Federal-lands ranching: A half-century of decline

How grazing fell from its Western pedestal — and fueled Sagebrush Rebellion.

Tay Wiles and Brooke Warren
High Country News

One of the prime drivers of the 45-year-old Sagebrush Rebellion, the movement to take control of public lands from the federal government, is the sense that rural Western ranchers are bullied by forces beyond their control. That narrative remains compelling, in part because it’s true. Since the 1950s, the ranching industry has been battered by market consolidation, rising operational costs, drought and climate change. Meanwhile, the amount of grazing allowed on federal lands has dramatically fallen. Bureau of Land Management livestock authorizations dropped from over 18 million animal unit months in 1953 to about 8 million in 2014.

Political rhetoric often blames the decline entirely on environmental regulation. But while the 1970s legislative changes have had an impact, there’s a more complex set of forces at work. The market for materials like lamb and wool fell after World War II, for example. Urban development became a factor as the feds sold off land to private buyers. Feedlots proliferated, squeezing smaller ranchers out of the market, and grazing fees rose. Then the advent of range science — which aims to use a coherent scientific method to determine how much grazing the land can sustain — changed everything.

Since then, drought has forced ranchers to sell off animals that their allotments can no longer support. What was then the costliest drought in the nation’s history hit Montana, Idaho and Wyoming particularly hard in the late 1980s, causing $39 billion in damages altogether. The 2002 dry spell, which sparked what was, at the time, one of the biggest fire seasons in Western history, pushed more cattle off the land. The current dry spell has also reduced livestock numbers, particularly in California and Nevada. The effects of drought can linger for years, as ranchers labor to restock, and replacement livestock from other regions struggle, sometimes unsuccessfully, to adapt to a new landscape. And once grazing levels are down, federal agencies historically have “made a habit of not letting them go back up,” says Leisl Carr-Childers, an American West and environmental historian.

BLM and USFS early stocking rates were difficult to measure accurately, as federal policies gave ranchers the incentive to report no more and no fewer animals than they were officially permitted. Read on for a look at 50 years of grazing data, from decades of U.S. Forest Service and BLM reports.

Notes on sourcing and methodology:

• This data originated from BLM and USFS annual reports.
• BLM and USFS early stocking rates were difficult to measure accurately, as federal policies gave ranchers the incentive to report no more and no fewer animals than they were officially permitted, which may have differed from actual cattle on the range.
• Agencies first measured “actually grazed” territory in the ’50s and ’60s by trudging onto rangelands and counting cattle; because of the method’s difficulty, they later began measuring based on billed AUMs.
• Before 1977, the Forest Service measured by animal-month, so those numbers have been converted to be consistent with animal-unit-month. We followed the agency’s recommendations and multiplied the early numbers by a factor of 1.2. However, this is not an exact conversion.
• The average weight of a cow has increased since the early 20th century, which means each AUM may have a potentially higher environmental impact.
• Forest Service data for 1992 and 1999 are unavailable.

This reporting was done with support from Stanford University’s Bill Lane Center for the American West.

Obama to designate new national monuments in the California desert

By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post

President Obama has set aside more of America’s lands and waters for conservation protection than any of his predecessors, and he is preparing to do even more before he leaves office next year. The result may be one of the most expansive environmental and historic-preservation legacies in presidential history.

On Friday, Obama will designate more than 1.8 million acres of California desert for protection with the creation of three national monuments: Castle Mountains, Mojave Trails and Sand to Snow. The new monuments will connect three existing sites — Death Valley and Joshua Tree national parks and the Mojave National Preserve — to create the second-largest desert preserve in the world.

Namib-Naukluft National Park in Namibia is the largest.

Obama has unilaterally protected more than 260 million acres of America’s lands and waters under the Antiquities Act of 1906, which gives the president wide latitude to safeguard at-risk federal lands that have cultural, historic or scientific value.

The act is among the most powerful tools at any president’s disposal. Franklin D. Roosevelt invoked the law more than any president in history; Harold L. Ickes, his interior secretary, kept a pile of potential national-monument declarations in a desk and pulled them out whenever Roosevelt was in a good mood.

Obama’s aides do not have a similar system, but they share those earlier aspirations.

“We have big, big ambitions this year, so let’s see what happens,” said Christy Goldfuss, managing director of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, adding that the administration is focused on “local requests for action. It’s really been driven by activities on the ground.”

The big question: What next?

Other possible future designations include Bears Ears, a sacred site for several Native American tribes in southeastern Utah; Stonewall, the site of a 1969 inn riot by members of New York City’s gay community; the New England Coral Canyons and Seamounts; the historic headquarters of the National Woman’s Party, Sewall-Belmont House in Washington, D.C.; and Nevada’s Gold Butte, an area where rancher Cliven Bundy and his supporters have defied federal authorities.

Officials are weighing these proposals amid protests out West, such as the armed occupation of Oregon’s Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, which aimed to wrest control of federal lands from officials in Washington. The standoff may have hurt the prospects for increased protections around the state’s Owyhee Canyonlands, though the idea is not off the table entirely.

But Jim Messina, a close Obama adviser who worked on conservation issues when he served as White House deputy chief of staff in his first term, said the president is personally committed to the issue and is convinced that most Americans back the idea.

“Protecting public access is a huge political winner across the West. A bunch of extremists in Oregon can’t change it,” he said. “There’s no thought, or no reason, to back off on our agenda.”

Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.), who convinced Obama to declare a sizeable monument in Nevada’s Basin and Range Province last year, is still pressing for getting another one at Gold Butte, which is an hour’s drive from Las Vegas but has been degraded and largely unpoliced since Bundy and his armed followers confronted Bureau of Land Management officials there in 2014.

Republicans have been trying to curtail Obama’s powers to act, but in a year when several senators are up for reelection in swing states, they have fallen short. Last week, the Senate considered an amendment by Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) that would have reversed national-monument designations if Congress and lawmakers in the affected states did not explicitly approve them within three years of designation. Four Republicans — including Kelly Ayotte (N.H.) and Mark Kirk (Ill.) — broke ranks and voted against it, and it was tabled by a one-vote margin.

