Number: RL34772
Title: Proposals to Merge the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management: Issues and Approaches
Authors: Ross W. Gorte
Abstract: The Forest Service (FS) in the Department of Agriculture and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in the Department of the Interior are both directed to manage lands for multiple uses and sustained yields, but their unique histories have led to different laws, regulations, practices, and procedures in managing resources. The similar missions and neighboring and intermingled lands in separate Cabinet departments have led to frequent proposals, dating back to 1911, to transfer one agency to the other department or to consolidate them into one agency. Proponents and critics cite various benefits and problems to a transfer or merger of the agencies. General questions over the nature of the change -- which agency, if either, would remain and in which department -- would affect the ramifications of a transfer or merger. In some locations, the agencies are implementing a Service First program of joint facilities and cooperative management efforts as a step toward more efficient federal land management. The possibility of merging the BLM and FS has arisen most recently because of concerns that high and growing expenditures on wildfire suppression are affecting other land and resource management activities. A distinct, combined federal fire suppression agency, separate from both the FS and the BLM, would reduce the impact of wildfire costs on BLM and FS budgets, but wildfire is integral to most wildland ecosystems, and a separate fire agency would likely emphasize suppression, rather than management to reduce wildfire damages. This report is an update of out-of-print CRS Report 95-1117, The Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management: History and Analysis of Merger Proposals, by Ross W. Gorte and Betsy A. Cody (1995).
Date: May 5, 2008