The Bureau of Land Management announced June 17 that it has restored public access to its national web site (www.blm.gov), which the agency had taken down for several weeks while it resolved issues relating to Internet security. Although the BLM’s state-specific web sites are not yet reconnected to the Internet, the Bureau is working to get those up and running in the near future.

“We would like to thank the public for their patience during the outage,” BLM Director Kathleen Clarke said. “Because electronic communication is so crucial to our contact with the public, the BLM made restoration of its national web site an urgent priority. A terrific team of skilled people worked long hours and weekends to address issues and get the site reconnected, and I thank them for their dedication.”

Clarke added, “Our agency’s state office web sites, and certain other BLM sites, are still down, and we recognize how vital these are to our customers and stakeholders. So whenever possible, we will be posting critical information for these sites on our national web site–www.blm.gov–while our restoration work continues.”

The BLM manages more land–261 million surface acres–than any other Federal agency. Most of this public land is located in 12 Western States, including Alaska. The Bureau, with a budget of about $1.8 billion, also administers 700 million acres of sub-surface mineral estate throughout the nation. The BLM’s multiple-use mission is to sustain the health and productivity of the public lands for the use and enjoyment of present and future generations. The Bureau accomplishes this by managing such activities as outdoor recreation, livestock grazing, mineral development, and energy production, and by conserving natural, historical, and cultural resources on the public lands