Senators advance controversial BLM director pick. How did Idaho’s Risch vote?
A week after Idaho Republican U.S. Sen. Jim Risch emphasized the importance of public lands during the confirmation hearing for controversial Bureau of Land Management director nominee Stevan Pearce, the lawmaker voted along party lines to advance Pearce’s confirmation Wednesday.
Risch joined 10 others on the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, including Utah’s Mike Lee and Montana’s Steve Daines, who voted “aye” on Pearce’s nomination. Nine senators opposed Pearce’s advancement.
The Idaho senator’s support comes after an exchange last week in defense of public lands, which he called “sacred” to his constituents. Pearce, a former Republican congressman from New Mexico who President Donald Trump nominated for the BLM post in November, has faced scrutiny for past comments and support for legislation to sell public lands, particularly in the West.
Risch earned praise from conservation groups for his blunt approach to Pearce during the confirmation hearing.
“There is no authority for you, for that matter, the president, to sell off public land,” Risch said during the hearing. “Do you agree with that?”
Pearce said he agreed, though critics later accused him of “waffling” on public lands when he refused to walk back a 2012 comment in which he stated there was “too much” public land in the West.
Risch alluded to his approval of Pearce during last week’s confirmation hearing. He told the nominee he believed he was “very qualified” to manage the bureau’s lands — 245 million acres across the country, including 12 million acres in Idaho.
Pearce’s nomination will go before the full Senate before he is confirmed. Dates for those hearings have not yet been set.
Risch’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday morning.
Pearce’s nomination came on the heels of intense uproar over proposed public land sales last year. Lee, the Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chair, repeatedly tried to include options for land sales as part of the federal budget reconciliation bill. Risch and fellow Idaho Republican Sen. Mike Crapo opposed the idea, as did Idaho Republican Rep. Mike Simpson.
Polling commissioned in January by Conservation Voters for Idaho, a nonprofit that promotes pro-conservation policies, found that a majority of Idaho residents disagreed with Pearce’s stances on public lands. The survey also asked respondents how they would feel if Idaho’s senators voted to oppose Pearce’s confirmation. Forty-two percent of respondents said they would have a more favorable view of the senators, and 27% said they would have a much more favorable view.
Conservation Voters for Idaho Executive Director Alexis Pickering criticized Risch’s vote and noted that Risch and Crapo could be two of three “no” votes to halt Pearce’s nomination in the full Senate.
“Senator Risch just voted yes to appointing a BLM Nominee that believes public lands shouldn’t exist,” Pickering said in a statement. “He made it clear that the overwhelming majority of his constituents want public lands in public hands, and then chose to defy Idahoans and vote against our values.”
