Policy and Legislation

Grazing Regulations Roll-back Progress, Threaten Public Lands

In Brief: Despite a court ruling, the progress made over the last decade in regulating livestock grazing on our public lands may be lost.

In response to the Bush administration’s proposed changes in the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) grazing policies, The Federal District Court for the District of Idaho issued a preliminary injunction, prohibiting the BLM from installing those portions of the grazing policy that eliminate public participation in grazing decisions. In their original state, the proposed changes would roll back significant progress the BLM has made over the past ten years to reform livestock grazing on our public lands.

These changes were initially proposed in December 2003, and a final Environmental Impact Statement was made available to the public on June 17, 2005, eight months after it was originally completed. After adopting comments from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and other agencies into an Addendum to the FEIS, the BLM issued its Final Rule and Record of Decision (ROD) on July 12, 2006 to adopt the proposed changes effective August 11, 2006. 

Cattle grazing along the San Pedro River in Arizona in 1984 (top). Cattle were removed from this site in 1988; by 1998, much of the riparian vegetation was restored (bottom).

Photos by Bureau of Land Management

Unfortunately, these new regulations are intended to meet the BLM's stated goal of "improving BLM's working relationships with ranchers," instead of what the agency is directed to do: manage our public lands for wildlife, water, and environmental quality.

The regulations give new rights to the livestock industry, while making it harder for the average citizen to participate in how the agency decides to manage its lands.

The following is a brief list of just some of the many damaging aspects of the new regulations:

• Exclude the public from participating in grazing decisions

While the Idaho Court issued a preliminary injunction against this portion of the regulations, the threat to exclude the public from grazing decisions will remain until the new regulations are dropped or revised. The regulations attempt to cut the public out of important grazing decisions and virtually eliminate BLM's obligation to notify and consult with the public about its on-the-ground grazing decisions.

The administration claims that citizens are already consulted when BLM conducts environmental assessments of its grazing decisions. However, these assessments are infamously backlogged due to a lack of effort on behalf of the BLM, which has obtained a five-year exemption from conducting environmental analysis when renewing grazing permits from Congress.

These revisions will no longer require the BLM to consult with the public on several key issues, including designating and adjusting allotment boundaries, renewing and issuing grazing permits and leases, modifying permits or leases, or issuing temporary permits or leases. This means that citizens will no longer be informed or have opportunity to participate in important management decisions regarding our public lands.

• Obstruct BLM's ability to remedy abusive grazing

The regulations seek to require the BLM to conduct monitoring and data collection before implementing needed changes to damaging grazing practices that fail to meet rangeland health standards. This will no doubt make it harder to stop destructive grazing practices. In many cases the abuse is obvious, yet the BLM will be required to perform years of monitoring and data collection -- for which it does not have the staff or the funds.

This untenable monitoring requirement proposed by the Bush Administration attempts to guarantee that the BLM will be slowed down in trying to determine whether action should be taken to halt or improve unsustainable grazing. Nearly a decade ago, the BLM eliminated a rule requiring the agency to spend years monitoring and collecting data on range conditions before determining that grazing was damaging federal lands, wildlife, and other resources. As a result, the agency allowed grazing abuses to continue. The BLM's new regulations reinstate this environmentally damaging rule.

• Double the one-year time limit BLM has to begin to remedy damaging grazing

In addition, if a remedy requires a 10 percent or greater reduction in grazing, the proposed rules seek to require that the reductions be phased in over five years. Abusive grazing will be fixed and any attempt to remedy such damage will be constrained.

• Limit the conditions under which a grazing permit may be revoked

While the existing regulations allow the BLM to suspend a grazing permit if a rancher violates federal laws, the proposed rules seek to limit the BLM's ability to recognize violations of those laws if the violation occurred on the rancher's BLM allotment. For example, if a rancher kills or harms an endangered species, or destroys archaeological resources anywhere else, the BLM will be prohibited from taking any action on the rancher's grazing permit.

• Give ranchers ownership of so-called "range improvements" and water rights

The Bush administration's proposal seeks to give livestock owners clear title to permanent rangeland installations such as wells, fences, and pipelines. This proposal could lead livestock owners to claim that their private property has been impinged on by environmentally protective actions ordered by federal land managers. The result could be that land managers will be increasingly unwilling to take actions that livestock owners could interpret as "takings" of their property.

Fortunately, the Idaho Court’s preliminary injunction against the public exclusions represent an important first step in defeating these harmful grazing regulations.