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Show Washington DC BLM To Review Current Land Exchange Process The Bureau of Land . Management Washington Office will undertake a 90-day review of all land exchanges currently in process or under discussion, it was announced today by Deputy Director for Policy and External Affairs, Jim Hughes. "Our decision to begin this review is based in part, on findings find-ings in the Appraisal Foundation Report, which was paid for and requested by the BLM in June 2001," Hughes said. Hughes also announced plans for a comprehensive working group to undertake a top-to-bottom evaluation of the land exchange and land appraisal processes. The working group will also analyze the full range of recommendations contained in various reports on the land exchange program issued over the past several years by the Office of the Inspector General and the General Accounting Office, and in the report prepared pre-pared under contract by the Appraisal Foundation. The working group will include BLM, Department of Interior (DOI), other federal agencies, and state government familiar with the land exchange process and appraisal activities, and will report to the DOI with specific recommendations. "The BLM is committed to ensuring that the land exchange program is impartial, credible, and consistent nationwide, and, most importantly, one that protects pro-tects the public interest," .Hughes said. Hughes also indicated indi-cated that the DOI will review all future BLM land exchanges prior to finalization until further notice. ; As part of its overall mission, the BLM conducts hundreds of exchanges each year, the vast majority of which occur without controversy. The land exchange program enables the BLM to exchange the checkerboard pattern pat-tern of federal, state, and pri- . vately owned lands in the West into consolidated areas that can be managed more efficiently and at lower cost for all parties involved. Land appraisals play an important role in the land exchange process carried out under the Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA), where the parcels of land exchanged must be of equal value. In the case of legislated legis-lated exchanges, Congress has the authority to direct a land exchange for other than equal value. The BLM's authority for land exchanges derives from FLPMA as amended by the Federal Land Exchange Facilitation Act of 1988. In addition, Congress has broad legislative authority under its Article II plenary powers to pass laws concerning public lands including directing specific land exchanges. Land exchanges under FLPMA and legislated land exchanges serve different purposes and operate under different dif-ferent rules in terms of criteria for valuing the parcels of land exchanged. The BLM, an agency of the U.S. Department of the Interior, manages more land 262 million mil-lion surface acres than any other federal agency. Most of the country's BLM-managed public land is located in 12 Western states, including Alaska. The Bureau, which has a budget of $1.8 billion and a workforce of 10,000 employees, also administers 700 million acres of sub-surface mineral estate throughout the Nation. The BLM's "multiple use" mission mis-sion is to sustain the health, diversity, and productivity of the public lands for the use and enjoyment of present and future generations. The BLM accomplishes accom-plishes this by managing for such resources as outdoor recreation, recre-ation, livestock grazing, and energy and mineral development develop-ment that helps meet the nation's energy needs, and by conserving natural, historical, cultural, and other resources on the public lands. |