EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The federal government is directly responsible for the administration of one-fourth of the land in the United States of America.* Idaho has almost 64% of its land administered by a variety of federal agencies (see report cover, Figure E-1 below, and Appendix Table A, p.100). In only two other states does federal land exceed 60% of the state—Nevada (77%) and Utah (63%).

Of the 50 states, Idaho has the largest proportion of its land (almost 39%) in the National Forest System of lands administered by the U.S. Forest Service. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is responsible for another 22% of the land in Idaho. Other federal agencies have 3% of the land in the state. These other agencies have more specific missions than the Forest Service and BLM. Because of their predominance across the Idaho landscape and lack of a clearly defined mission (at least in relation to other agencies), this report focuses on the Forest Service and BLM. We also tend to focus more attention on national forests than on BLM lands because of the greater extent of national forests in Idaho, and their multitude of resource values and marketable products, and our professional expertise.

Focus Questions and Brief Replies

This report replies to several questions about federal lands in Idaho. These focus questions and brief replies follow. This information provides the background for considering a variety of alternatives to the current system of managing Forest Service and BLM lands.

[1] Why is 64% of Idaho federal land? The reply is found in the changing role of federal land in the historical development of our nation. All of the land in the United States was previously owned by other nations and Indian tribes. Acquiring land through purchase and conquest, the federal government has at one time or another owned 80% of the nation's land; now it owns 24.2%.

Until a century ago federal land was used to encourage settlement and development through policies for disposing the land to private entities and states. Fewer people settled in Idaho than in most of the other states, so federal land ownership remained high during the nation's settlement and development era. For the past century the policy has been to retain the federal lands and assign management responsibilities to various federal agencies.

[2] What is the purpose of federal lands? History illuminates the purpose of federal lands. Various policies have been developed to guide the federal agencies as they plan and implement land management activities. These policies take the form of legislative statutes, administrative regulations, and judicial rulings. These three types of law are supplemented by executive orders and agency directives and guidelines.

For the Forest Service and BLM, the purpose of these lands as defined in statutory law is "multiple use." The multiple-use laws give the agencies much discretion in deciding what uses to provide, and who will get the benefits of those decisions. This discretion provides little basis for judicial review, as almost any mix of management strategies can be considered to meet the multiple-use mandates. From 1950 to 1990, commodity production was emphasized—timber production on the national forests and livestock and mining on the BLM lands. Since 1970, however, various environmental laws and their provisions for citizen lawsuits have gradually shifted the management emphasis to favor protection of wildlife and fish habitat.

Deciding what uses of federal lands are permissible, and where, when, and how those uses may be carried out, presents difficult choices that have become progressively more complicated since the decisions during the Progressive Era more than a century ago to retain these lands in public ownership. Laws since the late 1960s require consultation with the public and with regulatory agencies. This often led to conflict and confrontation between different interests with different views on what mix of uses federal lands should provide. Legal strategies and counter strategies by contending factions sometimes produced deadlock. In the 1990s, the situation is frequently described as "gridlock," which refers to the inability to resolve conflicts in a decision-making body, such as Congress or a bureaucratic agency, resulting in government inaction.

[3] What does the law say about "ownership" of federal lands? These lands are federal property owned by the federal government. At statehood in 1890, Idaho forfeited any and all claims to these lands in exchange for grants of land to support public institutions in the state, as did all states admitted to the Union after 1803.

[4] What "federalism" issues are relevant? Federalism means that the nation's government is organized so that two or more levels of government have formal authority over the same areas and people. Three resource management issues associated with federalism are analyzed herein. They are:

Preemption.— Situations where federal jurisdiction takes precedence over state jurisdiction are called preemption. The Supreme Court heard 63 preemption cases in the 1980s involving federal lands and resources, yet the issues remain murky. Congress has absolute authority over the federal lands, but federal jurisdiction preempts state jurisdiction over the lands and resources only when Congress so specifies. For example, Congress has not specified that all wildlife on federal lands are subject to federal control, so state jurisdiction reigns except in the cases where Congress has spoken, such as migratory waterfowl and endangered species.

