The American Stewards for Liberty has pointed out a process found in federal statutes to help local, state and federal governments overcome conflicts over land and harmonize plans with private citizens to help achieve consistent policies. 

This is important because communication can be difficult on issues such as easements due to different methods and procedures implemented at various levels of government.

The American Stewards of Liberty (ASL) defines coordination as a tool available to local governments that requires the federal agencies to work toward developing and implementing federal plans consistent with state and local plans. They must do this by directly coordinating these issues with the governing bodies of states and local governments, prior to exercising planning decisions, according to ASL.

The purpose of coordination is to resolve planning conflicts, ASL said, where the federal agency is required to work toward making its policies consistent with local on-the-ground policies, and not just ignore those that do not align with the administration.

"Coordination is a process found in federal statutes that require federal, state and local governments to resolve conflicts and harmonize plans for the purpose of achieving consistent policies across the three branches of government," ASL said in its Introduction to the Government-to-Government Coordination Process.

The ASL points out the coordination process is a continual relationship with the federal agency. It is established to address the substantive differences in policies among federal, state and local governments. Coordination is viewed as a valuable tool not just during the development of a management plan and environmental analysis, but through the implementation of that plan.

ASL Executive Director Margaret Byfield told Federal Newswire that coordination can be required for issues impacting private lands most commonly when there is a project that is being reviewed under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). In this case, the outcome of coordination is not to achieve consistency between the federal, state and local plans, but rather is to ensure that the impacts as they relate to the local governments and their responsibilities (protect the health, safety and welfare of the people) are fully analyzed. 

This is because NEPA is a process statute that does not make a decision, but simply analyzes the impacts of alternative ways to make the decision. The purpose of this law is to study the action, not to decide the action.

In addition, Byfield said that some states also require coordination, such as Texas. In this case, there is a state statute that calls for all state agencies to coordinate to the greatest extent feasible with sub-regional planning commissions. Other states have coordination directives in specific sections of their code, such as for water issues. 

One of the reasons coordination is fairly common in state statutes is because the United States was founded by local governments, a point commonly overlooked, ASL said. State laws were written in such a way as to respect and incorporate the local laws, the first law and order established in the area.

In a website article, the ASL mentions that Oklahoma State Senator Casey Murdock, a Republican, has filed Senate Bill 980 to give local governing authorities the ability to approve or deny conservation easements placed on private land within their jurisdiction. The bill is similar to Nebraska Statute 76-2,112(3), which gives counties this same authority, the article said. Many counties in Nebraska recently have used this provision to deny easements they find conflict with their local comprehensive plans.

The Oklahoma bill sets the following directive: “In order to minimize conflicts with land-use planning, each conservation easement shall be approved by the appropriate governing body.” Coordination would be used here between the federal government and the local governments, ASL said.

American Stewards of Liberty is a 501(c)(3) educational nonprofit on a mission to help protect private property rights and the liberties endowed in these rights. The group is willing to take on policies they see as a threat to the country's power to generate the resources it needs, such as food, fiber, energy and minerals. They also oppose the "radical environmental movement" for reducing the individual's right to determine land use in favor of administrative decisions. The group resulted from the merger of the American Land Foundation(ALF) and Stewards of the Range (Stewards) in 2009.