Essential Links
This page provides internet links to basic information about the statutory and regulatory structure behind the land exchange programs, important court cases, and access to government audits that have revealed serious problems with the land trade programs.
For a more reader-friendly treatment of what is abbreviated here, you may wish to purchase our publications.
Other land deals that affect public lands are implemented under different statutes (land sales) or under special pieces of legislation (land conveyance bills).
Court Cases
Read a summary of court cases
Government Audits
Read info on government audits
The agencies
Land trades are implemented through the public land agencies. As the biggest land managers, the US Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management complete most of the land exchanges—about 300 per year between them. However, the National Park Service, Fish & Wildlife Service, and Bureau of Reclamation also exchange lands.
The agencies’ authority to conduct land exchanges and the procedures governing them are provided in statutes, regulations, and agency guidelines. Below you will find links to these items for the Forest Service, BLM, and Park Service.
We also furnish links for the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), because these laws are entwined in the land exchange process.
NOTE: For the United States Code (USC) and Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) citations we give below, you will need to SEARCH for the desired code section or regulation:
To search for the USC citations, go to:
http://uscode.house.gov/usc.htm
To search for the CFR citations go to:
http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/cfr-table-search.html
Bureau of Land Management (BLM)
US Forest Service (USFS)
National Park Service (NPS)
The Park Service’s general authority to conduct land exchanges comes from the Land and Water Conservation Fund Act, 16 USC 460l-22(b) (that’s an “ell” before the hyphen).
In addition, the enabling act passed for an individual unit of the Park System may have more specific land exchange authority. You should be able to find the enabling act by searching for the name of the Park in the United States Code search page.
Statutes with general applicability
Federal Register
The Federal Register (FR) is published daily. It contains all required federal agency notices, including Notices of Intent to prepare environmental impact statements (EISs), notices of availability of same, proposed agency rule changes, etc. The BLM publishes Notices of Realty Action in the FR when it intends to sell federal lands. Otherwise, the most typical FR listing for land trades pertains to EISs. You can look at the current FR and also search past issues at: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/cfr/index.html
Congress
Land exchanges, sales and conveyances that are not done through the agencies are implemented through Congress. Since Congress can make any law it chooses (within the confines of the Constitution), there are no rules for how congressional land deals are conducted. You can find land trades, sales, conveyances, and all other bills currently in Congress by searching the Library of Congress website named for Thomas Jefferson, http://thomas.loc.gov. Use keywords such as “exchange” and “conveyance.”
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