Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
to
Peter Kuper
By Janine Blaeloch
April 2001
The WWester
ester
esternn Land Exchange Project • Seattle, Washington
God bless America.
Let’s save some of it.
—Ed Abbey,
1927-1989
Never trade a place you
know for one you don’t.
—David Brower,
1912-2000
The Citizens’ Guide to
Federal Land Exchanges
© Copyright 2001
By Janine Blaeloch
The WWester
ester
esternn Land Exchange Project
Design and layout by Sheila Hoffman, www.NewslettersandMore.net
Cover graphic by Peter Kuper, www.PeterKuper.com
Board of Directors
Rachael Paschal Osborn, Spokane, WA
Sandy Lonsdale, Bend, OR
Marianne Dugan, Eugene, OR
Chuck Pezeshki, Moscow, ID
Martin Rand, Bellevue, WA
Betsy Gaines, Bozeman, MT
Rebecca Rundquist, New Haven, CT
Staff
Janine Blaeloch, Director
Stefanie Sekich, Program Coordinator
Erik R yberg, Policy Analyst
We also owe thanks for the inspiring work of the following, who—
by trade or by fate—have taken the hard road to protect public lands:
Beth Rogers, Iron River, MI Deb Patla, Driggs, ID
Francis Eatherington, Roseburg, OR Larry McLaud, Moscow, ID
Jeff Juel, Missoula, MT Vernon Bates, Nashville, TN
Lois Eagleton, Umpqua, OR Cathy Lucas, Catawba, VA
Roy Keene, Eugene, OR John Jolley, Mills, WY
Del Sonneson, Enumclaw, WA Jim Olson, Emmett, ID
Sam Francis, Livingston, MT Charles Hancock, Reno, NV
Charles Hancock, Reno, NV Jack MacDonald, Salt Lake City, UT
Asante Riverwind, Fossil, OR
Our goal is to ensure that the consequences of land exchanges are disclosed
and understood; that land trades advance the public interest, as required by
law; and that alternatives to land exchanges be given serious consideration.
Toward that end, we hope the Citizens’ Guide to Federal Land Exchanges
offers both motivation and helpful information.
For those interested in more in-depth analysis of the land exchange issue,
the Western Land Exchange Project has also published a 104-page report
entitled “Commons or Commodity? The Dilemma of Federal Land Ex-
changes,” co-written with historian George Draffan. The report can be ob-
tained by sending $15.00 to the address below.
Appendix A..................................................................................................................................................84
In North America there is a lot
that is in public domain, which
has its problems, but at least
they are problems we are all
enfranchised to work on.
—Gary Snyder,
The Practice of the Wild
8
1.0 The land exchange phenomenon
1.1 Why does the government trade public lands?
The public lands consist of vast tracts in the United States that still belong to
the American citizenry. Never homesteaded, sold, or granted by the govern-
ment to other parties, these lands remain the property of all citizens and are
managed in trust for them by federal agencies such as the U.S. Forest Service
and the Bureau of Land Management.
Soon after the American Revolution, the federal government began imple-
menting a policy of transferring much of the land claimed by the United
States into private ownership. In the West, the majority of the public domain
was acquired by the government from Native American nations through war,
treaty, and purchase, from various
European powers, and from Mexico.
Examples of the laws and actions that led to the privatization and settlement
of public lands include the following:
♦ The Land Act of 1796 authorized public auctions of federal land at a mini-
mum price of $2 per acre.
♦ The General Land Office (GLO) was created in 1812 to administer the
disposal of public lands.1
1 The GLO was absorbed into the Bureau of Land Management in 1946.
9
♦ By 1820, Congress had passed 24 acts granting the right of preemption
to settlers (usually squatters) to buy their claims without competitive
bidding.2
♦ The 1841 General Preemption Act authorized settlers to claim 160 acres.
♦ A series of railroad land grants between 1850 and 1870 authorized sev-
eral dozen railroads to sell public lands in order to raise capital to build
the nation’s transcontinental railroad and telegraph systems.
♦ The 1862 Homestead Act authorized settlers to claim 160 acres of any
land subject to preemption,3 and later to any unsurveyed land as well.
The homestead was free for a filing fee, but title was not transferred until
the land had been occupied and cultivated for five years.
♦ The General Mining Law was enacted in 1872, allowing any person to file
a mineral claim on public lands, and with minimal working of the claim to
receive a patent at nominal cost.
♦ The Desert Lands Act of 1877 allowed entry of 640 acres for 25 cents per
acre; title was transferred upon proof of irrigation.
♦ The Timber Culture Act of 1872 gave settlers 40-acre tracts if they would
plant trees.
♦ The Timber and Stone Act of 1878 allowed claims of land “chiefly valu-
able for timber or stone” at a price of $2.50 per acre.
♦ The Timber Cutting Act of 1878 authorized timber cutting on unentered
mining lands.
As a result of these acts and others, settlement of the United States, particu-
larly in the West, did not occur in a logical way, but instead has created a
patchwork of land ownership that causes problems for both public and pri-
vate landholders.
Land exchanges between the federal government and private parties have
been enacted for decades, usually in the interest of consolidating owner-
ships, both private and public, into larger contiguous areas.
This guide focuses on land exchanges conducted by the two main federal
land management agencies, the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) in the Department
2 Coggins, George Cameron, Wilkinson, Charles F., and John D. Leshy. 1993. Federal Public Land and Resources Law. 3rd
edition. Foundation Press.
3 Preemption is “the preferential right of settlers-squatters to buy their claims at modest prices without competitive
bidding.” (Coggins and Wilkinson, 2nd ed., p. 80).
10
of Agriculture and the Bureau of Land
Management (BLM) in the Depart-
ment of the Interior.
11
The BLM, too, must manage its lands to conform with laws such as the En-
dangered Species Act and evolving public values ranging from recreation to
ecological protection.
Federal land managers complete over 300 land exchanges every year. Ex-
changes can take years to finalize, so at any given time hundreds of swaps
are pending. In 1998, the Forest Service completed 101 exchanges and the
BLM over 200.5
In the past few years, there have been discernible changes in the types of
exchanges proposed. In addition to the traditional uses to which they have
been applied, such as land ownership consolidation, land swaps are being
used for a variety of purposes. The stated purpose is usually to serve a clear
public good, such as consolidating endangered species habitat, acquiring
environmentally sensitive areas, or preventing undesirable development. The
results are often less obvious in terms of their public benefit.
