U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner helped lead a push to move the Bureau of Land Management headquarters to Colorado. And he is the sponsor of a bill to provide money to acquire public lands and improve national parks.
But the Republican is refusing to discuss how the nation’s public lands should be managed.
President Donald Trump nominated the acting head of the Bureau of Land Management William Perry Pendley to serve as its permanent director June 26.
In an interview with The Colorado Sun this week, Gardner repeatedly declined to say whether he supports the pick and/or Pendley’s tenure at the agency since he took the helm in July 2019.
Asked whether he supports Trump’s nomination, he said: “I look forward to a nomination process where we will have a lot of questions for Mr. Pendley.” He did not elaborate on the questions he wants answered.
Asked what he thinks of Pendley’s tenure in the past year, Gardner wouldn’t comment. He repeated his talking point: “We haven’t had the chance to have the hearing or ask the questions that we can at a confirmation hearing.”
Gardner’s avoidance of the question signals the political pressure he’s facing on the question amid his reelection bid in November. Pendley has drawn sharp criticism in the last year as he served as de facto director of the agency as it relocated its headquarters to Grand Junction from Washington, D.C.
The attorney and former Marine who helmed the nonprofit, limited-government Mountain States Legal Foundation in Lakewood for more than 30 years once expressed support for the sale of public lands as a top Interior official in the Reagan Administration.
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