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On a party line vote today, a Senate committee advanced President Trump's controversial nominee to be the nation's next public lands chief. NPR's Kirk Siegler reports that former New Mexico Congressman Steve Pearce has supported selling the federal lands he's poised to manage.
KIRK SIEGLER, BYLINE: The 78-year-old Steve Pearce is the former owner of an oil field services company. He's also a Trump loyalist. In 2020, as chairman of the New Mexico GOP, he pushed conspiracy theories about widespread voter fraud in the state. But the main flashpoint over his confirmation to lead the Federal Bureau of Land Management, which controls a tenth of all the land in the U.S., is his past support of selling public lands while in Congress. In his recent confirmation hearing, Steve Pearce said those comments are in his past. And President Trump's interior secretary, who'd be his boss, is firmly opposed.
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STEVE PEARCE: The secretary has been very straightforward that he does not visualize any large-scale sales of land.
SIEGLER: Pearce said public land sales are Congress' purview, not the Trump administration's.
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PEARCE: That's my commitment to you, that we'll work with you and follow the law completely.
DARIEN FERNANDEZ: I'll give him credit that at least he understands that his record is bad enough that now even he's trying to run from it.
SIEGLER: Darien Fernandez is a town councilman and Democrat in Taos, New Mexico. Selling federal land has stirred bipartisan backlash in the West, where a lot of the land in states is publicly owned.
FERNANDEZ: Those of us who know Steve Pearce's history in the state of New Mexico know that he likes to say a lot of things and then do exactly the opposite the minute he gets the chance.
SIEGLER: Fernandez says Pearce ignored local input and popular support for the creation of two national monuments in his state. Meanwhile, President Trump has never had a Senate-confirmed BLM director. In his first term, his nominee was withdrawn due to similar backlash over public land sales. And last year, his initial choice, a Colorado oil and gas lobbyist, withdrew after comments surfaced she'd criticized Trump's role in the January 6 insurrection.
Kirk Siegler, NPR News, Boise.
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