The three Republicans in Colorado’s U.S. House delegation — Reps. Lauren Boebert of Silt, Ken Buck of Windsor and Doug Lamborn of Colorado Springs — are calling for the U.S. Senate to delay its confirmation vote on Tracy Stone-manning, the Biden administration’s pick to lead the Bureau of Land Management, until there’s a commitment to keep the BLM national office in Grand Junction.

The Biden administration is reconsidering the decision made by the Trump administration in 2019 to move the BLM headquarters from Washington, D.C., to Grand Junction. According to The Associated Press, then-assistant Secretary of the Interior Joseph Balash said in a July 17, 2019, conference call with reporters Tuesday that the moves could save at least $50 million and up to $100 million over 20 years because office space is usually cheaper in the West than in Washington, and cost-of-living differentials for federal employees are lower. They also claimed decision-making would improve, given that the employees would be close to the lands they manage.

At the time, most of the 10,000 BLM employees were already working in 11 Western state offices, including at the Lakewood Federal Center and in another office in Grand Junction. About half of the agency’s senior-level executives were in Washington, and the plan was that the bureau director would be headquartered in Grand Junction.

William Perry Pendley, previously a Colorado resident who was interim director during the Trump administration, never moved to Grand Junction.

Western politicians, including Gov. Jared Polis when he was in Congress, have supported moving BLM out west.

Last week, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland spent three days in Colorado, including Friday in Grand Junction, where she visited with BLM employees. Polis, Sens. Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper, both Denver Democrats; and U.S. Rep. Joe Neguse, D-lafayette, and Boebert all advocated for keeping the BLM national office in its Horizon Drive offices. On Friday, Boebert praised the bipartisan support from Colorado’s congressional delegation for keeping the office where it is.

Haaland said that her first priority “is to avoid doing any more harm to the BLM’S dedicated employees. We owe them that.”

She also noted that many BLM employees faced significant upheaval in the move. Current employees are struggling to implement the bureau’s mission, given the more than 80 vacancies in the Grand Junction headquarters, Haaland said. Out of 328 positions before the move, 287 employees chose to retire or go work somewhere else, and only three actually relocated to Grand Junction, despite claims that at least 27 jobs in Grand Junction would result from the move.

Government Executive magazine reported last month that even some of those who accepted relocation to Grand Junction are now looking for jobs in Washington.

Tuesday, in a meeting of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Hickenlooper spoke with Haaland about the future of the BLM headquarters. Hickenlooper had invited Haaland to Grand Junction during her January confirmation hearings.

“You saw and heard clearly the long-term value that having a Western presence holds for the BLM, by making sure that the employees are close to the land they manage. And I think you heard clearly the meaning that has, the importance of that to the local community,” Hickenlooper told Haaland during the hearing. “That presence is a shared value and of real importance.”

Haaland responded that she enjoyed the visit. “I was thrilled to have opportunities to have those meetings. We met with the staff, both in person and remotely at the BLM headquarters . ... My takeaways are that we need to come to a decision fairly soon. It’s important for folks to know and understand what their task at hand is.”

Hickenlooper replied that there was a lot of discussion about how poorly the move was handled, and that processes enacted “seemed to create unhappiness” and were designed to get BLM employees to leave the agency and make it less functional.

“That has nothing to do with Grand Junction” and the appreciation the community has developed for the BLM, he added.

Last week, the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, of which Hickenlooper is a member, voted 10-10 to advance Stone-manning’s confirmation to the full Senate. A tie vote means the nomination moves forward. Republican critics have pointed to a 1989 letter then-graduate student Stone-manning sent to the U.S. Forest Service, warning them of tree-spiking in the Clearwater National Forest in Idaho. Stone-manning told the Senate committee she was not involved in the tree-spiking incident, which was echoed by the two men convicted in the incident.

The Biden administration has stood by her nomination.