Grazing in the Grass

protesting a road closure in an area with archaeological ruins, Utah              John M. Glionna/MCT

So there's this standoff going on in Oregon between a few ranchers and the feds, and for now at least, it seems to be a waiting game of sorts. It occurred to me that, while we're waiting, it might behoove those of us who are not ranchers to try to understand what's at the root of their discontent, because, as some might remember, this isn't the first time this kind of thing has happened. It seems that most of the trouble began in 1976, with the Federal Land Policy and Management Act, which mandated that, in addition to farming and grazing, federal land be open to things like environmental conservation, recreation, and energy production. The federal government owns a surprising amount of land in this country ~ about 28 percent ~ much of it in the form of national reserves, wildlife refuges, and parks. By far the majority of that land is in the West. Oregon, for example, is 52.9 percent federally owned; in Nevada, that figure is 84.9 percent (http://time.com/4167983/federal-government-land-oregon/). So do the ranchers feel hemmed-in? Well, they probably would if they couldn't graze their animals on federal land, but, Land Policy Act or not, they can. According to this article, "Livestock grazing is permitted on about 155 million acres managed by the Bureau of Land
Management and 95 million acres of U.S. Forest Service lands." Oh. So do the ranchers have to pay to use the land? Maybe the problem is that they're being charged too much. Again, according to the article, "A report by the Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan investigative arm of Congress, determined that the two agencies spent $132.5 million on their grazing programs during the 2004 fiscal year but the receipts were just $17.5 million—a difference of $115 million." A report by the Center for Biological Diversity found that the difference is even higher. And that's before one takes into account the damage that such grazing causes to the environment. Ah. So we are enlightened but remain in the dark: http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-oregon-standoff-federal-grazing-laws-20160106-story.html