House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Rob Bishop (R-Utah) said in an interview Wednesday that he was not surprised at the vote’s outcome. “

Most people do not understand what Antiquities does, or can do,” he said. “At some point, we have to realize this is a process that is out of control. Whether that actually occurs before Obama leaves is irrelevant.”

The Obama administration and Bishop have starkly different readings of the law, which runs just four paragraphs. It dictates that any monument designation “shall be confined to the smallest area compatible with proper care and management of the objects to be protected,” but presidents have interpreted that broadly over the past century.

The White House has identified two main criteria for naming monuments this year, Goldfuss said: areas that help foster resilience to climate change or are “connected to people and communities that have not been historically represented” in national parks and other federal sites.

That explains new California desert designations, for which Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) has been seeking protection for seven years. David Lamfrom, who directs the National Parks Conservation Association’s California desert and national wildlife programs, said connecting the ecosystem across nearly 10 million acres will help species with large ranges, such as bighorn sheep and mountain lions, as well as imperiled desert tortoises and ones that are taking refuge at higher altitudes where there is more moisture.

The idea is “to link together these large landscapes in perpetuity,” Lamfrom said, so species can migrate and have the best chance of survival in the face of human pressures.

Five members — the Navajo Nation, the Hopi Tribe, the Ute Indian Tribe, the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe and the Pueblo of Zuni — have created the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition to press for a monument on roughly 1.9 million acres in of Utah that were once inhabited by the Anasazi and, later, the Navajo.

Eric Descheenie, who co-chairs the coalition and serves as executive staff assistant to the Navajo Nation president, said: “We’ve had the looting and grave robbing and destruction of sacred sites,” even as several tribes have continued to gather medicinal herbs and berries, haul wood, hunt and conduct religious ceremonies there.

In some instances, Republican lawmakers have offered their own vision of how to protect these areas, but bipartisan agreements have proven elusive. Rep. Paul Cook (R-Calif.) has introduced a California desert bill that would put more than 1.2 million acres in the region off limits to development, but it would bar the use of the Antiquities Act, open up 100,000 acres of new mining in Mojave Trails and sanction off-road vehicle use in some areas.

It is less clear what Obama will do in federal waters, where nearly of the strict protections are in the central Pacific. There are a group of Hawaiians lobbying the president to expand Papahanaumokuakea — a monument George W. Bush created a decade ago, whose islands and atolls are home to 1,750 marine species found nowhere else on Earth — to the full extent under the law. That would make it 520,000 square miles, or nine times its current size.

“Some people here are working here to provide the president with a legacy opportunity,” said William Aila Jr., looking down from a rocky outcropping in Oahu as two endangered Hawaiian monk seals nestled below. “It would be the largest marine protected area for a long, long time. It would be almost impossible to top it.”

Utah protesters prepare for new face-off with feds

In this 2010 photo, Bureau of Land Management staffer Tom Heinlein puts a "No vehicles" placard at the trail head of Recapture Canyon near Blanding, Utah. (Leah Hogsten / Salt Lake Tribune)

by John M. Glionna
Los Angeles Times

This eye-blink of a town in the state’s scenic southeastern corner bills itself as the “Gateway to Adventure.” But this weekend it promises to be more like a launchpad for civil unrest.

A band of angry citizens plans to ride all-terrain vehicles onto closed-off, federally managed public land Saturday in protest against the federal Bureau of Land Management, which many say has unfairly closed off a prized area, cheating residents of outdoor recreation.

The ride, organized by San Juan County Commissioner Phil Lyman, is a gambit to assert county sovereignty over Recapture Canyon, known for its archaeological ruins, that BLM officials say has been jeopardized from overuse. The canyon was closed to motor vehicles in 2007, the agency said, after two men forged an illegal seven-mile trail. Hikers and those on horseback are still allowed there.

Lyman and his supporters want the BLM to act more quickly on a years-old request for a public right-of-way through the area. “You can’t just arbitrarily shut down a road in San Juan County,” he said. “If you can do that and get away with it, what else can you do?”

The revolt has received national attention, coming at the heels of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy’s successful standoff last month against the BLM that suggests a rising battle across the West over states’ rights on federally managed public lands. Tensions rose in Utah this week after two men pointed a gun at a BLM employee on a highway.

The Blanding protest is being spearheaded not by any citizen rancher like Bundy, but rather by an outspoken local public official — a sign of the growing frustrations in a rural county composed of nearly 90% public lands managed by the BLM. As a result, locals say, they have long been shut out of land-use decisions that that intimately affect their lives and economy.

Many say the Nevada incident and the Blanding protest are both reminiscent of the 1970s Sagebrush Rebellion, in which communities across the West decried what they called the overreaching power of the federal government.

In recent years, conservative lawmakers in several Western states have renewed the call for greater state and local control of federal lands — many describing the federal government as an occupying force.

Lyman says he has a right to represent his local constituency against outside agitators, including the federal government. And he enjoys widespread support here.

“I think more than 80% of the people in this town stand behind his cause,” said 33-year resident Jill Bayles, a retired nurse who said she misses driving her ATV in Recapture Canyon.

“I won’t be at the protest because my back hurts, but if it didn’t, I’d be out there on my ATV, leading the charge,” she said. “People here are just tired of the Park Service and BLM telling us what to do.”

Environmental groups have spoken out in support of the BLM, saying that fragile Recapture Canyon must be protected. In a statement issued Friday, the Wilderness Society called for the area “to remain closed to motorized use so its valuable natural, cultural and historic resources can be protected.”

This week, BLM officials notified Lyman that any illegal foray in the area would bring consequences such as citations and arrest. “I strongly urge you to cancel the proposed ride in the closed portion of the canyon,” Lance Porter, the agency’s local district manager in Moab, wrote in a hand-delivered letter. “BLM will seek all appropriate civil and criminal penalties against anyone who participates in the proposed ride.”

Lyman quickly responded with a letter saying that the ride was still on and that local resentment of federal officials here had not cooled: “I do not consider my protest, or the protest of those who choose to participate on May 10, to be in violation of the law.”

Many across the West are watching to see what happens in Recapture Canyon.

Earlier this week, two men wearing hooded sweatshirts brandished a handgun at a BLM worker driving an agency vehicle, holding up a sign that read, “You need to die.” BLM workers have since been advised to take precautions such as not wearing their uniforms, and the agency issued a statement saying threats against its employees “will not be tolerated.”

