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Last updated: 04/04/03

The Valles Caldera Preservation Act, passed by Congress on July 12 and signed today by the President, will acquire for all Americans the Baca Ranch in New Mexico, a nearly 100,000 acre property almost completely surrounded by the Santa Fe National Forest. Title II of the Act, the Federal Land Transaction Facilitation Act has direct implications for the Bureau of Land Management.

Statement by BLM Director Tom Fry

Federal Land Transaction Facilitation Act

(Title II of The Valles Caldera Preservation Act)

"I am pleased to see the Federal Land Transaction Facilitation Act (FLTFA) signed into law. The Act will allow the Bureau of Land Management to retain receipts from land sales, which will be used to cover administrative costs and acquire properties to improve the nation's land management pattern. Until now, receipts from land sales go direct to the Treasury, under the Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA). Though land sales are already authorized by FLPMA, the BLM rarely sold land because we could not retain receipts to cover costs, yet we incurred significant costs, 'closing costs' as would any seller of real estate. The FLTFA will benefit the American public by giving the BLM an additional tool to relinquish certain Federal lands, and to fund the acquisition - by the BLM and other Federal agencies - of inholdings and other lands containing exceptional resources. The Act creates a more efficient, streamlined process for land sales, and revenues from these sales will directly benefit the nation's public lands.

"This authority will not eliminate the need for land exchanges. Land exchanges will continue to be a major tool for the BLM to change the checkerboard pattern of land ownership in the West - particularly where State Land Department lands are involved - into consolidated areas that are more efficiently managed and valuable to the public. But the Act signed into law today certainly provides an important and much needed mechanism to better manage America's public lands."

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