The Final Report of the Public Land Law Review Commission, published in 1970, gave rise to legislative activity in 1971.
One Third of the Nation's Land is rich in information and contains 137 numbered recommendations scattered throughout chapters dealing with planning of future land use, public policy and the environment, timber, range, water, fish and wildlife, intensive agriculture, outer continental shelf, outdoor recreation, occupancy uses, tax immunity, grants to states, administrative procedures, trespass and disputed title, disposals, acquisitions, and exchanges, federal legislative jurisdiction, and organization, administration, and budgeting policy. The report has impressed nearly everyone, including its critics, with the vigor of its analysis and the positiveness of its recommendations. Commissions of diverse makeup, as the PLLRC was, often "solve" their problems by a retreat into such blandness that no one can quarrel with them—or care about them; but this Commission took up much more forthright positions, which cannot easily be summarized accurately.
During 1971 several bills were introduced in the Congress, to translate some or all of the Commission's recommendations into law. H.R. 7211, introduced by Congressman Aspinall (who was chairman of the Commission) and others, concentrates on administrative, planning, and review processes, and on relationships among governments at state and local levels, as far as federal lands are concerned. It has generally been understood that these sponsors plan later bills with substantive changes in land law. S. 921, by Senator Jackson and seven other senators, in contrast, is much briefer but includes sweeping changes in the content of land laws. It gives the broadest authority to the Secretary of the Interior to issue mineral leases and licences subject to certain goals and objectives. While some guidelines are then given for the Secretary, the simplicity and directness of the bill is almost at the opposite extreme from the present detailed, complex, and often restrictive mining and mineral leasing laws. The Department of the Interior also has submitted three bills, one for "the management, protection, and development of the national resource lands and for other purposes," one "to reform the mineral leasing laws," and one "to reform the mining laws."
Though prediction of Congress' actions is always hazardous, it seems probable that some revisions, perhaps major ones, in the laws relating to the federal lands will be made in the years immediately ahead. A major factor underlying all proposals for revision is the recognition of increased public demand for the use of these lands—demands from sectors of the public that did not use the land and often were unaware of its existence a few years ago, as well as increased demands from users of long standing.
A version of this article appeared in print in the January 1972 issue of Resources magazine.
