Western Colorado Eyes Potential BLM Move

Officials in Western Colorado say they have the perfect place if the U.S. Bureau of Land Management decides to move its Washington, D.C. headquarters closer to the vast lands it administers.

Western Colorado, specifically Grand Junction in Mesa County.

Mesa County officials hope to lure the BLM. Some 45 percent of Mesa County is managed by the federal agency.

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, a former U.S. representative from Montana, has broached the idea of a westward move.

Nationwide, the BLM manages 386,400 square miles of public land.

In Wyoming, it manages more than 27,000 square miles of public lands and nearly 64,000 square miles of federal mineral estate for multiple use.

Those lands include the longest and most intact segments of the National Historic Trails System, and the nation's largest sage grouse population, and the world's largest pronghorn population.