OCR Text |
Show animals, and the management of approximately 321 national wildlife refuge areas encompassing about 28.5 million acres. Bureau of Reclamation The principal function of the Bureau of Reclamation is to construct, locate, operate, and maintain works for the storage, diversion, and development of waters for the reclamation of arid and semiarid lands in the Western states. The Bureau's primary public land related function is to provide for the settlement of public and acquired lands within Bureau project areas. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE Forest Service The Forest Service is responsible for promoting the conservation and best use of the Nation's forest lands. The Service administers 154 national forests, together with 19 national grasslands, land utilization projects, experimental forests, and other lands aggregating about 186,500,000 acres. The Forest Service manages the lands under its jurisdiction for orderly and continuous service and for the maintenance of stable economic conditions in national forest communities. Under the principles enunciated in the Multiple Use and Sustained Yield Act of 1960, the National Forest lands are administered for their several basic products and services- outdoor recreation, range, timber, watershed, fish and wildlife. The Forest Service also carries on a forest research program and provides assistance to small plants in marketing and efficient processing of forest products. Soil Conservation Service The Soil Conservation Service has responsibility for developing and carrying on a national soil and water conservation program in cooperation with landowners and operators and with other agencies of Government-Federal, state, and local. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE The Department of Defense through the three military departments, Army, Navy, and Air Force, manages substantial areas of withdrawn and reserved federally owned lands. While these lands are primarily managed for defense purposes, nondefense activities such as grazing, timber production and wildlife management are permitted in some areas. 324 In addition, the Department of the Navy administers the Naval Petroleum and Oil Shale Reserves. Separately, the Corps of Engineers has responsibility, through the Department of the Army civil works program, for the administration of a number of federally owned areas. Its activities include waterway improvement, flood control, river flow regulation, shore protection and recreation development at civil works projects. It regulates the use of navigable waters of the United States, including the regulation of the construction of objects which might affect navigation on the Outer Continental Shelf. GENERAL SERVICES ADMINISTRATION The General Services Administration is responsible for the disposal, by donation, sale, and other methods authorized by legislation, of real property determined to be surplus to the needs of the Federal Government. ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION In connection with its research and development programs, the Atomic Energy Commission administers a number of substantial areas of withdrawn public domain land. It also provides technical advice and assistance to land management agencies in experimental programs to increase mineral production through the use of atomic devices and controls the use of such devices for this purpose. FEDERAL POWER COMMISSION The Federal Power Commission is an independent regulatory agency. Among other things, it issues licenses for the construction and operation of non-federal hydroelectric power projects on Federal lands or on the navigable waters of the United States. Whenever an application for a license to construct a project is filed with the Commission, any Federal lands included in the proposed project are reserved, as of the date of the filing of the application, from entry, location or other disposal until otherwise directed by the Commission or Congress (permits or valid existing rights of way granted prior to June 30, 1910 are, however, preserved). When the Commission determines that the value of any lands reserved for or classified as power sites will not be injured or destroyed for power development by location, entry or selection under the public land laws, the Secretary of the Interior, upon notification of such determination may open the lands to location, entry, or selection under such restrictions as the Commission may determine and subject to a reservation in the United States to enter upon, occupy, and use the land if necessary, in the judgment of the Commission, to a project. |