President-elect Donald Trump’s decision to relocate multiple federal agencies away from Washington D.C. continues to spark debate, with new analysis from CNN’s Curt Devine suggesting that the move may have caused more harm than good, particularly in the case of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM).
Trump’s move of the BLM headquarters to Colorado during his first term has been described as a costly failure, leading to a significant exodus of experienced staff and a sharp increase in vacancies, according to Devine’s analysis. The CNN review, which included interviews with several current and former senior BLM officials, reveals that the move undermined the administration’s goals and had long-lasting negative effects on the agency.
Tracy Stone-Manning, the Biden administration’s director of the BLM, emphasized the long-term impact of the relocation, calling it “wildly disruptive.” She told CNN that the agency still hasn’t recovered to its pre-relocation level of efficiency. “It’s years of opportunity cost when we could and should be focused on the work of the bureau, for public lands and the American people, and we had to instead focus on rebuilding the bureau,” Stone-Manning explained. “We are still piecing it back together.”
Stone-Manning’s observations are echoed in a report by the Government Accountability Office, which found that the relocation led to a nearly tripling of BLM headquarters’ vacancies in less than a year. Of the 176 staff members who were required to relocate, only 41 accepted their reassignments, while the rest left their positions, further weakening the agency’s capacity.
Critics of the move argue that Trump’s decision, which was intended to decentralize government functions and reduce the concentration of power in Washington, ultimately ended up creating inefficiencies and delays in critical operations. The BLM, responsible for managing millions of acres of public lands, has struggled to maintain its workforce and fulfill its mission as a result of the disruption caused by the relocation.
As President-elect Trump vows to continue his push for relocating other federal agencies, the legacy of the BLM move serves as a cautionary tale, showing that such initiatives could have unintended consequences that undermine government functions and lead to greater costs in the long term.