Talk:Bureau of Land Management/Archive 1

PR language
This article incorporates text from the BLM website, and it shows. Parts of this article seem very PR-ish, such as this whole paragraph:
 * Perhaps one of the Bureau's greatest challenges today is to develop more effective land management practices, while becoming more efficient at the same time. The BLM has taken significant steps to reduce administrative costs, streamline work processes, focus on customer service, and improve accountability to the American people.

This effectively says, in forward-looking-go-get-em-optimistic marketing style, that the BLM does its job. Well, one would hope so. Also, while the beautiful images are nice, I don't think they add as much to the article as, say, a map of BLM-held land would. -- Scott ei&#960;  10:15, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Well it's our best source of info. And if it's not NPOV at least it's not attacking anyone. --M1ss1ontomars2k4 04:56, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
 * That doesn't mean we have to adopt their wording. Besides, there are those out there who beleive that the BLM should not exist, and its lands should be realeased to private owners. They might consider a glowing article to be "attacking" them. I would also like to point out that the article at present is much more neutral then it was back in December. -- Scott ei&#960;  19:45, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Winners never quit and quitters never win - but when you never quit and never win there is something wrong. After nearly seven years of working for BLM and DOI in the area of business and IT architecture I was able to see the first-hand serious problems that permeate these parts of the Federal Government. Taxpayers would save lots of money if Federal Land were handed to the Nature Conservancy for management. If you ever saw an old western with the crooked Indian agent in it - he was working for DOI. The Cobell lawsuit against DOI hopefully will be resolved in favor of the Indians. There are billions of dollars missing in oil and gas and mineral royalties owed to the Indians by DOI. DOI's Internet access has been shut down by Judge Lambert many times now. The sad truth is the attacks on DOI information is not coming from outside the DOI but from ignorant employees who lack training.

If one works for the NSA, CIA, Dept of the Army, etc. one can get tuition reimbursement from ones employer. Advanced degrees are encouraged at these agencies and departments. When one works for DOI one can not get tuition reimbursement because DOI worries that once one has an education one will find another job. This arrested mindset permeates DOI and all its bureaus. In house software developers at BLM created an electronic system for employees to enter their daily time card data. Engineering reviewed their approach and the developers were advised to monitor their network usage for the application. The project manager had a fit at the suggestion. This is just common sense for any project that makes use of a WAN resource. A few weeks before deployment the developers had determined that a single user would transact 10 megabytes of information just for a single time card! Engineering had to step in at the last minute and contract a Lotus Note application developer to re-factor the application. The WAN was a confederation of fractional T1/frame relay lines and could not handle the traffic of an inefficient application. The taxpayer pays daily for this lack of education on the part of DOI employees.

DOI faces a serious challenge in leadership, asset management, information management, security, chain of custody systems and other areas but lacks an organizational architecture to stop wasting money and implement changes necessary to cut costs. One specific situation involved the need to inventory computers across the BLM specifically and across DOI as well. BLM spent over 6 million dollars implementing Tivoli enterprise management across 147 sites. The system provided two inventories before the system was sabotaged by the system administration employees systematically across the BLM. This became known as the 6 million dollar scan or to some of us as the 6 million dollar SCAM. The system administrators wanted to continue the existing system of doing "data calls" across the state offices. This approach, of course, allowed them to "cook" their data reporting. The final nail in the Tivoli coffin was driven by a Windows administrator at NIRMC in Denver decided he wanted to deploy a Microsoft SMS solution. BLM was spending around 60 million a year on system administrator labor when they could have centralized their IT and drastically cut administrator labor.

Check out http://www.indiantrust.com/ to get the truth about DOI. Godzilla1138 04:46, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Wild Horses and Burros
I removed or reworded lots of POV language in this section. Articles must not assume the subject of the article is always right (by using wording such as "the BLM must..."). The section seems to appeal to authority quite often; sources must be specific if you want to give a better impression ("scientists say" - Who? Which scientists? All scientists? The scientists who work for the BLM?). I also tagged the article for being unbalanced. The issue of killing these horses has raised a major public relations scandal, and yet that problem is not addressed anywhere in the article. This article must also stop relying on the BLM's website as the only source. This is does not seem to be systematic bias; but a direct attempt to suppress negative publicity; see the BLM's facebook entry for evidence of internet publicity campaign. In fact, the rest of the article has these very same problems. The use of language towards the BLM seems almost honorific. What is the point of the image galleries of the land the BLM administers?