The protest comes just a month after Bundy successfully took on the BLM over his claims to graze hundreds of cattle on public land without paying fees. In that incident, the federal government backed down after raiding the rancher’s land — pushed back by the arrival of hundreds of so-called citizen soldiers, many armed with semiautomatic weapons.

Officials said the retreat came after they feared bloodshed.

Lyman’s protest was planned long before the Bundy incident, but now militia who rallied to help Bundy are expected to converge in this town of 3,500 residents settled a century ago by Mormon missionaries.

In recent days, many militia members have left camps near the Bundy ranch 80 miles north of Las Vegas to make the nearly 500-mile drive to Blanding.

“There aren’t as many men here as there were a few days ago,” Bundy’s wife, Carol, told The Times. “Many of them have gone up to Utah.’

Asked whether they would be armed, she said, “They’re militia! Of course they’re carrying their weapons.”

On Friday, Stephen Dean, a 46-year-old Salt Lake City artist and self-proclaimed militiaman, sat in his van at a park where a protest rally was scheduled for the evening. “I drove up from the Bundy ranch today to show my support for local people here for access to public lands,” he said, an American flag flying from his radio antenna.

He said he was a member of a Utah militia group known as the People’s United Mobile Armed Services. “Cliven told me there was another cause up here,” he said. “I’m from Utah, so this is important to me.”

On the militia group’s Facebook page, Dean posted a message that said, “This could be the next big story as the ATV loving locals team with Militia groups to recapture Recapture Canyon.”

He added: “The pro-ATV dude at the grocery store said ‘it could get ugly really fast.’” He closed the post with, “Arm yourselves!”

Later that night, he set up a microphone and tried to solicit funds from 75 people who had arrived to hear Lyman speak.

When Lyman arrived, he was perturbed that his rally had been commandeered by a militia he didn’t invite. “This is my crowd,” he told a reporter. “But I don’t just want to get up and push them out of the way.”

Later, he walked up to the microphone and asked Dean: “Who are you, anyway?”

He then told the crowd that he and other protesters planned to ride their ATVs onto federal land in the morning. “This isn’t political; this isn’t economic. This is just who we are,” he said to applause.

“If you make a rule that I have to lick your boots, I’m just not going to do that,” he added. “I’ve tried to work with these federal people and have spent a lot of time on my knees. But sometimes you just have to stand up for yourselves.”

Meanwhile, officials have urged calm.

“I hope we can continue to use civil dialogue in matter because nobody wants to see people get hurt,” Kathleen Clarke, who was a BLM director from 2001 to 2006, told The Times. “A big show of force and a showdown at the OK Corral is just not helpful. We don’t want that kind of standoff.”

She added: “it’s never a good thing when you have one group of armed Americans lined up against another.”

In Nevada, a rancher wages a lonesome fight over land

Cliven Bundy's family has been running cattle on unforgiving land since the 1880s, and he vows to do 'whatever it takes' to fend off federal government claims.

Cliven D. Bundy's cattle make their way across the Virgin River on some of Bundy's 150 square miles of property in Bunkerville, Nev.

By John M. Glionna
Los Angeles Times

BUNKERVILLE, Nev. — Squinting into the morning light, Cliven Bundy lifted the brim of his western hat and watched his youngest son, who sat silently in the saddle of a mixed-breed horse he named Turbo.

At 15, Arden Bundy is cowboy sturdy, a trusted ranch hand on the family spread 100 miles north of Las Vegas. He wears dusty boots with bloodstains on his chaps from calf-roping escapades. He also has the cowpoke pose down cold: the knowing slouch, right thumb hooked into his oversized belt buckle.

The 67-year-old Bundy, a father of 14, said the boy reminds him of himself, his own father and grandfather — generations of Bundys who have ranched and muscled this unforgiving landscape along the Virgin River since the 1880s.

"He's a real cowboy," he said of Arden, his only child still living at the ranch. "Those bloodstains could be from the cattle, his horse or even him. I want him to run this ranch one day. He's the one I'm fighting for."

Bundy believes big government is trying to sabotage his plans to one day hand over the ranch's reins to his son, by stripping Bundy of land-use rights his family spent a century earning. He says overregulation has already driven scores of fellow ranchers out of business in sprawling Clark County, leaving him as the last man standing.

For two decades, Bundy has waged a one-man range war with federal officials over his cattle's grazing on 150 square miles of scrub desert overseen by the Bureau of Land Management. Since 1993, he's refused to pay BLM grazing fees. He claims he "fired the BLM," vowing not to give one dime to an agency that's plotting his demise. The back fees exceed $300,000, he said.

Now a showdown looms, one with a hint of possible violence.

Video: Last man standing

Officials say Bundy and his son are illegally running cattle in the 500,000-acre Gold Butte area, a habitat of the protected desert tortoise. In July, U.S. District Judge Lloyd D. George ruled that if Bundy did not remove his cattle by Aug. 23, they could be seized by the BLM.

That hasn't happened — yet — and the rancher insists his cattle aren't going anywhere. He acknowledges that he keeps firearms at his ranch and has vowed to do "whatever it takes" to defend his animals from seizure.

"I've got to protect my property," Bundy said as Arden steered several cattle inside an elongated pen. "If people come to monkey with what's mine, I'll call the county sheriff. If that don't work, I'll gather my friends and kids and we'll try to stop it. I abide by all state laws. But I abide by almost zero federal laws."

The face-off is the second time Bundy has challenged federal officials. In 1998, a federal judge issued a permanent injunction against the white-haired rancher, ordering his cattle off the land.

Representing himself, Bundy lost his appeal to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. A simple man in a plaid shirt and denims, he's handled his legal battle from his Nevada ranch house, arguing in mailed-off court filings that his Mormon ancestors worked the land long before the BLM was even formed, giving him rights that predate federal involvement.

Despite the court order, he refused to pull one head of cattle off BLM land. "At first I said, 'No,'" he said, "then I said, 'Hell, no.'"

His defiance led to visits by Department of Homeland Security officials and local sheriff's deputies, who interviewed Bundy's neighbors to determine any possible threat. But the BLM took little public action — until this summer.

