President Barack Obama has nominated Neil Kornze to become director of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. The agency oversees more than 245 million acres of public lands nationwide, including about 48 million acres in Nevada.
Wild horses in Nevada at feeding time
The BLM manages free-roaming horses and burros on public lands in western states and are obligated to protect them under the Wild and Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act.
© 2013 by Peter Schmalzer
Kornze was raised in Elko and is a former senior adviser to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Since March he has been leading the BLM as the agency’s principal deputy director.
Kornze joined the BLM in 2011 as a senior adviser to the director, working on a range of issues including renewable and conventional energy development and conservation policy.
Reid says having grown up in Elko, Kornze has seen firsthand the critical role that publics lands play in the economies of Nevada and other Western states.
Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell praised President Obama’s intent to nominate Neil G. Kornze as Director of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). If confirmed by the U.S. Senate, Kornze would head a bureau that manages more than 245 million acres of public land under a multiple-use and sustained yield mission.
The BLM manages free-roaming horses and burros on public lands in 10 western states. They classify these animals as feral, but are also obligated to protect them under the Wild and Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971.
The BLM has an annual budget of $1.1 billion and 10,250 employees who carry out a multiple-use mission to sustain the health, diversity and productivity of the public lands for the use and enjoyment of present and future generations.
The BLM hosts more than 59 million visits annually and administers the National System of Public Lands, which encompasses about 13 percent of the total land surface of the United States and more than 40 percent of all land managed by the federal government.