Forestry Functions

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM), part of the Interior Department, and the Forest Service, part of the Agriculture Department, together manage 7.2 million acres of land in western Oregon. Both agencies manage portions of these lands for timber production and have parallel forestry organizations in several locations. This report examines the possibility of the two agencies consolidating their forestry duties. GAO summarizes these agencies' past and ongoing reorganization efforts and the potential legal and other constraints affecting any consolidation.

GAO found that: (1) declining timber sales and tightening budgetary constraints have led land management agencies such as BLM and the Forest Service to rethink their organizational structures and relationships with one another; (2) BLM and the Forest Service are attempting to refocus their existing programs and activities to meet the current challenges they face as well as to prepare for initiatives they may undertake in the future; (3) many unresolved issues in the Pacific Northwest affect the future structure and organization of BLM and the Forest Service in western Oregon; (4) uncertainties about the future levels of timber harvests and the effects of reinventing government make it extremely difficult to determine how best to reorganize forestry functions; and (5) an agency-by-agency approach to downsizing and restructuring may not have the potential to achieve the efficiencies that could be derived through a collaborative federal approach to land management.