Steve Pearce and the future of the BLM  

By Benjamin Alva Polley EBS COLUMNIST 

If you care about hunting elk in crisp October air, floating a clear-running river for cutthroat trout, or simply taking your kids camping beneath a sky unspoiled by drill rigs, you should be outraged that Steve Pearce was ever considered to run the Bureau of Land Management. 

The BLM is the largest landlord in the West. It oversees nearly 245 million acres of public land—millions of those acres in and around Montana’s most cherished places. This land is the backbone of our elk and mule deer herds, our sage grouse leks, our pronghorn migration routes and our blue-ribbon trout streams. It’s also the stage on which Montana’s hunting, fishing and outdoor recreation economy plays out. 

Putting someone with Steve Pearce’s environmental record in charge of that land is like handing your cabin keys to the arsonist who’s always hated it. In the four months since Pearce was first nominated, it emerged that, if confirmed, he and his wife would divest from more than 1,000 oil and gas leases in Oklahoma to address potential conflicts of interest. While some senators strongly support his “active forest management” approach, he still faces opposition from groups alarmed by his record on public land transfers. On March 4, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee voted 11-9 to advance his nomination, despite concerns from conservation groups. 

Pearce’s track record is no mystery. He has consistently sided with extractive industries at the expense of wildlife, habitat and public access. He has supported opening more public lands to oil and gas drilling, weakening bedrock environmental safeguards and undermining science-based management. His votes and public statements have signaled again and again that he sees wild country as an obstacle to be overcome, not a legacy to be stewarded. 

For Montana, that posture is an existential threat. Our big-game herds rely on intact winter range and unfragmented migration corridors across BLM lands. Aggressive drilling, poorly planned roads and relaxed reclamation standards shred those habitats. Once you carve up a landscape with pads, pipelines and traffic, you don’t get solitude—or mature bull elk—back with the stroke of a pen. 

Anglers should be just as alarmed. Headwater streams and riparian corridors on BLM ground are the life support system for native bull trout, cutthroat and wild trout. A BLM director hostile to environmental safeguards is far more likely to greenlight development that increases sediment, degrades water quality and depletes the cold, clean flows our rivers depend on. 

If Pearce takes office, outdoor recreation—and the rural economies built around it—will not be spared. In Montana, hunting, fishing and outdoor recreation pump billions of dollars into local businesses, guiding operations, gear shops and main-street cafes. People travel here precisely because of the open space, healthy herds and functioning ecosystems that BLM lands help sustain. When those landscapes are sacrificed to short-term profit, we don’t just lose scenery; we lose jobs, identity and a way of life. 

This is not a partisan issue, especially in Montana. Public lands are one of the few things we truly share: ranchers who graze allotments, tribal communities with cultural ties to these places, hunters and anglers who’ve long defended habitat, and families who just want a place to pitch a tent. A BLM director should be a careful, science-driven steward accountable to all Americans—not a politician with a history of dismissing environmental protections as red tape. 

Montanans know what’s at stake. We’ve fought bad ideas before—land transfers, giveaway leases, rollbacks to bedrock conservation laws—and we’ve won when we stood together. Steve Pearce’s nomination should have been dead on arrival. The fact that he was even on the list tells us how vigilant we must remain. 

Our outrage must translate into action: calling elected officials, packing public hearings, writing letters and voting as if our public lands are on the line. Truly, they are. The BLM needs a director who sees these landscapes the way Montanans do: as sacred ground, not a balance sheet. 

Anything less is a betrayal of the wild inheritance we’re supposed to pass on. 

Benjamin Alva Polley is a place-based storyteller. His words have been published in Rolling Stone, Esquire, Field & Stream, The Guardian, Men’s Journal, Outside, Popular Science, Sierra, and WWF, among other notable outlets,  and are available on his website.   

California has launched a huge crackdown on criminals buying and registering supercars outside of the state to avoid eye-popping sales tax.

Fourteen people have been charged after $20 million worth of vehicles were sourced to the Big Sky State in what authorities are calling the “Montana Loophole.”

The cars include a $1.8 million McLaren Elva, a Porsche 918 Spyder and a $1.26 million Ferrari F12TDF, the attorney general’s office said.

In the Golden State base rate sales tax is 7.25%. For a Lamborghini or Ferrari that can reach up to $250,000 or higher, that can mean a tax bill over $18,000. In Montana it is zero.

The gang, from Alameda, Marin, Santa Clara and Sacramento, allegedly dodged more than $1.8 million in taxes since 2018.

They are accused of filing false records showing the supercars were bought in Montana but then drove and kept them in California.

The DMV has launched nearly 100 criminal investigations into similar schemes across California since 2023 and recovered $2.3 million. It says the schemes are costing over $10 million per year.

It says there are 601 fraudulently registered cars involved and the DMV and California Department of Tax and Fee Administration have reviewing all car sales made in Montana.

California AG Rob Bonta said: “When bad actors abuse legal loopholes and submit fraudulent documents to evade their obligations, the California Department of Justice will not stand idly by.

“Every dollar of unpaid taxes is a dollar taken from California’s roads, schools and the vital services our communities rely on.”

The AG’s office said Beverly Hills was the city with the most suspicious car sales, with 416 cases on its radar from the luxury enclave.

It also released a series of text messages from defendants in Marin County and Walnut Creek, which said: “Don’t want the state of California to know anything about this car.”

Another asked: “Before you deliver it to him can you please remove the dealer plate.” One more asked if those with Montana plates had issues, the reply was: “Not yet.”

Another defendant added: “70k saved — I can’t believe the registration lasts for five years — that’s crazy. Stupid California. Paid 3k to own a 600k car for 5 years — lol in Cali that’s like 75k for 5 years. Hella dumb.”

California DMV Director Steve Gordon said: “We encourage all Californians to do the right thing and register their vehicle here if they are operating it in California.”