Top Trump officials tell Bureau of Land Management staff most of them must leave D.C. by end of next

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Source: Washington Post

Climate and Environment

Top Trump officials tell Bureau of Land Management staff most of them must leave D.C. by end of next year

The Interior Department will relocate 81 percent of headquarters staff to the West

By Juliet Eilperin and Darryl Fears
July 16 at 12:03 PM

In an all-employee meeting Tuesday, senior Trump officials told Bureau of Land Management staffers that most of them must leave D.C. by the end of next year, under the Interior Department’s reorganization plan.

Interior Secretary David Bernhardt plans to move 81 percent of the agency’s headquarters staff west of the Rockies by 2020, his top deputies said Tuesday, according to a participant in the session who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid retaliation. The relocation represents a sweeping change to the agency that manages more than 10 percent of America’s land.

Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Land and Minerals Management Casey Hammond, who has been running the bureau on an acting basis since May, told employees gathered at the agency’s 20 M St. office in Southeast Washington, confirming The Washington Post’s report on Monday that the administration will keep roughly 60 staffers in D.C. while moving the rest to the West. (1)

[Interior to move most of Bureau of Land Management’s D.C. staff out west as part of larger reorganization push]
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2019/07/15/interior-move-one-fifth-bureau-land-managements-dc-staff-out-west-part-larger-reorganization-push/

A total of 27 leadership jobs will be relocated to Grand Junction, Colo., Hammond said, out of more than 300 employees transferred to the West. Seventy-four of the reassigned employees will report to BLM state directors instead of headquarters staff, he said, according to the meeting attendee.
....

Juliet Eilperin is The Washington Post's senior national affairs correspondent, covering the transformation of federal environmental policy. She's authored two books, "Demon Fish: Travels Through The Hidden World of Sharks" and "Fight Club Politics: How Partisanship is Poisoning the House of Representatives." and has worked for The Post since 1998. Follow https://twitter.com/eilperin

Darryl Fears is a reporter on the national staff who covers the Interior Department, issues affecting wildlife and the Chesapeake Bay watershed. Follow https://twitter.com/bydarrylfears

(1) https://wapo.st/2YSp0fO

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2019/07/16/top-trump-officials-tell-bureau-land-management-staff-most-them-must-leave-dc-by-end-next-year/

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Top Trump officials tell Bureau of Land Management staff most of them must leave D.C. by end of next year.

The Interior Department will relocate 81 percent of headquarters staff to the West.

Link to tweet

[lapfog_1]

1. this has the smell of Steve bannon all over it

he may have not told trump to do this... but it fits his "kill the government" belief system

how many more departments and agencies are going to be told to relocate to someplace else?

[Eliot Rosewater]

2. They want all our land, they are gonna get it.

They fired all the scientists who proved rump is destroying us.

Personally, I dont want to talk anymore, I want to do something ELSE

way way way past talk

[myohmy2]

14. impeachment?

...

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

3. First the scientists who are being forced to move to Kansas City or be fired, now this.

Trump is slowly but surely dismantling the structure of the United States, bit by bit. We know he's always had his sights on Obamacare and Medicare, as well as VA medical services, which he wants to replace with the overpriced Choice program. He's also got his eye on Social Security.

The only two things he wants to build up (other than his ego wall) are the Defense industry and NASA's manned flight agency, which he sees as sticking his name on the Moon and Mars.

Expect more of these mass transfers in the future.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

4. Kick

[ripcord]

5. This actually makes sense

The majority of lands managed by the BLM are in the 12 western most states.

[Captain Zero]

6. It's their rationale to cover what they really want to do.

which looks to be putting these staff UNDER individual state level staff. Some will quit. Then what happens is, each state will end up responsible for the BLM decisions in their state? Anybody see ramifications from that ?

[KPN]

7. Only if you want to dilute the agency's constituency -- which is where it gets its political power -

by effectively severing it from the majority of public land owners and elected federal officials, i.e., the people and Congressionals who live in the east (who are the vast majority). This will insulate the agency from national public land, environmental, wildlife, and recreation advocacy groups. At the same time, it will give undue influence to western State legislators (at both the federal and State level), State Governors, and western State County Commissions (all of which are predominantly Republican) as well as extractive and commodity users/industry.

This is bad for public lands and the American public whether they live in the east or the west. This is an assault on public lands. Your lands, my lands.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

9. Take a look at the letter to Senator Murkowski.

https://www.gardner.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/2019.07.16%20-%20Chairman%20Murkowski%20Letter.pdf

It shows how the time BLM personnel spend on their activities is split up according to geography -- eastern US vs. western US.

[KPN]

11. Thanks. I read and understand it -- having spent a 34+year career working for the Bureau

of Land Management. It just confirmed my view. I stand by what I said in my post above.

This reorganization is just a step in a longer term strategy to regionalize and thereby de-empower the agency. The upshot will be another step toward divesting lands in the west from federal ownership via transfers to the State as well as privatization. The policy staffers in DC provide and perform key functions in communicating with national constituencies including Senators/Legislators from eastern States who represent stakeholders of the 254 million acre national legacy that the BLM administers. This is just part of the overall plan to reduce federal government long-term to Defense, Transportation and other functions that benefit corporations and wealth.

I've seen what happens when positions get detached from a higher to lower office in the Bureau. Over time, without exception in my experience, the position gets focused increasingly on local work leaving the needs of the higher office relatively unattended. In this case it means the need for sound policy guidance in DC where policies are made and amended will go unattended, i.e., left entirely to the devices of political appointees.

As I said, our public lands are under siege. And this is a well-aimed stake to the heart.

[mahina]

12. I hope you make this an OP.

Thank you for your very informed perspective

[VarryOn]

15. More of our employees need to be "out in the field", but...

They could transition the jobs from DC to wherever as employees leave those positions. And if a role must be moved a generous financial incentive should be offered.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

8. Bureau of Land Management to move headquarters from DC to Colorado

Bureau of Land Management to move headquarters from DC to Colorado

BY MIRANDA GREEN AND REBECCA BEITSCH - 07/16/19 01:32 PM EDT

The Trump administration plans to relocate the headquarters of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) from Washington, D.C., to Colorado, according to two lawmakers.

The reorganization, first considered under former Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, is aimed at putting more agency officials closer to the lands they manage out West, though critics have questioned moving tenured policy officials far from the nation's capital.

Currently only about 4 percent of BLM employees live in D.C. but the proposal would shrink that number even further, leaving just 60 of the nearly 400 BLM employees in the nation’s capital, according to a letter from Interior Secretary David Bernhardt to a Republican lawmaker dated Tuesday, obtained by The Hill.

Just 27 employees will be moved to the new headquarters in Grand Junction, Colo. with the rest divided amongst the western states of Utah, Nevada and other existing local offices, according to the document. ... Since BLM has nearly 10,000 employees, the reorganization plans would effectively move the agency entirely out of D.C.
....

[geretogo]

10. I need to go and reread inside " Hitlers Germany " life under the third Reich . I see Germany in

thirties coming here real quick .

[richsonpoordad]

13. Moving government to the red states...will change them blue, maybe.

The relocated workers will find that they will lose about 6% of their pay as they move to area with much lower cost of living special pay. I am ok with them taking all that traffic out of this area but they will have to contend with the climate changes facing them in their new location. The cost of the move will be a big issue for families and the government. Having to leave an area replete with outstanding schools and cultural amenities will be a big loss to some.