Forest Service

The Forest Service manages about 192 million acres--nearly nine percent of the nation's total surface area and about 30 percent of all federal lands. In fiscal year 1996, revenue generated from the sale or use of resources and lands within the National Forest System totaled about $0.9 billion. More than $2 billion in appropriations and $0.4 billion in trust funds were available to manage the system's 155 national forests. Congress has expressed interest in making the agency's operations more cost-effective and businesslike. This report (1) identifies the lessons that can be learned from efforts by nonfederal land managers to generate revenue or become financially self-sufficient from the sale or use of natural resources on their lands and (2) discusses legal and other barriers that may prevent the Forest Service from implementing similar efforts on its lands.

GAO noted that: (1) the nonfederal land managers whose efforts GAO reviewed--while not always attaining financial self-sufficiency--are using a variety of sometimes innovative approaches and techniques to generate revenue or reduce costs from the sale or use of natural resources on their lands; (2) none of the approaches or techniques are legislatively mandated or otherwise required; (3) rather, the land managers have: (a) usually tailored their efforts to meet either a clear mission to make a profit over time or an incentive to generate revenue for other mission-related goals and objectives; and (b) often been delegated the discretion and flexibility to explore innovative entrepreneurial ideas or conduct research to increase profits and to choose where and when to apply the results while being held accountable for their expenditures and performance; (4) generating revenue and reducing costs are not mission priorities for the Forest Service; (5) in keeping with its existing legislative framework, the agency is moving away from, rather than toward, financial self-sufficiency; (6) increasingly, legislative and administrative decisions--such as setting aside an increasing percentage of Forest Service lands for conservation as wilderness, wild and scenic rivers, and national monuments--and judicial interpretations of statutory requirements have required the Forest Service to shift its emphasis from uses that generate revenue to those that do not; and (7) furthermore: (a) the agency is required to continue providing certain goods and services--such as recreational sites, hardrock minerals, and livestock grazing--at less than their fair-market value; and (b) certain congressional expectations and legislative provisions--including those that require sharing revenue before deducting the costs of providing the goods or services--serve as disincentives to either increasing revenue or decreasing costs.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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