Ahead of the hearing that is meant to confirm Steve Pearce as the director of the Bureau of Land Management on February 25, the Association of National Park Rangers is calling on members of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee to speak out against the nomination. They specifically underscore Pearce’s career-long effort to privatize public lands and want the Senate to demand that the landscapes surrounding or adjacent to national parks and monuments remain in public hands.
“National Parks do not exist in a vacuum. What happens on the land right next to a park directly impacts the park itself,” said Bill Wade, executive director of ANPR. “Steve Pearce has spent his career arguing that our public lands should never have been under federal protection in the first place, even criticizing the legacy of the national parks that rangers work every day to steward.”
“Tomorrow’s hearing marks a critical turning point for our national parks and public lands,” echoed Emily Thompson, executive director of the Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks. “Senators must use this opportunity to speak up for their constituents by emphasizing the importance of national parks and the surrounding public lands to their communities’ health and livelihoods.”
ANPR is specifically calling on senators to use tomorrow’s hearing to demand that Pearce commit not to use his authority to sell or transfer federal lands to private interests or state control; state on the record that he will support existing national monument boundaries; and maintain protections that prevent industrial mining and drilling on public lands near park and monument borders.
“We need Senators to use this hearing to speak up for the millions of Americans who use these lands and make it clear that an advocate for land sell-offs has no business running the nation’s largest land management agency,” said Wade. “Our rangers work every day to protect these places for the public, but that work is much more difficult or impossible if the lands adjacent to or surrounding our parks are auctioned off to the highest bidder.”
Pearce’s stated goal to reverse the trend of public ownership would lead to the destruction of the landscapes that border some of the United States’ most iconic places. BLM lands often surround national parks, acting as a natural shield that protects wildlife and provides extra space for people to hike and camp. Many worry that if these lands are sold or developed for drilling, it will permanently ruin the access and experience that visitors expect when they visit a national park. This has led former National Park Service leaders to urge the Senate to vote no on Pearce’s confirmation.
“Mr. Pearce should not be allowed to lead our nation’s largest land management agency,” said Thompson. “Senators must make this clear tomorrow and vote no on Pearce.”
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