4 The Right of Eminent Domain (40 U.S.C. 257) states that the government may condemn land needed for public
purposes. This act does not itself grant condemnation authority; nstead, condemnation can occur only where the
acquisition is otherwise authorized by statute, e.g., the Weeks Act, which authorizes acquisition in watersheds for the
“regulation of water flow” or the production of timber. Property owners whose land is condemned for public purposes
are entitled to receive fair market value for their property.
5 This number is from the national offices. The BLM figure may not account for all of that agency’s exchanges, as the only
dependable counts are kept at the individual patent offices in each state. Bob Barbour, BLM Lands and Realty Group,
personal communication with Janine Blaeloch, 1997.
6 Between 1987 and 1996, the largest trade of national forest lands in a single exchange was 17,000 acres traded to the
City of Seattle in its Cedar River watershed. Since then, larger Forest Service exchange acreages have been included in
the following trades:
♦ Crown Pacific Land Exchange, Deschutes, Winema, Fremont national forests, OR: 33,000 acres.
♦ Gallatin Land Exchange, Gallatin National Forest, MT: 24,000 acres plus 50 million board feet of timber.
12 ♦ Arkansas-Oklahoma Land Exchange, Ouachita National Forest, AR: 48,000 acres.
♦ Checkerboard Land Exchange, Kootenai, Lolo, Flathead national forests, MT: 27,000 acres.
Now, the majority of exchanges are initiated by
private landowners rather than the agencies, and
facilitated by a growing number of real estate
companies specializing in land swaps. More and
more often, projects are proposed that seem to
benefit private rather than public interests.
13
But the company did not want to endure the 3- to 4-year process that would
be necessary to complete the exchange, nor risk the likelihood of litigation
by environmental organizations, which might delay or stop the exchange.
The company therefore called on the Secretary of Agriculture (overseer of
the Forest Service) to make a deal. Plum Creek would defer clearcutting on a
few thousand acres of the land it intended to trade to the public if the gov-
ernment would adhere to a strict schedule to complete the exchange by
December 31, 1998, or within about two years. The Secretary agreed.9
The LWCF comprises about $900 million generated annually through fees on
offshore oil and gas leases. The logic behind creating the fund was that harm
to the offshore environment might be mitigated somewhat through onshore
land acquisition for open space, parks, and wildlife habitat.
But LWCF funds must be appropriated annually, and for most of the fund’s
history, Congress has failed to make the full fund available for land acquisi-
tion. Fiscal conservatives see spending the fund for its intended purpose as a
luxury they cannot support. Legislators end up siphoning the money toward
other uses.
Between 1987 and 1997, yearly LWCF appropriations averaged $233 mil-
lion. In 1997, environmentalists and open-space advocates felt some hope
when legislators appropriated $699 million for fiscal year 1998, the highest
amount since 1978. Yet, as of this writing, Congress has refused to spend the
money on the projects for which it was earmarked.10
9 The result of that agreement was increased controversy and delay. As the company saw its deadline looming, it
approached Washington Sen. Slade Gorton to enact legislation for the trade that would cut short the ongoing public
review process. The exchange was authorized through an amendment to the Omnibus Appropriations Act of 1998. But
in the summer of 1999, marbled murrelets, a federally-listed threatened species, were discovered on land slated to be
traded to the company.
A coalition was formed of forest activists and citizens of Randle, Washington, who opposed the trade of public lands
near their town.
Through a long, complex series of events—including Plum Creek’s filing suit against opponents—a settlement was
reached that resulted in new legislation that removed key areas of controversy from the exchange. The size of the
trade was reduced to about 31,000 acres of Plum Creek land and about 12,000 acres of public land. Deeds were
transferred on December 29, 1999, one year minus two days from the company’s original deadline. The I-90 Exchange
is discussed in detail in our report Commons or Commodity? The Dilemma of Federal Land Exchanges.
10 Of the total amount appropriated, $65 million was for purchase of the New World Mine and $280 million to purchase
the Headwaters forest in Northern California. Both of these areas—a gold mine site threatening Yellowstone National
Park and a portion of the last large privately-owned tract of old-growth redwood forest—had originally been proposed
for acquisition via land exchange. The exchange proposals were so intensely controversial that the Clinton Administra-
Land exchanges fall within the jurisdiction of the Senate Energy and Natural
Resources and House Resources committees and their subcommittees. These
committees have been dominated by legislators whose states contain a large
percentage of public land. Many of them bemoan the fact that public land
ownership prevents the unfettered development of land that might bring
higher tax revenues and private profit.12
11 Connelly, Joel. 1998. “Gorton to introduce land swap plan for central Cascades.” The Seattle Post-Intelligencer. June 5,
1998.
12 Examples: Senators Murkowski (Alaska—45 percent federal ownership), Craig (Idaho—60 percent), Smith (Oregon—51
percent), Burns, Thomas (Wyoming—48 percent) and Representatives Young (Alaska), Hansen (Utah—63 percent),
Gibbons (Nevada—83 percent).
15
In some of these trades, the companies seek to acquire public lands adjacent
to existing mines in order to expand their operations. In others, they are
returning to previously abandoned areas where mining has been made more
economically feasible by recent technological advances.
Under the antiquated mining laws, private parties may claim minerals on
federal lands through a relatively simple process of filing a claim with the
BLM or Forest Service. The right to mine vests in discovery, filing of a claim,
the payment of a modest fee, and annual filing requirements.
Unpatented mining claims are those in which the private party has the min-
eral rights to land but has not acquired a patent on the land itself. Where
companies have unpatented mining claims on federal land they must comply
with federal mining law and regulations that require plans of operation, bond
postings, and site reclamation.
On the other hand, if a party obtains the patent on a mining claim (accom-
plished by filing an application and paying a nominal fee), their operations
fall under state laws which govern operations on private lands and are gen-
erally far more lax than even the liberal federal laws.
Las Vegas, Nevada is one of the fastest growing urban areas in the United
States—and also happens to be located in the state with the highest percent-
age of federal land ownership in the country (83 percent). As the city ex-
pands outward into the Las Vegas Valley, which is largely in public hands,
developers have acquired outlying public land by exchanging inholdings
they have purchased or optioned in other parts of the state. The smaller cities
of Wendover and Henderson have pursued growth by the same means.13
13 Land trades in the Las Vegas Valley have been suspended in the wake of unfavorable audits by the Inspectors General of
Interior and Agriculture. However, the Nevada congressional delegation has succeeded in gaining passage of a bill that
authorizes the BLM to sell 27,000 acres of BLM land in the Valley. The proceeds of the sales are to be dispersed to local
governments (15 percent) and to a special account (85 percent) to be used by the agency to purchase “environmentally
16 sensitive” lands in Nevada. The Nevada BLM’s web page provides news on the land sales at www.nv.blm.gov/plma/
2plma.htm.
