The Washington Post has reported that the Department of the Interior will be moving the majority of the Bureau of Land Management’s DC staff to the western part of the country. The new headquarters is slated to be in Grand Junction, Colorado:
“Interior’s plan for BLM, according to two people briefed on it who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, proposes dispersing about 225 staffers who report to headquarters to states including Colorado, Nevada and Utah over time, while reassigning another 75 to the bureau’s state offices. The rest of employees would remain in Washington to work on issues such as the bureau’s budget, regulations and Freedom of Information Act requests.”
According to the article, 95% of the departments employees already work in the field, and opponents worry that this “could complicate the agency’s relationship with Capitol Hill, budget officials and other federal entities.”
This move has not currently been cleared with the House appropriations committee. Former Interior Deputy Secretary David Hayes thinks that more congressional support from outside the region will be needed:
Read the full article in the Washington Post.