Hurd wants to bring BLM back to Grand Junction

BY JASON BLEVINS

THE COLORADO SUN

Colorado U.S. Rep.-elect Jeff Hurd, who will represent Colorado’s sprawling 3rd Congressional District when he’s sworn into office in January, is ready to help return the Bureau of Land Management headquarters back to Grand Junction.

And the Republican first-time politician might have found an unexpected ally in Gov. Jared Polis.

“Grand Junction offers proximity to public lands and better access to stakeholders and it ensures that taxpayer dollars are being used more efficiently,” Hurd said this week. “I would expect that would improve accountability when it comes to land management decisions. I think decentralizing agencies like the BLM creates an opportunity to better engage local stakeholders and taxpayers. I expect we will be hearing more about this in 2025.”

President-elect Donald Trump moved the BLM’s headquarters to Grand Junction in 2020, but President Joe Biden returned the land management agency to Washington, D.C., in 2021. Polis on Thursday morning posted on X that he supported moving the Interior Department and Forest Service headquarters to Colorado.

Hurd said he hopes to be a representative “who will listen and who will engage.”

“And if I disagree with you, I will do so without being disagreeable,” the Republican said this week from Washington, D.C., where he was learning the ropes of his first job as a politician. “I want to listen and be open to different perspectives and possibly change my approach to an issue based on what I hear from the people I represent.”

The 3rd Congressional District covers almost half of Colorado and is larger than many states at nearly 50,000 square miles. He recognizes the diversity of his district, which ranges from mountain towns to agricultural communities to midsize cities including Grand Junction, Pueblo and Glenwood Springs.

Hurd cautions against looking too hard into Project 2025 for guidance on what a second term for Trump might mean for Colorado’s rural communities and Western Slope. (The Colorado Sun looked at the 922-page Project 2025 document – written by staunch conservatives as a guide for a new president – as a potential road map for what may be coming under a second Trump administration.)

“I viewed it when I was running as a menu of options a Republican administration can take. Whether they take any of the proposals in that menu will be up to the new administration,” said Hurd, a lawyer who is 45 and raising his family of five in Grand Junction. “My general approach is to wait and see.”

Hurd remains opposed to calls for Biden to use the Antiquities Act to designate a new 390,000-acre national monument around the Lower Dolores River in Mesa and Montrose counties. If Biden does create new national monuments – as departing presidents often do – Hurd said he would expect a response from the new president. He said he hopes that Biden does not move to create a new monument around the Dolores River.

“My primary concern is that unilateral designation like this fails to take into account input from stakeholders and local communities that would be most impacted by this designation,” Hurd said, noting strong opposition to the monument proposal in rural Montrose County. “I support collaborative land use decisions developed through Congress. Using presidential action bypasses a critical role for Congress and, more importantly, local communities.”

He said he wants to take a closer look at the impact of repealing Biden’s withdrawal of mineral and energy leases in the 221,000-acre Thompson Divide, which is another suggestion offered in the Project 2025 document.

“I think there is a way to balance environmental stewardship and responsible energy development,” said Hurd, a regulatory law attorney who focused on rural electric cooperatives, telecommunications providers and other businesses dealing with complex regulations. “We need to support energy security but we also need to make sure we account for local input and for conservation.”

The Colorado Sun is a readersupported, nonpartisan news organization dedicated to covering Colorado issues. To learn more, go to coloradosun. com.

U.S. Rep.-elect Jeff Hurd talks with Allan Thayer, during an October campaign stop in Towaoc as his daughter Gabriella Hurd, 12, listens.

JERRY MCBRIDE/ Durango Herald file