Book Cliffs (also called Roan Cliffs), oil shale rocks located
in the Piceance Basin of western Colorado. BLM Planners: A
Strange New Breed By John Singlaub When it was passed in 1976,
the Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA) initiated a
number of revolutionary changes at the BLM. Suddenly, the Bureau
was faced with the prospect of the long-term retention and
management of the public lands under multiple-use management and
sustained yield. Budgets grew to accommodate the broad new
requirements of FLPMA, and a wide variety of “-ologists” were
hired to supplement the range conservationists, realty
specialists, geologists, and mining engineers already employed
by the BLM. These hires later became known as the post-1976
“FLPMA Boomers.” None of these new characters were stranger to
the BLM than the small cadre of professional planners hired to
implement the requirements of FLPMA section 202, “Land Use
Planning.” They helped develop new planning rules, finalized in
1979, that called for comprehensive, sy