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Show ADMINISTRATION OF PUBLIC GRAZING LANDS 633 CONCENTRATIONS OF PUBLIC LANDS ADMINISTERED THROUGH THE BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT "pending final disposal" of the public lands in the Taylor Act meant in 1934 that Congress thought it was providing for the creation of grazing districts as a temporary step to prevent further destructive use of the ranges and that a permanent measure would be forthcoming some time in the future, presumably one that might permit the land in the districts to go into private or state ownership. Congressman Wayne Aspinall of Colorado, without indicating any position on the question, said at a public hearing in 1965 that one of the objectives of Congress in creating the Public Land Law Review Commission was to make recommendations for a final decision concerning the rangelands. Are we going to set some of them aside as a national reserve as we have the Forest Service lands, so that they will never be disposed of; or are we going to administer them only until they are finally dis- Bureau of Land Management posed of to private individuals? Then there is a policy we have had heretofore and which still exists, that those lands which will support a family unit-type operation are to be disposed of for agriculture or livestock purposes. The Congressman's statement followed testimony presented by Charles H. Stoddard, Director of the Bureau of Land Management, to the effect that the Bureau of the Budget questioned the propriety of appropriations asked for the public lands on the ground that it was improper to invest public funds in lands that were "pending final disposal" presumably into private ownership.71 71 "Policies, Program, and Activities of the Department of the Interior," Hearings before the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs of the House of Representatives, 89th Cong., 1st sess. (Serial No. 1), Part II, p. 342. |