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The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is responsible for managing 264 million acres of land--about one-eighth of the land in the United States--and about 300 million additional acres of subsurface mineral resources. The Bureau is also responsible for wildfire management and suppression on 388 million acres.
Most of these lands are located in the western United States, including Alaska, and are dominated by extensive grasslands, forests, high mountains, arctic tundra, and deserts. The BLM manages a wide variety of resources and uses, including energy and minerals; timber; forage; wild horse and burro populations; fish and wildlife habitat; wilderness areas; archaeological, paleontological, and historical sites; and other natural heritage values.
In managing the public lands, we perform a wide variety of tasks:
These important tasks could not be successfully completed without assistance from the partners we work with on a day-to-day basis and the customers we serve. Working together with others is essential to our efforts to restore and maintain the health of America's public lands.
The BLM's roots go back to the Land Ordinance of 1785 and the Northwest Ordinance of 1787. These laws provided for the survey and settlement of the lands that the original 13 colonies ceded to the Federal government after the War of Independence. As additional lands were acquired by the United States from Spain, France, and other countries, Congress directed that they be explored, surveyed, and made available for settlement. In 1812, Congress established the General Land Office in the Department of the Treasury to oversee the disposition of these Federal lands. As the 19th century progressed and the Nation's land base expanded further west, Congress encouraged the settlement of the land by enacting a wide variety of laws, including the Homesteading Laws and the Mining Law of 1872.
These statutes served one of the major policy goals of the young country-- settlement of the Western territories. With the exception of the Mining Law of 1872 and the Desert Land Act of 1877 (which was amended), all have since been repealed or superseded by other statutes.
The late 19th century marked a shift in Federal land management priorities with the creation of the first national parks, forests, and wildlife refuges. By withdrawing these lands from settlement, Congress signaled a shift in the policy goals served by the public lands. Instead of using them to promote settlement, Congress recognized that they should be held in public ownership because of their other resource values.
In the early 20th century, Congress took additional steps toward recognizing the value of the assets on public lands and directed the Executive Branch to manage activities on the remaining public lands. The Mineral Leasing Act of 1920 allowed leasing, exploration, and production of selected commodities such as coal, oil, gas, and sodium to take place on public lands. The Taylor Grazing Act of 1934 established the U.S. Grazing Service to manage the public rangelands. And the Oregon and California (O&C) Act of August 28, 1937, required sustained yield management of the timberlands in western Oregon.
In 1946, the Grazing Service was merged with the General Land Office to form the Bureau of Land Management within the Department of the Interior. When the BLM was initially created, there were over 2,000 unrelated and often conflicting laws for managing the public lands. The BLM had no unified legislative mandate until Congress enacted the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 (FLPMA).
In FLPMA, Congress recognized the value of the remaining public lands by declaring that these lands would remain in public ownership. Congress also gave us the term "multiple use" management, defined as "management of the public lands and their various resource values so that they are utilized in the combination that will best meet the present and future needs of the American people."
Increasingly, the BLM has had to address the needs of a growing and changing West. Ten of the 12 western States with significant proportions of BLM-managed lands have among the fastest rates of population growth in the United States.
The American public values balanced use, conservation, environmental management, recreation, and tourism. Public lands are increasingly viewed from the perspective of the recreational opportunities they offer, their cultural resources, and--in an increasingly urban world--their vast open spaces. However, against this backdrop, the more traditional land uses of grazing, timber production, and mining are still in high demand.
The BLM's task is to recognize the demands of public land users while addressing the needs of traditional user groups and working within smaller budgets. Fortunately, the public, constituent groups, and other agencies and levels of government have proven eager to participate in collaborative decisionmaking. These diverse partners have joined with us in developing many partnerships that benefit the public lands and everyone who relies on them.
Perhaps one of the Bureau's greatest challenges today is to develop more effective land management practices, while becoming more efficient at the same time. We are proud of the significant steps we and our partners have already taken to reduce administrative costs, streamline work processes, focus on customer service, and improve accountability to the American people.
As the BLM approaches the end of the 20th century, we look forward to continuing our service to the public while strengthening our partnerships with all who use or care about the public lands. Working together, all of us can succeed in restoring and maintaining the health, diversity, and productivity of America's public lands for the use and enjoyment of present and future generations.
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The Bureau of Land Management is working to chart a new course for the next century. The Chief Financial Officers Act of 1990, the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) of 1993, the National Performance Review, and other initiatives all require Federal agencies to be accountable for performance and results.
For the first time, the Government Performance and Results Act requires all agencies to have strategic plans, performance measures, and a way to evaluate progress toward their goals. Importantly, the law requires agencies to move away from reporting outputs (e.g., miles of fence constructed) to focusing more on results and outcomes (e.g., improvements in land health because of better livestock grazing management).
Agencies must report to Congress and the American people each year on their progress in meeting their goals. Customer and stakeholder involvement is also a new requirement of GPRA.
The Bureau has issued its first Strategic Plan under GPRA and is making strides on the measurement and evaluation components of the Act. The BLM Strategic Plan outlines the mission-oriented goals and objectives for the agency over the next 3 to 5 years.
Our Strategic Plan is an overarching statement of priorities, future direction, and performance goals for the Bureau. And this plan is not "just another paperwork exercise"; it already permeates day-to-day activities. Resource allocations (i.e., which programs and offices get funding) and daily operational decisions are already starting to be linked to the Strategic Plan through a required Annual Performance Plan that will be transmitted to Congress.
In addition to strategic planning, the BLM is developing a new approach to conducting evaluations. Based on preventing problems rather than detecting them after the fact, the new system uses two interlocking components: local self-assessment and national validation. An Implementation Team consisting of both field and Washington Office members has embarked on the Phase 2 goal of building efficiency, effectiveness, and accountability into all of the Bureau's processes.
Customer research is being conducted to help us find out what is really important to our customers and partners--to recreation users, livestock operators, local government officials, and others--and to identify any barriers our own employees might face in serving customers in the field. This research will help us understand where we are now and what we need to do to improve customer service and measure the results.
Good customer survey data at both the national and local levels is critical to strategic planning, performance measurement, and the evaluation of results called for by GPRA. Progress was made in fiscal year 1997 to establish baseline data on customer satisfaction and to ensure the consistent gathering and use of customer research information.