  The next-to-leading order (NLO) corrections to the BFKL equation in the BLM
optimal scale setting are briefly discussed. A striking feature of the BLM
approach is rather weak Q^2-dependence of the Pomeron intercept, which might
indicate an approximate conformal symmetry of the equation. An application of
the NLO BFKL resummation for the virtual gamma-gamma total cross section shows
a good agreement with recent L3 data at the CERN LEP2.