Payson, Arizona sits within the Tonto National
Forest. The town has become a popular second-
home community for Arizonans and has grown
rapidly in the last several years. Since about
1970, developers have been exchanging land
with the Forest Service in order to continue to
expand the town. Now, 75 percent of the land
within the town limits is former national forest
land that has been privatized through land
trades.14
Timber
Timber companies have long participated in land exchanges, particularly in
the checkerboard areas created by the railroad land grants. These trades
have been used to consolidate federal and private ownerships into contigu-
ous blocks, but until recently they usually involved only a few hundred acres.
Since 1996, there has been a dramatic increase in the size and number of Companies are
increasingly
land swaps proposed between timber companies and the U.S. Forest Ser- eager to dispose
vice, most notably on the Northern Pacific Railroad land grant checkerboards of lands close to
popular recre-
in Washington, Idaho, and Montana. Companies are increasingly eager to ation areas or
dispose of lands close to popular recreation areas or where logging would where logging
would be
be especially controversial. especially
controversial.
14 Kreider, Beth. “Broker’s death may slow Payson land exchange.” Payson Roundup, October 18, 1996.
17
The “checkerboard” land exchanges are coming under increased scrutiny by
forest activists in the Northwest because of the origin of the timber compa-
nies’ holdings. It was the intent of Congress that the railroads sell the grant
lands to settlers to finance railroad construction, yet much of this land re-
mained in corporate hands.
For example, the Northern Pacific Railroad retained huge holdings that were
eventually transferred to spin-off companies such as Plum Creek Timber.
Other lands were sold to Weyerhaeuser. Companies such as Boise Cascade
and Potlatch, corporate cousins to Weyerhaeuser, also ended up with large
forest holdings.
After World War II, these companies intensively logged their lands—particu-
larly from the 1970s forward—creating massive environmental damage and
scarred landscapes. Much of the land the companies have logged will not
grow a new “crop” of trees for many years, if at all.
For companies with little standing timber and extensive cut-over acreages,
land trades may be the only feasible means of acquiring logs and, inciden-
tally, jettisoning their clearcuts.
15 The Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution forbids the taking of private property for public use without just
compensation. While the Courts have so far proved them wrong, many property rights advocates complain that
restrictions associated with, for example, the Endangered Species Act are unconstitutional “takings.”
18
In a 1994 speech, Secretary Babbitt discussed various methods of resolving
impacts of private development on endangered species, concluding that
Near the town of St. George, Utah, for example, the BLM is conducting ex-
changes for private inholdings that will become part of the Washington County
Habitat Conservation Area (HCA). In order to set aside designated habitat for the
desert tortoise (a federally-listed threatened species), the BLM has made or
proposed numerous trades with private landowners within the HCA.
One project, the Spilsbury Exchange, effected the trade of 2,200 acres of
public land for 183 private acres within the HCA. Public lands in the swap
were assigned one-twelfth the per-acre value of private land, even though
the public lands are ripe for development and thus should have very high
value. On the other hand, the private holdings to be acquired for the public
were described as steep slopes and “volcanic cinder cones.”
Many of the St. George trades involved “pooling,” a practice wherein several
exchanges are accomplished in phases that make them virtually impossible
to track and parties “owe” each other land from uneven transactions.
Normally, lands containing endangered species habitat are assigned lower value
than lands without development restriction, because appraisal standards dictate
that the valuation of land take into account any constraints on their use.
16 Babbitt, Bruce. 1994. The Endangered Species Act and “takings”: a call for innovation within the terms of the act.
Environmental Law, Vol. 24:355.
17 Section 309 of the Omnibus Parks and Public Lands Management Act of 1996 (Public Law 104-333) was entitled “Sand
Hollow Exchange” and stated “... In acquiring any lands and any interests in lands in Washington County, Utah, by
purchase, exchange, donation or other transfers of interest, the Secretary of the Interior shall appraise, value, and offer
to acquire such lands and interests without regard to the presence of a species listed as threatened or endangered or
any proposed or actual designation of such property as critical habitat for a species listed as threatened or endangered
pursuant to the Endangered Species Act of 1973 (16 U.S.C. 1531 et seq.)...”
BLM appraisal staff in Salt Lake City disputed the agency’s application of this rule to all Washington County exchanges,
but in late 1996 the Department of Interior’s Salt Lake City Field Solicitor issued an interpretation of the act which
upheld the application of this provision to all Washington County exchanges. 19
Forestalling road access
Several land trades, particularly in the railroad checkerboard lands, have been
prompted by the threat of road-building through public lands by private
interests. When timber companies, for example, invoke the “ANILCA road
access” provision, the Forest Service can be motivated to consider a land
trade.
The Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) of 1980 con-
tained a short provision that requires the federal government to give private
landowners “reasonable” access to their inholdings, as determined by the
agency (this applies to all public lands, not just those in Alaska).
In the checkerboard lands, this means that private owners, usually timber
companies, may be permitted to build roads across public checkerboards to
gain access to their own. Critics argue that the agencies are too lenient in
their provision of “reasonable access,” uniformly interpreting this to necessi-
tate road building rather than allowing for other means of access, such as
helicopter.
To forestall road building, then, the agencies will often accept proposals for
land exchanges to bring the private land into public ownership and give the
private parties accessible land.
Resolving trespasses
Sometimes an agency will propose an exchange to resolve an issue of tres-
pass, wherein, for example, a private party has encroached upon public land
with a building or other structure. Rather than order that the encroachment
be eliminated, the government may decide to eliminate the trespass by
trading the land to the encroacher and accepting lands elsewhere in return.
20
♦ Bringing large numbers of private landowners together for complex “as-
sembled” (multiple-ownership) land exchanges.
♦ Performing functions traditionally done by real estate brokers, such as
obtaining appraisals, negotiating values, and clearing titles.
♦ Generally navigating the shoals of land exchange laws and regulations.
One such consulting organization is the Western Land Group (WLG) in Den-
ver, Colorado, which has facilitated land exchanges since 1982 and has com-
pleted dozens of trades. The company has written and lobbied on legislation
for several major land trades, including the Snowbasin Land Exchange, which
has privatized land for the 2002 Winter Olympics in Utah. The WLG is usually
a central participant whenever land exchange policy, law, or regulations
come before Congress.
