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Preface - Introduction - CHAPTERS: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10 - 11 - 12
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Chapter 7
WELFARE RANCHING

 

Although cattle grazing in the West has polluted more water, eroded more topsoil, killed more fish, displaced more wildlife, and destroyed more vegetation than any other land use, the American public pays ranchers to do it.

--Ted Williams, "He's Going to Have an Accident" (Williams 1991)

The environmental consequences discussed in the first part of this book by themselves more than justify ending public lands ranching. But, adding insult to injury, we the people are forced to subsidize this plunder. That's right; piles of our tax and private dollars allow the ranching establishment to overgraze our land and develop it for ranching. By exploiting America's fondness for cow meat and cow boys, fostering a healthy public image, exercising its overwhelming political might, and simply maintaining the status quo for more than a century, stockmen have stuck us with the bill -- without our consent or even our knowledge.

As has been detailed, ranchers, government and private entities have been working together for decades to convert our public land into profitable livestock ranches. Despite millions of range developments, they have not been successful; public land remains inherently "a lousy place to raise livestock." Federal studies show that even though the average grazing allotment size per rancher is about 12,000 acres, only about 5% of permittees have herds large enough -- about 500 head of cattle -- to provide sole support for a family (Luorna 1986). However, perhaps most of these large operators are businesses, not families; most of those that are families are wealthy independent of their public ranching .operations; and both businesses and families derive most of their livestock feed frompfivate land.

They perpetuate a land abuse system -- often called welfare ranching -- that eats up billions of tax and private dollars. In fact, in terms of net production public lands ranching is among the most heavily subsidized businesses in America. All levels of government give liberally, from federal to state to county, and even some cities, as do many private entities, willingly or not. Most stockmen themselves admit that most public lands ranching operations would collapse without this artificial support structure. What does this say for an industry whose members boast of self-sufficiency and resourcefulness? According to Steve Johnson, as Southwest Representative for Defenders of Wildlife, "The popular conception of the rancher as a rugged individualist is strikingly at odds with reality." Tom France of the National Wildlife Federation maintains that "Grazing is as close to a pork-barrel issue as the West gets."

Payments to the agriculture industry are called subsidies. In the urban sector, subsidies are called welfare.

--Harvey Duncan, Hanna, Wyoming

Cattle ranching on the public lands of the American West is the most sacred form of public welfare in the United States.

--Edward Abbey

Welfare ranching has become a way of life for the 22,000 Western BLM and Forest Service permittees, as well as most of the 8000 or so stockmen on other Western federaL state, and county lands. This tiny minority -- whose public ranching domain encompasses 41% of the West -- lives well off the liberal generosity of the rest of us 250 million Americans. Partly for this reason, partly because only the wealthy can afford to buy public lands ranches, users of public grazing land are the nation's largest and wealthiest livestock operators. For example, despite the fact that merely 3% of this country's cattle feed comes from public land, an incredible 900/c of all US cattlemen owning 1000 or more cattle hold public grazing permits. (Ferguson 1983)

At the same time, a large percentage of those who graze public land run their operations at a subsistence level or as a secondary business, that is, as a tax write-off or source of extra income that will never fold with endless subsidization. Like other public ranchers, these "ranchers" pay minuscule grazing fees, almost no property taxes on their private land, and are kept in "business" with openhanded government and private technical, material, and financial assistance. They include numerous and powerful politicos, businessmen, and corporations such as Union Oil, Getty Oil, Texaco, Phelps Dodge, and Anheiser-Busch, along with investment partnerships, feedlot operators, agribusiness companies, railroads, land speculators, foreign investors, doctors, lawyers, actors, and whoever else has half a million bucks or so to slap down on a public lands ranch.

Also included are more than a few underworld figures. They find ranches perfect "front" businesses — comfortable and isolated strongholds where they may engage in criminal activity unhampered or, if necessary, "lie low" until things 11cool off on the outside." A case in point is a large Forest Service ranching operation down the road from where my family and I lived in southwest New Mexico; it was known to locals as a hideout for the Mafia, including in the past the underworld dignitary Al Capone.

With an indomitable line-up like this, is it any wonder welfare ranching continues unchecked?

They lease the land for less than market value; the mortgage value of the right-to-lease is a lucrative source of capital; and for some of then; the entire operation is a tar w7ite-off. They complain that they have a "bad deal"because of agency meddling and neglect. On the other hand, they make large campaign contributions to assure they get to keep their bad deal.

--Jim Fish, Director, New Meidco BLM Wilderness Coalition

The government and private sectors subsidize public graziers in innumerable ways. Much is given openly in the form of ranching-assistance efforts. These most direct subsidies include low grazing fees, range developments, and ranching administration, and total roughly $100 million annually. In an article by columnist Jack Anderson, Oklahoma Representative Mike Synar states that if Congress decided to grant these subsidies to all US livestock producers, based on the fact that federal lands ranchers represent less than 2% of US livestock producers, the subsidy (not including low grazing fees) would cost taxpayers more than $2 billion annually. Including low grazing fees, the figure would surpass $7 billion.

However, a vastly greater amount is subsidized indirectly, in multitudinous ways often having little apparent connection to ranching. Consequently, it is impossible to compile precise subsidy information on public lands ranching; no government agency nor private entity I am aware of compiles such records. For example, through hundreds of federal/state/county/private funded Agricultural Extension Service offices, public lands ranchers receive millions of dollars worth of assistance annually; because accounting does not distinguish between beneficiaries, no one has any idea how many millions. Extension Service agents I spoke with would not venture even a rough guess. Other indirect subsidies include range "restoration" projects, university range programs, range experimental stations, research and testing programs, federal wool incentive payments, livestock disease and parasite control, and much, much more.

Of the money the public unknowingly spends on public lands ranching each year, how much is intentionally hidden and how much simply reflects tradition/status quo must necessarily remain a matter of debate and subjective analysis. For instance, state fish and game departments commonly design "wildlife enhancement" projects that benefit livestock interests as much, if not more. Exactly what percent is actuaJly designed for ranching is anyone's guess.

In any event, 20 years of observation have left no doubt in my mind that government agencies habitually mislead the public about ranching subsidies. Facts and figures are juggled and misinterpreted; assessments are distorted; hidden costs and ill-defined projects are buried in obscure government reports; range developments, activities, and their effects are not made public or are misrepresented.

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More than for any other public land user, subsidization for ranching comes in disguise, concealed under labels such as "riparian enhancement," "soil conservation," "range research," "fire prevention," "type conversion," "wildlife water development," "cooperative management," "aesthetic enhancement," "open range," "access improvement," "watershed seeding," and dozens of others. These shrewd euphemisms are used to draw more dollars into the ranching trough without public or legislative interference. Known as "institutionalized ripoff," it has become even more prevalent in recent years as multiple use mandates force the agencies to increasingly conceal subsidies from scrutiny.

