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    The Western Land Exchange Project, an environmental group representing over 115 other groups, sent a letter to the three major presidential candidates asking them to reform the federal land swap process. The letter calls for a veto of any land-trade legislation until Congress investigates land deals, in response to a Government Accountability Office audit that was critical of past federal land swaps. The GAO report found that the land swaps damaged the public interest and taxpayers. The groups want restoration of the Land and Water Conservation Fund to purchase environmentally sensitive lands.

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    Envgroupcalls

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    The Western Land Exchange Project, an environmental group representing over 115 other groups, sent a letter to the three major presidential candidates asking them to reform the federal land swap process. The letter calls for a veto of any land-trade legislation until Congress investigates land deals, in response to a Government Accountability Office audit that was critical of past federal land swaps. The GAO report found that the land swaps damaged the public interest and taxpayers. The groups want restoration of the Land and Water Conservation Fund to purchase environmentally sensitive lands.

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    The Western Land Exchange Project, an environmental group representing over 115 other groups, sent a letter to the three major presidential candidates asking them to reform the federal land swap process. The letter calls for a veto of any land-trade legislation until Congress investigates land deals, in response to a Government Accountability Office audit that was critical of past federal land swaps. The GAO report found that the land swaps damaged the public interest and taxpayers. The groups want restoration of the Land and Water Conservation Fund to purchase environmentally sensitive lands.

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    Envgroupcalls

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    CCWebClients
    The Western Land Exchange Project, an environmental group representing over 115 other groups, sent a letter to the three major presidential candidates asking them to reform the federal land swap process. The letter calls for a veto of any land-trade legislation until Congress investigates land deals, in response to a Government Accountability Office audit that was critical of past federal land swaps. The GAO report found that the land swaps damaged the public interest and taxpayers. The groups want restoration of the Land and Water Conservation Fund to purchase environmentally sensitive lands.

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    July 27, 2000

    Environmental group calls for land-trade reform

    By Mary Manning

    LAS VEGAS SUN

    The Seattle-based Western Land Exchange Project, an environmental organization that tracks
    federal land
    swaps throughout the West, sent a letter to presidential candidates today asking them to reform
    the entire process.

    More than 115 groups from Virginia to Nevada signed the letter to the presumptive Democratic
    nominee, Vice President Al Gore, the GOP front-runner, George W.. Bush, and Green Party
    candidate Ralph Nader.

    The letter asks the candidates to pledge a veto of any land-trade legislation until a full
    congressional
    investigation of such land deals is completed.

    The project's letter is responding to a General Accounting Office audit last week on U.S. Forest
    Service and Bureau of Land Management exchanges that criticized the land deals. The GAO
    concluded the federal land swaps were damaging to the public's interest and to
    taxpayers.

    The GAO report capped 10 audits released in the last four years by the inspectors general of the
    Interior Department and the Department of Agriculture, which found serious flaws in
    land exchanges, including those in Nevada.

    The presidential candidates need to restore the Land and Water Conservation Fund, placed in the
    general fund during the Reagan administration to offset federal budget debts, Janine
    Blaeloch, founder of the Western Land Exchange Project, said.

    The GAO's report, requested by Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., went a step further and said the
    process was so flawed that Congress should ban further swaps.

    Sens. Richard Bryan and Harry Reid, both D-Nev., pushed the Southern Nevada Public Lands
    Management Act of 1998 to buy environmentally sensitive private lands outright from auctions of
    BLM parcels landlocked in the urban Las Vegas Valley.

    But the two federal auctions in Las Vegas have produced some disappointing results, according to
    local BLM officials. An estimated $33 million has been raised, but only 35 parcels out of a total
    of 87 BLM blocks attracted buyers in June.

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