"Interior Secretary David Bernhardt can expect lots of questions and pushback from congressional Democrats regarding his plan to relocate hundreds of senior positions within the Bureau of Land Management from its Washington, D.C., headquarters to various Western states, several members of both parties said yesterday on Capitol Hill.
'Well, we're going to do everything we can to stop this effort,' said Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), an appropriator who has a large federal employee constituency. 'We obviously have the upcoming appropriations bills, and those will be an opportunity to try to stop this from happening.'
On the other side of the Capitol, Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.), a member of the House Natural Resources Committee, agreed that he anticipated Democrats will try to block the move by barring funding for it in the annual Interior-EPA appropriations bill, which includes BLM.
Van Hollen and Huffman are among those who believe the BLM reorganization is just an attempt by the administration to hollow out the agency, ridding it of senior scientists and resource specialists who don't want to relocate."
Kellie Lunney, Geof Koss, and George Cahlink report for E&E Daily July 17, 2019.
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