The case is the latest flourish of the civil disobedience popularized during the 1970s Sagebrush Rebellion, a movement that sought greater local control in 12 Western states where the federal government administers 60% of the land. In Nevada, the BLM manages 87% of the state's land.

Experts say antigovernment clashes at Idaho's Ruby Ridge and Waco, Texas, are the modern chapters of an old Western story.

"It's the 18th century mind-set that the sweat off your brow determines your ability to survive, not the government," said Jeffrey Richardson, a historian at the Autry National Center in Los Angeles. "But the notion of the great pioneer has been slowly chipped away by barbed wire and government regulation."

Bending to federal will is hard for independents like Bundy, Richardson added: "If a family has worked for generations to shape the land to their needs, it's difficult. These people have long thrived in difficult territory."

Others say Bundy's rugged individualism is misguided. "The reality is this is public land, and that means something," said Paul Starrs, a geography professor at the University of Nevada at Reno. "He's part of a long chain and he's entitled to feel oppressed. But that doesn't mean he's right."

Clark County Sheriff Doug Gillespie visited the rancher last year but has resisted enforcing federal deadlines, declining to put his deputies in danger over a herd of cattle. Gillespie called Bundy recently with the names of a few lawyers to contact. "I don't know if he's looking out for me or trying to protect his own skin," Bundy said. "But I told him he needs to defend my life, liberty and property."

Bundy's supporters include Clark County Commissioner Tom Collins, who doesn't buy the BLM's argument that it's trying to protect the desert tortoise. "The U.S. government has perpetrated a bigger fraud on people over those tortoises than Al Capone did selling swampland in Miami," he said.

Collins added that Nevada officials were studying whether to petition the federal government for local control over a wide swath of land that includes the area Bundy is fighting over.

"Cliven doesn't want to be a martyr — the guy who shot it out with the feds, Waco-style," he said. "I just hope the government isn't stupid enough to go pick a fight with him."

Bundy and Arden recently sat at the kitchen table, eating bacon and sourdough pancakes coated with heavy cream and peaches, before heading out to repair their irrigation equipment on public land. Bundy admitted his own spread runs to just 160 acres, far less than he needs to keep 500 head of cattle alive.

But he said his improvements, including 100 wells his family dug from beneath the desert scrub, have bettered the land. He says the federal plan to close off the area for the sake of the tortoises will ban not just his cattle but the general public from land with natural beauty that should be enjoyed.

He shook his head: And all over a tortoise.

Carol Bundy said her husband is not a violent man, just a person who will protect what he owns. For that matter, so is she. "I've got a shotgun," she said. "It's loaded. And I know how to use it. We're ready to do what we have to do, but we'd rather win this in the court of public opinion."

Grabbing another fistful of bacon, Arden said he wants to be part of any upcoming battle. His mother smiled. "Arden doesn't know life any other way," she said. "We've been fighting this war before he was born."

The 10th-grader said most students respect his buckaroo persona. "Others think I'm a joke," he said. "But I don't care what anyone says. This is the life I want to lead. I'm a cowboy and always will be."

He has plans for the Bundy ranch and wants to attend technical school so he can fix his own equipment. For now, he gets up at 5 a.m. to finish his chores before school, although he'd rather stay all day right there at the ranch, by his father's side.

While Bundy may be ready to hand over the ranch, Arden still knows who's boss.

Before heading out in the old pickup that Bundy has run 200,000 miles across the Nevada desert, Arden asked his dad a question.

"When we gettin' back?"

The old man sat silent.

"When we get back."

Bills keep pushing federal land transfer

BLM Geologist Doug Powell makes his way through a rock garden of "Hoodoo's in the Escalante Grandstaircase National Monument east of Kanab. (Hartmann/photo)

By Brian Maffly
The Salt Lake Tribune

A Senate panel on Monday advanced a joint resolution that presses the Utah governor and congressional delegation "to exert their utmost abilities" to convince the federal government to hand over 30 million acres of public lands to the state.

SJR13 seeks to speed the implementation of last year’s Transfer of Public Lands Act, which envisions the state acquiring most of the federal land within its borders by the end of next year. But even its backers concede this might take a legal battle, but one they say is worth fighting, especially if other Western states join the struggle to "take back" public lands.

"This action, if taken by the federal government, will allow Utah to provide for the education of its children, grow its economy and job opportunities, and provide for responsible management of the state’s abundant natural resources while preserving the important historic and cultural contributions that Utah’s public lands provide the citizens of Utah, the nation, and the world," the resolution claims.

The federal act that enabled Utah’s statehood in 1896 "promised" public lands would be disposed of but the feds have reneged on the deal, according to sponsor Sen. Aaron Osmond, R-South Jordan, who addressed the Senate Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment Committee Monday. The panel passed the bill onto the full Senate on a 3-0 vote.

The panel’s lone Democrat, Sen. Jim Dabakis, of Salt Lake City, volunteered to work with Osmond to reword his resolution to make it less confrontational and critical of the federal government.

"The approach we tried [with the Public Lands Transfer Act] and you are trying to reinforce isn’t working. I wonder it it’s time to put some of the arrows aside and go back to Washington with a new attitude," Dabakis said. "Let’s see if we can roll up our sleeves and create some peace here."

For months, conservationists have been panning the proposed transfer as an unconstitutional land grab that would cost Utah taxpayers dearly, both in terms of litigation and administering the land itself. Their biggest concern is the land would be sold off, but backers say the intention is to keep the land public and do a better job managing it than the feds have done.

"This is something Utah has been asking for nicely for decades. It’s time to demand. Other states are standing with us," said Rep. Ken Ivory, R-West Jordan,addressing another land-transfer bill on Friday.

Awaiting action on the House floor is HB142, which would authorize the Public Lands Policy Coordinating Office to further study how best to accomplish the transfer. This effort will cost up to $450,000, according to a fiscal note.

Western States Tell Washington To Get Off Their Lawns

Editorial
Investors Business Daily

Energy: Lawmakers in resource-rich Western states have had enough of Washington's meddling and are moving to take the federal grip off their lands. Their actions could positively impact gasoline prices.

