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Interior Secretary Deb Haaland to visit BLM headquarters in Grand Junction

Agency’s relocation has been controversial; office sits mostly empty
Interior Secretary Deb Haaland will visit Grand Junction later this wek, according to Colorado Sens. Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper. (Evan Vucci/Associated Press file)

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland will visit the Bureau of Land Management’s controversial new headquarters in Grand Junction later this week, Colorado’s two Democratic senators announced on Tuesday.

Sens. Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper have called for the agency’s headquarters to remain in western Colorado, where it was relocated as part of a sweeping reorganization plan enacted by officials in the Trump administration in 2019. A division of the Interior Department, the BLM manages nearly 250 million acres of federally-owned public lands, nearly all of it in the West.

“With climate change fueling severe drought and catastrophic wildfires, restoring a strong public lands agency and fixing the previous administration’s mistakes is a top priority,” Hickenlooper and Bennet said in a joint statement. “We’re happy to host Secretary Haaland and look forward to productive conversations with Grand Junction community leaders on the future of the BLM headquarters.”

The agency’s relocation to Grand Junction was celebrated by members of both parties in Colorado, but has been the target of criticism from environmental groups and their Democratic allies in Congress, who argue that the move was a poorly disguised attempt to “eviscerate” the agency from within.

Of the hundreds of senior BLM employees who were reassigned to offices in Colorado and elsewhere across the West, only a few dozen accepted relocation, with just three accepting relocation to the Grand Junction headquarters.

Jun 9, 2021
BLM headquarters in Grand Junction sits mostly empty

Haaland will visit Grand Junction on Friday, Hickenlooper and Bennet said in the release, and her trip “will also include meetings on several other Colorado priorities,” including climate change impacts and the Colorado Outdoor Recreation and Economy Act, a package of public-lands proposals endorsed by Colorado Democrats.

To read more stories from Colorado Newsline, visit www.coloradonewsline.com.