The claim that "10,000 more horses is more than can exist in harmony with other resources" seems ludicrous when considering that hundreds of thousands (?) of cows also share the public "rangeland" - are mass cattle hordes native to the 'rangeland'? No. Also, open steppes are the natural environment of horses; the article implies that the presence of 'foreign' species to an environment is always harmful. What exists in that environment that isn't in their native habitat? What exactly are they harmful to? The article doesn't say.--IronMaidenRocks (talk) 19:03, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

neutrality
article says BLM own this and that, basically the whole country. there are many disputes about that, and I want to see them mentioned on the page. The newest outrage is about Cliven Bundy - a cattle farmer, who is being harassed by the BLM on a big scale. The US constitution says - all rights not given to the Federal Government belong to the States and the People - and last time I read the constitution there was no mention of a BLM or land in the States that doesn't belong to the States. Rittmeester (talk) 04:11, 11 April 2014 (UTC) Rittmeester (talk) 08:23, 11 April 2014 (UTC) Rittmeester (talk) 13:50, 11 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Heavily-armed feds surround Nevada Bundy ranch, confiscate cattle
 * www.infowars.com/infowars-exclusive-on-the-ground-at-bundy-ranch-protest-area/ infowars.com does not meet our sourcing guidelines and should not be used BLM Standoff - Infowars exclusive videos]
 * Bundy Ranch Standoff Explained (it's about the oil)
 * Land Dispute Exposes Land Management Lies
 * BLM Caught Illegally Destroying 100 Yr Old Water Tanks


 * Please bear in mind that this is an encyclopedia article, so a general description of the BLM and its history is appropriate. It's not a place to include news items or individual disputes, at least not at any length. It's also not a soapbox for your views on federal land ownership or administration. Please note also that Infowars is not a reliable source. That all said, the article is somewhat of a PR piece, largely because there are few independent sources on the subject, but calling it "filthy propaganda" doesn't create confidence that inclusion of this material is likely to be a dispassionate, neutral discussion of the subject appropriate to an encyclopedia.   Acroterion   (talk)   14:36, 11 April 2014 (UTC)
 * sure. As for Infowars not being reliable - well, honestly it's more reliable as CNN/MSNBC/FOX who are probably considered reliable here. As for the news items - I put them here as a kind of brainstorming for whoever wants to add a Section covering the topic. It IS needed to add a section about controversies and abuse of power. Leaving such critique out would be like leaving the nuclear accident out of a page about the Czernobyl NPP. Rittmeester (talk) 16:26, 11 April 2014 (UTC)
 * There's certainly room for criticism, and the Bundy situation is sort of the news of the moment (though the dispute's been going on for 20 years). But no, Infowars isn't an acceptable news source under virtually any circumstances, nor are interpretations of videos, especially when there is ample coverage in reliable sources for the current standoff. As for characterizing the roundup as an "abuse of power," that represents a POV, while "controversy" would be a much more neutral term.  Acroterion   (talk)   20:49, 11 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Not sure how this is BLM "abuse of power". Maybe its Congressional "abuse of power" which has made it virtually impossible for most BLM land to get sold.  BLM didn't make the rules, Congress did, back in the 70s as I recall. Famartin (talk) 22:11, 11 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Infowars isn't any worse than the old mainstream media network, sure they hype stuff sometimes, but the msn are basically nothing but government obedient bootlickers and they spin news for the Feds - I don't consider THIS reliable. As for the BML's abuse of power - they have been tazing people there, destroying 100yo water tanks, sabotaging the irrigation network, they are basically just goons to drive farmers off land that belongs to the STATES and it's people not the FEDs. The BLM is acting in violation of the Constitution. There is no section saying "Feds can steal land in order to protect tortoises" (who aren't even endangered in the first place). It looks more and more the BLM is simply acting as a front for corporations and their puppets in congress in order to steal land for Fracking or building Solar-Farms, or other conjobs.