This subsidization system is protected by an unwritten policy that absolves the ranching establishment from accountability for its influences. Thus, for example, when one of Oregon's fuiest trout streams, the Donner and Blitzen River, was virtually destroyed by overgrazing, BLM expressed concern but said it could do nothing until "wildlife funds" were appropriated to fence cattle out (Ferguson 1983).

This covert policy operates at even the most basic level. A Forest Service district ranger picks up a dozen salt blocks at the local feed store "as a favor" for an influential rancher. A BLM range specialist helps Rancher Jones round up stock under guise of "checking out the range conditions." A state range manager can get a stockman friend "a good deal on a cattle guard for your new fence ... maybe even get it for nothing if we play our cards right." Government employees spend time chasing cattle and sheep out of unauthorized areas, closing gates, and mending broken or cut fences, rather than insisting that the ranchers responsible do so.

These little stories are day-to-day reality on the Western range; I've seen them all and more. There are, of course, many conscientious agency employees. Still, much covert, mutual back-scratching is prevalent between government officials and stockmen. Both realize that they have a good thing going at the public's expense, so why jeopardize it by letting the public find out?

In sum, government "range" (ranching) expenditure statistics are only the tip of the public lands ranching fiscal iceberg. Total tax and private expenditures are not only many times higher, but cannot be accurately measured. Nevertheless, we can study available information, read between the lines, scrape off some of the crap, and try to get a better look. The remainder of this chapter makes that attempt.

Those who receive special benefits and services from the federalgovernmentshould be the ones to bear the costs ofthese services, not the general taxpayers.

--President Ronald Reagan, "hobby" rancher

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Grazing Fees

"That's right, cousin," the ringtail answered, "The ranchers around here rent this land from the US Government for almost nothing. And most of them treat it as if it's not worth a dime! They put too many cows on the land, trying to raise as much beef to sell as they possibly cam You can't blame them, I guess, if the Government lets them get away with it. "

--Gerry Bishop "Adventures of Ranger Rick," Ranger Rick (March 1985)

The low price of grazing fees on public lands is probably the longest-running scandal in the West.

--JJ. Casserly, "Financial Farce of US Grazing Fees," 4-4-85 Arizona Republic

A grazing fee is a periodic assessment charged ranchers for the privilege of grazing livestock on public land. Over the years federal, state, county, and city governments have used a great variety of parameters in determining the price to be charged. Because BLM, FS, and most other government agency grazing fees -- even at their highest level -- have rarely exceeded 1/3 of fair market value, they are the most conspicuous form of welfare to public lands ranchers.

During the initial decades of Western ranching, stockmen paid nothing to graze their animals unrestricted on public land. Conversely, unlike today they received few government subsidies, other than political, legislative, and judicial favoritism.

Subsidies increased gradually in the late 1800s, and when the Forest Service was established in 1905 it felt justified in unimposing a 5-cent-per-AUM grazing fee on the newly designated FS grazing permittees. (Different FS areas had different base values; 5 cents was the average fee charged.) The new fee, which went into effect in 1906, was defined by the Forest Service as "reasonable," though it didn't even cover administrative costs; $0.05/AUM was equivalent to about $0.80/AUM in today's dollar, or only a small fraction of what the herbage would have been worth on the private market.

Nevertheless, many ranchers labeled the new fee "outrageous." Through their political power structure they pressured Forest Service Director Gifford Pinchot and President Teddy Roosevelt to revoke the grazing fee. When the two wouldn't budge, the ranching-enamored Congress retaliated by drafting a bill to withdraw presidential authority to create National Forests in several Western states. Roosevelt quickly designated 16 million acres of new National Forests in those states, and then signed the bin into law. The industry raged against the Forest Service and filed a lawsuit, though to no avail.

FS grazing fees remained extremely low, fluctuating between $0.03 and $0.15/AUM until 1940. The Forest Service had apparently learned its lesson, for when in 1920 the House Committee on Agriculture tried to increase fees up to 300% (from the existing $0.13/AUM average), the agency opposed the attempt.

On the other hand, several government agencies, some of the public, and many private stockmen complained that Forest Service permittees were being unfairly subsidized with low grazing fees. Subsequently, a comprehensive study, the Rachford Appraisal, was conducted from 1920-24 to "provide a basis for fair and justifiable fees." Per the Rachford report, grazing fees were, beginning in 1924, to be annually appraised relative to livestock prices. Stockmen again objected and deferred the new fees for 4 years. In 1928 the new fee system was finally implemented, but it did not significantly raise the grazing fee. In fact, the fee was actually decreased dramatically, to $0.07-$0.09/AUM, in the early 1930s due, ostensibly, to the Great Depression.

If we charge no fee it would amount to a government subsidy, and a government subsidy is always subject to scrutiny, criticism and investigation. You stockmen set some fair fee... we will want fees for our own protection.

--FR. Carpenter, first Director of the Division of Grazing

In 1934 powerful cattle ranchers pushed through the Taylor Grazing Act and created the Division of Grazing, which became the Grazing Service in 1939 and, combined with the General Land Office, the Bureau of Land Management in 1946. During its first year of operation the Division of Grazing charged no grazing fee. Thereafter, until 1946, it charged the same $0.05/AUM fee as did the early Forest Service, ostensibly based on administrative costs.

For 2 main reasons early FS and BLM grazing fees were set only at token levels. First, as mentioned earlier, public lands ranchers were the major formulators of both of these agencies, and subsequently they exerted much control over their operation. Second, low fees made it much more likely that disgruntled ranchers would cooperate with the new federal grazing programs.

Of course, as with the Forest Service fee, the $0.05/AUM BLM fee never covered even the cost of range administration. So during the mid-1940s a coalition of agency, political, and private interests made the first serious attempt to raise the Grazing Service fee. It was promptly crushed by the ranching colossus. In fact, the Grazing Service was punished for its involvement; its budget was slashed by 50%, its range staff was reduced from 250 to less than 50 and, in 1946, it was eliminated altogether and replaced with the Bureau of Land Management. Consequently, the new BLM was so short on funds its first year that grazing "advisory" boards allotted range "improvement" funds to help pay range salaries (Foss 1960).

However, pressure to raise the BLM grazing fee continued, and in 1947 a fee study and recommendation, the Nicolson Plan, was formulated. Under its authority, the fee finally was raised -- to $0.08/AUM, where it stayed until 1950. This fee likewise failed to recover administrative costs, and in 1951 and 1955 BLM officials convinced permittees that other nominal increases were needed to partially compensate for increased administrative costs and inflation. After all, how could ranching subsidies be implemented without funding?

The Western ranching interests did not want to pay fees representing the true value of the forage, and they were particularly desirous not to have any principle established under which grazingfees would ever be related to the value of forage.

