"Two former Bureau of Land Management directors say plans to move the agency’s headquarters to Colorado are an early step toward abolishing the entire agency and transferring millions of acres of federal land to the states.

“I think the endgame is to try to make it almost impossible to manage these public lands,” said former BLM Director Robert V. Abbey, who served in the Obama administration from 2009-2012. “It’s just another step that they are taking that will add credence to those advocates that say these lands should be managed by the states.”

The Interior Department said July 16 that it plans to move the headquarters of BLM, an Interior agency, out of Washington and transfer 222 positions from headquarters across offices in 11 Western states. The new headquarters will be staffed by 27 people, including the BLM director, in Grand Junction, Colo., about 250 miles west of Denver."

Bobby Magill reports for Bloomberg Environment July 20, 2019. [2]