Policy and Power on the Public Domain

Abstract

This chapter focuses on ecological policy and power in the public domain. It reveals that as controversy has begotten change on the western landscape, federal natural resource policy has evolved through distinctive phases marked by major revisions in the governing laws and policies to accommodate the felt necessities of the day. Throughout this process, a few key ideas have dominated the public land policy debates, and these same ideas are still central in the current debate over new ecological management principles. The chapter finds out that in each instance, the governmental institutions—Congress, the executive branch, the courts, and the states—have played key roles in converting these ideas into viable laws and policies. It discusses how principal federal land management agencies—the Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service, and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service—have been central to this process, periodically translating new ideas and laws into viable natural resource policies.