--Wesley Calef, Private Grazing and Public Lands (Calef 1960)

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But even these increases scarcely kept pace with inflation, and everyone knew that federal grazing fees were still embarrassingly low. In 1954 BLM's "cost of administration" concept was abandoned and the method for determining the grazing fee was changed to reflect the going price of beef and mutton at Western markets. Consequently, the 1955 BLM fee was raised to a whopping $0.15/AUM. Since then BLM has gradually increased the fee in response to market trends, inflation, and pressure from US budget officials. Forest Service fees since 1928 rose similarly. In 1980 BLM and FS grazing fees peaked at $2.36/AUM and $2.41/AUM respectively -- still less than 1/3 fair market value -- after which the 2 agencies began charging the same fee.

Meanwhile, Congress passed the Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA) of 1976. FLPMA established a policy to "receive fair market value of the use of the public lands and their resources unless otherwise provided for by statute." Two years later, Congress enacted on a temporary 7-year basis the possible statutory exemption mentioned in FLPMA. This statute, the Public Rangelands Improvement Act (PRIA), contained a formula for setting grazing fees. PRIA provided that during the 7-year experimental period the Departments of Agriculture and Interior were to evaluate the fee and other options, then recommend fees for 1986 and beyond. (Com. on Govt. Oper. 1986) The resulting study, Grazing Fee Review and Evaluation (which cost the Departments $4 million to conduct) showed clearly that the fees charged for grazing federal land were far below those charged for private land (USDA, FS and USDI, BLM 1986).

THE PRIA GRAZING FEE FORMULA

(from Grazing Fee Review and Evaluation -

USDA, FS and USDI, BILM 1986)

BASIS OF FORMULA:

The PRIA formula consists of a base value of $1.23 per AUM that is updated annually through a series of indexes that measure changes in the private grazing land lease rates, the price of beef cattle, and the costs of livestock production. The base period for the indexes is 1964 to 1968. The PRIA formula is:

Where:

CF

Calculated fee (CF) = $1.23 x FVI + BCPl - PPI

100

The Calculated Fee to be charged, which Congress defined as fair market value, which is the estimated economic value of livestock grazing to the user, and where annual increases or decreases in the fee are limited to a plus or minus 25% of the previous year's fee.

$1.23 = The base value established in 1966 through the Western

Livestock Industry Survey (WLIS).

FVI The Forage Value index, an index of annually surveyed

private land lease rates, 1964-1968 = 100.

BCPI The Beef Cattle Price Index, an index of USDA annually

reported prices of beef cattle over 500 pounds, 1964

1968 = 100.

PPI The PRIA Prices Paid Index, indexed prices that

producers of livestock pay for selected production

items, 1964-1968 = 100.

Subsequently, since 1978 the annual federal grazing fee has been calculated according to the PRIA formula, which multiplied the number of AUMs a rancher uses by a predetermined rate based on changes in private grazing land base rates, beef cattle prices, and livestock production costs. These estimated production costs are based on numerous factors, such as prices of ranching supplies, fuel, rentals, repairs, new equipment, utilities, insurance, etc. They are set at arbitrarily high levels, rather than on what ranchers actually pay. Livestock losses to predators, poison plants, drought, and so on are treated essentially as deductions, and ranchers commonly inflate these estimates. The PRIA formula itself is likewise loaded, arbitrary, hypothetical, and confusing, with its base rates, price indexes, weighted averages, alternative bases, and so on. PRIA was created by the public lands ranching establishment to assure low grazing fees.

In short, the revenue collected from ranchers for public allotment grazing is computed by multiplying the total number of AUMs used times the PRIA grazing fee formula: AUMs X PRIA formula = grazing fee. This means that a stockman, corporation, or cattle or sheep company is charged a grazing fee based on "ability to pay" and not as a competitive, commercial enterprise using public land. This sliding grazing fee formula is similar to the ability-to-pay fee formulas used in many government welfare programs. Thus, when beef prices fell and production costs rose in the mid-1980s, the federal grazing fee was reduced to $1.35$1.40/AUM for 5 years straight.

When the PRIA formula expired in 1985, Congress did not renew it. Instead, in February of that year, in a slick move that infuriated many reform advocates, rancher Ronald Reagan rode to the rescue and (while vacationing at his California ranch) promulgated an executive order directing the Secretaries of Agriculture and Interior (at their advisal) to permanently adopt the PRIA fee formula -- contrary to initial proposals by the White House Office of Management and Budget to increase the fee. Both Secretaries promptly did so, with a new provision that established a floor of $1.35/AUM. Consequently, the federal grazing fee remained $1.35/AUM through 1987. BLM spokesperson Joe Zilincar stated that without the minimum, the grazing fee would have dropped below $1.00/AUM.

The agencies accepted their marching orders despite their own 1986 report, Grazing Fee Review and Evaluation, which appraised the average market value of federal lands grazing at $6.65/AUM in 1983 (USDA, FS and USDI, BLM 1986). President Reagan's executive order conflicts with the spirit of FLPMA to "receive fair market value of the use of public lands and their resources" (Com. on Govt. Oper. 1986).

In 1987 a group of Congresspersons led by Oklahoma Representative Mike Synar (a private land cattle rancher) introduced legislation that would have raised the grazing fee from the then-current $1.35/AUM to $9.00/AUM, and that would have appropriated 25% of fee revenue to help restore degraded riparian areas. The ranching political establishment reduced this proposal by half in committee and then killed it when it reached the Senate floor.

In 1988, several factors -- Synar's bill, public pressure, revelations about public lands ranching's economic and environmental impacts, and increasing inflation of beef prices -- combined to raise the grazing fee by 14%, to $1.54/AUM.

Also in 1988, the Natural Resources Defense Council and 8 other conservation organizations sued the federal government (NRDC v. Hodel) in an attempt to force it to raise the grazing fee to fair market value. The ranching industry again flexed its mighty muscles. One of its chief legal collaborators, Mountain States Legal Foundation, intervened in the case and the court ruled that the grazing fee did not violate any relevant statutes and, instead, that it fell under the broad authority of the Secretaries of the Interior and Agriculture.

In 1989, under the same influences described above, the federal grazing fee was raised 17% to $1.86/AUM. Much of the media, playing up the "poor, noble rancher," portrayed these 2 small increases as "drastic." Because the fee had always been extremely low, that is how it seemed to some people. In fact, however, the fee could have been raised 400% and still not have reached fair market value! According to the California Wilderness Coalition, real estate appraisers conservatively calculate that the increase to $1.86/AUM brought the fee up to only 20%-29% of the market value of federal grazing privileges.

Moreover, USDA in 1989 predicted that the federal grazing fee is likely to remain at this low level for many years. In 1990 its projection got a good start when the grazing fee was reduced 5 cents to $1.81/AUM, ostensibly in response to increasing production costs. However, beef prices currently are near an all-time high; when they drop the grazing fee probably will decrease even further. In other words, the huge gap between the federal fee and private fees will probably continue to widen.

