A Program An introductory summary of the Commission's basic concepts and recommendations for long-range goals, objectives, and guidelines, underlying the more specific recommendations in the individual chapters of the report. F EELING THE PRESSURES of an enlarging population, burgeoning growth, and expanding demand for land and natural resources, the American people today have an almost desperate need to determine the best purposes to which their public lands and the wealth and opportunities of those lands should be dedicated. Through the timely action of Congress, and through the work of this Commission, a rare opportunity is offered to answer that need. For reasons that we will detail, we urge reversal of the policy that the United States should dispose of the so-called unappropriated public domain lands. But we also reject the idea that merely because these lands are owned by the Federal Government, they should all remain forever in Federal ownership. We have also found that by administrative action the disposal policy, although never "repealed" by statute, has been rendered ineffective. In the absence of congressional guidelines, there has been no predictable administrative policy. We, therefore, recommend that: The policy of large-scale disposal of public lands reflected by the majority of statutes in force today be revised and that future disposal should be of only those lands that will achieve maximum benefit for the general public in non-Federal ownership, while retaining in Federal ownership those whose values must be preserved so that they may be used and enjoyed by all Americans. While there may be some modest disposals, we conclude that at this time most public lands would not serve the maximum public interest in private ownership. We support the concepts embodied in the establishment and maintenance of the national forests, the National Park System, the National Wildlife Refuge System, and the parallel or subsidiary programs involving the Wilderness Preservation System, the National Riverways and Scenic Rivers Systems, national trails, and national recreation areas. In recent years, with very few exceptions, all areas that have been set aside for specific use have been given intensive study by both the legislative and executive branches and have been incorporated in one of the programs through legislative action. We would not disturb any of these because they have also been subjected to careful scrutiny by state and local governments as well as by interested and affected people. Based on our study, however, we find that, generally, areas set aside by executive action as national forests, national monuments, and for other purposes have not had adequate study and there has not been proper consultation with people affected or with the units of local government in the vicinity, particularly as to precise boundaries. Although the Department of the Interior and the Bureau of Land Management classified lands under the temporary Classification and Multiple Use Act of 1964,1 we believe that in many cases there was hasty action based on preconceived determinations instead of being based on careful land use planning. In addition, there are many areas of the public domain 1 43 U.S.C. §§ 1411–1418 (1964). that have never been classified or set aside for specific use.* We, therefore, recommend that: An immediate review should be undertaken of all lands not previously designated for any specific use, and of all existing withdrawals, set asides, and classifications of public domain lands that were effected by Executive action to determine the type of use that would provide the maximum benefit for the general public in accordance with standards set forth in this report. The result of these reviews will be the delineation of lands that should be retained in Federal ownership and those that could best serve the public through private ownership. For those to be retained in Federal ownership, there will be a further breakdown indicating which ones should be set aside for special-purpose use-which may or may not include several different uses. As intimated above, our studies have also led us to the conclusions that the Congress has largely delegated to the executive branch its plenary constitutional authority over the retention, management, and disposition of public land; 2 that statutory delegations have often been lacking in standards or meaningful policy determinations; that the executive agencies, understandably, in keeping with the operation of the American political system, took the action they deemed necessary to fill this vacuum through the issuance of regulations, manuals, and other administrative directives; and that the need for administrative flexibility in meeting varying regional and local conditions created by the diversity of our public lands and by the complexity of many public land problems does not justify failure to legislate the controlling standards, guidelines, and criteria under which public land decisions should be made. 2 U.S. Const., Art. IV, § 3. *Commissioner Clark submits the following separate view: Some of the statements in this and other parts of the report may lead to interpretations in the minds of some readers which do not represent views of all members of the Commission. However, since this is a consensus effort, a brief caveat is appropriate regarding the language and subjective tone employed to describe some past actions affecting public lands which should not detract from the general utility of the recommendations. This report must be read against nearly 200 years of history and no doubt a nongovernment report would contain similar inferences that would emphasize perhaps disproportionately the past inaction, delays, and piecemeal approach of Congress. We, therefore, recommend that: Congress should establish national policy in all public land laws by prescribing the controlling standards, guidelines, and criteria for the exercise of authority delegated to executive agencies. Many types of public land have been reserved by executive action for governmental uses, such as defense installations and atomic energy testing areas. The result has been to materially restrict or preclude their availability for recreation and resource development purposes. In other cases, withdrawals and reservations have severely limited permissible types of uses on tremendous