Rittmeester (talk) 04:34, 12 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Harry Reid, China, Behind Nevada Land Grab
 * Apparently you are unaware that in 1976, the United States Congress enacted the Federal Land Policy and Management Act, which declared that public lands which had yet to be declared for a homesteader would generally remain public. Up until then, essentially anyone could declare the land to be theirs.  One wonders why this did not happen much in Nevada, except of course that the land had little value to any individual or family, apparently.  The BLM is carrying out the laws of Congress.  It would be perfectly legal for Congress to change their mind and enact a new law transferring BLM land to the states, for instance, but that hasn't happened.  Famartin (talk) 06:35, 12 April 2014 (UTC)
 * It doesn't matter what laws congress makes - if these laws are unconstitutional, they are illegal and void. Rittmeester (talk) 11:06, 12 April 2014 (UTC)
 * So are you going to explain exactly HOW the law is unconstitutional?  Famartin (talk) 11:26, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

@Rittmeetser: Stop using this talkpage as a soapbox for your views on the BLM and the constitution, this talkpage is not a forum. Talkpages are for substantive discussion of article improvement. Soapboxing of this kind is disruptive to the work of the encyclopedia.  Acroterion   (talk)   13:08, 12 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Everybody who isn't a paid whore can see that the page is pure propaganda taken from the BLM website. Please stop sabotaging it's improvement, or just resign from your admin job, you clearly have issues and conflicts of interest. Rittmeester (talk) 00:30, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
 * So fix it, using acceptable sources. Consensus already exists that the article is too heavily sourced from the BLM: that, however, does not give you license to turn the article into a coatrack of anti-BLM rants from fringe sources. You need to gain consensus from other editors that your changes and sources are appropriate. And stop attacking other editors for disagreeing that your personal views on the government belong in the article.  Acroterion   (talk)  
 * I have a list of words and phrases that mean "in my opinion." I look forward to adding, "Everybody who isn't a paid whore can see" to the list. Carptrash (talk) 21:55, 2 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Also, I realized that since the event under discussion took place in Nevada, there probably are a lot of "paid whores" who agree with Rittmeester. Carptrash (talk) 22:01, 2 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Mr. Bundy forfeited his cattle by court order when he didn't remove them from federal land in the time allotted by the decision in United States v. Bundy, July 9, 2013. He had 45 days; they gave him eight months. Being in violation of court orders is no laughing matter, and it is the BLM's job to enforce the law on federal land. Bundy doesn't have a leg to stand on. The controversy doesn't belong on the BLM's article; if anything it should be filed under the militia movement.  Rogue 9 (talk) 01:26, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

Photo Added
Hi, I'm a wildlife biology student and I added a photo from the commons to show lands held by the BLM. I hope you all found this to be an appropriate contribution.


 * Nice, thank you!  Montanabw (talk)  20:01, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 15 April 2014
Range War Incident

In April, 2014 following a years long legal dispute between cattle rancher Cliven Bundy and the BLM, some several hundred protesters gathered armed with various firearms to protect Cliven Bundy's right to allow his cattle to graze on public land. The protestors were successful, despite the BLM's employment of armed personell.

76.212.144.71 (talk) 05:02, 15 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. Cannolis (talk) 05:37, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

A reasonable edit request, for which there are ample sources (e.g., http://lasvegas.cbslocal.com/2014/04/09/nevadan-named-blm-chief/), is to update the director list to include Neil Kornze. But it might be embarrassing to do that; after all, readers could become interested in exactly who the new director is or begin to consider exactly when he became director. The length of time Mr. Kornze remains off the list will reflect the degree, and direction, of this article's leanings. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.54.54.149 (talk) 09:32, 16 April 2014 (UTC)