The group wrote the Federal Land Exchange Facilitation Act (FLEFA), the only
major land exchange statute to be passed since the Federal Land Policy and
Management Act (FLPMA) of 1976.
♦ The Upper Priest Lake Exchange in Idaho. A grove of ancient cedars Plum
Creek Timber Company sold to a Clearwater associate for $1.5 million
was traded to the Forest Service six years later at a value of $8.7 million.
♦ The Channeled Scablands exchange in northeast Washington State. The
BLM traded 10,000 acres of scattered timber parcels (including rare old-
growth Ponderosa pine) for 40,000 acres of overgrazed private lands.
In late 1999, CLE had a bill introduced to enact two land trades in northeast
Oregon involving both BLM and national forest lands. The company had
become impatient with the administrative processes for the exchanges and
persuaded Oregon Senators Gordon Smith, a Republican, and Ron Wyden, a
Democrat, to co-sponsor the bill. The Oregon Land Exchange Act passed the
next year, trading 54,000 acres of public land for 49,000 private acres.
Federal Land Exchange (FLEX) puts together trades geared toward develop-
ment, particularly in Arizona. FLEX has been the facilitator of land exchanges
in Payson, Arizona to expand the town limits into the Tonto National Forest.
Non-profit land trusts such as the Trust for Public Land, the Nature Conser-
vancy, and American Land Conservancy also facilitate land trades. In 1992,
the Department of Interior Inspector General investigated exchanges con-
ducted by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service with the assistance of non-profit
21
facilitators and found that some groups were unduly profiting from these
projects by charging for unjustifiable administrative costs. A more recent
report found yet more evidence of this problem.18
Legislated land exchanges, several of which occur each year, are acutely
problematic for citizen participants, because swaps enacted through Con-
gress routinely bar citizens from challenging them at the agency level or in
court.20
18 (a) OIG Audit Report No. 92-I-833, “Department of the Interior Land Acquisitions Conducted With the Assistance of
Nonprofit Organizations,” May 1992. (b) OIG Audit Report No. 99-I-162, “Land Acquisition Activities, U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service,” December 1998.
19 OIG Audit Report No. 08003-02-SF, “Forest Service Humbolt-Toiyabe National Forest Land Adjustment Program Fiscal
Year 1990 to 1997, Sparks, Nevada,” August, 1998.
20 Normally, land exchanges occur through an administrative process implemented by the public land agencies. The
legislative process for land trades, wherein one or more exchanges are authorized through an act of Congress that
bypasses the agencies, may include special provisions or waivers of environmental laws that would not occur in the
administrative process.
22
Failure to consider alternatives
Federal agencies assessing land exchanges are loath to look at real alterna-
tives, despite the fact that there could be other actions that would serve the
true purpose behind a proposed swap.
The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) requires that agencies define
the “purpose and need” for a project and propose various alternatives to
achieve that. In the environmental analyses for land trades, this is usually
stated to be the land exchange that is proposed, rather than the true under-
lying purpose (e.g., acquisition of a particular parcel, improved manage-
ment, etc.).
Short of litigation, citizens have had very limited access to the fine print in
deals made on their behalf. Disclosure of all appraisal records is crucial,
because questionable appraisal practices are a chronic problem in land
swaps.
In land exchanges throughout the West, citizens and experts have ques-
tioned the regularity with which high values are placed on private lands with
no development potential, and low values attributed to public lands rich in
resources.
21 The Bureau of Land Management has, rather uncharacteristically, had a more liberal appraisal disclosure policy than the
Forest Service. The BLM allows citizens access to land valuation data at the time the final decision is made, giving
citizens the 45-day appeal period to scrutinize this information before deeds are exchanged. Until recently, the Forest
Service did not release appraisal data until after an exchange had been completed. Now, these data are released when
the agency issues a draft environmental analysis that identifies a preferred alternative (see Section 4.2).
Many aspects of the appraisal, such as comparable sales data used to determine land values, are still sometimes
withheld under exemptions in the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) aimed at protecting private parties from release
of confidential business information. The Western Land Exchange Project successfully challenged the policy in court.
Moreover, the Forest Service has formulated a new policy that requires private participants in land trades to allow the
disclosure of appraisal data, thus releasing the agency from its obligation to protect their privacy.
23
Valuation has become an acute problem for the
BLM and Forest Service, and this had led to
several internal investigations by the govern-
ment. Both the Interior and USDA inspectors
general have conducted several audits of land
trades throughout the West.22 The most recent
audit report was released by the General Ac-
counting Office (GAO) in June 2000.23
22 Reports from both the Interior and USDA Inspectors General are available on their web pages at www.oig.doi.gov/ and
www.usda.gov/oig/auditrpt/auditrpt_FS.html.
23 BLM and the Forest Service: Land Exchanges Need to Reflect Appropriate Value and Serve the Public Interest. GAO/
RCED-00-73. GAO audit reports can be obtained from the GAO’s website at:gao.gov/reports.htm.
24
If Congress and the land management agencies
provided citizens with the clear choice between
purchase and exchange, LWCF would have a
growing constituency among Americans.24
Toward those ends, the most effective tools for reform are public skepticism,
public scrutiny, and public involvement.
24 Unfortunately, even outright purchase entails pitfalls when it comes to the public paying fair value for lands purchased
through the LWCF. A case in point is the purchase of the Baca Ranch in New Mexico. Long a priority for acquisition, the
ranch encompasses unique lands targeted for protection. Congress agreed to appropriate $101 million in LWCF funds
to buy it; yet an audit by the General Accounting Office, released in March 2000, revealed that the ranch may have
been over-valued by as much as $38 million. GAO report No. RCED-00-76. Land Acquisition Issues Related to Baca
Ranch Appraisal. March 2, 2000.
25 An example of a deed restriction would be one that placed a limit on the amount of logging that could be done on
public lands traded to a private timber company.
25
6.0 Beyond Review: Advocacy, Appeals, Litigation, & Lobbying
In this section, we discuss some of the mechanisms available for going be- Should you
decide to take it
yond review and actually challenging a land trade. We purposely treat this on, advocacy in
subject generally and relatively briefly, with a few recommendations and the land ex-
change arena can
resources that may help you. First, we are not qualified to give legal advice, be entertaining,
and second, the details of your approach will vary greatly, depending on fulfilling, and
very educational.
factors too numerous to address here.