Revenue Sharing.— The federal government is exempt from paying the property taxes used to bolster local government finance of roads and schools. However, since 1908 policies have provided that federal lands contribute something toward this purpose. The amount is determined by the quantity of federal land in a county, how much revenue is produced from that land, and congressional appropriations. The shift in management emphasis from timber production to wildlife and fish protection has reduced federal revenue sharing, which has impacts on local government finance in Idaho and elsewhere.

Locus of Decision Making and the "Public Interest."— At what location should the appropriate uses of federal lands be decided? Local citizens would like to have more say, for obvious economic reasons that include commodity-related jobs and government employment as well as local finance from revenue sharing. But federal lands are owned by every citizen in the nation, and democratic principles and the laws governing federal lands give everyone equal access to provide input to and challenge the decisions of federal land managers. The situation challenges managers to find a balance between their science-based professional training and the desires of their clients, both locally and nationally.

Organization of Report

This report consists of 5 chapters. Chapter 1 responds to question [1] above, Chapter 2 to question [2], etc. As required by the PAG's legislative mandate, alternatives are analyzed in Chapter 5. In this Executive Summary we have spared the reader the citations to literature and legal documents that appear in the report itself.

Superscript numbers scattered throughout the text of the report refer to statutes, case law, and other legal citations that are listed as Endnotes rather than imbedded as citations in the text. At the end of the report is a list of the Literature Cited, followed by a Glossary of technical terms and an Index.

Findings

History reveals that things weren't always the way they are today. History also provides a storehouse of information for considering what options for the future might work. Our nation's concept of public lands has evolved from one where federal lands were disposed to state and private entities to support settlement and development. Returning to that policy is an option, of course, but not one suited to these times as the lower 48 states of the nation were considered "settled" a century ago. Since that time, outside of Alaska the general policy for federal lands has been retention and management by bureaucratic agencies, with policy directions determined by agency and/or resource.

Fragmented Authority and Accountability. Attempting to determine how much federal land there is in Idaho, we encountered a situation that can be described as a lack of accountability. After individually confirming each agency's holdings, we conclude that 63.8% of Idaho is federal land. This is consistent with what the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) reported in 1987. The GSA is responsible for accounting for real property owned by the United States. Since then the GSA, which relies on data furnished by the agencies, has reported different amounts of federal land in the state, ranging from 60.6% to 62.6% of the state's land area. This accounting discrepancy of one million or more acres is a symptom of fragmented authority, indicating that no one is charged with the overall accountability for these lands. Instead, a variety of agencies operate as independent authorities, and no one double checks on them to see if things add up.

This is not the case with agency resource management decisions, which many people check on, some as watchdogs. Laws give almost any citizen standing to offer legal challenges to decisions that might violate procedural or substantive requirements in the various laws that govern the management decisions on federal lands, especially the multiple-use lands of the Forest Service and BLM.

Authority for land management is fragmented among a variety of agencies and resource categories. Depending on the resource and agency, land management policies range from custodial management to intensive use, and include the goals of preservation of some landscape features, including wilderness and critical habitats for threatened and endangered species, and protection of environmental quality. The statutory purpose of Forest Service and BLM land is multiple-use resource management. The policies requiring consultation among different agencies and between agencies and various interest groups often are unable to resolve the conflict inherent in a multiple-use strategy on federal lands. Conflicts in the goals of laws lead to confrontations among interests that require judicial interpretations if one party brings the issue to the court's attention by filing a lawsuit.

Accountability is affected by fragmented authority. These are national lands, thus there are issues concerning how state and local interests can be balanced with national interests. These "federalism" issues involve to what extent federal lands should provide revenues for local government functions, and where authority for management decisions should reside—at the local level, or elsewhere? Similarly, where should accountability for decisions reside? The current situation moves decision authority to remote administrators or judges. Accountability is removed from the local resource manager to remote locations that may neither understand local social, economic, or ecological conditions nor respond to them as the local manager would.

Gridlock. The use of adversarial legal strategies and tactics promotes "gridlock," a term many people use to describe the current federal land management situation. Among them are President Clinton and the two Chiefs of the Forest Service during the Clinton Administration.

