The Bureau of Land Management NEWS |
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The Bureau of Land Management NEWS |
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Last updated: 04/04/03
For release: Friday, March 27, 1998
As part of its ongoing effort to improve customer service, the Bureau of Land Management is posting regulations, detailed reports, congressional testimony, press releases, and other documents on its Internet Home Page, including a previously internal draft of proposed changes to its surface management regulations. The BLM, which posted the draft document, wrote the document in connection with its ongoing effort to modernize the agency's hardrock mining rules, known as Section 3809 regulations.
"We are working to meet our customers' informational needs by making greater use of the Internet," said BLM Director Pat Shea, who noted that BLM's Home Page currently features an 80-page publication titled "Public Rewards from Public Lands," which details the benefits that Americans receive from the 264 million acres of public lands under BLM management. The public can also electronically access regulations, public land statistics, congressional testimony, press releases, and many other documents via the BLM's Home Page (www.blm.gov). "The BLM manages more land than any other government agency in the world," Shea said. "This means we have a special responsibility to make sure that the American people know what our agency is doing. That's why we are making greater use of the Internet every single day."
Shea said the draft Section 3809 document that the BLM posted "is an excellent example of our agency's commitment to using the information highway."
Citing the States as the BLM's "primary partners" in regulating hardrock mining on Federal lands, Shea said the BLM sent its February 23 draft "3809" document to the Western Governors Association (WGA), interested State agencies, and to Western governors. The BLM then discussed its draft with the WGA, State officials, and governors' representatives at a meeting in Denver on March 3.
"While this draft was marked 'predecisional' and 'for internal discussion purposes only,' this document -- which addresses several Federal-State coordination issues -- has in fact circulated beyond the parties that the BLM met with in Denver," Shea said. "Therefore, in order to level the information playing field for all interested parties, the BLM has decided to make the February 23 draft available to a wider audience by posting it on the Internet."
The 1998 Interior Department appropriations bill prohibits the BLM from publishing a proposed surface management rule for public comment before November 15. "This February 23 document is not a proposed rule, but a draft that was intended for discussion with State officials," Shea said. "We are now posting it on our Internet Home Page for public information purposes."
Shea described the draft document as "a work in progress. While the February 23 draft incorporates many ideas gathered during a series of 'scoping' and other public meetings held last year, it does not reflect any of the input we received at the March 3 meeting. The BLM will continue to refine and improve the draft before publishing it as a proposed rule, for which we will solicit public comments."
Shea encouraged the public to visit the BLM's Home Page, saying, "The Internet has become an indispensable tool for disseminating and obtaining information. Our ever-expanding Home Page is one of the key ways we are working to meet the public's demand for accurate, readily accessible information."
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