  Recent concerns about the very large next-to-leading logarithmic (NLL)
corrections to the BFKL equation are addressed by the introduction of a
physical rapidity-separation parameter $\Delta$. At the leading logarithm (LL)
this parameter enforces the constraint that successive emitted gluons have a
minimum separation in rapidity, $y_{i+1}-y_i>\Delta$. The most significant
effect is to reduce the BFKL Pomeron intercept from the standard result as
$\Delta$ is increased from 0 (standard BFKL). At NLL this $\Delta$-dependence
is compensated by a modification of the BFKL kernel, such that the total
dependence on $\Delta$ is formally next-to-next-to-leading logarithmic. In this
formulation, as long as $\Delta\gtrsim2.2$ (for $\alpha_{s}=0.15$): (i) the NLL
BFKL pomeron intercept is stable with respect to variations of $\Delta$, and
(ii) the NLL correction is small compared to the LL result. Implications for
the applicability of the BFKL resummation to phenomenology are considered.
