{
  "id": "RL34772",
  "type": "CRS Report",
  "typeId": "REPORTS",
  "number": "RL34772",
  "active": false,
  "source": "EveryCRSReport.com",
  "versions": [
    {
      "source": "EveryCRSReport.com",
      "id": 345959,
      "date": "2008-05-05",
      "retrieved": "2016-04-07T03:27:22.128900",
      "title": "Proposals to Merge the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management: Issues and Approaches",
      "summary": "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.\nProponents and critics cite various benefits and problems to a transfer or merger of the agencies. General questions over the nature of the change\u2014which agency, if either, would remain and in which department\u2014would affect the ramifications of a transfer or merger. Commonly cited benefits of a merger are possibly improved service to users and the public and greater efficiency in federal land management. However, such benefits are likely only if the legal authorities governing BLM and FS management and planning were consolidated, and this could be a daunting challenge. Furthermore, institutional differences, congressional committee jurisdictions, and compensation to state and local governments for the tax-exempt status of federal lands would complicate a 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.\nThe 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.\nThis 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).",
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      "typeId": "REPORTS",
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}