OCR Text |
Show all major new acquisitions, including, if it wishes to do so, exchange authority for those situations. Public Interest Test Under existing law, informal negotiations usually preceed the filing of a formal application by a private party for a proposed land exchange. Where the agencies are eager to obtain the non-Federal land, the proposed transaction is usually determined to be in the public interest if all other conditions are satisfied. Where the non-Federal party, in pursuit of an objective of his own, is the moving force, however, the agencies seem prone to reject such proposals unless there is a clear benefit to a Federal program. We believe that a broader "public interest" test should be applied uniformly in all situations. Hence, we recommend that Congress express its sense that proposed exchanges ought to be accomplished where this can be done without detriment to Federal programs, or excessive cost. We do not go so far as to require that all proposed exchanges be mandatory, inasmuch as we believe it is necessary for the Secretary to retain the discretionary authority to classify lands for retention and management under the conditions discussed elsewhere in this report. Indeed, we see no reason to exclude state exchanges from this authority, and we recommend that Congress make this point clear. This will require the repeal of the provision in section 8 of the Taylor Grazing Act which makes state exchanges mandatory.14 Exchange of Values Recommendation 125: Exchange authority of the public land management agencies should be made uniform to permit (1) the exchange of all classes of real property interests, and (2) cash equalization within percentage limits of the value of the transaction. There is great disparity in the statutes as to the nature of the interests which the agencies may exchange. The Bureau of Land Management may exchange land estate only, although it may reserve minerals, easements, or other rights in the transferred lands. The Forest Service, on the other hand, may also exchange timber cutting rights from the National Forests; and the Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife may exchange any "products," including timber, from the National Wildlife Refuge System. For the National Park System, the 1968 amendments to the Land and Water Conservation Fund Act broadly authorize the Secretary to exchange "any 14 43 U.S.C. §315g (1964). federally-owned property or interest therein," excluding, however, "timber lands subject to harvest under a sustained yield program." 15 There are similar differences in the nature of the property that the agencies may receive in exchange for Federal real property. The public land management agencies should have authority to exchange not only lands, but also any interests therein. If not, agencies holding reserved mineral interests and easements or other use rights cannot, for example, dispose of or acquire such interests in an exchange transaction, even though it might be in the public interest to be able to do so. Under Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service exchange authorities, the exchanged lands or interests must be of "approximately equal" value. The exchange authority for the Park Service and the Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife allows differences in values of the involved interests to be made up by cash payment by either party. Most other Federal agencies have similar authority. The requirement to equate land values appears to be the primary cause of extensive delays in the consummation of Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service exchanges, as well as the reason for the failure to accomplish many otherwise desirable exchanges. The lack of authority to equalize value differences with cash is particularly troublesome where community needs are involved, since public agencies seldom have an inventory of "trading stock" to effect the exchanges needed for community expansion. To tie the hands of the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management in this regard frustrates a significant number of disposals of public land that would otherwise probably be made. However, to the extent that cash may be used to provide the bulk of the consideration in an exchange, the transaction begins to lose the character of an exchange and becomes more like a direct sale or purchase. Consequently, we recommend that there be a limitation on the amount of an exchange transaction that may be satisfied by cash, generally in the range of 25 percent. Lands Available for Exchange Recommendation 126: Generally, within each department, all federally owned lands otherwise available for disposal should be subject to exchange, regardless of agency jurisdiction and geographic limitation. Perhaps the widest diversity among the various exchange laws relates to the classes and location of 15 Wheatley, n. 8 supra, at App. Ill, which is a comparative table supporting most of the discussion of statutory differences in connection with Recommendations 125 and 126. 271 |