Having Federal Land Pays Off.

• Position: Brief Article

To offset the lost revenues from tax-exempt federal lands within their borders, all states except Rhode Island receive annual payments from the federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM), an agency of the Interior Department.

The District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam and the Virgin Islands also receive such funds. The payments, required in the Payments in Lieu of Taxes (PILT) Act, have totaled more than $2 billion since they began in 1977. Federal FY 1999 PILT funds amounted to nearly $125 million.

The payments are for tax-exempt federal lands administered by the BLM, the National Park Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (all agencies of the Interior Department), the U.S. Forest Service (part of the U.S. Department of...