Proposals Seek to Improve Federal Lands Operations

The Public Lands Council (PLC) and NCBA have forwarded four proposals to the Office of Management and Budget for funding consideration for fiscal year 2008.  These proposals, outlined here, would improve the administration and delivery of services on federal lands for conservation and users of the land, and save money for the federal treasury.

Local First Responders to Fires on Federal Lands

Under the proposal, the local groups would notify the nearest office of the federal government about the discovery of the fire.  The federal government would retain the right to respond to the fire when it deems its participation necessary to prevent harm to people or damage to private property.  The non-federal local groups would be held harmless from any harm or damage caused by the fire, except as otherwise provided under state law.  Non-federal local groups would not be eligible for compensation from the federal government for their effort.  They would, however, retain eligibility for any training or equipment generally made available.

Local citizens want to be involved in fighting fires on public or private lands they depend on for their livelihoods.  This initiative would give citizens, who choose to do so, the opportunity to assert greater control over their local circumstances.  The effort should reduce the number of times the federal land managing agencies would have to respond to fires, many of which are closer to local fire fighting capability than to federal, and consequently result in a budget savings to the government.  Land managing agencies should be required to enter into cooperative agreements with local groups to delineate responsibilities for fighting fires.

Strengthening Public Land Ranching, Open Space, and Resource Management

Supporting public land ranches to maintain open space has become widely accepted among the general public and many in the environmental community.   PLC proposes to strengthen public land ranches by minimizing regulatory burdens that do little to further conservation of resources, but make it more difficult to maintain economically viable ranches.

PLC and NCBA are seeking legislation to achieve these goals.  The Administration has long-supported protection of open space through the Farm Bill and other legislative vehicles.  This proposal is a significantly more cost-effective means for accomplishing this same goal and merits the Administration’s support.

The proposal would result in cost savings to the federal budget because unproductive regulatory requirements would be eliminated.  However, the Administration would still be left to decide whether it wants to reallocate these savings to under-funded resource management needs.  The scope of the savings would depend first on the scope of regulatory requirements trimmed in the legislation, and then second, on the extent to which the Administration decides to reallocate the funding to other priorities.

Third-Party Providers on Federal Lands

Federal land managing agencies have a serious shortage of professionals trained in range sciences to make decisions affecting range management.  Only properly trained individuals can make correct decisions affecting the condition and multiple uses of our nation’s rangeland.  Range management decisions are currently made too often by individuals who are trained in non-range disciplines and who focus on factors that do not directly relate to the condition of the range resource.

PLC proposes to make third parties eligible to perform resource management activities on federal lands to make sure properly trained individuals are performing the work.  Fortunately, a model for using third parties to do federal work is available through the Natural Resource Conservation Service’s (NRCS) Technical Service Provider (TSP) program.  This proposal adds range specialists to the NRCS list of people qualified to provide technical services.

The NRCS TSP program has been scored as a budget neutral activity.  The same funds used to pay for third party providers would otherwise have been used to pay for a federal employee to perform the same task.  Even in a budget neutral scenario, PLC would achieve the important policy objective of making more range-qualified individuals available to perform range management tasks on federal lands.

Budgetary savings could be realized under this proposal.  Land managing agencies could offer a grant to individuals or groups in the public who could match up to 50 percent of the value of the grant to hire qualified third parties to perform range management activities.

Participation in such a grant-matching program would increase the investment and sense of responsibility individuals would have in managing the land.  It would also allow federal dollars to go farther to address the most important resource management needs.

Increased Funding for Rangeland Monitoring

Establishing a baseline of information about the condition of the range using short- and long-term trend monitoring is the best investment the government can make to reduce resource conflicts and litigation involving public rangelands.  A significant portion of existing litigation turns on whether the government knows the condition of the land under its care.  Increasing the federal investment in monitoring is critical to stabilizing public land ranching in the long run and would also be responsive to the general public’s interest in information on the condition of the range.