While the discussions in this guide account for many of the issues that arise
again and again, each land trade involves unique issues. Many of the ques-
tions we posed in the previous section will help you determine whether a
land trade merits a serious challenge.
But for those who are sufficiently concerned about the consequences of a
land exchange, there are actions you can take, ranging from simple discus-
sions with the agency—and/or the private party—to outright administrative
or legal challenges.
Even the simplest of these options can entangle you in frustrating work, red
tape, weird politics, agency intransigence, mind-boggling complexities,
paranoia, and a fervent wish that you had never heard about the exchange in
the first place.
63
With that said, should you decide to take it on, advocacy in the land ex-
change arena can be entertaining, fulfilling, and very educational. Even if you
are a seasoned environmental activist, following a land exchange will help
you gain new insight into public lands issues. If you are a newcomer, you
may be amazed to discover the extent of your own skills and resourcefulness.
6.2 Communicate
We assume that if you have been involved in reviewing a land exchange and
are seriously considering action, you have already communicated frequently
with agency staff and even with the private proponent of the exchange. The
importance of these communications cannot be overstated. Simply reading
the documents may not give you the detailed understanding of the project
that you need, and you can learn a lot, good or bad, by staying in regular
contact with those who are planning the trade.
Your contact lets them know that there is a concerned constituency out
there, which can sometimes greatly affect the quality of the agency’s analysis
and cause staff to be more careful about following proper procedures.
In addition, it is possible that your interactions with the agency and others
can lead to substantial changes in the project that satisfy your concerns and
better serve the public.
For those who wish to delve into the details of a land trade, the FOIA process
can be a very important one to understand and follow, but it can also be
overused, or used unnecessarily.
We recommend that you first attempt to get the records you want through
an informal request. Ask the agency to provide you with what you want,
and, if feasible, reduce your request to the essentials so that your chances of
64
getting information informally are in-
creased. There are two primary reasons for
avoiding the FOIA process altogether:
As detailed earlier in this guide, the information on FOIA procedures for the
Forest Service and BLM, respectively, is provided on the Internet at
www.fs.fed.us/im/foia/ and www.blm.gov/nhp/efoia/index.htm.
1. If the records reside at an office that is convenient for you to visit, ask that
the records be provided for your perusal rather than duplicated, and you
can “visit” them by appointment. This can save a lot of paper, and it can
also give you the opportunity to determine which records you really need
to have copied. Files often contain extraneous information that you will
never use.
2. Request a fee waiver for the processing and duplicating costs. To qualify
for a fee waiver, you must (a) demonstrate that your use of the records
will serve the public interest, rather than any commercial interest, and (b)
65
meet several “tests” in the agency’s rules. Fee waivers are relatively easy
to get, if you carefully address the waiver criteria, and non-profit organi-
zations’ requests are generally not challenged. However, the agencies
periodically clamp down on this aspect of FOIA, and may require you to
jump through time-consuming hoops if you don’t make your case the first
time around.
For help with the FOIA process, you may wish to visit the American Civil
Liberties Union at www.aclu.org/library/foia.html
If you have a concern about the exchange that falls short of wanting to com-
pletely stop the project, you should already have let agency staff know what
that is. For example, if you believe that the elimination of key federal lands
would result in an acceptable land exchange, you should advocate for their
removal. 53
52 You can obtain the guide by sending $4.50 postage and handling to Bahr & Stotter, Attorneys at Law, 259 East Fifth
Street #200, Eugene, OR 97401. Visit their website at www.foiadvocates.com.
53 The policy of the Western Land Exchange Project is as follows: “It is not our intent to oppose all exchanges, but neither
will the Western Land Exchange Project endorse, facilitate, or proffer statements of support for any land trade.” We
include this proviso because we feel that, until substantial changes are made in the process and policies underlying the
land exchange programs, we cannot endorse any of these actions. “Buy-in” on an exchange, particularly by environ-
mental groups, legitimizes a flawed process and can also be used by the agency and private parties to sell a land trade.
We urge citizens to use every opportunity at their disposal to bring the larger issues into view and use their challenges
of land trades to push for broad reform. That said, we do not pretend to have an informed opinion on every trade.
66 Local citizens tend to know the most about lands slated for exchange. Our central goal, and the purpose of this guide,
is to encourage maximum public involvement in decisions affecting our public lands, with the full knowledge that our
goals and others’ may not be the same.
6.5 Put it in writing
For the most part, people who work for public lands agencies care about
public land. Many believe strongly in your right as a citizen to participate,
and will help you to do so more effectively. Some will be honest with you if
they think that a land exchange is not in the public interest. On the other
hand, some staff members will be uncooperative, even secretive about the
projects. A small number will mislead you or actively discourage your in-
volvement.54
In any case, it is important that you take thorough notes when you converse
with other parties—and on important issues, document your concerns
through letters to agency staff.
These documents will become part of the official record for the exchange
and can be extremely important—particularly if you decide to mount an
administrative and/or legal challenge.
Save the e-mail messages you send to and receive from the parties. Govern-
ment employees delete email messages, too, and you may be out of luck if
you hope to obtain these later through a FOIA request.
We caution you not to saturate agency contacts with daily emails, letters, or
phone calls, as haranguing them may turn them against you, or at the very
least cause them to ignore your concerns. Regular contact is good, while
harassment is harmful to your cause. Be strategic.
6.6 Advocate
The help of your colleagues, friends, and neighbors can be crucial in achiev-
ing your goals by helping you build a constituency against a bad project. Call
community meetings, make phone calls, contact and involve local environ-
mental groups, bring your compatriots to meetings with the agency and/or
private party involved, create a coalition.
Think about people and groups that would be affected by the trade of the
public land, such as fishers, hunters, off-road vehicle enthusiasts, hang-
gliders, hiking clubs. You may not agree with their views on all things, but
identifying your constituency and rallying their support enables you to build a
coalition—and the more diverse it is, the more effective it will be.
54 As suggested earlier, one of the common ploys to quash public involvement is for agency staff to tell you that an
exchange is a “done deal” and it is too late to comment or have any effect. If the deeds have not changed hands, it is
not—strictly— too late. But if the appeal period for the decision has expired, or if the decision on an exchange has
been issued and you have not previously expressed any interest in the project, it probably is too late. However, we
have heard of numerous cases where an agency person tells the public that a deal is done when the process is still in
its early stages and could easily be challenged.
67
The attention of local or re-
gional media can make a
huge difference in the political
environment surrounding a
land exchange, and can po-
tentially affect the outcome.