Even if grazing fees are raised in the future, Reagan's executive order limits the increases to a maximum of 25% per year. At that rate, if the fee was raised from 1990's $1.81/AUM at the maximum each year -- an almost impossible scenario -- it would take nearly 8 years just to reach the average herbage fee paid for private rangeland. This assumes an inflation rate of zero, rather than the common 5%-10%, and the unlikely possibility that the cost of leasing private grazing will not rise.

After recent rule changes, National Forests in the East are divided into 6 grazing sub-regions, where grazing fees charged range from $0.84/AUM to $4.36/AUM in 1990. The new rules gradually phase out fixed fees and phase in competitive bidding; a "grandfather clause" allows ranchers to continue paying fixed fees until grazing permits change "ownership." So far, roughly 115 of the 1000 or so Eastern National Forest perinittees are on the competitive fee system, though they pay on the average only slightly more than those on the fixed fee system.

Another bid to raise the grazing fee occurred in 1989, when Georgia Representative George Darden introduced legislation that would have rewritten the fee formula. And the latest attempt was once again organized by Representative Synar -- an amendment tacked onto a 1990 federal appropriations bill that would have raised the fee gradually to $8.70/AUM, or approximately fair market value. Both proposals occurred in the midst of a fiscal crisis in which Congress was desperate to trim fat from the federal budget, yet both were as usual promptly squashed by the ranching establishment's political behemoth. Synar vowed he would "be back again and again until we stop cattle rancher welfare once and for all…"

 

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The federal government allows ranchers to "lease" a land expanse nine times the entire state of New York for less than the rental cost of a single office building in downtown Manhattan.

--Robin Hur, "Six Inches from Starvation" (Hur 1985)

We're pleased with the current [grazing fee] system. We have never said we want to pay less than the value of the product. We want to pay what is fair.

--Ronald Michieli, Director of Natural Resources, National Cattlemen's Association

The history of the federal grazing fee "controversy" has been extremely one-sided. Ranchers must be said to have won each and every year, for they have never paid even 1/3 fair market value, and have averaged 1/5 to 1/10 what the range was worth. By far most proposals to increase the fee have been defeated, while those nominal increases that have been allowed scarcely keep up with inflation. Fees have been reduced in response to drought, wars, and depression, and there have been at least 4 moratoriums on scheduled increases, all for various reasons. Every decade since federal grazing fees were instituted stockmen have lamented to Congress about inflation, economic downturns, rising production costs, wartime hardships, livestock surpluses, low livestock prices, predation, drought and blizzard, rustlers, poor range conditions, and any other crisis that ostensibly justified continued minuscule grazing fees. Indeed, records show that nearly every fee raise proposal in history has met a flurry of these complaints. From the tenacity of these overwhelming problems, one might get the idea that public land is not a good place to raise livestock.

Ranchers, since 1934, pay fees for their use of public hinds. Since 1966, these have been set at fair market value as determined through national studies.

--BLM

In most instances, the costs between private leases and public leases are comparable.

--Peter Decker, public lands rancher, former director of Colorado Agricultural Department

They lie.

--Mike Roselle, progressive activist

The BLM and FS grazing fee was $1.81 per AUM in 1990, while various other government agencies charge fees ranging roughly from $1/AUM to $15/AUM, with the vast majority of these AUMs going for under $3. (On federal ranges, calves graze for free until 6 months of age, and up until a year of age if they enter public land before 6 months of age, with the rancher paying only for the mother, even though calves eat forage and a lactating mother eats more [USDI, BLM 19781.)

In contrast, grazing fees on the Army's McGregor Range in southern New Mexico and the Navy's Boardman Bombing Range in northeast Oregon are determined by competitive bidding and approach fair market value. Ranchers there gladly pay an average of about $748/AUM, even though precipitation at both of these installations averages less than 10" annually. Surrounding federal grazing, of course, goes for only $1.81/AUM. Buffalo National Wildlife Refuge in Texas charges $13/AUM -- perhaps the highest federal grazing fee in the country -- and has no lack of takers. (Matteson 1989)

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In 1984 BLM and FS defined "fair market value" as "The amount that livestock owners would probably pay for the grazing use if it were offered for rent or lease in the open market" (Tittman 1984). According to the federal government's own Grazing Fee Review and Evaluation, the fair market value of the grazing privilege on federal lands was $6.65/AUM in 1983, or nearly 5 times higher than the $1.40/AUM federal grazing fee that year (USDA, FS and USDI, BLM 1986). The report also revealed that rates charged for private AUMs averaged about $7 during the early 1980s. In Sacred Cows, Denzel and Nancy Ferguson place the private lease rate at S8.83/AUM in 1983 (Ferguson 1983), while University of Colorado researchers Kerry Gee and Albert Madsen reported that government statisticians estimated -- in Agricultural Prices, USDA, Statistical Reporting Service, Washington, DC, Dec 30,1983 -that the 11 Western state average private grazing lease rate was $10.32/AUM that year (Gee 1986). Rates continued to rise in the 1980s, along with inflation. According to most estimators, private lease rates currently average roughly $8$12/AUM; $10.001AUM is probably close to average fair market value in the West.

Thus, today we find the BLM and Forest Service still selling ranching privileges for roughly 115 as much as do owners of private rangeland. Consequently, grazing fees represent only a small percentage of public ranchers' operating costs. Stockmen pay $21.72 to feed a cow on public lands herbage for a year (12 AUMs). If you have ever fed a cow, horse, pig, chickens, dog, or even a cat for a year, you'll appreciate this bargain. According to the Committee for Idaho's High Desert, "l AUM provides a total weight gain of 28 to 90 pounds per cow. At 50 cents per pound wholesale each AUM produces $14 to $45 ($168-$540/year) for the rancher."

Just as the federal government collects fees for camping in public land campgrounds, the BLM and USFS collect grazing fees from ranchers whose cattle and sheep harvest public land forage.

--Mosley, et al., Seven Popular Myths About Livestock Grazing on Public Lands (Note: The average cost for a night's camping in a federal campground would buy a public lands rancher about 4 months of public forage for his cow.)

Commercial river runners are especially distressed at the low fees charged ranchers for their grazing cattle because they, the river runners, have to pay $1.90 per person per day, which works out to around $57 per month. There is no environmental impact from these people (they pack out all their trash) yet each of them is charged 42 times more than a head of cattle that does impact the environment.

--Helene Mien, Ft. Lauderdale, Florida

The privileged few who use our rangeland for livestock are practically given the forage and browse! As reported in the Committee on Government Operations' 1986 Federal Grazing Program, "The difference in the appraised market value and actual grazing fees paid under PRIA average $75 million per year in Government revenue foregone" (Com. on Govt. Oper. 1986). If we divide this $75 million evenly among the 22,000 Western BLM and FS permittees, we find each being subsidized $3409 per year by low grazing fees alone. This aligns with a 1980 study (when grazing fees were about 10% higher) showing each permittee being subsidized approximately $3500 annually by low fees.

