Current work in wildlife, rivers, public lands, and climate

Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Grazing Legislation a Gift to Public Lands Ranchers

Bill Prioritizes Ranching over Environment
Contact: Mark Salvo (503) 757-4221

Six Senate Republicans have introduced the “GrazingImprovement Act of 2011” (S. 1129) in Congress, a bill that would furtherentrench domestic livestock grazing on federal public lands to the detriment offish, wildlife, watersheds and other public values.

“It’s Christmas in June for public lands ranchers,” saidMark Salvo, director of the Sagebrush Sea Campaign for WildEarth Guardians. “Thisabominable bill effectively prioritizes livestock grazing above wildlife andclean water on our public lands.”

The legislation would modify grazing management on 260million acres of Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and Forest Service lands by:

• Extending the term of grazing permits and leases from ten to twenty years, thereby reducing by half the amount of environmental review a given permit may receive over two decades.

• Exempting certain permits and leases from environmental analysis under the National Environmental Policy Act.

• Allowing continued use of grazing allotments even while appeals are pending over the adequacy of the environmental analysis of the grazing permit or lease.

• Providing grazing permittees and lessees a special process to appeal adverse grazing decisions, while denying the public the same process to challenge grazing decisions that may harm the environment.

Former Secretary of theInterior Bruce Babbitt recognized livestock grazing as “the most damaging useof public land.” On grasslands, deserts and forests across the West, millionsof non-native livestock remove and trample vegetation, imperil species, damagesoil, spread invasive weeds, despoil water, deprive native wildlife of forageand shelter, accelerate desertification and even contribute to global warming.

Whilecausing extensive environmental damage, public lands ranching offers fewbenefits, even to those in the livestock business: only 3% our nation’s beefsupply comes from federal public lands and only 3% of American ranchers arefederal grazing permittees—many of whom make little to no profit despite annualfederal subsidies totaling at least $133 million annually.

Conservationistshave long advocated creating a voluntary grazing permit retirement program tocompensate ranchers for relinquishing their grazing permits and leases onpublic lands. The proposed program would be similar to the Peanut Quota BuyoutProgram and the Tobacco TransitionPayment Program.

“Public lands grazing is a dying industry and no amount ofspecial accommodations from Congress can save it from this fate,” said Salvo.“Let’s finally resolve grazing conflicts by offering voluntary grazing permitretirement to any rancher interested in retiring their permits for cash.”