Journalists are by nature
skeptical about government
operations, and the land
exchange issue has received
increasing attention in the last
few years.
Residents of Media relations can be dicey, but extremely important, as reporters have
Randle, Wash-
ington and resources you probably do not have. In the face of bad press, even those in
others protested power can be moved to back off or make changes. If you are really fortunate,
the Interstate-90
Land Exchange you will find a reporter who is willing to investigate, and his or her research
between the and critical analysis can help you immensely.
Forest Service
and Plum Creek
Timber Com- In addition to contacting reporters, make an appointment to speak with the
pany. Their work
eventually led to editorial board of your local or regional newspaper. Convince them to write
the retention of an editorial questioning or opposing the land exchange, or ask if they will
critical public
lands in the publish your guest editorial.55
Gifford Pinchot
National Forest.
Photo credit: Call on your representatives in Congress for help, with the understanding
Colby Chester that you will likely need to educate them on this issue. Few Members of
Congress have any clue about the importance or pervasiveness of the land
exchange program and they will need your help. A well-placed letter from
A well-placed
your congressperson to the agency can have a chilling effect on a bad ex-
letter from your change. Letters to the editor published in your local paper can substantially
congressperson
to the agency can
influence Members of Congress.
have a chilling
effect on a bad
exchange.
You can find your Member of Congress on the Internet through the following
sites:
For the House, go to www.house.gov/house/MemberWWW.html.
For the Senate, see www.senate.gov/senators/index.cfm.
If these links become outdated, you can find your congressional representa-
tive through links from: http://thomas.loc.gov/.
55 There’s no doubt media coverage can help your efforts. The Seattle Times agreed to an editorial meeting with the
Western Land Exchange Project that eventually led to the 1998 publication of a six-day, award-winning investigative
series on land trades entitled “Trading Away the West.” In response to a tip by citizens, Ken Olsen of the Spokane
Spokesman-Review wrote a series of excellent articles on Clearwater Land Exchange, a land trade facilitator; Cindy
Murphy of the Roanoke Times covered the Turner Exchange in Catawba, Virginia; Twila Van Leer, Donna Kemp, and
Jerry Spangler of the Deseret News uncovered shady land trade dealings in St. George, Utah. See “Press Room” on our
website—www.westlx.org/press.htm—for these and many other examples.
68
6.7 Appeal
If other options fair and you find that the land exchange decision issued by
the agency does not address your concerns, you may decide to take admin-
istrative action against a land trade, appealing the decision made at the
agency level. Depending on the complexity of the project, this can entail a
substantial amount of work.
The web page also lists appeal decisions made at the regional level on all
types of projects at www.fs.fed.us/forests/.
Depending upon whether the exchange decision was issued by the Forest
Supervisor or the Regional Forester, you will appeal either to the Region or
the Chief of the Forest Service, respectively.
Your appeal to the BLM will begin with a protest, or lower-level appeal, to
the jurisdiction above the decision-maker on the exchange. The Decision
Notice will tell you where protests should be filed. If the protest fails, your
appeal should be filed with the Interior Board of Land Appeals (IBLA), which
is under the Interior Department’s Office of Hearings and Appeals.
69
The Office has a website that provides information on recent IBLA decisions
at www.doi.gov/oha/iblaindex.htm.
You should know at the outset that in the vast majority of cases, the Forest
Service and the IBLA routinely dismiss administrative appeals filed against
agency decisions, and land exchanges are no exception. This forces citizens to
go to court if they strongly differ with a decision regarding a land exchange.
Failure to meet a
However, not all appeals are dismissed on all grounds. We know of a recent
deadline will case wherein the Forest Service agreed to do further analysis of the effects of
preclude your an exchange on certain species, even though that was not the only (or even
appeal.
the central) issue brought forth in the appeal. Decisions like this open up
opportunities for continuing a challenge within the administrative process.
If you approach the process responsibly and intelligently, you have as good
a chance as anyone to prevail.56
By the time you get to the appeal stage, you should already have read the
statutes and regulations pertaining to the land exchange (referred to in Sec-
tion 2) and determined which of these are applicable to your case.
If you have concluded that the land exchange decision violates law or regu-
lation and/or that the environmental analysis process does not meet the
requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act, the appeal must
detail these violations.
56 All-out or even partial victory is not typical, but the potential for change resulting from citizen action is exemplified by
the case of the Huckleberry Land Exchange, discussed earlier in this guide. The administrative appeal filed by environ-
mental groups was the work of a “rank” amateur. The appeal itself was dismissed by the Forest Service and the
subsequent lawsuit failed in federal district court, but the case (Muckleshoot v. U.S. Forest Service) was won on appeal
to the Ninth Circuit. The arguments on which plaintiffs eventually won had been formulated in the administrative
appeals.
70
If you get bogged down, the Western Land Exchange Project or other activ-
ists in your area may be able to help. If you know an attorney or an environ-
mental advocate with experience in the appeals process willing to help for
no charge or an affordable price, call on them. But be aware that, by this
stage, you have indispensable information about the land exchange, can/
must provide vital information, and will probably have to carry the burden of
most of the work.
To file a valid appeal, you must read the agency’s appeal regulations and
adhere to the letter of the requirements.
As provided earlier in this guide, Forest Service regulations (36 CFR 217) can
be found on the Internet by clicking the code citation at
www.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/cfrassemble.cgi?title=199936.
Your task is to
BLM/Interior regulations (43 CFR 1840) and IBLA appeal rules (43 CFR Part 4) make all that you
are found by entering the citation at www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/cfr-table- know about
what’s wrong
search.html#page1. with the ex-
change fit within
Your task is to make all that you know about what’s wrong with the ex- the context of
existing laws
change fit within the context of existing laws and regulations. Your argu- and regulations.
ments must be substantive, not rhetorical; succinct, but detailed where nec-
essary. If you are at a loss as to how to start, it is a good idea to get a sample
of an appeal from a local environmental group.57 The Western Land Ex-
change Project can also provide you with a sample.
But appeals are not filed against land exchanges with anywhere near the
frequency of timber sale appeals. Land trades also involve complex issues
and procedures not easily addressed in a cursory appeal—such as whether
the exchange conforms to the FLPMA “public interest” and “equal value”
provisions.
57 Our colleague Barry Carter of the Blue Mountains Native Forest Alliance in Baker City, Oregon is a great resource for
information on the appeals process and can be contacted for tips on appeal writing. His email address is
bcarter@igc.org. Barry is also quite familiar with the land exchange issue.
