The
Bureau of Land Management (
BLM) is an agency within the
United States Department of the Interior that administers more than of
public lands in the United States which constitutes one-eighth of the landmass of the country. President
Harry S. Truman created the BLM in 1946 by combining two existing agencies: the
General Land Office and the
Grazing Service. The agency manages the federal government's nearly of subsurface
mineral estate located beneath federal, state and private lands severed from their surface rights by the
Homestead Act of 1862. Most BLM public lands are located in these 12 western states:
Alaska,
Arizona,
California,
Colorado,
Idaho,
Montana,
Nevada,
New Mexico,
Oregon,
Utah,
Washington and
Wyoming.