In fairness to taxpayers and to competitive stockmen on private land, as long as public lands ranching is allowed, herbage should be offered at the going market rate, or be sold by competitive bidding, as are leases for timber, mineral and oil, etc. Better yet would be open bidding (see Chapter XII).

In every case where the federal government puts up AUWs for bid, they bring in 4 or 5 times more than the standard fee. I'm talking about exactly the same kinds of range, the only difference being that one fee was set by Congress and the other by the free market... If it did cost so much more to graze public land, then the boys wouldn't bid those forage prices so high. But even if it did cost more to graze public land, my reaction as a cattleman is, "so what!" If it's too expensive, then don't graze it. Go somewhere else or get out of business. In any event, don't ask me as a competitor in the marketplace to subsidize your operation.

--from a letter by Lonnie Williamson of the Wildlife Management Institute to the President of the Nevada Cattleman's Association

Public lands graziers argue that the tiny fees are "fair" or even "excessive" because federal rangeland is less productive than private and the costs of maintaining fences, herding livestock, transportation, and so on therefore are higher. With brilliant reverse psychology, John Ross, Executive Vice-president of the California Cattlemen's Association says that, "Ranchers will always tell you the fees are too high, but basically the formula is a fair formula" (Hartshorn 1988). Some professional industry lackeys even recommend doing away with grazing fees altogether, as in the good ol' days. For example, a grazing fee study by John Fowler, professor of agricultural economics at New Mexico State University, concludes that grazing fees on some New Mexico state rangelands should be eliminated because ranchers can't afford them (McClellan 1985).

Few would argue against the claim that public land is generally less conducive to practical ranching than is private land. But it is ridiculous to suggest that additional production costs are 5 times as high, as many ranchers claim, or even twice as high. Indeed, an extensive study of grazing fees by the federal government in 1986 found that production costs for cattle and sheep on public land were only slightly higher than on private -- $3.28/AUM compared to $2.75/AUM for cattle and $4.53/AUM compared to $3.89/AUM for sheep (USDA, FS and USDI, BLM 1986). That's 16% and 14% higher -- not 500% -- as claimed by welfare ranchers. The study calculated that, based on comparisons with private land grazing fees, in 1986 the market value for grazing a cow on public lands was $6.40 to $9.50 per month (O'Neill 1990).

 

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At any rate, whatever expenses a public lands rancher incurs above and beyond the price of the herbage should have nothing to do with how much is charged for the herbage. Basing the grazing fee the government charges on ranchers' expenses is like a tire dealer basing the price of tires on the kinds of roads customers drive on.

Perhaps BLM PR man Joe Zilincar can set us straight. He says the grazing fee system was not set up to "return dollar for dollar. It's based on the cost of production." Since he claims that "producer" costs are far higher on public land than on private, we might ask him why public land is grazed at all. According to Zilincar, it is because "there is more public land than private land." (They don't call him "Bogus Logic Joe" for nothing.) Arizona Senator Dennis DeConcini, defending his powerful ranching constituency, expands upon Joe's twisted rationality:

Many ranchers are forced to graze Federal lands became of the lack of private lands in the West. Additionally, the conditions ofrangelands in the arid regions ofthe Southwest are very different from the private grazing regions of the East and Midwest. For these reasons, a larger land area is necessary to sustain the needs of livestock. ... I support the current [grazing feel]formula, because ranching families need to be protected.

The contention that public lands grazing fees should be kept artificially low to compensate for the higher costs of grazing public lands is a self-defeating argument. However much more it may cost to graze public land than private is just that much more reason why it makes no economic sense to graze public land in the first place. It is not logical to subsidize an unneeded business that is inherently unprofitable. The unspoken contention is that ranchers should to be kept in business artificially because they are somehow more worthy than other people of being subsidized.

Public lands ranchers certainly maintain a vast competitive advantage over their private counterparts. In fact, simply by virtue of their geographic proximity to and use of public rangeland, they enjoy numerous subsidies unavailable to the other 97% of the nation's livestock producers -- who must buy land or lease ranchland at fair market value, pay taxes, finance many or most ranching developments, and so on. Therefore, it would be in the best interest of private stockmen to demand an end to public ranching.

Though some are doing so, by far most private lands stockman remain locked into a traditional system of "cowboy camaraderie" -- self-perpetuating mutual support and machismo that require approval of all ranching, regardless of what form it takes. Further, long-time public ranching expert Steve Johnson thinks that the livestock industry uses the public lands rancher as a "hood ornament" -- an insignificant, though prominent, publicly appealing cowboy/western figurehead.

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They may not fully understand, but private lands ranchers thus hurt themselves in 2 important ways. First, they support their unfair competition. Second, and perhaps more important in the long run, they align themselves with a comparatively wasteful industry which probably will only continue to lose public support until it finally collapses. By association, the public may begin to perceive private lands ranching as little different than public (which, in environmental terms, it is). Because Western ranching has always ridden high on a platform of public sympathy, erosion of public support could well mean decline for Western private land ranching as well (no great loss to the Western economy or to the American meat supply).

F. Dale Robertson, Chief

U.S. Forest Service

U.S. Dept. of Agriculture

P.O. Box 96090

Washington, DC 20090

Nov. 6,1987

Dear Sir,

As a full-time cattleman with a lifetime of experience in this highly competitive and economically treacherous business, I am disturbed by your agency's refusal to extract full market value from leasees now grazing cattle on the public lands of the West. A decade or so ago I thought the unfair taxpayer subsidies to the West's welfare ranchers were going to be phased out, and that fair market value on leases and permits would become actual policy and practice.

I am currently paying $9/AUMfor leased grass here in south-central Oklahoma. In the past 15 years I have paid as little as $7/AUM and as high as $10/AUM. My 78 year old father can only remember a few times when grass was worth less than $2/AUM -- in the past 60 years! The $1.35 - $1.50 you are charging is offensive to every cattleman I know who is aware of this practice.

Now I'm finding out that you want to abandon the fair market value policy without evergiving it a real try. This year my 500 head of cattle on leased grass will cost $54,000 for grass alone. At the standard Forest Service rate of $1.35/AUM Iwould be paying $8,100, or $45,900 less than fair market. Mere's my subsidy money? --I want to know where to apply. Id like to know why you're giving up on fair market rates on public lands permits.

Sincerely,

David Sheegog

3SJ Land& Cattle Co.

Pauls Valley, OK

Not even bothering to go through the trouble of grazing livestock to fleece the taxpayer anymore, many permittees have taken to subleasing the herbage on "their" allotments. The permittee leases his base property, yet retains ownership of the ranch. The lessee, who then controls the base property, is treated by BLM like a permittee. The new permittee pays the federal grazing fee for the public land and pays the ranch owner an undisclosed amount for the lease itself.

