[Public Land Statistics, 1996]
[Part 3 - COMMERCIAL USES AND REVENUES GENERATED]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office, www.gpo.gov]


Part 3--COMMERCIAL USES AND REVENUES GENERATED




The demands being placed on the public lands are growing in tandem with the
number and diversity of the people the BLM serves.  Our ability to meet these
new demands will depend on improving the Bureau's accountability to users of
the public lands, while emphasizing the responsibility of these users to
adhere to an ethic that is sensitive to the land's health and responsive to
the public's right to receive fair value in return.

The BLM has historically made land available for authorized private-sector
activities, such as recreation, energy and mineral commodity extraction,
livestock forage and sawtimber production, and other related land use
authorizations and land dispositions, and we will continue to do so.
Taxpayers should expect to receive a fair return from such transactions,
consistent with existing laws.  The BLM will also ensure that environmental
impacts on the land and on other users are minimized so as to prevent long-
term impairment or the creation of unfunded taxpayer liabilities.

BLM administers an onshore surface and mineral estate of about 264 million
acres of public land, plus another 300 million acres of mineral estate
underlying other lands.  BLM also provides technical supervision of mineral
development on Indian lands.

The following tables of statistics show the essential outputs of various
interrelated programs that provide commercial uses as shown in Tables 3-1
through 20.  Tables 3-21 through 28 display outcome-oriented information in
terms of receipts or payments and the allocation of funds generated from
commercial use activities on public lands.  It must be noted that only
receipts and payments collected by BLM are listed.  For revenues derived from
BLM energy and mineral activities, please refer to Mineral Revenues in the
annual report of the Minerals Management Service, a Department of the Interior
agency.  The total onshore mineral revenues, including royalties, rents, and
bonus bids, were $993.7 million for fiscal year 1996.