United States General Accounting Office

GAO Report to the Chairman,Committee on the Budget,House of Representatives

July 1999 LAND MANAGEMENT

The Forest Servicesand BLMsOrganizationalStructures andResponsibilities

GAO/RCED-99-227

GAO United StatesGeneral Accounting OfficeWashington, D.C. 20548Resources, Community, andEconomic Development Division

B-282951

July 29, 1999

The Honorable John R. KasichChairman, Committee on the BudgetHouse of Representatives

Dear Mr. Chairman:

In response to your request, we are reporting on (1) the operational and demographic profilesof the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management and (2) our observations on themajor similarities and differences emerging from this information.

As arranged with your office, unless you publicly announce its contents earlier, we plan nofurther distribution of this report until 14 days after the date of this letter. At that time, we willsend copies of this report to the Honorable Bruce Babbitt, Secretary of the Interior; Tom Fry,Acting Director, Bureau of Land Management; the Honorable Daniel R. Glickman, Secretary ofAgriculture; Mike Dombeck, Chief, Forest Service; appropriate congressional committees; andthe Honorable Jacob J. Lew, Director, Office of Management and Budget. We will make copiesavailable to others upon request.

Please call me on (206) 287-4810 if you or your staff have any questions on this report.

Sincerely yours,

James K. MeissnerAssociate Director, Energy, Resources, and Science Issues

Executive Summary

Purpose Managing federal lands and the natural resources contained on themraises significant controversy between the appropriate levels ofconsumption and the appropriate need to conserve these lands andresources for generations to come. The Bureau of Land Management andthe Forest Service are two of the largest land management agenciesresponsible for implementing national policy on the consumption andconservation of natural resources. Debates continue among interestedpartiesthe Congress, federal agencies, state agencies, and privateinterestsconcerning the most efficient and effective means ofaccomplishing the goals of the federal governments land managementagencies. But the final decisions must flow from the Congress, which mustdecide how much fundingand for what programsthe land managementagencies receive compared with the pressing needs of all governmentprograms.

To provide the Congress with sufficient information for making these landmanagement decisions, the Chairman, House Committee on the Budget,requested that GAO (1) provide a comprehensive demographic andorganizational profile of the Bureau of Land Management and the ForestService, including information about each agencys managed lands;mission, goals, structure, roles, and responsibilities; location, type, andnumber of offices; activities and obligations; and receipts generated; and(2) provide observations on the major similarities and differencesemerging from this information.

Background Federal agencies manage about 650 million acres of land nationwide. Mostof these federally managed acres are under the jurisdiction of twoagenciesthe Bureau of Land Management, within the Department of theInterior, and the Forest Service, within the U.S. Department of Agriculture.Each of these agencies has specific legislation guiding how its lands are tobe used, and each manages its lands under the principle of multiple-use,sustained yield, which assumes a continued high level of resource outputswithout impairing the productivity of the lands. That is, both agenciesmanage their lands for such uses as mining, grazing, timber harvesting, andrecreation, and no one use is considered to be primary.

Results in Brief The Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management manage theirfederal lands for multiple uses through a multilevelheadquarters andfield officeorganizational structure. The agencies are responsible formanaging the same types of natural resourcessuch as, timber, minerals,

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Executive Summary

grazing, recreation, and wildlifeon about 70 percent of all public lands.These lands represent about 21 percent of the nations total surfaceareaprimarily in the West. The agencies lands are mostly contiguous,and some of their 1,064 offices are in the same location or in closeproximity. With over 44,000 multidisciplined permanent and temporaryemployees, the agencies workforces are primarily white collar; a largeportion of the employees are in scientific disciplines such as the biologicalsciences, the physical sciences, engineering and architecture. The totalobligations for these agencies amounted to $4.2 billion in fiscal year 1998,and their largest appropriations fund similar budget categories dealingwith the management of rangelands and forestlands, wildlife and fisheries,and recreation. During fiscal year 1998, the Forest Service generated about$576 million in receipts from the sale or use of natural resources, and theBureau of Land Management generated about $140 million.1

The organizational and demographic profiles of the Forest Service and theBureau of Land Management are similar in many respects, including theagencies missions and goals, the amount of land managed in the lower 48states, the purposes for which the lands are managed, the types ofemployees hired, the location and type of offices maintained, the budgetcategories incurring the largest obligations, the activities performed underthese budget categories, and the types of receipts generated. Yet whilethese similarities exist, the agencies differ in terms of their magnitude andemphasis. For example, the Forest Service is a much larger organization inmost of the attributes we examined, and each agency emphasizes differentresource usesmost of Forest Services lands are forests while most ofBureau of Land Managements lands are rangelands. In addition, each ofthe agencies has several unique functions. For example, the Forest Servicehas a large forest and rangeland research program and the Bureau of LandManagement has certain governmentwide programs that do such things asadministering mining laws and making Payments in Lieu of Taxes forthe entire government.2

1In addition to the receipts collected by the Bureau of Land Management and the Forest Service, theMinerals Management Service (within the Department of the Interior) collected almost $1.1 billion inreceipts generated from Bureau of Land Management lands and $59 million in receipts generated fromForest Service lands during fiscal year 1998.

2The Bureau of Land Management compensates counties to provide Payments in Lieu of Taxes thatwould have been received by these jurisdictions if the federal lands were privately owned.

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Executive Summary

GAOs Analysis

Organizational andDemographic Profiles

The Bureau of Land Management, established in 1946 within theDepartment of the Interior, manages about 264 million acres of publiclandsnearly 12 percent of the nations total surface area and about 40percent of all federal lands. The Bureaus lands are primarily in the 11western states and Alaska, but the Bureau also manages an additional300 million acres of subsurface mineral resources located throughout thecountry. The Bureaus workforce includes more than 10,000 permanentand temporary employees located in 189 offices, which includeheadquarters, national centers, and field offices. Annually, the Bureauspends about $1.2 billion to operate and manage its organization and landsand generates about $140 million in receipts from its various operations.

Among the budget categories with the largest obligations in fiscal year1998 were Land Resources, at $133 million; Payments in Lieu of Taxes, at$120 million; and Workforce and Organizational Support, at $119 million.When taken together, the Wildland Fire Preparedness and Wildland FireOperations obligations totaled almost $168 million. These obligations usedabout 5,275 full-time equivalents in fiscal year 1998.3

The Bureaus state offices and associated field offices with the largestobligations included Oregon, with $193 million; Alaska, with $87 million;and California, with $80 million.

Among the receipts generated, timber sales totaled almost $54 million,mineral leases and permits totaled almost $46 million, and grazing feestotaled about $14 million. Oregon, Nevada, and Wyoming generated thelargest amounts of receipts.

The Forest Service, established in 1905 within the U.S. Department ofAgriculture, manages about 192 million acres of public lands in nationalforests and grasslandsabout 9 percent of the nations total surface areaand about 29 percent of all federal lands. Forest Service lands are locatedin 44 states, the Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico. The Forest Servicesworkforce includes more than 34,000 permanent and temporaryemployees located in a total of 875 offices, including headquarters,regional, forest, ranger district, research, Job Corps Centers, and otheroffices in 45 states, Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia. Annually,

3Full-time equivalent, or FTE, generally consists of one or more employed individuals who collectivelycomplete 2,080 work hours in a given year.

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Executive Summary

the Forest Service spends about $3 billion to operate and manage itsorganization and lands and generates about $576 million in receipts fromits various operations.

Among the Forest Services budget categories with the largest obligationsin fiscal year 1998 were Fire Presuppression and Suppression andRehabilitation, at about $532 million; General Administration, at$239 million;