The Bureau of Land Management has always labored in the shadow of its sister agency, the National Park Service, and its cousin, the Forest Service. While the national parks are America’s “crown jewels” and the Forest Service represents the best (and worst) of the Progressive era, the BLM manages the federal lands left over after everyone else took what they wanted. Possibly because it simply isn’t as romantic as those other agencies (and so Congress has less reason to throw money at it), the BLM manages its 245 million acres of land far more efficiently, spending an average of about $5 an acre compared with $37 for the Park Service and $32 for the Forest Service.
To help overcome its “romance” deficit, the BLM recently published a four-page flyer titled, “BLM: A Sound Investment for America.” The BLM, the flyer claims, “raises more money each year for the American taxpayer from the use of these lands than it spends.” It goes on to say that the agency’s “management of public lands contributed more than $112 billion to the national economy in 2010.”
It turns out this isn’t exactly true.
