said Ben Sheppard, president of the Texas-based Permian Basin Petroleum Association.
“He’s obviously a pro-oil and gas guy,” Sheppard said. “He’s going to bring a balanced perspective to the office of the BLM.”
The BLM is a major landowner in Pearce’s corner of New Mexico, where the bureau manages about 3 million acres of federal land and minerals, almost all of which is leased to oil and gas companies, including federal land adjacent to Carlsbad Caverns National Park.
Key to ‘Drill, Baby, Drill’
Pearce, 78, has lived most of his life in Lea County, N.M., in the far southeastern corner of the state. The area is 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.
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.
Pearce is “highly qualified” to lead the BLM, and he aligns with President Donald Trump’s “mandate” to “Drill, Baby, Drill,” White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said in an email. Pearce didn’t respond to requests for comment sent to him directly and through the Interior Department.
New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D) said through a spokesman that Pearce is a “well-known expert” in the oil industry, and she looks forward to finding common ground if he’s confirmed despite differences in opinion.
Until recently, Pearce was president of Trinity Industries Inc. in Hobbs, N.M., through which he and his wife Cynthia owned rights to oil wells in the Permian Basin. Pearce said in ethics disclosures that he’ll resign from company governance and transfer those roles to his wife and divest the well rights.
That experience will be essential for managing federal lands in New Mexico, where fossil fuels, ranching, endangered species and other interests intersect, said Jim Townsend (R), a New Mexico state senator from neighboring Eddy County and retired Holly Energy Partners LP executive.
“I’ve seen him stand hard with ranchers, seen him work hand-in-hand with industry,” he said. But, “I don’t know that I could think of a time that he just came out swinging for industry alone. I’ve always seen him kind of as a factually-based decision-maker.”
Pearce will have detractors among environmental advocates, but he’s mostly a “very reasonable manager,” Sheppard of the Permian Basin Petroleum Association said.
‘Sell-Off Steve’
Those detractors warn Pearce will support liquidating federal lands.
When he ran for New Mexico governor in 2018, “the moniker we tried to label him with was ‘Sell-Off Steve,’” said Mark Allison, executive director of NM Wild, an Albuquerque-based environmental group that is among those that signed the Center for Biological Diversity’s letter to the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
“Mr. Pearce is fundamentally opposed to the existence of public lands and therefore cannot be entrusted with their stewardship,” and he supported “vigilante sentiment” by encouraging activists to defy federal rules and cut trees in a New Mexico national forest, the letter said.
Pearce took a “petty and gratuitous” approach to supporting oil and gas development on southern New Mexico BLM land that is considered sacred by area tribes, Allison said.
The advocates also criticized Pearce’s hostility toward national monuments created using the Antiquities Act. As BLM director, he’ll oversee a nearly 500,000-acre southern New Mexico national monument created by President Barack Obama. Pearce sought to keep the monument as small as possible.
“Mr. Pearce flagrantly has not merited the honor of stewarding the lands that have been entrusted to present and future generations of Americans,” the groups said.
The letter was also signed by Greenpeace USA, Cascadia Wildlands, WildEarth Guardians, and 76 other groups.
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