Conflicts between preservation and development interests are more than a century old, but with modern laws put in place since the mid-1960s these value conflicts can result in deadlock. The lack of consensus affects agency decisions through what political scientists call gridlock. We use the term "gridlock" to include cause—decision deadlock from failure to resolve conflict or attain consensus among affected interests—and effect, which is inaction arising from the checks and balances built into the design of the government system.

Historical analysis reveals that the current situation is rooted in the social values of preserving and protecting various features of lands and resources. Preservation values were codified with the Wilderness Act of 1964, and subsequent environmental protection laws including the Clean Water Act of 1972, Endangered Species Act of 1973, and National Forest Management Act of 1976 elevate these values. These laws are strong, and sometimes perceived as conflicting with the statutory mission of the land management agencies to provide multiple goods and services. On top of that are regulations for implementing the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA) requiring not only analysis of environmental impacts of federal actions, but also public involvement in decisions.

One result is that on the national forests the intensive timber harvesting that began in earnest in the 1950s began to wind down in 1990. By 1997, national forest timber harvests were about one-third what they were in 1990. Idaho has followed that trend, with a 60% reduction in timber harvests on its national forests since 1990. While timber harvests have declined, project delays and agency expenditures for preparing supporting environmental analysis documents have increased.

NEPA encouraged interest groups to file lawsuits, and courts found federal land managers were sometimes not meeting mandates of environmental laws. This includes procedural violations of NEPA and other planning and analysis laws as well as substantive mandates. The well-publicized spotted owl situation is one example, but Idaho does not have spotted owls. One reason for timber harvest reductions in Idaho's national forests in the 1990s is conservation of fish species protected by the Endangered Species Act—salmon, and more recently, steelhead and bull trout.

Gridlock has social costs that include distrust as well as expenditures for legal-defensive paperwork that could be used elsewhere. The Forest Service and BLM spend 30 cents of every budget dollar on resource management, and the rest on administration, including environmental analysis in support of plans and projects. Through distrust, gridlock also erodes the morale of public servants who dedicate more time to defending their chosen courses of action than to implementing them.

Analysis of Alternatives

Some leading public lands scholars say it is time for federal land policy reform. Among them are Randall O'Toole (1988, see also F.O.G. 1998), and Professors Charles Wilkinson (1995), Robert Nelson (1995), Sally Fairfax (1996), and Jack Ward Thomas (1997b). Ten alternatives are analyzed herein. Summary arguments for and against each alternative are provided in the body of the report. In this summary only a brief overview is provided. The report presents criteria and a framework for comparing the alternatives, but neither do we attempt a comprehensive comparative analysis of them, nor recommend one or more as superior to the others.

Current Baseline Situation (No Change). Two alternatives are considered. First is the baseline situation represented by current federal land-use plans prepared in the 1980s, as modified by interim strategies of the mid-1990s to protect fisheries. Second, ecosystem-based management is the underlying strategy that will be used to underpin the next round of required land-use plans and to replace the interim protection strategies for fisheries. The ecosystem-based approach is evolving to a watershed-based strategy that attempts to work through gridlock by approaching land and resource management planning in a way that integrates ecological concerns with outputs desired by people.

Federal scientists recently conducted an ecosystem-based assessment of federal lands as part of the Interior Columbia Basin Ecosystem Management Project (ICBEMP). The region includes all of Idaho except the Bear River drainage, a small portion of the southeast corner of the state. The scientists identified three widespread ecological problems: [1] forest conditions that promote high-intensity wildfire, [2] exotic plants that have altered vegetation conditions, and [3] declines in salmon, steelhead, and trout populations. The ecosystem-based management approach would have managers consider that these conditions are not only related to each other, but also to the human communities in the Basin. The scientists concluded that "active management appears to have the greatest chance of producing the mix of goods and services that people want from ecosystems, as well as maintaining or enhancing the long-term ecological integrity of the Basin" (Quigley et al. 1996, p.185). Gridlock inhibits action, and today, two years after this assessment was published, little has happened on the ground.

