02/25/2026 at 09:30AM
Full committee hearing
Nominees:
- Stevan Pearce, of New Mexico, to be Director of the Bureau of Land Management, vice Tracy Stone-Manning, resigned.
- Kyle Haustveit, of North Dakota, to be Under Secretary of Energy for Infrastructure, vice Preston Wells Griffith, resigned.
- David LaCerte, of Louisiana, to be a Member of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for a term expiring June 30, 2031. (Reappointment)
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.
Haustveit, a former petroleum engineer, is assistant secretary for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Fossil Energy. Throughout his career at Devon Energy, Haustveit led teams that pioneered diagnostic techniques now used worldwide to improve hydraulic fracturing and resource development. He later directed Devon Energy’s Energy Ventures team, driving investments in emerging technologies such as geothermal, carbon utilization, lithium extraction, and produced water treatment.
LaCerte is a Project 2025 contributor.