
Viewpoint: Efficiency opportunity? Remake federal land
Bill Schneider
Even though many people consider government efficiency an oxymoron, it has become a current obsession. Millions of voters obviously want to cut federal spending and improve efficiency. We will soon have a new federal quasi-agency, the Department of Government Efficiency with the goal of cutting up to two trillion in federal spending.
Here is an obvious government efficiency opportunity that could save many millions of tax dollars and greatly improve efficiency. Having two enormous federal agencies doing exactly the same thing seems like a definition of inefficiency, but that is exactly what we have had for many decades with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the USDA-Forest Service (FS).
These two federal agencies both manage outdoor recreation (campgrounds, trails, and outfitting) and natural resource extraction (logging, mining, livestock grazing, and fossil fuel leasing) as well as fighting wildfires on federal lands. The only real difference is that the BLM is in the Department of the
Interior and the FS is in the Department of Agriculture.
In addition, both agencies have a never-ending internal conflict. Both are mandated to protect and preserve natural resources on federal lands and also develop them for commercial use. Neither agency does much during wildfire season when fire suppression becomes the priority and siphons off most money and personnel.
Merging and reorganizing two agencies with virtually identical missions seems like a no-brainer, and even though it has been suggested in the past, no politico has ever seriously tried to do it. The General Accountability Office (GOA) has studied the idea and suggested the FS and BLM be eliminated and remade into two new agencies, one devoted to outdoor recreation and one focused on resource extraction and commercial uses of federal lands. But as is often the case with such proposals, all study, no action.
Slightly varying from the GAO plan, it seems more efficient to reorganize the FS and BLM into three federal agencies devoted to three separate and non-conflicting missions: outdoor recreation, resource extraction and forest fire suppression, all within the Department of the Interior.
Not counting the Department of Defense with its extensive land holdings, we currently have four major federal land-managing agencies. Only one, the FS, is in the Department of Agriculture. The other three are in the Department of the Interior--the BLM, National Park Service (NPS), and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), which manages our National Wildlife Refuge System. Of the four, the BLM manages the most federal land (258 million acres) with the FS a close second (193 million), followed by the NPS (96 million) and the FWS (86 million).
It seems efficient to keep the status quo for the NPS and FWS. These two agencies have focused responsibilities to preserve and manage national parks and wildlife refuges where extractive uses like mining, fossil fuel drilling and timbering are usually prohibited.
The FS and BLM, however, need remaking. Both agencies have at best a confused focus and both are mired in irresolvable internal conflicts because they're charged with both developing and protecting federal lands. To stop this insane duplication and save the taxpayers millions, move the FS to the Interior Department and then completely reorganize both the FS and BLM into three focused agencies. Something like:
The Outdoor Recreation Service to manage outdoor recreation and outfitting on national forests and BLM lands, protect roadless areas and wild rivers and assist state agencies with wildlife management.
The Resource Management Service to manage mining, logging, livestock grazing, oil and gas leasing, and other commercial uses.
The Fire Service to take charge and consolidate the colossal task of preventing and controlling wildfire on all federal lands, even plucking these functions out of the NPS and FWS.
Keep in mind that this plunge into government efficiency is not just a matter of drawing lines and boxes on an organization chart. It would affect a lot of families and careers, but all the work still needs somebody to do it, so hopefully, most employees can end up with equal or better jobs after the reorganization dust settles.
Easier said than done, eh? Well, you know what they say. If it were easy and simple, it would’ve have been done long ago.
Bill Schneider is a retired book publisher, outdoor writer and online columnist living in Helena, Montana.