71
If you are extremely pressed for time, you can file an effective appeal with
relatively little effort, particularly if you have some experience. Otherwise, it
is worth putting a substantial amount of effort into your appeal. If you end up
suing, the appeal process will have taught you almost all you need to know
about the legal issues involved, and will serve as a template for your case.
And your attorney will be grateful.
6.9 Litigate
If you decide to sue, obviously you will need an attorney. Finding one, even
one with outstanding environmental or public lands experience, is not diffi-
cult if you have money to pay them. But if, like most activists, you hope to
find someone who will represent your case for a reduced fee or for free (pro
bono), you will need to do some searching.
♦ Ask a local environmental group (with whom, it is hoped, you have been
working or to whom you have made your issue known) and see if they
have an attorney, on staff or off, who might be interested.
♦ See if the law school closest to you has any law professors who specialize
in public lands, natural resource law, or other related issues. Some
schools have environmental law departments, and even associations of
environmentally-oriented law students who may be willing to do some of
the legal research for you and prepare material that would otherwise
have to be compiled by your attorney.
There are several public-interest law firms that focus on public lands and
natural resource law—including Western Environmental Law Center in Eu-
gene, Oregon and Taos, New Mexico, Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund,
Earthlaw, and Land & Water Fund of the Rockies—and will take on some
cases for expenses only. Their websites can be found at the following locations:
www.welc.org/
www.earthjustice.org/home.html
www.earthlaw.org/
www.lawfund.org/
72
You should be prepared to sell your case to an attorney. Public interest law
firms get hundreds of calls each year seeking legal help.
The best way to approach an attorney with a complex case such as a land
exchange is with a brief (one- to two-page) letter, with no attachments,
succinctly stating the following:
Even if you do find an attorney who can affordably represent you, you won’t
be able to simply hand them the case. You should expect to answer calls at
all hours and do much of the legwork for which they would otherwise have
to charge you.
6.10 Lobby
Administrative vs. legislative exchanges
As mentioned earlier in this guide, many land
trades bypass the agency regulations and pro-
cedures we have outlined and instead go to
Congress. Legislated land trades are extremely
problematic for citizens, because they eliminate
the relatively predictable and transparent
agency processes.
73
participation and/or challenges to the trade can add even more delay. As a
result, trading parties may write their proposals into legislation, circumvent
the hassle of complying with NEPA and other laws, and get their trades
through much more quickly.
(To find examples of land exchange legislation, go to http://thomas.loc.gov
and enter the search term “exchange.” If it’s not early in the congressional
session, you will probably find several land exchange bills).
The only case in which legislation is required for a land exchange is where
lands to be traded are in more than one state, and these proposals are in-
creasingly rare.
The ins and outs of land trade legislation are complex and not easy to gener-
alize. Suffice it to say, however, that these bills can provide the proponents
with special provisions and guarantees they would not be able to secure
through the agencies. While administrative exchanges are fraught with prob-
lems, they pale in comparison to the problems with land trade legislation.
Proponents can tinker with the appraisal standards, bypass environmental
analysis, set an absolute deadline for the transfer of deeds, and add special
provisions that are beneficial to the private parties.
Most important, they provide little opportunity for the public to understand
or have an effect on the proposal. If fighting an agency trade is hard, oppos-
ing a land exchange bill can be doubly so.
Initially, the best argument you have for challenging a legislated trade is the
vast difference between the legislative and administrative processes. The
proponents and supporters of the land exchange will argue that the adminis-
trative route is too cumbersome and long, that legislation provides for equal,
if not more, public input, and that action by Congress guarantees that the
public interest will be protected. As outlined below, this simply is not the case.
As discussed in earlier sections of this guide, FLPMA dictates that land ex-
changes must serve the public interest and yield equal value to both (or
multiple) sides in the transaction. NEPA provides strict guidelines for envi-
ronmental analysis and disclosure, as well as opportunities for citizen input.
Here is what the administrative course provides under FLPMA and NEPA:
74
1) Public notification to ensure that the affected communities are aware of
the proposal and its scope;
4) analysis of the ecological and other values on lands that would come into
public ownership;
5) formal opportunities for the public to respond to and ask for changes in
the proposal, including public hearings and comment periods. In addi-
tion, the agency is required to respond to substantive comments and
incorporate legitimate concerns into the proposal;
7) the right to appeal the decision if it is not in the public interest, and/or to
challenge the adequacy of the NEPA analysis.
The NEPA process was not created merely to generate paper, solicit public
involvement, or disclose environmental impacts to the public. One of its
central purposes is to help the agencies make better decisions, with the aid
of their own environmental analysis and citizen concerns. To protect the
public interest when disposing of public land, the agency is also tied to the
requirements of FLPMA.
Even when there is strong opposition to a land exchange, or some parts of it,
the vast majority of these projects reach completion in some form. But environ-
mental analysis and citizen participation can lead (and in many cases, have led)
to changes that improve the proposal and better serve the public interest.
75
Congress offers no safeguards
Conversely, the legislative process guarantees none of the safeguards pro-
vided in statues and regulations. To put it bluntly, a member of Congress can
put any language he or she wants into a bill (provided it is not unconstitu-
tional), and none of the safeguards listed above need be included. Here is a
direct comparison:
4) analysis of the ecological and other values on lands that would come into
public ownership: very seldom required.
5) formal opportunities for the public to respond to and ask for changes in
the proposal: only through letter-writing and congressional hearings, see
below.
7) the right to appeal the decision: never, citizens cannot file an appeal
against or sue Congress. (In rare cases, it is possible to sue the agency
over its implementation of a legislated exchange, see below).
76
It is essential to understand and convey the differences between the admin-
istrative and congressional routes, because those differences provide some
of your most compelling arguments against the bill. On the other hand,
members of Congress don’t like to admit that legislation shuts out citizens or
may not adequately protect the public interest, so you must tread this line
with caution.
Obviously, you must carefully scrutinize the bill language. Here are some
suggestions about what to look for:
♦ The bill will say the Secretary of either Agriculture or Interior (or both), as
agents(s) in the process, either “ may” or “shall” convey the public lands
and accept the private lands at issue in the bill. Whether the secretary
may (is authorized to) or shall (is mandated to) implement the trade is a
critical part of the bill language. If the former is the case, the agency
retains some discretion in the exchange, while in the latter case Congress
is ordering that the trade occur as described in the bill. 58
♦ Another important factor is whether the bill sets a deadline for the trans-
fer of deeds. If the bill creates no detailed requirements for implementa-
tion of the trade (e.g., special analyses, completion of pending apprais-
als), it may set a short deadline for completion of the trade, e.g., within
90 days after the bill becomes law.
