Statement of Administration Policy: H.R. 1096 - Authorize Appropriations for the Bureau of Land Management

(SENT House Rules 7/15/91 and House 7/17/91)
(House)
(Vento (D) Minnesota)

The Administration strongly opposes enactment of H.R. 1096 because the bill would make a number of undesirable changes in the way the Secretary of the Interior, acting through the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), manages the public lands. These changes would hamper, rather than facilitate, effective and balanced multiple-use land management. The bill would effectively change the character and thrust of BLM's land management charter as contained in the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 (FLPMA). Instead of emphasizing broad multiple-use and sustained yield land management, H.R. 1096 would give unwarranted preferential consideration to a few selected resources on the public lands. If the bill is presented to the President in its current form, the Secretary of the Interior would recommend a veto.

Of particular concern, the bill would:

—   Amend FLPMA's definition of "area of critical environmental concern" to seriously limit multiple-use management in such areas, even when a variety of land uses would not be incompatible with resource protection (Sec. 3).

—   Add requirements that management of public lands protect and enhance the values of conservation system units (parks, refuges, etc.), thereby creating unnecessary "buffer zones" around those areas, the bill's disclaimer notwithstanding (Secs. 3(a), (b), and 8(a)).

—   Deemphasize BLM's mandate for balanced consideration of all resource values by requiring an expanded focus on plant and wildlife protection and enhancement (Sec. 4).

—   Require that a priority be placed on the identification, protection, and enhancement of specific resources on the public lands, thereby hindering multiple-use management (Sec. 5(b)(2j).

—   Limit the appointment of non-career BUM employees; this interferes unacceptably with the President's authority to manage the Executive branch (Sec. 6).

—   Restrict the Secretary's discretion to authorize activities that may involve development, even when such development is determined to be in the public interest (Sec. 8(a)).

—   Require grazing permittees to own and control domestic livestock that graze on the public lands, thereby making many operations economically infeasible (Sec. 10).

—   Broaden judicial review of BLM actions to cover the promulgation of regulations and other activities which do not constitute formal rulemaking actions. This may overburden the courts with unwarranted, specious, and political challenges to agency actions that have no immediate impact on plaintiffs' interests (Sec. 14).

—   Establish a confusing and controversial system for granting rights-of-way for oil, gas, and other pipelines that could make them subject both to FLPMA and the Mineral Leasing Act (Sec. 15).

—   Create a complex, confusing, duplicative, unnecessary, and costly process to determine the validity of highway rights- of-way that cross public lands (Sec. 16).