Should federal agencies move out of Washington? Two prominent voices in public land will debate the question in Grand Junction, the same small city that was briefly home to the Bureau of Land Management five years ago.
William Perry Pendley, former acting director of the BLM, will spar with Mary Jo Rugwell, a retired BLM director for Wyoming, at 5:30 pm. on Tuesday at Colorado Mesa University. The debate is in partnership with the school and The Steamboat Institute, a nonprofit that supports limited government.
Both Pendley and Rugwell have spent most of their lives living and working in the American West.
Pendley argues that agencies could benefit from being outside of the Beltway, as he believes the BLM did. Though he was never confirmed by the Senate, he headed the agency for two years under the first Trump administration. When he first started in the job, he was based in Washington and felt too removed from the land he oversaw.
“We all made decisions based on a piece of paper, a map, and a photograph,” he said.
When he moved to Grand Junction in 2020 to open the BLM’s new headquarters, his on-the-ground understanding of the area “changed dramatically,” he said. This was particularly true during the massive Pine Gulch fire, which burned outside of Grand Junction for more than a month. Instead of just reading government reports on the fire, he could smell the smoke and meet firefighters working on the front lines. For Pendley, there was no substitute for that experience.
Since the vast majority of the BLM’s land and employees are in the West, "Well, that's where the bosses ought to be, too,” he said.
Rugwell disagrees — and is not alone. She’s the head of the Public Lands Foundation, made up mostly of retired BLM workers. It was against the BLM’s move west. Rugwell believes removing top leaders from the BLM and stationing them in an isolated community like Grand Junction means they could be left out of crucial decisions being made at the federal level.
“There’s a saying that if you're not at the table, you're on the menu,” she said.
Rugwell explained that many top leaders at the BLM have already spent extensive time in the field, often living across the West. She’s concerned that moving agencies out of Washington could lead to brain drain. In the BLM’s case, very few veteran leaders chose to make the move to Grand Junction.
Rugwell also worries that any move for a federal agency could just be reversed by the next presidential administration.
“This is a terrible waste of time, energy, effort, and most importantly, taxpayer dollars,” she said. “This back-and-forth thing's not a good plan.”
The idea of relocating federal agencies is in the news after U.S. Rep Jeff Hurd introduced a bill to bring back the BLM headquarters to Grand Junction, and multiple media reports said the Trump administration was gutting its Washington office and relocating staff across the country.
Tickets are free for Tuesday’s debate. A live stream will also be available.
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