National
Partnership for Reinventing Government
Federal
Websites Featured in Washington Post Story
January
7, 2000
Three federal websites that appeal to outdoor enthusiasts were
featured today in a special report by Steve Hendrix in The Washington
Post Weekend.
"I'm
finding the net to be an increasingly useful part of my outdoors
kit - at least when used before I head out," Hendrix wrote in
his article, "Indoor Surfing, Outdoor Sites."
He recommends these federal sites among those to bookmark.
Federal
Lands - "This is one I discovered only recently while searching
for information on Bureau of Land Management properties," he wrote,
adding parenthetically that BLM lands are the great secret of
western camping. "What I found was that some smart bureaucrat
has assembled recreation facts on all the great land-holding federal
agencies, including BLM, the Park Service, Forest Service, Fish
and Wildlife, and the Bureau of Reclamation. You can search state-by-state
in more than 20 categories (hiking, water sports, horseback riding,
wildlife, hunting, etc.)"
Vice President Gore asked this group of agencies, which also includes
the Army Corps of Engineers, to develop this one-stop recreation
site, and later gave them a Hammer Award for their achievement
in reinventing government. In 1998, GovExec.com named this site
as one of the "Best Feds on the Web."
National
Forests - "The USDA Forest Service has collected links to
all of its holdings, organized here by state," Hendrix wrote.
"Each listing also includes the designated wilderness areas within
each forest. These are often the safest bets for an unspoiled
natural experience..."
National
Parks - "This National Park Service Clearinghouse will link
you to all sites covering the more than 370 units, 80 million
acres of the park system. Browse this one just to get a sense
of the astonishing complexity of our most popular public lands
agency."
High
Impact Agencies
Three of the agencies whose websites Hendrix reviewed are "high
impact" agencies - the Bureau of Land Management, the Park Service,
and the Forest Service. High impact agencies are those that serve
the greatest number of people. Vice President Gore has asked these
agencies especially to focus on their customers and strive to
accomplish results that Americans care about.
For
More Information
Contact Pat Wood at pat.wood@npr.gov