October 22, 2025 02:52 PM UTC

More Data on the Shutdown Cost in Colorado

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• by: Colorado Pols

The pain from the ongoing, and seemingly endless, federal government shutdown continues to take a heavy toll on Coloradans.

According to a new report from Center for American Progress, only 24 percent of National Park Service staff, 51 percent of U.S. Forest Service staff, and 65 percent of Bureau of Land Management employees remain on the job during the shutdown. This means that parks, forests, and recreation areas are severely understaffed, likely leading to  more than a billion dollars in lost revenue for Colorado communities — and that’s before we mention the 200 jobs the Trump administration wants to cut in Colorado related to the Department of Interior and Bureau of Land Management.

Trump’s efforts to fire at least 200 public lands employees in Colorado also makes a mockery of legislation promoted by Republican Reps. Jeff “Bread Sandwich” Hurd (R-Grand Junction) and co-sponsored by Colorado colleagues Lauren Boebert (R-Windsor), Jeff Crank (R-Colorado Springs), and Gabe Evans (R-Ft. Lupton). As the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel reported in May:

The Bureau of Land Management headquarters has gone back and forth between Washington, D.C., and Grand Junction over the past couple of presidential administrations, but its next move might stick.

Freshman U.S. House Rep. Jeff Hurd (R-Grand Junction) has introduced a bill that would relocate the BLM headquarters back to Grand Junction and bar future presidents from moving it out of the area without congressional approval.

The bill, HR 1125, is described as providing “improved management of federal lands and increased efficiencies within public land agencies while strengthening tourism, conservation, outdoor recreation, grazing, responsible energy production, and other multiple uses.” Hurd referred the bill to the House Committee on Natural Resources.

“The Bureau of Land Management is responsible for managing vast stretches of land in the west, but its headquarters is in Washington, D.C. It’s far away from the people and industries most impacted by the decisions it makes. To me, that just doesn’t make sense. Moving the headquarters back to Grand Junction will ensure that key decision-makers are closer to the land, communities and stakeholders that they serve,” Hurd told The Daily Sentinel.

Welp, there’s not much point in relocating the BLM back to Grand Junction if Trump is just going to fire all of its employees.

Meanwhile, as Navigator Research reports, Americans continue to be clear-headed about who to blame for the shutdown:

How much longer can Republicans keep this up before the bleeding becomes impossible to ignore?