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Show CHAPTER THREE Planning Future Public Land Use THE PUBLIC LANDS are a vast storehouse of potential resource benefits to the American people. Determining how these benefits can best be realized has been the task of this Commission. Our starting point is the recognition of the need for a cooperative effort between Congress, which has been charged with the Constitutional responsibility over the public lands, and the executive branch, through which the necessary implementing, "on the ground" actions must occur. Through the legislative process Congress should establish policies and goals for the public lands and provide the management agencies with authority for carrying out the programs necessary to implement the policies and attain the goals. The land use planning process determines how congressional policies and programs will be translated into specific management actions for individual land units. In its broadest terms, planning is preparation for informed decisionmaking by the Executive. No matter what planning may mean in local or state governments, or, for that matter, in other aspects of Federal activity, we view planning in a simple context: It is the first step in translating statutory policies and programs into specific actions and, ultimately, into determinations whether individual land units will be managed or disposed of-and, if retained, the purposes for which they will be managed and used. Further, in this chapter, we are concerned only with land use planning and not with program planning, which treats with the timing and size of investments. The recommendations contained in this chapter provide a foundation for those that follow throughout the report. The implementation of policies concerning timber, minerals, outdoor recreation, maintenance of environmental quality, and all of the other various aspects of public land policy is vitally dependent on the planning process and how well it works. When resources were abundant and demands upon them were relatively free of conflict, the nation may have been able to afford the luxury of an unplanned, crisis-oriented public land policy. But those days are far behind us. We are convinced that effective land use planning is essential to rational programs for the use and development of the public lands and their resources. Planning is done at the national, regional, and local levels. It is intended to provide a guide for future decisions. Thus, plans developed by the public land agencies at the national level provide guidance for decisions at all levels, and those developed at the regional and local levels provide guidance for decisions at those levels. Our interest focuses on planning land uses at the regional and local levels because the effects of public land programs are felt most strongly there. And it is at those levels that the Commission noted the greatest public concern with the manner in which public land programs are being implemented. The Commission is not satisfied with the manner in which land use planning is being carried out for the public lands. We find that many of the individual problems that led to the creation of this Commission and which emerged from our study program have their roots in an inadequate planning process. We are concerned, first of all, that the Congress has not established a clear set of goals for the management and use of public lands. This is particularly true for the national forests and lands administered by the Bureau of Land Management. Congress has also failed, in many cases, to provide a positive mandate to the agencies to engage in land use planning or to provide guidance concerning the matters which they should consider in determining whether or not to dispose of, or retain, Federal 41 |