Download Free Federal Land Exchange Book in PDF and EPUB Free Download. You can read online Federal Land Exchange and write the review.

The Bureau of Land Mgmt. (BLM) and the Forest Service manage millions of acres of public land. To enhance land mgmt. and fulfill other public objectives, they acquire and dispose of land using exchanges -- trading fed. lands for lands owned by willing private entities, individuals, or state or local gov¿ts. Concerns have been raised about whether the public interest has always been served in these land exchanges. This report: (1) analyzes the number, trends, and characteristics of BLM and Forest Service land exchanges; and (2) determines the effectiveness of agency actions to address previously identified key problems. The auditor reviewed 31 land exchanges representing 85% of the acres that agencies acquired, or plan to acquire in 2008. Illus.
This original contribution to the field is the first to bring economic sociology theory to the study of federal land exchanges. By blending public choice theory with engaging case studies that contextualize the tactics used by land developers, this book uses economic sociology to help challenge the under-valuation of federal lands in political decisions. The empirically-based, scholarly analysis of federal-private land swaps exposes serious institutional dysfunctions, which sometimes amount to outright corruption. By evaluating investigative reports of each federal agency case study, the book illustrates the institutional nature of the actors in land swaps and, in particular, the history of U.S. agencies’ promotion of private interests in land exchanges. Using public choice theory to make sense of the privatization of public lands, the book looks in close detail at the federal policies of the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service land swaps in America. These pertinent case studies illustrate the trends to transfer federal lands notwithstanding their flawed value appraisals or interpretation of public interest; thus, violating both the principles of equality in value and observance of specific public policy. The book should be of interest to students and scholars of public land and natural resource management, as well as political science, public policy and land law.
In response to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the programs that the Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Forest Service and the Department of the Interior's Bureau of Land Management (BLM) use to plan, negotiate, and implement land exchanges. GAO found that the land exchange process is working well, since both BLM and the Forest Service: (1) have established and followed procedures governing land exchanges; and (2) notify and negotiate with state and local governments about exchange proposals early in the exchange process to avoid disagreements. GAO also found that: (1) both agencies need to consistently record the costs of processing exchange proposals to ensure the best budgeting and planning decisions; (2) both agencies follow practices, such as adjusting appraised values to reach equal value, which the Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA) does not allow, since the government receives lands that are not equal to those it conveys; and (3) although pooling increased the agencies' effectiveness in disposing of scattered tracts of federal land for a desirable parcel, neither agency has evaluated pooling to determine whether its use is in the interest of the government and the public.
Land exchanges -- trading Federal lands for lands that are owned by corporations, individuals, or state or local governments who are willing to trade -- have long been used by the Dept. of the Interior's Bureau of Land Management & the Forest Service as a tool for acquiring nonfederal land & disposing of Federal land. In 1998 each agency announced several initiatives designed to improve its land exchange program. This report determines: the agencies' use of land exchanges since 1989; the extent to which the agencies ensure that their land exchanges meet exchange requirements; & the effect of the agencies' recent efforts to improve the management of their exchange programs.