In accordance with the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA), as amended, and the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976, as amended, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) have prepared a Final Joint Environmental Impact Statement (FJEIS) for the BLM Proposed Resource Management Plan (P-RMP), the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) Proposed Integrated Resource Management Plan (P-IRMP) for the BLM Oklahoma Field Office, the BIA Eastern Oklahoma Regional Office, and the BIA Southern Plains Regional Office, and by this Notice is announcing the opening of the protest period.

In the Oklahoma, Kansas, and Texas FJEIS/BLM P-RMP/BIA P-IRMP, the BLM and BIA analyze the environmental consequences of four alternatives under consideration for managing Federal lands and minerals within the Oklahoma-Kansas-Texas planning area. The BLM Oklahoma Field Office administers approximately 15,100 acres of public surface estate, including approximately 11,833 acres at the Cross Bar Management Area near Amarillo, Texas; about 3,300 acres of small tracts scattered across the planning area; and Federal lands along the 116-mile stretch of the Red River between the North Fork of the Red River and the 98th Meridian. No exact acreages of Federal lands along the Red River are available at this time because the full 116-mile stretch of land has not been surveyed. The Oklahoma Field Office also administers approximately 4,810,900 acres of subsurface Federal mineral estate across the 269,650,000-acre planning area, to include approximately 4,012,400 acres underlying surface estate managed by other Federal surface management agencies, such as U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Forest Service, and National Park Service, and approximately 785,300 acres of split-estate, where Federal minerals underlie private surface estate.

The BIA decision area includes approximately 394,200 surface acres and 2,033,500 mineral estate acres for the BIA Eastern Oklahoma Regional Office. Approximately 1,474,500 acres of the BIA Eastern Oklahoma Regional Office jurisdictional area is limited to coal or other minerals in Osage County. The BIA decision area also includes approximately 457,500 surface acres and 632,000 mineral estate acres for the BIA Southern Plains Regional Office. This includes lands and mineral estate in Oklahoma, Kansas, Texas, and Richardson County, Nebraska.

The BLM is the lead agency for development of the land use plan, while the BIA Regional Offices are co-lead planning partners on this joint, integrated land use planning effort. The Oklahoma, Kansas, and Texas FJEIS/BLM P-RMP/BIA P-IRMP provides a comprehensive, integrated land use plan that will replace the BLM's current 1994 Oklahoma RMP, as amended; the 1991 Kansas RMP; and the 1996 Texas RMP, as amended. Land use plan revision and consolidation is necessary due to numerous changes, including renewable energy, recreation, special status species, visual resources, and wildlife habitat which have occurred across the Oklahoma, Kansas, and Texas planning area since previous plan publications. New resource data are available for consideration, and new policies, guidelines, and laws have been established.