Subleasing, per se, is not allowed on Forest Service land; however, FS officials say that they detect an average of 1 or 2 subleasing cases a year on each of the West's 98 National Forests (undoubtedly many more are not detected). Additionally, much illegal subleasing occurs on BLM land, and subleasing payments are concealed by confusing arrangements that defy the attempts of outsiders, including BLM, to uncover and prove. (Stein 1989) The US General Accounting Office concurs: "Unless reported by the permittee, livestock lease arrangements are difficult to identify' (USGAO 1986a).

In 1984 appraisers for both the BLM and Forest Service uncovered more than 2000 secret subleasing deals providing the original holder of the grazing permit "the opportunity to profit at the expense of the Treasury" (Com. on Govt. Oper. 1986). A recent study by Colorado State University researchers found more than 900 cattle permittees were subleasing "their" BLM allotments. Considering there are only about 19,000 BLM permittees altogether, 900 (almost 5% of the total) seems to indicate a serious problem. And one further wonders how many subleasers were not revealed.

These 900 were subleasing at an average rate of $7.76/AUM -- more than 5 times the then-current $1.35/AUM grazing fee charged by the federal government. Most of the difference went into ranchers' pockets. For example, according to the 5-11-87 Reno Gazette-Journal, multimillionaire Willard Garvey collected $120,000 rent in 1986 from a Humboldt County, Nevada rancher, while the government received only $14,587 in grazing fees for that public land. A 5-23-89 Los Angeles Times article states, "In one extreme case, a rancher along the Idaho-Oregon border reportedly paid more than $26 an AUM -- almost 20 times the government rate -- to graze cattle on a parcel that was 97% public land" (Stein 1989). This arrangement lasted 3 years, costing the rancher $18,000 annually, while the original permittee paid the government $891 annually.

BLM has "investigated" many cases of subleasing, though apparently with little intent of doing much about them. In 1984 Congress enacted legislation to recapture some of this lost government income, and instructed BLM to begin taking steps to do so. But BLM, by utilizing loopholes in its regulations, had by 1986 managed to collect only $8000 on 2 allotments accounting for the difference between $1.35/AUM and the fees actually charged, even though it had identified 633 "illegal subleases." This $8000 doesn't even cover the administrative cost to recover the funds. Failure to collect the difference on these 633 subleases alone represents a loss of government revenue of probably over $1 million. (Com. on Govt. Oper. 1986)

In the 1986 Congressional report by the Congressional Committee on Government Operations, Federal Grazing Program: All Is Not Well on the Range, the following conclusions were reached:

This insignificant amount [$8000 recaptured by BLM] is due to a narrow and questionable interpretation of the statute, delays in administrative proceedings, inadequate recordkeep in& and a "hands off" attitude toward permittees who benefit financially from these arrangements. As a result, Congress' efforts to collect for the public fair market value in, at least, those instances in which market forces yield payment of a fee greater than that paid into the Treasury have met with failure. (Com. on Govt. Oper. 1986)

Responding to the outrageous situation, an Inspector General's report stated: "One solution to the problem of subleasing, in our opinion, is an increase in the grazing fees to market value, which would eliminate most of the potential for subleasing grazing privileges at a profit."

The beneficiaries of this federal largesse [federal grazing subleasing] include the family of the head of the BLM, Robert Burford, as well as the multimillionaire businessman Willard W. Garvey, who heads a national tax protest group and opposes most other kinds of federal subsidies that don't pay off for him directly.

--9-30-87 Sacramento Bee

The federal grazing fee also creates many associated administrative problems. Generally, grazing fee bills are prepared and mailed out in advance, and permittees are supposed to pay their grazing fee charge before letting their livestock onto allotments. If bills are paid late, it is technically defined as "trespass" -- unauthorized grazing subject to penalty. However, the Inspector General's office in a 1984-85 investigation of BLM offices in Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, and Oregon estimated that roughly 60% of all grazing fee payments involved some form of delinquency. The IG reported that BLM does not vigorously follow up on delinquent bills and is failing to collect trespass charges when permittees fail to pay their fees in advance. IG found that 105 of 180 bills for 1985 grazing fees they investigated were not paid until after livestock had been placed on the allotment -- and no trespass notices were issued. Further, only 5 delinquent bills were issued. The IG conservatively estimated potential trespass fees in the 105 cases they investigated would total anywhere from $58,000 to $173,000. (Com. on Govt. Oper. 1986)

A number of other associated administrative expenses caused by permittees are not recaptured by either BLM or FS. These include duplicate billing charges where the permittee was at fault, allotment use changes where the agencies do work supposed to be done by the permittee, and inadequate service charges for replacement billing.

Who controls the land, controls wealth.

--Calvin Black, infamous San Juan County, Utah, Commissioner

It's a right. Grazing permits are bought and sold. They're recognized by the IRS. They're taxed. No one else can graze my [public] land or sell my permit but me. It's mine.

--Bob Piva, Sawtooth National Forest, Idaho, permittee (Jones 1991a)

When base properties are sold, grazing permits are waived to the government, which nearly always reissues them to the purchasers. (Occasionally permits are reissued to purchasers of allotment livestock.) In effect, it is nearly impossible to obtain a grazing permit without buying a base property. This means that because grazing fees are ridiculously low as compared to the true market value of the herbage they represent, government AUMs are sold as if they were part of private property when a ranchman sells his base property. Combined with the value represented by other subsidies, this is generally known as permit value. In their 1984 appraisal report on the fair market value of public grazing lands, the BLM and Forest Service state that "permit value can be defined as a leasehold value that accrues to the holder of the lease when contract rent is less than economic rent or fair market rent value" (Tittman 1984).

 

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Thus, a cost averaging from $400 to $1500 for each cow authorized on a federal grazing permit, or an average of about $80 per AUM, is added to the price of the deeded property when sold (Ferguson 1983). Quite often the value of the public grazing allotment permit actually exceeds the value of the deeded property, house and improvements. An increase in the grazing fee or a decrease in livestock numbers would immediately lower ranch value, so of course public lands ranchers and their banks oppose such reasonable moves.

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A typical ad for a Western public lands ranching base property, from a Utah newspaper.

I recently received a call from a realtor (a millionaire public lands rancher) who specialized in public lands ranches. A friend in Kansas had asked me to keep my eye out for a base property with a BLM and/or FS permit, for he wanted to buy it, not run livestock on the allotment for 5 years, and then challenge the government in court when the agency tried to force him to graze the allotment or tried to take the permit away and reissue it to someone else. Answering my query, the realtor told me of 4 public lands ranches for sale in southeast Arizona.

All had permits allowing the grazing of between 50 and 100 cattle on allotments yearlong, and all had extremely inflated asking prices because of it. One was merely 56 acres of deeded property not worth more than $100,000, but with 14,720 acres on a Forest Service grazing permit the asking price was $383,000. Another was only a 20 acre ranch with no house or substantial improvements thereon, yet the owner felt comfortable asking $254,000. According to the realtor, the land could not possibly have been worth more than $5000/acre, yet the owner could reasonably ask $12,700/acre simply because of the attached BLM and state land grazing permits! These examples are typical of public lands ranches around the West.