acreages of public land in order to further administrative land policies. We find that when proposed land uses are passed on by the Congress, they receive more careful scrutiny in the executive branch before being recommended; furthermore, in connection with congressional action, the general public is given a better opportunity to comment and have its views considered. We conclude that Congress should not delegate broad authority for these types of actions. We, therefore, recommend that: Congress assert its constitutional authority by enacting legislation reserving unto itself exclusive authority to withdraw or otherwise set aside public lands for specified limitedpurpose uses and delineating specific delegation of authority to the Executive as to the types of withdrawals and set asides that may be effected without legislative action. Our studies have convinced us that, with respect to lands retained in Federal ownership, the rules and regulations governing their use, to the extent that they exist, have not been adequate to fulfill the purpose; that they were promulgated without proper consultation with, and participation by, either those affected or the general public; that existing regulations are cumbersome; and that the procedures for users or other interested parties to exercise their rights to seek or oppose the grant of interests in public land are likewise cumbersome as well as expensive with no assurance of objective, impartial consideration of appeals from, or objections to, decisions by land managers. protests, with provisions for a simplified administrative appeals procedure in a manner that will restore public confidence in the impartiality and fairness of administrative decisions. Judicial review should generally be available. In pursuing our work, we took cognizance of the fact that between 1965, when we started our work, and the year 2000, the population of the United States will have grown by over 100 million people. The public lands can, must, and will contribute to the well-being of our people by providing a combination of many uses. Some of these will help to take care of the increasing leisure time that Americans of the future will have, while others must help in furnishing the added amounts of food, fiber, and minerals that the larger numbers of people will require. Under existing statutes and regulations, there is no assurance that the public lands retained in Federal ownership will contribute in the manner that will be required. We find that the absence of statutory guidelines leaves a void which could result in land managers withholding from public use public lands or their resources that may be required for a particular time; that even if land managers plan to make specific goods and services available to the public, there are no long-range objectives or procedures that will assure fulfillment of a program; and that the absence of statutory guidelines for the establishment of priorities in allocating land uses causes unnecessary confusion and inconsistent administration. We, therefore, recommend that: Statutory goals and objectives should be established as guidelines for land-use planning under the general principle that within a specific unit, consideration should be given to all possible uses and the maximum number of compatible uses permitted. This should be subject to the qualification that where a unit, within an area managed for many uses, can contribute maximum benefit through one particular use, that use should be recognized as the dominant use, and the land should be managed to avoid interference with fulfillment of such dominant use. Throughout our work we were aware of the evergrowing concern by the American people about the deterioration of the environment. We share that concern and have looked in vain to find assurance in the public land laws that the United States, as a landowner, had made adequate provision to assure that the quality of life would not be endangered by reason of activities on federally owned lands. We find to the contrary that, despite recent legislative enactments, there is an absence of statutory guidelines by which land management agencies can provide uniform, equitable, and economically sound provision for environmental control over lands retained in Federal ownership. We, therefore, recommend that: Federal statutory guidelines should be established to assure that Federal public lands are managed in a manner that not only will not endanger the quality of the environment, but will, where feasible, enhance the quality of the environment, both on and off public lands, and that Federal control of the lands should never be used as a shield to permit lower standards than those required by the laws of the state in which the lands are located. The Federal licensing power should be used, under statutory guidelines, to assure these results. Every landowner is concerned with the return that he receives for the use of his land or for the revenue he receives from products produced on that land. United States citizens, collectively the owners of the public lands, are similarly concerned. We ascertained from the many witnesses that we heard that the concern of some is that the United States has not been receiving the maximum dollar return; the concern of others is that the United States has been trying to receive too much of a dollar return; while the concern of still others is that the United States is uneven in its efforts to obtain monetary return from its public lands. From our review, we find that there is a great diversity in public land policy on fees and charges for the various goods and services derived from the public lands; that the fee structures vary among commodities and among agencies administering the public lands; that objectives for the pricing of goods and services are unclear; and that the absence of comprehensive statutory guidelines has created a situation in which land managers are unable to provide uniform equitable treatment for all. We, therefore, recommend that: Statutory guidelines be established providing generally that the United States receive full value for the use of the public lands and their resources retained in Federal ownership, except that monetary payment need not represent full value, or so-called market value, in instances where there is no consumptive use of the land or its resources. |