Low federal grazing fees lie at heart of calls for reform
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The federal government made its annual announcement of the fee it will charge ranchers for 2008 to graze livestock on their land. Western Watersheds Project, Jon Marvel’s group, quickly heralded the low numbers that are among its strongest case in its quest to drive livestock off of 235 million acres of public lands.
The fee is set at $1.35 per animal unit month, the amount of grass it takes to feed a cow and her calf for a month. That fee, which results from a complicated formula negotiated in the Public Rangeland Improvement Act of 1978, compares to a fee of $2.36 per AUM in 1980. That 40 percent drop compares with a 78 percent increase in grazing fees on private lands, WWP reports. The fee brings in revenues that fall short of the costs of administering grazing by the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service by $115 million, according to a 2005 Government Accountability Office report.
For the BLM and the Forest Service to recover costs of administering the program, BLM and the Forest Service would have had to charge $7.64 and $12.26 per AUM, WWP said.
Ranchers rightfully argue that the administration costs include the costs of dealing with lawsuits and rangeland protection programs for endangered species and clean water. Marvel counters that those costs come from problems caused by grazing.
When I speak to college students about public land issues this issue often comes up. They share Marvel’s view that the low grazing fee is a subsidy for ranchers.
Ranchers have always disputed the issue and really hate the perception that they are subsidized. Grazing on public lands is often more expensive and certainly more complicated than grazing on private land. The rules are strict and any time they can expect WWP to come in and file lawsuits that cause them stress and money.
The last time this issue got a good Congressional airing was in the early 1990s. Western senators like Republican Larry Craig successfully staved off efforts to raise the fee using the power of the filibuster.
The state’s grazing program charges a little more but also runs at a deficit, which presents ranchers in Idaho with a similar threat. It’s just a matter of time when the issue goes national again and ranchers will have to fight for their livelihoods again.
Ranchers argue that across much of the millions of acres they graze they are the only people out there monitoring what’s going on. They report everything from range fires to illegal off-road trails to poaching and vandalism.
Their challenge is that none of these efforts are officially recognized nor parts of a larger system with clear benefits and accountability. Some reformers have suggested that over time ranchers grazing contracts are rewritten to give them clear responsibilities for monitoring range conditions, wildlife and other activities. In return they would get credits so that whatever subsidy the program has actually returns benefits to the public.
These stewardship contracts would play neither to Marvel’s agenda nor to the cattlemen necessarily. Ranchers would still run cattle on federal lands but depend as much for revenues on how many sage grouse, lush riparian areas and native sagebrush they leave and produce.
Whether Congress is ready for such a dramatic reform, let along ranchers or the environmental community, is questionable at this point. But as the fight over grazing fees returns the pressure for change will only grow.
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Livestock will come off public lands
I get out a lot into these "remote" areas on public lands that ranchers claim nobody but them sees, and it's a tragedy for anybody who cares about the land and wildlife.
What I see are streams polluted from livestock waste, vegetation eaten and trampled by livestock that should be providing cover and forage for wildlife, spread of cheatgrass/invasive weeds, etc. In other words, major degradation of our irreplaceable public lands from livestock grazing.
Raising the ridiculously low grazing fee isn't going to eliminate the livestock damage. The only way is to lower stocking rates and shorten grazing seasons for livestock, which is not going to be economically viable for most ranch operators.
As society comes to value opportunities for hunting, hiking, fishing and wildlife watching more and more, the livestock are going to be coming off the public land. The sooner ranchers recognize the inevitable, the better they can prepare.
Some type of buyout or other financial assistance should be given in the short term for ranchers who voluntarily relinquish grazing privileges on public lands. But if some ranchers continue to dig in to preserve their "way of life," let 'em get kicked off unwillingly with no compensation.
I agree that a fair hearing in Congress on the grazing program is way overdue, and would be a good first step.
Subsidized Ranching
The $1.35 per AUM is not only far too low, but half of that fee is returned to the ranchers for range improvement (water pipelines and fencing on our public lands), which only benefits the ranchers.
We also provide the ranchers with free predator control, subsidies for wool and mutton, and laws that allow them to outsource jobs to imported foreign workers at slave labor wages.
Check the Idaho Job Service listings for: Sheep Herder jobs at $750/month, requiring a three year contract and 24/7 working hours. The workers are jailed or deported if they complain about the conditions.
To get this special treatment, the ranchers must be spending a lot of time with Senator Larry Craig.
one quick note
"the fee it will charge ranchers for 2008 to graze livestock on their land."
sorry to nit-pick here Rocky, but it's OUR land ... public land ...
and for the welfare received by public lands ranchers, the public gets to pay to kill wildlife including bighorn sheep, wolves, coyotes, etc.. to say nothing of the habitat that is munched by livestock which would otherwise provide for big game including deer, elk, moose, etc... then there's the fishing opportunity lost ... etc. etc. etc.
governments are pretty good at mangling the proper accounting of public resources --- for that we are led to believe that public grazing is a solvent enterprise ~ it is not, not if the free market has anything to do with it, let alone the vibrance of habitat and wildlife unique to Idaho and diverse throughout the West, a vibrance that continues to slowly diminish each year as drainages all over the West degrade.
Livestock producers and conservationists alike should move to introduce voluntary buy-out legislation to compensate public land ranchers for permanently retiring their federal allotments --- so they can keep their private base properties and graze on them if they like, or do anything they like with the money, and do so strictly on a voluntary basis. Instead, producers are beholden to the volatile commodity markets for feed, fuel etc. that are squeezing them regardless of lawsuits. Give livestock producers in the West the dignity they deserve while giving our remaining wild places the protections they deserve ~ Voluntary Buy-Out legislation .