 

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Say that Rancher Bob owns 10,000 acres. His neighbor, Rancher Bill, owns only 1,000 acres but controls a grazing permit for 100, 000 acres of public land Yet, because of thepermit value, Bill might sell his property on the open market for as much as, or even more than, Bob.

--Jon R. Luoma, "Discouraging Words" (Luoma 1986)

Public lands ranchers even take out loans using permits as collateral. A 1979 survey of appraisers and loan officers in New Mexico showed that they considered Forest Service permits to be worth $944 to $1163 per animal unit and BLM permits $667 to $888 per animal unit (Ferguson 1983). Some ranchmen have taken federal agencies to court over proposed livestock reductions, contending that the government is taking "their" property (Synar 1986). Here in southern Arizona, after a man inherited a public lands ranching operation from a deceased parent, IRS taxed him on the value of the grazing permit as well as the ranch. Indeed, grazing permits are handed down through the generations like priceless family heirlooms. Obviously, both the government and private sectors consider public lands grazing permits of great value.

If low grazing fees and other forms of government assistance were not really welfare subsidies, then the grazing privilege would carry little or no market value. It would amount to little more than a permit to run a business utilizing public land, not a guarantee of permanent government assistance. As it is, when someone acquires a public lands grazing permit with a purchased deeded property, he is not so much buying the privilege of grazing publicly owned land as use of the many subsidies that go with it.

In theory, a permit values combined should represent roughly the amount the public ranching industry is subsidized over and above the private. Just for fun, let's assume that the value of each BLM and FS ranching operation is $500,000 (probably fairly accurate). With 22,000 permittees, the combined value would be $11 billion. Assuming that the average permit value was only 1/3 the value of the base property, we still find the subsidy value represented by Western grazing permits to be $3.66 billion. Because private ranching is also subsidized, however, this would represent how much more is spent on public ranching than on private -- not the total subsidy value. And, of course, this does not take into consideration other net losses to the government and public: degradation of natural resources, decreased use of public land, expenses incurred due to unfair open range laws, and so forth -- all of which could also be regarded as indirect subsidies.

The grazing fee system has other detrimental effects. Because they pay so little to use public range, many ranchers figure they might as well milk it for all it's worth. So they relentlessly pressure the agencies to maintain traditional, very high stocking rates. Because fee receipts per each animal grazed are so low, generally the agencies feel the need to maintain high numbers of livestock just to bring in whatever meager ranching income they can. However, even if livestock numbers were reduced drastically, expenditures on the government's ranching infrastructure would decrease little because most management is based on the mere presence of livestock, not their actual numbers.

Similarly, no matter how poorly ranchers run their operations, the sliding grazing fee is geared to keep them in business. Ranchers may therefore run shoddy, inefficient operations, overgraze and otherwise abuse the land, and then rely on cheap grazing to compensate. Thus, some say low grazing fees traditionally favor range abuse and further subsidization.

Throughout the history of the Taylor Act administration, only a small part of the total grazing receipts has gone ultimately into the federal treasury... Half of all receipts were to be turned over to the states in which they were collected, with the state legislatures being required to expend the monies in the counties collected. I found it a startling exemplification of the political power of the range stockmen to discover that these funds were invariably turned over to the grazing district advisory boards to be expended for range improvements ...."

--Wesley Calef, Private Grazing and Public Lands (Calef 1960)

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(Greg Pentkowski)

By authority of the Taylor Grazing Act, BLM today manages approximately 90% of its grazing land under that law's Section 3 (permits) and 10% under Section 15 (leases). Grazing fee receipts from Section 3 lands are disbursed as follows: Only 37.5% ($4.5 million in 1987) goes to the US Treasury. Some 12.5% goes back "in lieu of taxes" to the states from whence it came. Most of this small amount ($1.5 million in 1987) is used for state and county development, ($1.5 some of which benefits stockmen. Through the Range Bet, terment [sic] Fund, the remaining 50% ($5.9 million in 1987) goes back to the grazing districts from whence it came, to be allocated by grazing "advisory" boards for ranching developments. So tightly are these range "betterment" funds controlled by the "advisory" boards that they are commonly termed "advisory board funds." The BLM and Forest Service, in their Appraisal Report Estimating the Fair Market Value of Public Rangelands in the Western United States Administered by the USDA-Forest Service and USDI-Bureau of Land Management, state that:

The advisory boards derive their funds from the portion of the grazingfees that are returned to the state and local county for range improvements. These funds are spent in a manner similar to government funds appropriated to the agencies. (Tittman 1984)

The US Treasury receives nothing from Section 15 BLM grazing fee receipts. Half ($1.5 million in 1987) goes to the Range Betterment Fund, from which it is disbursed for range developments in the grazing districts it came from. The other 50% goes back to the states from whence it came; again, some of this benefits lessees. (USDA, FS and USDI, BLM 1986; USDI, BLM 1988)

The Forest Service's grazing fee receipts are disbursed similarly to BLM's. Half ($4 million in 1987) goes into the Range Betterment Fund, to be returned to the National Forests for ranching development. Another 25% ($2 million in 1987) goes to back to the states for disbursement to the counties of origin for roads and schools, some of which benefit permittees. The remaining 25% ($2.0 million in 1987) goes to the US Treasury. (USDA, FS 1988)

In other words, BLM and FS permittees actually pay more than half of their federal grazing fees right back to themselves for ranching development. This means that the actual 1990 grazing fee, rather than $1.81/AUM, is less than $.90/AUM, or less than 1/10 fair market value. This works out to about 3 cents per day per cow -- roughly what it costs to feed a hamster.

Less than 113 (31%) of federal grazing fee receipts end up in the federal Treasury. In 1987 all BLM and FS grazing fees combined yielded only $21 million and netted the US Treasury only $6.5 million. Yet, in their blind dedication to their ranching cohorts, the agencies contradict their own statistics. Verbatim from BLM's 1987 report, Public Lands Statistics: "Receipts from Section 3 grazing use at $1.35 per AUM returned $11,892,137 to the U.S. Treasury during the fiscal year 1987" (USDI, BLM 1988). And, verbatim from the Forest Service's 1987 report, Report of the Forest Service: Fiscal Year 1987: "The range program was funded at $31.4 million [including range "betterment" funds] in 1987, and returned $8.1 million to the Treasury from grazing fees" (USDA, FS 1988). The agencies tell us that they collected about $20 million from grazing fees for the US Treasury in 1987, when actually the Treasury netted only $6.5 million.