It seems a new Sagebrush Rebellion is brewing. Last week, Utah Gov. Gary Herbert signed legislation that demands the federal government return 30 million acres to the state by 2014. National parks, military installations and Indian lands would not be part of the return.

Utah is out in front, but it is not alone. Lawmakers in the Arizona Senate have passed a bill similar to Utah's while the legislatures in Colorado, Idaho, Montana and New Mexico are reportedly following Salt Lake City's lead.

The movement is particularly relevant because in President Obama's feeble attempt to deflect blame for rising gasoline prices, he has repeatedly claimed that oil production has increased during his term. But what he has failed to mention is that the expansion has been on private lands. Production on federal land has fallen since he took office, due to his restrictive policies.

With Washington out of the way, the oil-rich states of New Mexico, Colorado, Utah and Montana can unlock their resources that have been trapped by Washington, which itself is captive to radical environmental interests.

The most recent Sagebrush Rebellion began in the 1970s when Western states tried to break Washington's tight control over public lands within their borders. While running for the White House in 1980, Ronald Reagan told supporters at a stop in Salt Lake City to "count me in as a rebel."

The rebels had a legitimate grievance. But the movement didn't net much. Washington still owns wide swaths of the West. (See map.) Among the Western states, only in Montana (29.9%) does the federal government own less than 30% of the land.

Today's rebellion through legislation might not fare much better, as Washington will likely ignore the Utah law as well as any others that might be passed and signed. At least until the courts order it to comply.

As unlikely as it seems, the Western states might have a case. Washington owns only small pieces of states east of the Rockies, while it owns big chunks of those to the west, and it has broken its promise to return land to the Western states as it has the others. The federal government has clearly discriminated against the Western states.

Even if the federal government only partially lost its land-baron status in the West, the states would ramp up their energy production on the tracts that would be back under their stewardship. That would mean economic growth, a spike in jobs and increased government revenue in those states.

It would mean relief at the pump, as well, as the markets would respond by lowering prices in anticipation of a growing supply.

Of course the bulk of the relief would be a few years away. But there are steps the administration could take now that would lower gasoline prices before summer.

The White House is handcuffed, however, just like most of the political class, by the always irrational environmentalist lobby.

In Utah, a move to seize federal land

The state House passes a bill allowing the use of eminent domain to take protected land from the federal government. Utah wants to develop a stretch outside Arches National Park and other areas.

By Nicholas Riccardi
Los Angeles Times

Reporting from Salt Lake City - Long frustrated by Washington's control over much of their state, Utah legislators are proposing a novel way to deal with federal land -- seize it and develop it.

The Utah House of Representatives last week passed a bill allowing the state to use eminent domain to take land the federal government owns and has long protected from development.

The state wants to develop three hotly contested areas -- national forest land in the Wasatch Mountains north of Salt Lake City, land in a proposed wilderness area in the red rock southwestern corner of the state, and a stretch of desert outside of Arches National Park that the Obama administration has declared off-limits to oil and gas development.

Supporters argue that provisions in the legislation that granted Utah statehood allow it to make such a land grab. They also hope to spark a showdown in the Supreme Court that would rearrange the balance of power between states and the federal government.

Some legal experts say the effort is unlikely to succeed, but Republican state Rep. Chris Herrod, one of the authors of the bill, said the state had little choice.

"I love America, and I'm a peaceful guy," Herrod said, "but the only real option we have is rebellion, which I don't believe in, and the courts."

The eminent domain proposal is among the most audacious yet in a state accustomed to heated battles over the two-thirds of its land owned by the federal government.

This is the state, after all, where local officials bulldozed their own roads through Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, tore down signs barring off-roading in Canyonlands National Park and, with funding from the statehouse, spent years unsuccessfully defending those actions in federal court.

The eminent domain proposal quickly drew scorn from environmental groups.

"This is an ideological fantasy," said Scott Groene, executive director of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance in Moab. "Everybody knows this isn't going to happen. The federal public lands are the thing that makes the American West so great."

The proposal is one of a host in statehouses nationwide that show a deep discontent with federal authority. Eight legislatures have passed resolutions asserting, to various degrees, the sovereignty of their states.

In Utah, a dozen measures have been introduced since January that defy the federal government. It has reached such a pitch that the House's Democratic leader last week complained that Republicans were spending too much time on such proposals.

The most aggressive efforts are generally by conservative groups, but Michael Boldin of the 10th Amendment Center in Los Angeles -- named for the constitutional clause that some contend limits federal power over states -- said that states' rights were also being cited by liberals in support of state proposals to legalize marijuana and gay marriage.

In the Intermountain West, particularly in rural areas, residents have long complained that federal preservation of land has prevented development that could provide reliable jobs and bolster the tax base.

Last week, a Utah congressman warned that the Obama administration was plotting to create two national monuments in the state, and Republican Gov. Gary Herbert announced that he would meet with Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to urge him to reconsider.

The administration said the hullabaloo was sparked by a memo identifying areas that could be protected at some point in the future, not imminently.

A spokeswoman said Herbert supported the concept of the eminent domain proposal but was unsure whether it would survive a legal challenge. The bill's authors contend they can rely on the legislation that brought Utah into the union in 1896, which they read as requiring the federal government to sell its land in the state and give Utah a 5% cut.

The legislators want to seize and open two roads through national forest land that the federal government closed. This would allow access to state land that they hope to sell to developers to build high-end cabins.

A third area would be more provocative: a swath of federal land outside Arches National Park where the George W. Bush administration, on the eve of the 2008 election, authorized oil and gas exploration. The Obama administration reversed the decision.

Legal experts contend that the federal government is under no obligation to sell its land in Utah and that no state could successfully seize federal property.

"It flies in the face of history and is also inconsistent as a point of law," said Bob Keiter, a law professor at the University of Utah.

Keiter and others argue that the move illustrates a pattern in recent Western history -- a conservative backlash to the election of a Democratic president. After Jimmy Carter was elected in 1976, the movement known as the Sagebrush Rebellion helped lock up the West for the GOP and put Ronald Reagan in the White House.

President Clinton faced a similar backlash, aggravated by his creation before the 1996 presidential election of Grand Staircase-Escalante Monument.

