DISLODGING THE BUREAUCRACY
It’s been two weeks since President Donald Trump’s deadline for government agencies to submit plans on downsizing their workforces and moving most of their functions outside of D.C.
We haven’t heard much about whether any agencies will actually be moving from D.C., but the idea is incredibly popular with conservatives for several reasons: the government could save money if employees are living in lower cost areas, it’s an easy way to downsize because a number of employees will quit rather than move, and the bureaucracy could be more efficient and make better decisions if it is closer to the people it governs.
This was the premise of a Steamboat Institute debate I moderated at Colorado Mesa University on Tuesday night. The resolution was, “Should more federal agencies, such as the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), be relocated outside Washington, D.C?”
Former Acting BLM Director William Perry Pendley, who oversaw moving the BLM headquarters to Grand Junction, Colorado, in 2019, argued the affirmative. He said the on-the-ground experience he had working with local experts and seeing the issues facing local citizens empowered him to be more confident in his decision-making. Mary Jo Rugwell, the president of the Public Lands Foundation and the former state director of the Bureau of Land Management in Wyoming, argued the negative. Rugwell felt that moving BLM leadership out of DC would lead to poor cooperation with other agencies and inefficiency in communicating decision-making to the executive branch, but acknowledged that it’s a worthy goal to try to shrink government and make it more efficient.
It was a well-argued debate and you can watch the entire thing for yourself here. My main takeaway, though, was that more government agencies should be structured like the BLM.
Even before it moved to Grand Junction (which Biden reversed during his presidency), 97% of BLM employees work in the western U.S, with really only agency leadership stationed in D.C. Ninety-nine percent of the land that the BLM manages is in the West or Alaska, so the staff reflect the area it governs. When Pendley relocated the BLM, he kept some public relations, communications, and government affairs staff in D.C. to handle cooperation with Congress and other agencies. Individuals who were doing their jobs well but did not want to move to Grand Junction were offered positions in other parts of the federal government.
Even Pendley, who is supportive of DOGE’s efforts to cull the federal workforce, said that most of the staff that he worked with at BLM were good at their jobs and were not involved in attempts to sabotage or undermine the Trump administration. I suspect that’s probably the case for two reasons: 1. There were fewer dyed-in-the-wool northern Virginia glowies in the workforce and 2. Bureaucrats were working on issues closer to home, ones that often superseded partisan politics.
BLM will always be unique in that land management is, again, not an issue that neatly cuts across partisan lines. However, the idea of decentralizing agencies while keeping a handful of positions required to negotiate budgets, advocate for legislation, or otherwise work with the legislative and executive branches, in D.C., seems pretty smart to me. It could lead to actual experts instead of just people who read white papers all day helping to make decisions on behalf of the American people. Plus, it might be harder to abuse your power if you are forced to delegate decision-making and don’t have tens of thousands of gung ho g-men housed in one building in the most corrupt city in the country.
AUTHOR
Amber Duke
Senior Editor.
WHAT ELSE IS ON MY RADAR
The final piece from my interview with Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves. He provided a full-throated defense of the state’s celebration of Confederate History Month…
Members of Congress are finally getting on the Make America Healthy Again bandwagon…
Congress Joins RFK’s Crusade Against Big Pharma
You had ONE JOB, Tim!
EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller Unfit to Print column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.
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