Patrick M. Brenner is the president and chief executive of the Southwest Public Policy Institute.
There was a time when Republicans prided themselves on being the party that can actually run things. In the West, this was reflected in sound GOP stewardship of public lands that blended enterprise with environmental respect, a tradition exemplified by Theodore Roosevelt’s conservation ethic and Ronald Reagan’s pragmatic federalism.
Don’t expect a new chapter in that storied tradition if Stevan Pearce, President Donald Trump’s nominee to head the Bureau of Land Management, is confirmed.
The Bureau of Land Management oversees a vast portfolio of 245 million acres of public land and nearly 700 million acres of mineral rights, regulating uses such as grazing, energy production and recreation that often conflict. The job of BLM director demands competence, credibility and balance.
Pearce is a former U.S. congressman from New Mexico who chaired the New Mexico Republican Party for six years, experience that, in theory, should qualify him for this vital position. In practice, Pearce’s record does the opposite.
I am conservative and I live in New Mexico. I believe in the old Republican virtues: limited government, personal responsibility, fiscal discipline and competent leadership. But I left the Republican Party because, after Pearce took control, those values gave way to something else entirely: bitterness, infighting and ineptitude.
A state party chair has two jobs: raise money and win elections. Under Pearce’s leadership, New Mexico Republicans did neither. Over his six years, Pearce alienated moderates, purged reformers and lost credibility with donors.
The result has been irrelevance. During Pearce’s time as state chairman and continuing today, Republicans have languished as a superminority in both chambers of the state legislature. Democrats in New Mexico hold a 26 to 15 Senate majority and a 44 to 26 advantage in the House. Once-competitive districts now elect Democrats by double digits. Pearce’s own congressional district — once a conservative stronghold in the southern half of the state — has flipped. Oil and gas producers, long the GOP’s core constituency, abandoned ship. Under Pearce, energy companies began donating more to Democrats — not because their principles changed, but because Republicans lost so much power and purpose. When the backbone of New Mexico’s economy decides the state GOP is immaterial, something has gone deeply wrong.
Worse, Pearce’s tenure within the GOP itself was defined by factional warfare, not leadership. The feud between the camp of Gov. Susana Martinez and the one surrounding Pearce tore the party apart. While Martinez worked to broaden the Republican base, Pearce doubled down on grievance politics and purity tests. The result was predictable: The GOP lost statewide races and credibility.
This approach will not work at the Bureau of Land Management. The agency has responsibilities managing oil leases, mineral royalties, grazing permits and wilderness areas, and it must balance the interests of ranchers, tribal nations, environmentalists and energy producers. That takes diplomacy and competence. Pearce, however, has spent his career alienating the very stakeholders he would be required to work with. In Congress, he voted against environmental protections, dismissed climate science and pushed to expand drilling in sensitive areas such as Otero Mesa.
Trump’s first term showed that personnel choices can define presidencies. His best choices, like Mike Pompeo at the CIA and then the State Department, paired ideological conviction with administrative skill. His worst ones elevated loyalists and showmen over professionals. The Bureau of Land Management, already battered by political turnover, cannot afford another leadership crisis. After Kathleen Sgamma withdrew from consideration earlier this year, the president could have selected a capable Westerner with bipartisan credibility. Instead, he chose a man whose chief qualification appears to be an unbroken record of losing.
So it’s not just environmentalists who should object to Pearce’s nomination. Conservatives who care about competence should, too. Every time a Republican appoints an unqualified partisan to a critical post, it reinforces the caricature that the right doesn’t take governing seriously.
The Bureau of Land Management requires a leader who understands the economic and ecological stakes of the job and who can build trust among the diverse communities of the American West. But in Stevan Pearce, President Trump has turned to the worst kind of insider. The Bureau of Land Management, and the millions of Americans who depend on it, deserve better.
The post New Mexico knows Trump’s BLM nominee. Back away.
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