WASHINGTON— The Senate today confirmed Steve Pearce to lead the Bureau of Land Management, putting him in charge of more than 245 million acres of public lands across the United States.

“The Senate just handed control of our mountains, deserts, rivers and grasslands to a man who has spent his career trying to sell them off and destroy them,” said Ryan Beam, national public lands advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Steve Pearce has oil in his veins and dollar signs in his eyes. Every senator who voted to confirm him just signed over our public lands to extractive industries. They should be ashamed. We'll fight Pearce’s attacks on our public lands every step of the way.”

Pearce, a former oilfield services executive and congressman from New Mexico, has long advocated for transferring control of federal public lands to states or selling them off entirely. As a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, he cosponsored legislation to dispose of public lands and urged his constituents to “take control” of them.

During his February confirmation hearing before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Pearce reaffirmed his longstanding views. Asked about his earlier statement that “we do not even need” most public lands, Pearce responded, “I’m not so sure that I’ve changed.”

In a letter sent to the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, the Center and other environmental groups urged senators to consider how Pearce’s record is antithetical to the mission of the agency he would be charged with leading.