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Off-Road Vehicles
The BLM was given an Executive Order by President Richard Nixon to close lands to ORVs if they were causing considerable adverse effects to public resources. They have failed to follow this order and are not protecting areas that are heavily impacted. In January 2000, the BLM began developing a national strategy to manage ORV use to prevent degradation of public lands. This strategy is woefully inadequate and basically continues the status quo. Mining
Hardrock mining companies are allowed to take gold, silver, and other minerals with no return to the public for minerals taken from public land. The law also does not provide clean-up standards to protect the environment from mining pollution. Tough new environmental controls are needed to protect precious water and habitat, provide strong enforcement and citizen participation measures and create new financial requirements to block the mining industry from taking publicly-owned land and minerals without fair compensation to taxpayers. Most significantly, however, it is time to end the mining industry's "right to mine" on BLM lands and require that other land resource values, such as recreation, sacred Indian sites, Wilderness, etc., be given more weight. Legal Loophole Across the West, state and local governments are exploiting a loophole in a vague, long-repealed road statute to lay claim to thousands of miles throughout our public lands. This loophole allows special interests the opportunity to criss-cross America's National Parks, Wildlife Refuges, National Monuments, Wilderness Areas, and other special places with roads and development. The Sierra Club belongs to a coalition of groups that are working on ways to close this loophole. Read more. Grazing Due to its roots in the Taylor Grazing Service, historically the BLM has been under intense pressure to grant grazing permits. As a result of a lawsuit brought by the Natural Resources Defense Council in 1974, the BLM had to consider the environmental impacts of livestock grazing when administering their grazing program. This launched a decade long review of public lands under grazing permits. It was found that most areas were in poor condition and not supporting native vegetation and wildlife. About 68% of public ranges are in unsatisfactory condition due to unsustainable grazing practices. Streams, springs, and wetlands are trampled, polluted, and stripped bare by overgrazing. These areas are extremely sensitive and in arid regions may be an ecological oasis. Grazing is a valid use on certain BLM lands. In regions that were once grazed by native herbivores, the BLM should manage livestock to restore rangeland and balance ecosystems. In spite of the poor condition of grazed public lands and the negative financial implications, federal and state land agencies continue to promote unhealthy livestock grazing on public lands in the West. Livestock ranching on federal public lands is subsidized to the tune of $100 million annually in direct payments; indirect subsidies may be three times as much. Taxpayers are footing the bill for ranchers to run livestock on millions of acres of federal public land in the 11 western states for very little beef supply. Public land grazing is a very small contributor to national supplies beef supplies accounting for less than 3 percent of all livestock fodder in the US. Weeds Between 1985 and 1995, weeds increased on the public range from 4 million to 17 million acres. The BLM estimates that weeds spread at a rate of 4,600 acres per day on agency lands. The worst invader may be cheatgrass, a non-native weed that thrives on fire and has taken over nearly 25 million acres of public land in the Great Basin. These weeds destroy habitat for sensitive plants and animals by choking out native plants and creating unnatural fire hazards. Up to Top |
Off-road vehicles (ORVs) pollute our air and water, degrade wildlife
habitat, and carve countless miles of destructive roads into wildlands.
As ORVs deviate from legally designated routes, they leave new “ghost
roads” in sensitive habitats like forests, streams, wetlands
and deserts. Illegally created routes erode and compact soil, harm
plants, degrade wildlife habitat and water quality, and spread invasive
weeds. 
BLM lands have been used and abused by the mining industry for a
century. One of the biggest public land giveaways is the General
Mining Law of 1872, which allows individuals or companies that have
discovered valuable minerals on public lands to purchase (i.e. patent)
those lands for $2.50 to $5 per acre. Originally, this law was passed
to help settle the “Wild West.” Since 1872, mining interests
have patented a land area equivalent in size to the state of Connecticut,
containing minerals worth more than $245 billion.