BLM, within the Department of the Interior, and the Forest Service, within the Department of Agriculture, are the two primary federal agencies involved with timber sales. In terms of acreage, the Forest Service manages over 192 million acres of national forest system land. In contrast, BLM manages about 261 million acres of public lands, of which about 55 million acres are forests and woodlands. BLM administers two forestry programs: one on public domain lands and one in western Oregon. BLM’s public domain forestry management program covers 53 million acres— about 9 million acres of forests and about 44 million acres of woodlands. Appendix I provides a detailed listing of forest and woodland acreage administered under BLM’s public domain forestry management program. BLM’s forests and woodlands on public domain lands are primarily in 12 western states. Much of these lands tend to be in small, isolated parcels that are not as productive as BLM’s western Oregon lands or the larger forests managed by the Forest Service. BLM manages its public domain lands through a multilevel organization—national office, 12 state offices, and about 130 field offices—that carries out a variety of agency programs and activities including recreation and fish and wildlife protection, in addition to timber. BLM’s public domain forestry management program received a small portion of the agency’s $1.8 billion annual budget for fiscal year 2002. The Congress appropriated about $6.2 million for the public domain forestry management program in fiscal year 2002. Timber offered for sale on public domain lands includes sawtimber and other wood products. Sales of sawtimber and some other wood products are initiated by soliciting bids from prospective buyers. In addition, BLM offers other wood products to the public through a permit process. BLM manages its public domain forestry management program within a statutory framework consisting of a land management statute and various other environmental laws. The Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 (FLPMA)—the principal law under which BLM manages its public domain forestry management program—requires BLM to manage its public lands under the principles of multiple use and sustained yield. FLPMA gives BLM broad management discretion over how it emphasizes one use, such as offering timber for sale, in relation to another, such as providing recreation. Among other things, multiple use management aims at a combination of balanced and diverse resource uses that take into account the long-term needs of future generations for renewable resources (for example, timber) and nonrenewable resources (for example, minerals). FLPMA states that BLM should consider fish and wildlife; recreation; minerals; range; ecological preservation; timber; watershed; natural scenic, scientific, and historical values; and other resources, as it balances public land uses. Under the principle of sustained yield, BLM seeks to achieve and maintain high output levels of all renewable resources in perpetuity. Under FLPMA, BLM has broad discretion in managing its timber sales. During its land use planning process, BLM identifies areas that are available and have the capacity for planned, sustained-yield harvest of timber or other forest products. BLM timber sales on public domain lands must also comply with the requirements of other environmental laws, including the National Environmental Policy Act, the Endangered Species Act, and the Clean Water Act. For major federal actions that may significantly affect the quality of the human environment, the National Environmental Policy Act requires all federal agencies, including BLM, to analyze the potential environmental effects of a proposed project, such as a timber sale. Regulations implementing the National Environmental Policy Act require agencies to include a discussion of how to mitigate adverse impacts and a discussion of those impacts that cannot be avoided under the federal action. Under the Endangered Species Act, BLM must ensure that its actions are not likely to jeopardize the continued existence of species listed as threatened or endangered or to destroy or adversely modify habitat critical to their survival. Similarly, the requirement to meet standards for water quality under the Clean Water Act may limit the timing, location, and volume of timber sales. BLM’s annual volume of timber offered for sale from public domain lands declined 74 percent from 101 million board feet of timber in fiscal year 1990 to 26 million board feet in 2002. Over the same period, the volume of the two components of BLM offerings—sawtimber and other wood products—also declined: sawtimber from 80 million to 14 million board feet (81 percent) and other wood products from 21 million to 11 million board feet (46 percent). See figure 1. Appendix II includes more detailed information on the volume of BLM public domain timber offered for sale from fiscal year 1990 through 2002. Mirroring the overall national decline, each BLM state office experienced declines in the volume of timber offered for sale from fiscal year 1990 through 2002. Eastern Oregon experienced the sharpest decline—from 56 million to 8 million board feet—representing nearly