CENTER FOR WESTERN PROORITIES • November 24, 2025
Former U.S. Representative Steve Pearce, President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Bureau of Land Management, is an avowed advocate of selling public lands, and his nomination is a clear endorsement of the plan to privatize and sell America’s public lands to the highest bidder. Pearce’s history reveals an extreme ideology focused on reducing public ownership and privatizing land for the benefit of developers and extractive industries over the American people. Here are seven times Steve Pearce attempted to dispose of or undermine the management of America’s public lands: