OPINION: Our land is not for sale: Why New Mexico sportsmen oppose Steve Pearce for BLM post

For generations, New Mexicans have explored, cherished and lived off public lands. As president of the New Mexico Shooting Sports Association, I know how much access to our shared landscapes means to sportsmen and women in our state, and I am concerned about the future of our public lands under President Donald Trump’s current nominee to lead the Bureau of Land Management.

The BLM, an agency within the U.S. Department of the Interior, is tasked with stewarding 13.5 million acres of public land in New Mexico. The BLM director must carefully balance competing interests and ensure sustainable management of these lands for future generations. Unfortunately, President Trump’s nominee to lead the agency — former New Mexico Congressman Steve Pearce — sees public lands as disposable and has a track record of political favoritism.

For over a decade, Pearce represented New Mexico’s Second Congressional District, which is home to two national forests and millions of acres of BLM land. Throughout his 14-year career in Congress and later as the chairman of the Republican Party of New Mexico, Pearce opposed public ownership of lands and advocated for selling off the very resources the BLM was created to steward. While in Congress, Pearce sponsored legislation that directed the U.S. Forest Service and BLM to sell public lands to either state governments or private buyers. In a 2012 speech, he explicitly stated he wanted a future president to “reverse this trend of public ownership of lands.”

Pearce’s disdain for our public lands extends to the agencies that manage them. As a member of Congress, he encouraged county governments in his district to violate federal laws on Forest Service lands inside their borders. After leaving Congress, as chairman of the Republican Party of New Mexico, Pearce unsuccessfully lobbied the Interior Department to drastically shrink the size of the Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument, despite it being an economic boon to Doña Ana County.

Beyond his anti-public lands stance, the six years that Pearce spent as the chair of the New Mexico Republican Party revealed an appalling lack of management skills and a troubling taste for political favoritism. A decade ago, New Mexico was a “purple” state; Republicans held the governor’s office, a slim majority in the state House of Representatives, and the mayor's seat of the state’s largest city.

By the time Pearce’s control of the party ended in 2024, Democrats dominated New Mexico politics, controlling all statewide offices, all federal offices and holding large majorities in both chambers of the state Legislature. Under his tenure, moderates were purged from the Republican Party, replaced by Pearce loyalists after bitter infighting. In the aftermath of the 2020 election, as state party chair, Pearce helped orchestrate the fake elector scheme in New Mexico that sought to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, pushing our state’s Republican party even further to the fringes.

Hunters and sport shooters, who use our public lands safely and responsibly, want to share this resource and pass on our traditions to the next generation. We need competent leadership, not partisanship, to head the BLM. And we need a leader who sees the land as a resource to be stewarded, not a bargaining chip to win political points. Steve Pearce is not the right man for this job. I encourage the U.S. Senate to reject his nomination.

Zachary Fort is the president of the New Mexico Shooting Sports Association.