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Show domestic livestock, or residential, commercial, or industrial uses, where such sale is in the public interest and important public values will not thereby be lost. In the mid-1860's, statutory provision was made for the use of public lands as sites for new towns.5 Our studies reveal that relatively few new towns are established on public lands through the townsite laws. We find that the need for the establishment of new towns to provide for a portion of the anticipated population growth and the parallel growth of industry by the year 2000 will be, realistically, challenging and difficult to fulfill. Compounding the problem are the mounting difficulties facing the large existing cities. While we find that the problems of urban areas cannot be solved by transplanting large numbers of people to the public land areas, we also find that the public lands offer an opportunity for the establishment of at least some of the new cities that will be required in the next 30 years, and that, in many instances, they offer the only opportunity for the expansion of existing communities. We, therefore, recommend that: Legislation be enacted to provide a framework within which large units of land may be made available for the expansion of existing communities or the development of new cities. Until some experience has been gained in the various mechanisms that might be utilized and a national policy adopted concerning the establishment of new cities generally, Congress should consider proposals for the sale of land for new cities on a case-by-case basis. Our inquiries and studies have revealed that there are many instances where all concerned will agree that public domain land previously incorporated within a national forest could best serve the public interest by being transferred to private ownership. We find, however, that the present procedures for the accomplishment of such transfer, requiring as they do an exchange for other lands, are cumbersome, administratively burdensome, and unnecessarily expensive to both the Government and the private party, inordinately time consuming, and result in the acquisition of land that may not, in fact, be needed by the United States any more than the land of which it is disposing through the exchange process. 543U.S.C. §711 etseq. (1964). We, therefore, recommend that: Statutory authority be granted for the limited disposition of lands administered by the Forest Service where such lands are needed to meet a non-Federal but public purpose, or where disposition would result in the lands being placed in a higher use than if continued in Federal ownership. The administration of some programs, such as recreation, can be accomplished just as well, if not better, by state and local government units; in other instances, Federal public lands are required for construction of schools and other buildings that provide state or local government services. We find that it is in the best interest of all concerned to encourage state and local governments to assume complete responsibility for the maximum number of programs that those levels of government can and will administer and to acquire title to the required land in order to permit the proper level of investment to be made. We, therefore, recommend that: Legislation be enacted to provide flexible mechanisms, including transfer of title at less than full value, to make any federally owned lands available to state and local governments when not required for a Federal purpose if the lands will be utilized for a public purpose. Throughout our studies and inquiries, we compared the policies, practices, and procedures applicable to the public lands as defined in the statute establishing the Public Land Law Review Commission with the policies, practices, and procedures applicable to other types of lands where such other lands were managed in conjunction with or had characteristics similar to public lands concerning which this Commission was charged with responsibility of making recommendations. We also take note of the fact that within the definition of lands in our Organic Act, there are both "public domain" and "acquired" lands as discussed elsewhere in this report. We find that there is no logical basis for distinguishing between public domain and acquired lands or between lands defined as "public lands" and all other federally owned lands. We, therefore, recommend that: Generally, in both legislation and administration, the artificial distinctions between pub- 5 |