"Utah has this history of grand conservation gains," Groene said. "Every time it happens it triggers this anger. And 20 years later we always look back and agree that conservation was a wise idea."

OHV enthusiasts rally at the Capitol

By KEVIN ASHBY and RICHARD SHAW
Emery County Progress

More than 400 off-road-vehicle enthusiasts gathered on the steps of the Utah Capitol Feb. 6 in support of the state's stance on the multiple use of public lands - both state and federal - within its boundaries.

"This shows a great grass-roots effort," Lt. Gov. Gary Herbert said of the gathering. "Let your voice be heard. Energize coalitions, and understand the policies governing the land. We are supportive of public use, a balanced use, including agriculture, natural resources and recreation. No one should be excluded."

Herbert said, people opposed to multiple use are demanding good science be used in determining the state's policy on land use. "Sound science counts in my opinion," he said. "And this science shows that we can be good stewards and still use the public lands." Herbert said there is a high demand for off-road-vehicle use but that access is shrinking.

"We have got to find a way to work with the new administration," he said. "United voices can make things happen. We have to find solutions and make multiple use a win-win situation. We want to be engaged in the process."

Most of those attending the rally were supportive of off-road recreation in the state. One enthusiast suggested that if the governor wanted to be involved in the process maybe he should take a trail ride with someone from the assembled group rather than with members of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance.

SUWA supports initiatives to permanently protect the Colorado Plateau wild places advocating wilderness preservation. They claim to be the only independent organization working full-time to defend America's redrock wilderness from oil and gas development, unnecessary road construction, rampant off-road vehicle use and other threats to Utah's wilderness-quality lands.

Several of the elected officials present at the rally spoke about the actions of Tim DeChristopher, the University of Utah student who monkey-wrenched the BLMs Dec. 19 oil-and-gas-lease auction. The student was quoted as saying he never had any intention to pay the lease money and encouraged civil disobedience by other environmental activists to further their cause.

DeChristopher's actions, they said, have had a negative affect on Utah's schools and health departments.

"This (leasing) is an important source of money for our kids," said Dennis Stowell, Sen-R, District 28. "We need leases, property access and a good multi-use land policy to make this work."

A letter drafted to the governor's office from the county commissioners in San Juan County was read calling for enforcing the rules of law when dealing with DeChristopher.

Bradley Last, Rep-R, District 71, told the group that lease money does impact education in Utah and that nobody loves Utah's public lands like Utahns. "We know the land, and we will take care of it so that we all can use it in the future," he said.

Officials from Kane County told the group they will continue their RS2477 road identification fight that benefits all Utahns concerning road ownership across federal lands.

David Clark, Rep-R, District 74, said he supports Kane County officials and that legislators need to plan the pathway to turn things around for the state's multiple use land policy.

"When rights are taken away, it impacts everyone," he said.

Kevin VanTassell, Sen-R, District 26, told the group the state receives $.51 per acre from the federal government to rent the federal lands in Utah. He said access to the state's school trust lands is crucial.

"If we can't access our lands and develop the resources there, our education budgets will be impacted negatively," he stated.

Ralph Okerlund, Sen-R, District 24, said Utahns can't speculate on the future.

"We need to ensure our future and that comes from having access to federal lands and responsibly developing the resources found there," said Okerlund.

Karl Malone, former Utah Jazz player, made a surprise appearance at the rally, and he received cheers when he showed his support for land use.

"No way will they kick us off what we own," Malone said. He also promised all the support he could give.

"The state's multi-use vision is a three-legged stool," Herbert said, speaking of using the land in Utah to support agriculture, natural resources and recreation.

"A united voice can make things happen so that solutions can be found."

Mike Noel, state representative from District 72 that represents Kane County, one of the areas that has been spearheading RS-2477 right-of-way fights was one of the leading speakers at the rally along with Mike Swenson from USA-ALL. He suggested that maybe the rural parts of the state need to go back to the 1970-80s in combating what has been going on with road closures.

"We have the right to these lands and we shouldn't be shut out of them," he stated. "In fact I am right now proclaiming that this is the beginning of Sagebrush Rebellion number two in Utah."

The Sagebrush Rebellion was a political movement that had its roots in the 1960s and continued up through the 1990s when interests for open land openly fought with environmentalists and government control of federal land.

A number of people from Eastern Utah attended the rally, with signs and calls for keeping multiple use lands, multiple use.

This year's rally was a far cry from the one USA-ALL tried to orchestrate last year when only about 25 people showed up. Riding and land use clubs from all over the state were represented at the rally.

Like their cattle on BLM land, family of ranchers stands firm

Bureau of Land Management workers restore plants that had been damaged by the prohibited practice of cattle grazing in Nevada’s Gold Butte area. Courtesy of the BLM

By Phoebe Sweet
Las Vegas Sun

Don’t let the 1,000-pound weight difference fool you — burrowing desert tortoise and plodding cattle are both big grazers.

They both eat tender new shoots of wildflowers and grasses.

That’s why advocates for the tortoise say keeping cattle out of officially designated critical tortoise habitat, including parts of the proposed Gold Butte National Conservation Area, is so important.

Try telling that to the Bundy family, organic-melon farmers and cattle ranchers who have been grazing herds on federal land in the area since the late 1800s. The Bundys, led by family patriarch Cliven Bundy, have been back and forth – and in and out of court – with the Bureau of Land Management over their cattle for a decade and a half, according to records obtained under a Freedom of Information Act request by the Center for Biological Diversity.

Bundy admits he has cattle roaming free on federal land. But he claims to have forage and access rights to land in the Gold Butte area and own range improvements there.

According to BLM records that were part of the request, however, all of Bundy’s rights have been terminated.

The Bundy family is one of a handful of Nevada ranching families whose cattle might still trespass on federal land. They’re throwbacks to the Sagebrush Rebellion, whose members wanted state and local governments to take control of federal lands in several Western states.

“These cases, some of them, have been going on for decades,” said JoLynn Worley, BLM spokeswoman. Although most of the cases have been resolved over time, she said, Bundy’s has not.

As Rob Mrowka, public lands conservation advocate for the Center for Biological Diversity, sees it, the law is clear and the cattle should have been cleared out of Gold Butte long ago. Because they compete with the tortoise for food in an unforgiving desert, “the tortoises are being put at risk when the law ... says they shouldn’t.”

