Washington, DC — America’s biggest land management agency is undergoing an unprecedented depletion, according to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). As the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) faces mounting responsibilities, including expanded energy and mineral extraction, intensifying wildfire threats, and rising recreational pressures, many of its senior leadership roles remain unfilled as agency staffing declines to historic lows.

BLM is responsible for 245 million surface acres, approximately one-eighth of the U.S. land mass. It also manages 700 million sub-surface acres and oversees major oil and gas, livestock grazing, mining, and timber operations, along with a wild horse & burro program and a network of conservation lands. It is one of the few federal agencies that brings in more revenue than it spends.

As its new national director, Steven Pearce, a former Congressman with no hands-on land management experience, takes office, eight of the nine BLM State Director posts (all but Alaska) are open, along with the Deputy Director for Administration role.

“Today, BLM stands for Bureau of Lost Management,” remarked PEER Western Lands and Rocky Mountain Advocate Chandra Rosenthal, noting that as a multiple-use agency, BLM has to balance an array of competing uses. “BLM decision-making benefits from experience and institutional memory – qualities which appear to be in critically short supply at the moment.”

At the same time, BLM is undergoing an across-the-board downsizing of what was already an understaffed agency. According to its Budget Justification for Fiscal Year 2027, overall BLM full-time staffing is projected to fall from 9,745 positions at the end of FY 2025 to a low of 5,836 in the new fiscal year beginning this October, a drop of 40% in a short period. The steep cuts are projected in every grade, from GS-2 to GS-15.

Yet under Trump, the agency must handle several new initiatives simultaneously, including increased oil and gas drilling to meet “Energy Dominance” expectations, expanded livestock grazing with proposed new regulations and a push to open vacant allotments, the drive to dramatically hike mineral production, a completely re-organized wildfire program, and initiatives to increase recreational access. However, staff shortages have already forced the agency to end some of its scientific programs for monitoring landscape conditions.

“If ever an agency was asked to do a lot more with a lot less, it is today’s BLM,” added Rosenthal, pointing out that this diminished capacity will make BLM decisions more vulnerable to legal challenge. “Unfortunately, BLM is fast becoming an absentee landlord for America’s public lands.”

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Look at the 8 empty BLM State Director positions 

See 40% staff cut since 2024 (page XIV-1)

Revisit the demise of BLM’s Assessment, Inventory, and Monitoring (AIM) program

PEER protects public employees who protect our environment, natural resources, and public health. We support current and former environmental and public health professionals, land managers, scientists, enforcement officers, and other civil servants dedicated to upholding environmental laws and values across federal, state, local, and tribal governments.