CRS Issue Statement on Federal Lands

Ross W. Gorte, Coordinator
Specialist in Natural Resources Policy

Conflicting public values concerning federal lands raise many questions and issues: how much land the federal government should own, how managers should balance conflicting uses and coordinate efforts to address large-scale impacts (such as climate change), whether Congress should protect specific areas, and when and how agencies should collect and distribute fees for land and resource uses. Congress continues to examine these questions— particularly in assessing the various uses that might be made of the federal lands—through legislative proposals, program oversight, and annual appropriations for the four major federal land management agencies: the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), National Park Service (NPS), and Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) in the Department of the Interior, and the Forest Service (FS) in the Department of Agriculture. These agencies have differing mandates, missions, and levels or degrees of resource protection on the lands they administer.


Date of Report: January 8, 2010
Number of Pages: 4
Order Number: IS40311
Price: $7.95

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