These undesirable forest, rangeland, and aquatic ecosystem situations could be improved by active resource management strategies. Alone, any one of these problems is difficult to address. Taken together, tradeoffs among different resource values imply that difficult choices need to be made. For example, active fuel management to reduce wildfire in riparian areas would reduce risks to aquatic systems, but is it enough to outweigh the risk to aquatic systems posed by active management? Replies to such tradeoff questions pit resource specialist against resource specialist and user group against user group, further complicating potential improvements with the distrust associated with gridlock.

Alternatives to the current situation within which the agencies are trying to implement ecosystem-based management strategies take two general forms. First, change land ownership; second, retain the lands in federal ownership, but change the rules under which the land management agencies operate.

Change Ownership of Land. Two alternatives are considered. Changing ownership could be accomplished by either sale of land to private entities or transfer of land to state governments. These alternatives were analyzed in some detail in the early 1980s as the "Sagebrush Rebellion" wound down. At that time there was public debate about privatizing federal properties, or selling them to private interests. This idea met with little favorable reaction then, and seems to have mustered no more support today.

The idea of transferring ownership of federal lands to the states has surfaced in several recent congressional proposals. The key issue is whether the lands would be managed under the same set of rules following the transfer to state management. Federal lands are managed for different purposes than state lands and have different sets of rules to abide by. The state of Idaho has concluded that without changes in the rules, the state would face substantial additional costs now borne by the federal government, with uncertain prospects for increasing revenues under current policies that define the rules.

This analysis shows almost no support at this time for the idea of changing the ownership of federal land to private or state control. However, changing the rules could enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of federal land management.

Change Rules for Federal Land Management. Six alternatives for changing the rules governing the way federal lands are managed are considered.

Economic-based Reforms.— Improved management based on economic efficiency arguments means giving more attention to the costs and returns from ownership and management, providing maximum long-term benefits in relation to the costs incurred. Applying this standard of management could involve establishing a capital account that recognizes depreciation of assets and past investments and annual interest charges on resource values. Reasonable charges or fees would be imposed, and improved efficiency of planning and administration would be a goal. A basic assumption that has yet to be demonstrated by proponents of reforms based on economic efficiency is that ecological capability and environmental quality will not be diminished.

Economic incentives are powerful motivating forces, and should be considered not just by themselves but along with any and all suggestions or alternatives for change. To increase the effectiveness and efficiency of land and resource management, there seems to be a need to enhance the accountability of federal agencies. Judgments of economic efficiency depend on accounting for benefits and costs, thus economic-based reform is one approach to enhanced accountability.

Land Leasing.— Leasing transfers control of some part of the bundle of rights of property ownership to someone other than the owner for a specified period of time and for agreed-upon uses in exchange for periodic payments. Leasing is common in the private sector—farmers often lease land for crop production from their neighbors. Leasing is not at all unusual for public lands and resources. Federal lands are leased to private interests for oil and gas exploration, livestock grazing, utility corridors, and ski resorts and other recreational developments.

An expanded federal land leasing program in the U.S. would need to focus on the goals of a leasing program and how those goals are reflected in the terms of the leases. The lease instrument is flexible, and can be designed to insure the desired outcomes are attained. For some resources, it may be useful to consider leasing arrangements in a different light than they currently are. For example, if it is desirable to produce timber from federal lands, leasing arrangements could be structured to ensure that secondary effects of timber management are appropriately mitigated.

Federal Land Management Commission.— The time seems to be right for a national dialogue on the purpose and management of the federal lands as a system, something that has not been undertaken seriously since the Public Land Law Review Commission of the late 1960s. We do not, however, propose a similar commission. Most thoughtful people know what the problem on multiple-use lands is—mixed objectives from a mixture of laws encouraging adversarial strategies and promoting gridlock.

A commission could be appointed and given authority and accountability to oversee the management of federal lands. Such a body could design forums in which differences among interests could be resolved without resorting to the courts. Because gridlock is produced by adversarial legalistic strategies, the Federal Land Management Commission could charter a task force to examine the array of land-use planning and environmental laws that govern federal lands and recommend changes.