The cattle aren’t just a problem for the tortoises, though. They’re also setting back efforts to restore and replant areas of Gold Butte scorched by 2005 wildfires, said Angie Lara, the BLM’s Las Vegas Field Office manager. The cows trample and feed on the tender young plants the BLM has planted in the fire-ravaged areas.

That, in turn, sets the area up for future wildfires, by priming the ground for highly flammable, nonnative grasses, Kirsten Cannon, a spokeswoman for the BLM, said.

“The concern is that as native plants are reestablishing themselves, the soil is especially delicate,” she said. “The crust is rebroken and it offers an opportunity for invasive species to come back in.”

Nevada ranchers hold about 700 legal livestock grazing permits with the BLM in the state.

But the Bundys lost the right to graze cattle in the area in the early ’90s after they stopped paying grazing permit fees, according to records. About the same time, Clark County bought up the rest of the grazing rights in the area to create a safe home for the tortoise. But since then, the BLM has documented cattle there bearing the Bundy brand on numerous occasions.

Many of the cattle grazing today have no brands, which makes it impossible to prove they’re Bundy cattle, according to the BLM.

Officials might just want to ask Bundy, however. He told the Sun about two dozen of his cattle are roaming free in the adjacent Lake Mead National Recreation Area, where they are also prohibited from grazing.

But no matter who owns the cattle tromping around Gold Butte or how they got there, they need to be removed from Gold Butte, various federal agencies and conservation groups agree.

But the BLM’s Las Vegas Field Office manager said it isn’t as simple as just rounding up the cattle and auctioning them off. The BLM is working with several state and federal agencies, including the National Park Service, which oversees the Lake Mead National Recreation Area, to figure out how to get the cattle out of tortoise territory.

Bundy said that if the BLM attempts to remove the cattle he will contact the sheriff, and we could have an old-fashioned range war stand-off on our hands.

EDITORIAL: At the time, they said he was crazy

Government loses case involving late Nevada rancher

Opinion
Las Vegas Review-Journal

Wayne Hage and his wife, former U.S. Rep. Helen Chenoweth-Hage of Idaho

Back in the 1980s, it became an article of faith among well-meaning "environmentalists" that grazing cattle on arid Western lands serves to "destroy fragile ecosystems."

Western ranchers presented evidence that desert plants developed in an ecosystem that needs large ungulate grazers to churn their seeds into the soil, to fertilize wetlands, to carry moisture into arid valleys and thus benefit tortoise populations -- which is why more tortoises are found on grazed land than ungrazed.

The ranchers argued that grazing prevents the buildup of excess tinder that can make range fires more frequent and severe, that game species profit from the ranchers' water improvements and efforts at predator control.

The forces seeking to remove mankind from the land scoffed at such arguments. They canceled grazing "permits" left and right.

The U.S. Forest Service ordered that Nevada rancher and private property rights advocate Wayne Hage, in one example, could use "only hand tools" to trim back trees clogging the canals that had brought water to his 125-year-old, 700,000-acre Pine Creek Ranch in central Nevada.

In 1991, Wayne Hage sued. On Friday, U.S. Court of Federal Claims Judge Loren A. Smith ruled Mr. Hage was right, and the Forest Service was wrong.

The judge awarded more than $4.2 million to the plaintiffs, ruling the U.S. Forest Service committed an unconstitutional "taking" of his water rights during their decades-long dispute over livestock grazing.

Judge Smith also ordered the government to pay back interest to the family of a man considered one of the leaders of the 1980s "Sagebrush Rebellion" -- an additional $4.4 million. And the government is also ordered to pay the Hage family's legal costs -- another $4 million.

"The hand tools requirement prevented all effective ditch maintenance, as it cannot be seriously argued that the work normally done by caterpillars and back hoes could be accomplished with hand tools over thousands of acres," the judge wrote. The implementation of the hand tools requirement "was based solely on hostility to plaintiffs," the judge ruled.

"It sends a pretty important message to the government that if you screw with a small ranching family and put them out of business, you have to pay big bucks," exults Lyman "Ladd" Bedford, a San Francisco-based lawyer who has argued the case since Hage first filed his lawsuit, 17 years ago.

Does it?

It would be nice to ask Mr. Hage whether he feels vindicated. We can't. He's dead.

The 17-year federal lawsuit took longer to prevail than either Mr. Hage -- who died in 2006 -- or his widow, the late former U.S. Rep. Helen Chenoweth-Hage of Idaho, could wait.

And while $4 million or $8 million sounds like a lot of money, they're notably smaller sums than that $28 million Mr. Hage sought -- and that was in 1991 dollars.

That leads Cliven Bundy -- the last active cattle rancher in Clark County, who has fought his own battles with federal bureaucrats trying to drive him and his cattle off the Mesquite allotment by challenging both his grazing and his water rights -- to question just how big a "win" Friday's ruling really is.

"I don't think he gained anything there," said Mr. Bundy Tuesday afternoon. "I think they just stole his water for a cheap price."

Mr. Hage's daughter, Ramona Morrison, is more optimistic.

"Whether it's a permanent or a temporary taking is not clear" -- a matter that may be cleared up in a post-trial conference Friday, says Mrs. Morrison. "At the time, Dad was told he was crazy to try and do this, so to come out with this kind of a ruling after all this time, while we were not surprised that there was compensation, is quite remarkable. ... Dad plowed a trail through 6 feet of snow with this case."

Nevada rancher wins property rights award

Forest Service took
his water rights,
judge says



Associated Press
Los Angeles Times




E. Wayne Hage 1936–2006

RENO, NEV. -- A federal judge has awarded more than $4.2 million to the estate of late Nevada rancher and private property rights advocate Wayne Hage, ruling that the U.S. Forest Service committed a constitutional "taking" of his water rights during a decades-long dispute over livestock grazing on federal land.

Calling the conflict a "drama worthy of a tragic opera and heroic characters," U.S. Court of Federal Claims Judge Loren A. Smith also ordered the government to pay back interest to the family of one of the leaders of the so-called "Sagebrush Rebellion" during the 1980s.

