It is the largest landholder in America, overseeing nearly an
eighth of the country: 258 million acres located almost exclusively
west of the Mississippi River, with even twice as much below the
surface. Its domain embraces wildlife and wilderness, timber,
range, and minerals, and for over 60 years, the Bureau of Land
Management has been an agency in search of a mission.
This is the first comprehensive, analytical history of the BLM
and its struggle to find direction. James Skillen traces the
bureau's course over three periods-its formation in 1946 and early
focus on livestock and mines, its 1970s role as mediator between
commerce and conservation, and its experience of political gridlock
since 1981 when it faced a powerful anti-environmental backlash.
Focusing on events that have shaped the BLM's overall mission,
organization, and culture, he takes up issues ranging from the
National Environmental Policy Act to the Sagebrush Rebellion in
order to paint a broad picture of the agency's changing role in the
American West. Focusing on the vast array of lands and resources
that the BLM manages, he explores the complex and at times
contradictory ways that Americans have valued nature.
Skillen shows that, although there have been fleeting moments of
consensus over the purpose of national forests and parks, there has
never been any such consensus over the federal purpose of the
public lands overseen by the BLM. Highlighting the perennial
ambiguities shadowing the BLM's domain and mission, Skillen exposes
the confusion sown by conflicting congressional statutes,
conflicting political agendas, and the perennial absence of public
support. He also shows that, while there is room for improvement in
federal land management, the criteria by which that improvement is
measured change significantly over time.
In the face of such ambiguity--political, social, and
economic--Skillen argues that the agency's history of limited
political power and uncertain mission has, ironically, better
prepared it to cope with the more chaotic climate of federal land
management in the twenty-first century. Indeed, operating in an
increasingly crowded physical and political landscape, it seems
clear that the BLM's mission will continue to be marked by
ambiguity. For historians, students, public administrators, or
anyone who cares about American lands, Skillen offers a cautionary
tale for those still searching for a final solution to federal land
and resource conflicts.
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