two-thirds of the overall decline. A BLM official explained that eastern Oregon offered an abnormally high volume of timber for sale in fiscal years 1990 and 1991, primarily due to a large salvage logging effort following a mountain pine beetle epidemic. For perspective, from fiscal years 1985 through 1989, eastern Oregon offered an average of 22 million board feet of timber per year. Appendix III shows the volume of timber that each BLM state office offered for sale in 1990 and in 2002 and the amount of decline. As a consequence of the decline in the volume of timber offered for sale during fiscal years 1990 through 2002, the proportion of the volume’s two components also changed. As shown in figure 2, sawtimber represented over three-quarters of the total volume in fiscal year 1990, but had decreased to slightly more than one-half of the total volume by fiscal year 2002. In contrast, the proportion of other wood products increased from about one-fifth of the total volume in 1990 to about one-half of the total volume in fiscal year 2002. Beginning in the late 1980s, the program emphasis on BLM public domain lands, like that on most other federal forests, increasingly shifted from timber production to emphasizing forest ecosystem health. This shift in emphasis, required by changing forest conditions and needs, helped cause a reduction in the volume of timber removed from all federal lands, including BLM public domain lands. As a result of this decline in supply volume, some sawmills that formerly processed BLM timber have closed, making it more difficult for BLM to market timber in some areas. In addition, the emphasis on forest ecosystem health has increased some of the costs associated with timber sales preparation, as staff must now prepare more extensive analysis of the effects of the timber harvest on other resources. Faced with generally declining funding levels and fewer foresters to prepare timber sales, and subsequently fewer sales, BLM’s volume of timber offered for sale from its public domain lands declined. The 74 percent decline in the volume of timber sale offerings from BLM public domain lands since 1990, according to BLM officials, was primarily due to the shift in program emphasis to forest ecosystem health. We previously reported that this shift in emphasis caused large declines in timber production from all federal forests. BLM’s decline mirrored a similar decline in offerings from the 155 national forests. For example, between 1990 and 1997 the volume of timber offered for sale from the national forests managed by the Forest Service declined about 65 percent, from 11 billion to 4 billion board feet. Since the late 1980s, growing concerns over declining ecological conditions on federal lands—such as poor animal habitat and water quality—resulted in federal agencies adopting a new, more scientifically based management approach, referred to then as ecosystem management. BLM officially adopted this approach to implementing its land management responsibilities in 1994 to sustain resource usage in an ecosystem—including timber production—while maintaining, and restoring where damaged, the natural functioning of interdependent communities of plants and animals and their physical environment (soil, water, air). In revising forest management policy for public domain lands, BLM increased its emphasis on managing for forest ecosystem conditions, in addition to providing for sustained yield of its forests and woodlands. This new policy recognized the role that insects, disease, fire, and other disturbance mechanisms, as well as noncommercial plant species, play in ecosystems. The reduction in the volume of timber offered for sale also resulted from environmental statutes and their judicial interpretations arising from lawsuits brought by environmental and recreational organizations. In order to increase protection of wildlife habitat, recreation, and stream quality, the volume of timber offered for sale was reduced for the following reasons: (1) some forest areas where timber sales had been planned could not be used for this purpose; (2) in some areas where trees could be harvested, fewer trees could be removed because of limitations on clear-cutting; and (3) in some cases, BLM would not offer timber for sale where the removal costs were too expensive for buyers. BLM officials cited several instances where an increased emphasis on providing greater protection to forest ecosystem resources from the adverse effects of timber harvesting had resulted in reductions of timber offerings on BLM public domain lands since 1990. For example, an official in the BLM Idaho state office noted that harvesting timber by clear-cutting is no longer performed in many locations. Likewise, concerns about potential harm to the habitat of threatened or endangered species, such as lynx and bull trout, led to a reduced volume of timber offered for sale. In addition, some current harvesting methods cost more and result in less volume, but potentially cause less harm to the species and its habitat. BLM officials told us that in eastern Oregon they offered sales in areas where there were fewer concerns about the harm to habitat in order to reduce the probability of public challenge.