Hage's lawyer estimates the interest dating to 1991 to be an additional $4.4 million, which he said would make it the largest award ever in such a case.

"It sends a pretty important message to the government that if you screw with a small ranching family and put them out of business, you have to pay big bucks," said Lyman "Ladd" Bedford, a San Francisco-based lawyer who has argued the case since Hage first filed a lawsuit against the Forest Service in 1991.

Smith, based in Washington D.C., ruled that government restrictions severely reducing water flows to Hage's land "deprived them of the water they needed for irrigation, making the ranch unviable."

"The court finds the government's actions had a severe economic impact on plaintiffs and the governments' actions rose to the level of a taking," he said in Friday's ruling.

"Whereas real property ownership is defined by a right to exclude others from that property, water ownership is defined by the right to access and use that water."

Like in similar cases in the past, the judge said the cancellation of Hage's federal grazing permit as a result of overgrazing and trespassing did not in itself amount to a "taking" prohibited under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. That's because a grazing permit is "a license, not a contract or property interest," he said.

However, Smith said the taking occurred when the Forest Service -- apparently motivated by "hostility" toward Hage -- made it impossible for him to maintain the irrigation ditches.

The ditches were regulated under the 1866 Ditch Act, which was enacted one year after the Pine Creek Ranch was founded in central Nevada. They brought water to the sprawling 7,000-acre ranch in central Nevada that Hage bought in 1978 and the 700,000 acres of national forest land where he grazed his cattle -- an area equal to about two-thirds of the size of Rhode Island.

Ed Monnig, supervisor of the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest, said Tuesday there had been no decision made yet on whether to appeal.

"We're aware of Friday's court decision and our agency is now considering the implications of this ruling and carefully weighing options," Monnig said.

Hage, who was married to the late U.S. Idaho Rep. Helen Chenoweth-Hage at the time of his death in 2006, first filed a claim seeking $28 million in 1991. He said in an interview in 2004 that his case "could have a dramatic impact on Western state's rights and the proper jurisdiction of federal lands in the West."

"It's the first time in nearly a century that someone has effectively challenged the government over who owns the range rights and water rights out here on these federal lands," he told The Associated Press.

Hage had argued the proliferation of willows, pinion, juniper and other vegetation in the ditches over the years resulted in a significant reduction in the flow of water to his pastures. He said that was primarily because of the Forest Service's demand that he maintain the ditches using nothing more than hand tools.

"Extensive evidence has convinced the court that but for the government actions plaintiffs would have had the water in which they had a vested right," the judge wrote.

Western wildfires stir embers of 'Sagebrush Rebellion

Officials call for more grazing on federal land

By John Miller
ASSOCIATED PRESS

BOISE, Idaho – Wildfires in several western states have stirred embers of the “Sagebrush Rebellion,” as ranchers and politicians have criticized federal agencies, the courts and environmentalists over policies they say are contributing to the fires.

In July 2006, then-Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., told federal firefighters they'd done a “piss-poor job” on an eastern Montana blaze. He called Boise a ridiculous site from which to coordinate national firefighting strategy at the National Interagency Fire Center.

This year, Nevada's Republican Gov. Jim Gibbons and U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., claimed environmental groups and federal bureaucracy have contributed to fires, including one at Lake Tahoe that burned more than 250 homes.

And this week, Idaho Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter, a rancher, and the state's two senators, Larry Craig and Mike Crapo, joined ranchers in blaming federal safety rules for crippling early efforts to douse a 1,000-square-mile wildfire near the town of Murphy Hot Springs.

The criticism hearkens back to the Sagebrush Rebellion of the 1970s and '80s, when a coalition of mining and grazing interests pressured federal policymakers to cede greater control of federal lands to state and local authorities. Fire seasons often result in a resurgence of such criticism among Westerners, many of whom have spent generations on the land and bristle at being told what to do by the courts or government.

“There is and has been and probably always will be friction between a sovereign state and the federal government, in a state (like Idaho) where the federal government owns two-thirds of the land,” said Idaho Lt. Gov. Jim Risch, a rancher and lawyer. “It's always there, it's always under the surface, and it's something that's a fact of the geography.”

This week, Republicans Otter, Craig and Crapo laid out a litany of complaints: When a July 16 lightning storm rolled through Idaho and Nevada's remote border country, locals with bulldozers stood ready to help build fire lines – only to be told by Bureau of Land Management officials to stay put.

And they blame a 2005 federal court ruling in a lawsuit brought by the Idaho-based environmental group Western Watersheds Project for reducing cattle grazing and allowing fuel buildup, conditions they contend fed the flames that burned an area the size of Rhode Island and cost $9 million to fight.

“The current (federal) management practices helped contribute to this devastation,” Craig said.

Otter demanded a suspension of federal rules governing the circumstances under which firefighting equipment can be deployed, including a requirement that qualified bulldozer supervisors be present to coordinate safety and fire communication.

“For lack of a decision going forward, we lost 700,000 acres,” Otter said.

But environmental groups say the ranchers and politicians want to exploit the fires to expand cattle grazing land, and that allowing that to happen would reduce habitat for species such as sage grouse.

“Ranchers have a sense of entitlement, and it comes in some ways from being able to push the BLM around in the past,” said Katie Fite of the Western Watersheds Project, which aims to end grazing on public lands in the region. “All of a sudden, there's somebody that's not letting them run over the BLM and letting them put more cows out there.”

Singling out grazing reductions as the major cause of the fire near Murphy Hot Springs obscures the complexity of the situation, said BLM spokesman Barry Rose. Years of drought, climate change, high temperatures and other factors, coupled with a storm that in 24 hours blanketed the landscape with 2,600 documented lightning strikes, created an environment where wildfire could spread out of control, he said.

Rose said it's unrealistic to believe that a fire as intense as the one near Murphy Hot Springs could have been stopped cold: The initial flames were 13 feet high and moving at 8½ mph – faster than the 2 to 3 miles of fire line that can be constructed by a bulldozer in an hour.

“People have gotten hurt and killed doing it on their own,” he said.

With the quickly expanding populations in many Western states, these conflicts are likely to continue, especially if wildfires keep their current pace. Wildfires burned nearly 10 million acres last year, a record. Halfway through 2007, 4.92 million acres have burned.