For over a century, American have created laws, processes, objectives, priorities, and rules for federal land management that often conflict, contradict, and undermine each other. We now find ourselves with inconsistent laws, unclear priorities, procedural mazes, and an antiquated bureaucratic structure. Processes and procedures often impede rather than aid management actions and prevent good stewardship. The overall result is a loss of public benefits and undesirable impact on natural resources. Allan Fitzsimmons presents a clear argument for major changes and offers new ideas for how those changes can be accomplished. Students and professionals interested in public policy, resource management, and environmental studies will find this book to be particularly interesting.

"This unusual, provocative book analyzes US federal environmental policy, and the ability of the government to effect change, from the perspective of a former senior member of the Department of the Interior. Painstakingly researched, it explains the environmental, political, and legal circumstances driving federal land management, primarily in the US West. Critics agree that lands are mismanaged; Fitzsimmons offers a continuum of recommendations. Four chapters build a cumulative case toward the author's recommendations for breaking gridlock. Chapter 1 reviews federal lands, including their distribution, utility, and resources. Chapter 2 illustrates how perspectives and expectations concerning federal lands have changed over time, and how settlement patterns and events (e.g., gas prices, oil spills) influence expectations. Chapter 3 presents the cacophonous directives that agencies must respond to, clearly explaining why there is management paralysis. This content will be highly valuable to students of any area of federal policy and practice. The final chapter catalogs and evaluates recommendations for change, concluding with the author's recommendations for Congress, the judiciary, and the executive branch. This is somewhat a polemic, which clearly illustrates the political nature of federal land management. Fitzsimmons is also the author of Defending Illusions: Federal Protection of Ecosystems (CH, Mar'00, 37-3892). Summing Up: Recommended." - CHOICE

"Allan K. Fitzsimmons is a thoughtful and apparently frustrated former cabinet-level official at the Department of the Interior. He frames federal land management as hamstrung by an accretion of conflicting priorities, processes, and agencies. Even while recognizing that Congress created the problems he emphasizes, Fitzsimmons positions Congress as the essential knot-cutter." - Western Historical Quarterly