♦ Does the bill either overtly or covertly waive any laws, such as NEPA,
FLPMA, or the Endangered Species Act? Land exchange proponents are
getting more crafty at writing language that does not appear to circum-
vent any existing laws but nevertheless does so. For example, the bill
may not overtly waive NEPA but may set a deadline for completion of
the trade that renders NEPA compliance impossible.
♦ Look for special language pertaining to the appraisals. Does the bill
waive the federal appraisal standards (UASFLA) or cite only the less-
restrictive industry standards (USPAP)? If the bill contains any special
provisions for the appraisals, it may provide undue benefits for the pri-
vate party.
77
prohibit NEPA analysis, and (2) there were no requirements in the bill that rendered NEPA analysis impossible.
Gathering opposition
Assuming the exchange is in your state, you must get as many of your rep-
resentatives and senators on your side as possible. Unless the exchange
legislation is outrageously bad, it may be difficult to convince members from
other states to oppose it if your state delegation unanimously supports the bill.
One of the most effective ways to build support against an exchange bill is
through the media. As discussed earlier in this guide, media coverage can
have a huge influence on the fate of legislation, and editorials (written by
editorial boards and/or you as a guest columnist) can also have an impact.
Once a land trade bill is introduced, members of the House Resources Com-
mittee and the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee (and their
subcommittees) are supposed to conduct substantial review, but they usually
have neither the time nor interest to do so.
By the time the bill is introduced, the proponents and their lobbyists will
already have done a great deal of work to get up-front support. Citizens are
78
often at a huge disadvantage at this stage, because they may not know the
exact content of the bill. Even if a draft of the bill is available, it may be sub-
ject to change at any time.
(1) When a bill proponent knows a bill is controversial, he or she may get
the committee chairs to schedule hearings in the Senate and House with
very little advance notice, e.g., two weeks. For citizens, this means book-
ing a flight to Washington, D.C. with little notice, as well as having to
“lobby” the committee to be allowed to testify.
(2) In the meantime, a citizen must set up meetings with congressional aides
to the Committee members and the affected state delegation even with-
out knowing whether he or she will be allowed to testify at the hearing.
79
While it can be a real honor to testify before a congressional committee, it
can also be a daunting lesson in the limits of democracy.
After the hearing, any number of things can happen to the bill. The move-
ment of a bill through Congress can be an unpredictable and perplexing
process.
♦ The bill may be voted out of committee as-is and go to a floor vote
within a few days.
♦ Enough controversy may have been raised to keep the bill from ever
being voted out of the committee to go to the floor. It stalls or dies.
The Yavapai
Ranch Land ♦ There is some controversy that leads to minor amendments, then the bill
Exchange
legislation would goes to the floor. Citizens will only know about amendments if they have
trade public land a contact on the subcommittee or in a member’s office that knows about
near several
northern Arizona it and will give them that information.
towns to a
developer. This
land near Camp ♦ In whatever form, the bill may go to the floor, but the rules may be sus-
Verde would be pended (no deliberation or recorded votes) and it passes or fails on a
subdivided and
developed. It voice vote (yeah or nay).
would double
the size of a
town that ♦ If the bill is not successful, it may languish for a while, and then be tacked
already faces on as a “rider” to a must-pass spending bill at the end of the budget year.
water supply
problems and is
struggling keep Even the most cogent arguments against a land exchange bill can be ne-
its growth within
sustainable gated if the bill is used as a bargaining chip between members (“I’ll vote yes
limits. Photo for yours if you stop holding up mine”).
credit: Western
Land Exchange
Project A sound proposal merits the administrative process
All in all, the process for public input on land ex-
change legislation is more expensive, far less
structured and predictable, and less democratic or
inclusive than what is provided under the agency
process. The trade proponent and his or her lobby-
ists usually have copious opportunities to talk face-
to-face with Members of Congress, while citizens
have none to few.
You have far less time to work with than you would
in the administrative process, and often must
respond to overnight developments and unfore-
seen events. You may not always understand what
Congress is doing.
80
Once a land trade bill is introduced, very few minds are engaged in deter-
mining its effect or significance, and its fate is in the hands of only two or
three people. Such is the congressional process for deciding how and when
public land is traded. However, the small circle of parties interested in the bill
makes your input that much more crucial and potentially powerful.
When it comes to land deals, Congress will not protect the public interest. Citi-
zens must be ready to vigorously oppose any legislated trade and vociferously
defend the rights and protections provided by the administrative process.
When you decide to make it your cause to understand and possibly chal-
lenge a land exchange on your home ground—however large a landscape
that may be—you join a growing constituency of public land defenders.
Until there is the political will to replace acquisition through exchange with
acquisition through outright purchase, citizen action is the strongest bulwark
against harmful land exchanges. Get to it.
81
About the author
Janine Blaeloch worked as an environmental planner for several years in both
the private and public sectors and has been a forest activist since 1985. In
1996, she conducted an analysis of the Huckleberry Land Exchange for
Pilchuck Audubon Society and the Huckleberry Mountain Protection Society
and later appealed the exchange. Her volunteer work on that project led her
to develop the Western Land Exchange Project.
Janine is a member of the board of directors for the Railroads & Clearcuts
Campaign; GreenLaw, an organization at the University of Washington
School of Law that connects environmentally oriented students with non-
profit environmental groups; and the Public Information Network, which
provides critical research services to environmental and social justice activ-
ists. She received a B.A. in environmental studies from the University of
Washington with a specialization in public land policy. She is a native and
resident of Seattle.
We have incurred the violent hostility
of the individuals and corporations
seeking by fraud and sometimes by
violence to acquire and monopolize
great tracts of the public domain …
—Teddy Roosevelt, 1906
Appendix A
Applicable Laws
Weeks Law, 16 U.S.C. 485 (1911)
Authorizes the Department of Agriculture to purchase land for watershed
pro-tection or for the production of timber. Requires 30-day period for con-
gressional oversight. The Weeks Law is often cited as authority for an ex-
change because the lands acquired under the Law have a different status
than other public lands, having been purchased rather than derived from the
public do-main. Most of the national forest system east of the Great Basin
was acquired through the Weeks Act.
Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) Act, 16 U.S.C.A. 460 (1964)
Taxes offshore oil revenues in order to fund federal land acquisition by public
lands agencies.