The BLM headquarters briefly moved from Washington, D.C. to Grand Junction in 2020 under the first Trump administration, but the Biden administration moved the headquarters back to Washington in 2021. With President Donald Trump back in office, the BLM could be on the move again soon.

This time, however, the move might stick. Jeff Hurd, the Grand Junction Republican representing Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District in the U.S. House, introduced the LOCAL (Local Opportunities, Conservation and American Lands) Act in February, which, if passed and signed, would relocate the BLM headquarters to Grand Junction and require Congressional approval for any future moves.

“Fundamentally, I think it’s important to decentralize decision-making authority within Washington and move it out to the places where those decisions affect the livelihoods of people,” Hurd told The Daily Sentinel. “When it comes to the West, one of those issues is the Bureau of Land Management and making sure that the individuals making these decisions are connected to the communities and the land that they’re affecting.”

In Colorado, elected officials’ support for relocating the BLM headquarters is bipartisan. In 2021, Democratic U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet expressed disappointment when the BLM returned to Washington and vowed to oversee the growth of the bureau’s western headquarters in Grand Junction, and Bennet’s office told The Daily Sentinel that his stance has not changed from his past comments.

In 2021, Gov. Jared Polis urged President Joe Biden to keep the headquarters in western Colorado. Per a statement from Polis’ office, the governor also remains supportive of growing the BLM’s presence in Grand Junction.

“The Governor encourages the BLM to continue to grow Grand Junction’s western headquarters, which is closer to the lands they manage,” the statement said. “Grand Junction is a great place for the federal agency to grow and continue the work of managing and protecting public lands for generations to come.”

However, one potential challenge that the BLM’s headquarters being in Grand Junction is accessibility for federal employees. This was one of the main concerns raised by former BLM Wyoming State Director and current Public Lands Foundation Director Mary Jo Rugwell in her late-April debate with former BLM Deputy Director William Perry Pendley, who oversaw BLM operations late in the first Trump administration.

In the debate hosted at Colorado Mesa University, Rugwell called Grand Junction beautiful but said the city could be hard to reach for federal employees and representatives of other federal agencies. After all, there is no direct flight connecting Grand Junction with the nation’s capital.

Larry Robinson/The Daily SentinelThe inaugural Delta Airlines flight from Salt Lake City to Grand Junction taxis to its gate in this December 2024 file photo and gets sprayed with water as a welcome at the Grand Junction Regional Airport. Grand Junction Regional Airport Executive Director Angela Padalecki elaborated on what she thinks the most immediate travel impact would be from the BLM’s move to Grand Junction: airlines expanding connectivity from Grand Junction to their hubs that offer direct flights to D.C. Larry Robinson/The Daily Sentinel

CONNECTING GJ AND DC

When Hurd travels back and forth between Grand Junction and Washington, he always takes commercial flights. He calls his usual flights from Denver and Reagan National Airport “almost always very convenient and efficient.”

His travels have sometimes been delayed because of weather conditions, but he has yet to experienced a travel nightmare significant enough to impede him from getting to Washington for work.

However, the idea of a direct connection between Grand Junction and D.C. does appeal to Hurd.

“That would certainly be something I would love to have,” Hurd said. “I think that would be great for western Colorado and for the folks who need to travel to our nation’s capital. A direct flight is something I would certainly look to and support. Obviously, we need to have the market to support that.”

Grand Junction Regional Airport Executive Director Angela Padalecki spoke to The Daily Sentinel about how the BLM’s relocation could impact travel in and out of Grand Junction and how it could expand the airport’s connections.

She believes demand would need to increase substantially for a connection to the D.C. area to be plausible to consider. However, that demand could potentially come if the BLM headquarters plants its roots in Grand Junction for the long haul.

“When we last looked years ago, demand would have to quadruple for there to be a strong business case,” Padalecki said. “That’s certainly possible depending on what traffic patterns look like. We don’t speculate and airlines aren’t in a position yet to speculate on what demand would look like if that move were to happen. Instead, we’d be looking and saying, ‘How has the demand shifted?’ That’s how they would approach it.”

