Grazing the West

Saturday, February 10, 2007
CounterPunch; USDA Forest Service News Release

Read the full article: http://www.fs.fed.us/news/2007/releases/02/grazing-fee.shtml

The primary source of the pollution of that water is from the thousand tons of cow manure released into it every day. Grazing allotments cover 82% of the 320 million acres the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) control in the Western U.S. More than 250,000 miles of ranching roads crisscross these public lands, along with an estimated 300,000 to 500,000 miles of fencing which obstructs wildlife migration routes. Wildlife Services (formerly called Animal Damage Control, a program of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, tracks, traps, poisons, gases or shoots more than two million birds and 135,000 mammals every year, including more than 80,000 coyotes last year. Native species are also at risk from lethal diseases transmitted by cattle and sheep. "The livestock industry is the last wildlife-genocide program in the United States," states St. Clair.

Only about one-half of 1% of people living in the West hold permits to Forest Service and BLM lands. Ranching on federal lands provides about one dollar of every $2,500 of income received by Westerners. St. Clair explains: "...the vast majority of grazing allotments reside with a small fraction of permittees, including some of the richest families in America, multinational corporations, regional utilities, media celebrities (such as Sam Donaldson), and several politicians." He contends that grazing subsidies may exceed a billion dollars annually, and refers to ranching subsidies as "an untouchable form of [social] welfare." St. Clair states: "...take away the subsidies, the nearly free forage, the roads, the even cheaper water that magically appears from nowhere in the middle of the high desert, the tax breaks, predator control, abeyances from environmental standards and disproportionate political clout when any thing else goes against him, such as drought, rangefires, bad investments. Then charge them for the gruesome externalities of their "avocation" and then see how many stick around for the hardscrabble lifestyle that remains. Federal subsidies and political protection are the velcro for most of these guys." The essay details political machinations that have shaped public lands policy since the Clinton administration, and introduces the Larkspur Rebellion: "a growing contingent of hardcore environmentalists...calling for radical changes in federal rangeland policy."

The Bush administration has announced it is lowering the monthly cost of grazing cattle on federal land from $1.56 to $1.35 per cow/calf, effective March 1st. This is the lowest allowable fee, and is based on the value of public lands grazing in 1966. According to the Center for Biological Diversity, the federal government loses an estimated $123 million to over $500 million per year on its grazing program.