Local Advisory Council.— Collaborative efforts to manage federal lands through community-based partnerships or councils are blossoming throughout the western United States. Success may depend on moving the final authority for making decisions to local levels. Proposing that decisions about national interest lands should be made by local authorities raises "federalism" issues. Ecosystem-based management argues that effective management decisions need to consider interrelated conditions at the local as well as broader scales. However, some level of national involvement in local decisions is necessary for federal lands to continue to provide national values.

Trust Land Management.— Roughly 135 million acres of school grant lands in 22 states are currently managed by the states under the trust land management concept. These lands provide a body of experience that could be used to begin to consider adoption of this model for the federal lands. Because it is based on principles of clarity, accountability, enforceability, and perpetuity, trust land management may be an effective approach to achieving sustainable resource management. This alternative would require statutory authorization to vest boards of trustees with responsibility for insuring that the public lands are managed exclusively for the benefit of designated beneficiaries. Important questions are what the purpose of the trust would be, who the beneficiaries and trustees would be, and who would designate them.

Cooperative State/Federal Management.— Under these arrangements state and federal authorities agree in writing to accomplish a mutually beneficial objective. Both parties agree to accept defined responsibilities and both contribute resources. The 14,320 acre City of Rocks National Reserve in southern Idaho is an example. Through legislation in 1988 Congress enabled the Idaho Department of Parks and Recreation to manage this unit of the National Park System under a plan developed cooperatively by federal, state, and local interests. The general intent is to provide for resource protection and use, with the future possibility of transferring management and administration of the area to state or local government at such time as the Secretary of the Interior determines that adequate resource protection is assured.

Framework for Comparing Alternatives. We suggest a comprehensive variety of criteria for evaluating these alternatives, including biophysical considerations, economic efficiency and equity, and social acceptability. "Sustainability" as a criterion requires considerations of ecological soundness, economic viability, and social desirability, thus is a summary of the other criteria. Administrative practicality is also an important set of criteria, and subdivided into mission clarity, accountability, and enforceability. It is well beyond the scope of this project to attempt such a comprehensive policy analysis, but we have paved the way for such analysis by identifying a set of alternatives for managing federal lands and comprehensive criteria with which to judge them.

Even after a comprehensive analysis, it would be difficult to select one alternative to the current land management situation. Today's policies and fragmented systems of authority and accountability for the federal lands have evolved over a century of efforts to retain and manage under centralized government control a substantial portion of the nation's land. Depending on the particular characteristics of different sets of lands and resources, one alternative might be more appropriate than another in different cases. It might also be appropriate to combine the features of different alternatives to fit different situations.

The Forest Service and BLM may not be successful in designing and implementing ecosystem-based management under the current system of rules. It is not necessary to change ownership of the lands because whatever goals could be attained by disposal could be met by retention and management under different sets of rules.

We see three common threads among the six alternatives that would change the rules. First is to clearly define the purpose of federal lands. Clarity of purpose and mission enhances virtually all other considerations. It gives the manager tangible goals for which the public can hold the manager accountable.

Second is transferring the locus of final decision-making authority closer to the land. There is a community-based movement in the West to figure out more meaningful ways to include local interests in federal lands decision-making processes. This could be done effectively through local advisory councils, trust land management, or cooperative state/federal management alternatives. A Federal Land Management Commission could make the determination as to which alternative is most appropriate for given sets of lands and resources.

Third is accountability. This means the manager is answerable for the condition of lands and resources, and for the expenditure of public funds. Efficiency as well as accountability could be enhanced by more widespread use of managerial incentives and leasing arrangements. Managers should be held accountable for environmental quality, and this is assured through various environmental statutes. We see no need to change them. Because adversarial legal strategies encourage decision deadlock and rigidify systemic institutional gridlock, a Federal Land Management Commission could sort through the various agency regulations for implementing environmental laws as well as the land-use planning laws and regulations for the multiple-use agencies and recommend changes.

Other than these concluding observations this report offers no recommendation as to what should be done about gridlock, but instead points out what could be done by considering the features of various alternatives.

*Citations to literature and legal documents appear in the body of the report, but not in this Executive Summary. [Return to text]

This page last updated 8/4/98.

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