Padalecki called it “highly unlikely” that any hypothetical Grand Junction-to-Washington flight would fly into Reagan Airport, due to the airport’s limited capacity and high national and international demand. Padalecki noted that even Denver only has one fixed daily flight into Reagan.

Instead, should the demand be there and a connection established, the route would fly to either Dulles International Airport in nearby Virginia or Baltimore/Washington International Airport in nearby Baltimore.

“As demand grows, those are the airports that airlines would consider offering service to from Grand Junction,” she said.

Padalecki elaborated on what she thinks the most immediate travel impact would be from the BLM’s move: airlines expanding connectivity from Grand Junction to their hubs that offer direct flights to D.C.

“United in Denver has six flights daily for example, and if United was considering adding another hub to their network here in Grand Junction, I think the BLM news and the heightened demand for going to D.C. could influence that decision. It could maybe help tip the scale so travelers have even more options to efficiently get to and from Washington, D.C.,” she said.

“The same is true with American. We have daily non-stop service to their hubs in Phoenix and Dallas. Dallas in particular has good connectivity into Washington, D.C. You’re already headed eastbound. Phoenix still has connectivity but it’s more limited than Dallas. The most immediate implication would likely be to heighten service to existing hubs from our network carriers and then potentially accelerate the addition of new hubs for those carriers that could connect to Washington, D.C.”

When Padalecki mentioned Delta, she said that a priority of connecting Grand Junction to D.C. could establish a brand-new connection, mentioning Atlanta as an example.

“In the case of Delta, obviously, we have the non-stop to Salt Lake City and that hub, but going west before you go east isn’t what most travelers prefer to do, so in the case of Delta, it could potentially impact or accelerate a decision to add another hub, like maybe Atlanta to Grand Junction,” she said. “I think those would likely happen before a non-stop service to D.C.”

Christopher Tomlinson/The Daily SentinelA United Airlines flight departs the Grand Junction Regional Airport in this 2020 file photo. If the BLM moves its headquarters back to Grand Junction, employees would likely need to travel between Washington D.C. and Grand Junction. With enough demand, carriers that currently fly into Grand Junction could expand their daily flights to add more options for travelers. Christopher Tomlinson/The Daily Sentinel

POLITICAL SUPPORT FOR CONNECTIVITY

Sometimes, when an airport is negotiating with airlines in discussions of new routes, elected officials can use their position to vouch for the airport. For instance, before Delta resumed its flights between Grand Junction and Salt Lake City, Bennet expressed to Delta his desire for the route’s return, as that connection was often his main method of traveling to the Western Slope.

Padalecki doesn’t see politicians’ backing as a deciding factor, but she does believe it’s helpful.

“In my limited experience with this, it hasn’t tipped the scales dramatically, but certainly, you do want to stack everything in your favor if you’re working with an airline and you’re on the verge of getting to add a new service,” she said. “First and foremost, the airlines are going to look and say, ‘Hey, is there adequate demand?’ With limited resources in their world, especially aircraft and pilots, they’re looking at opportunity costs and that’s fairly non-political. It’s objective criteria.”

Hurd said he will “always support increasing air service to western Colorado and strengthening our ties to other important cities”, confirming he would lobby on the airport’s behalf in any discussions of connecting Grand Junction and D.C.

When asked if Polis would similarly get involved in any potential discussions of such a connection, his office replied, “Gov. Polis is proud to have supported the strong development of the Grand Junction Airport that helps hundreds of thousands of people a day visit and experience the grandeur of the Western Slope.”

At the end of the day, though, flier demand will be the ultimate decider in any new flights in or out of Grand Junction.

“Big-picture, what will determine connectivity to Washington, D.C., is really just traveler behavior,” Padalecki said. “If airlines see that travelers have a heightened propensity to travel between Grand Junction Regional Airport and the Washington, D.C. area, the airlines are going to look into how it fits them strategically and really take action from there. I think the most likely action is enhancing the hub connectivity to connect into the Washington, D.C. area, because those airports are really busy.”