87% of Bureau of Land Management Staffers Quit When Trump Told Them to Move to Colorado

Fri Jan 29, 2021 

Daniel Greenfield

 

This is a template for what could have been accomplished. It hopefully will be restarted under the next Republican administration.

The Bureau of Land Management rules the lives of people out west, yet its bureaucrats operate out of D.C. When the Trump administration began relocating BLM offices to Colorado to be close to where the people and land they control actually live, the hacks headed for the exit.

The Trump administration’s decision to relocate most Bureau of Land Management headquarters staff out West — designed to shift power away from the nation’s capital — prompted more than 87 percent of the affected employees to either quit or resign rather than move, according to new data obtained by The Washington Post.

The exit of longtime career staffers from the agency responsible for managing more than 10 percent of the nation’s land shows the extent to which the Trump administration reshaped the federal government. The reorganization plan reestablished the bureau’s headquarters in Grand Junction, Colo., moved 328 positions out of Interior’s main D.C. office and left 60 jobs in place.

A total of 287 BLM employees either retired or found other jobs, according to Interior communications director Melissa Schwartz, while 41 people moved to the new office in Colorado. 

Good. 

Anyone who wants to run the lives of people in Colorado, but doesn't want to live there should quit. The abusive administrative state in the Imperial City is roughly 40% of the problem with the United States government. The Washington Post fumes at the move, but the BLMers made their own choice.

They want to run people's lives from D.C. That's what Congress is for.

But several experts, including former high-ranking Interior officials, said the shake-up has deprived the agency of needed expertise and disrupted its operations. 

So it's win-win.

D.C. expertise on events in the west is worse than worthless. I'm going to bet that BLM can find qualified people in Colorado who actually know something except how to look for the next step on their career ladder in D.C. while leaking to the media.