FEDERAL GRAZING FEE DISBURSEMENTS: 1987

(Source: USDA, FS and USDI, BLM 1986; USDI, BLM1988a; and USDA, FS 19W)

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Public lands ranchers' $6.5 million contribution represents about 1/180,000 of the federal government's annual income (US Dept. of Com. 1986). If derived from anyone but ranchers, this amount would command scarcely any notice by a Congress almost overwhelmed by a multitude of enormous fiscal concerns.

Moreover, while the federal government netted this $6.5 million in 1987, it reported spending about 10 times that amount directly on ranching programs that year, with the BLM and Forest Service spending about $34 million and $31.5 million respectively. Less than $10 minion of this $65 million was grazing fee money returned through the Range "Betterment" Fund, resulting in a net loss of roughly $50 million to the US Treasury. (USDA, FS 1988 and USDI, BLM 1988)

Bear in mind that government figures reflect only money spent directly on ranching programs as defined by the US government, and do not include the many obscure and secret costs (detailed in the next section). Even if stockmen were to pay grazing fees several times fair market value, revenues would not begin to cover expenditures.

BLM and FS themselves report spending an average of $4.50/AUM directly on ranching programs, leaving a deficit of about $2.54/AUM on ranching programs alone ($2.54 x 20 million 1987 BLM and FS AUMs = $50.8 million lost). Furthermore, between 1979 and 1983, BLM received only 11.1 cents for every dollar it spent directly on reported ranching programs, while the Forest Service received only 21 cents on the dollar. A federal study has shown that the government spends about $10 on range "improvements" for each $1 it collects in grazing fees. This compares to an average ratio of $1 spent for every $3 collected from timber, firewood, recreation, power, land lease, rights-of-way, and other commercial public lands users (of course this study does not reflect many of the indirect costs of grazing, timber, or other programs).

The Forest Service reported that the total revenues collected from all commercial National Forest users in 1986 was $1.72 billion. In comparison, gross receipts from grazing fees amounted to only $8.1 million, or 0.47% of the total receipts collected. (USDA, FS 1988) BLM reported receiving about $220 million from all commercial users in 1987, while its grazing receipts amounted to only $14.3 million, or about 6%, of the total. Thus, of the agencies' combined revenues of nearly $2 billion, only $22.4 million -- or about 1% -- came from ranching receipts. If money returned to ranchers through the Range Betterment Fund is included, the figures are $11.2 million and 0.5%.

Further, since 1983 federal oil, gas, and mineral revenue has been received by the Department of the Interior's Mineral Management Service (MMS), rather than the agencies that administer the land. In 1987 MMS collected $621 million in total on-shore mineral royalties in the 11 Western states, nearly all of it from BLM and FS land. (USDI, MMS 1988) So, annual receipts from Western federal land users actually total more than $2.5 billion, of which ranching's net contribution is about 4/10 of 1%. In other words, though the ranching industry utilizes and degrades more public land than all other commercial users combined, it paid about 230 times less than other commercial users combined to do so.

Furthermore, even the annual worth of public lands livestock grazing is less than what we taxpayers spend on it. The forage and browse consumed by livestock on BLM and FS land produce an estimated total livestock market value of only $390 million annually (Ferguson 1983), and all Western federal, state, county, and city grazing lands combined produce perhaps $500 million worth of livestock annually. This $500 million is about half what taxpayers spend on public lands ranching each year.

Compare this $500 million figure to the 1987 value of all US cattle, including dairy cows, which is $41.3 billion. Americans spend more each year on strawberries ($504 million), birdseed ($517 million), and jogging shoes ($572 million). In 1990, outdoor recreationists spent about $80 billion, or roughly 160 times more than the value of public lands livestock. They would spend much more if not for environmental degradation and user competition from public lands ranching. (US Dept. of Com. 1986)

In his book Livestock Pillage, Edwin G. Dimick compares the economic values derived from the 6 major "multiple uses" of public land identified by the federal government -- water, timber, minerals, wildlife, outdoor recreation, and livestock From statistics compiled from federal publications, Dimick summarizes that of the 6, livestock is not only the least valuable and least cost-effective, but by far the biggest detractor from the other multiple uses.

Abusive grazing practices on federal land are acquiesced to by the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management because of the political clout of certain western ranching interests that have grown fat on gigantic government subsidies. The needs of huge numbers of hunters, fishermen, campers, farmers, municipalities, and nature lovers for well-watered ecosystems have been subordinated to the greed of a few who are creating deserts for short-term profits.

--Paul Ehrlich, The Machinery of Nature (Ehrlich 1986)

Regardless of the economic loss, the whole fee controversy obscures the main problem -- public lands ranching. If the grazing fee was raised to fair market value, or even $100/AUM (assuming any rancher would pay this), by far most of its environmental, political, social, and even economic problems would remain.

(For a more complete discussion of grazing fees, see Calef 1960, Foss 1960, Voigt 1976, Com. on Govt. Oper. 1986, or USDA, FS and USDI, BLM 1986)

SQUANDERING OUR TAXES

Dear Brandholder,

"Stand on your own two feet" independence. That's a brand you and I wear with pride. It's a trait you and I share as Idahoans... as Americans... and especially as cattlemen.

--Public lands rancher Vern France, for the Idaho Cattle Association

The cowboy is a symbol of rugged individualism; of Western independence. No handouts, no specialfavors, just man and his determination against the elements. How odd, then, that ranching is the most government-subsidized industry in Wyoming.

--Scott Farris, Lander, Wyoming

The BLM and Forest Service annually spend about 50 million federal tax dollars directly on ranching in excess of grazing fee returns -- an average annual subsidy of at least $2273 for each of the agencies' 22,000 Western grazing permittees. Let's look closer at where our money goes.

BLM and FS provide at least matching funds for nearly all range developments, and the great majority are financed mostly or wholly by the agencies, often augmented by other federal, state, and/or county agencies. The federal government's 1986 report, Grazing Fee Review and Evaluation, states that from 1978 to 1984 permittees contributed an average of only $0.16 per AUM (BLM) and $0.30 per AUM (FS), compared to an average federal subsidy of $3.00 and $6.00 per AUM, respectively (USDA, FS and USDI, BLM 1986). In other words, the taxpayer forks over roughly 20 times more for ranchers' range "improvements" than ranchers do; stockmen pay only 5% of the cost of ranching developments on public land. Moreover, this neglects that many ostensibly non-ranching developments are designed to benefit ranching, and that many stockmen habitually inflate their development expenditure figures.

For example, in 1977, the total private range improvements constructed on all BLM rangelands in 11 western states included 9 miles of pipeline, 1 17 springs, 1 water catchment basink I well, 24 cattle guards, and 14 miles of fencing.

--Denzel & Nancy Ferguson, Sacred Cows (Ferguson 1983)

Furthermore, when range developments are made under BLM "improvement permits," permittees are allowed to retain ownership in proportion to their original investment. In practice, often some portion of the "improvement" value a rancher assumes ownership of actually is contributed by the agencies. When a rancher sells a grazing permit with a base property, these values are transferred to the new owner. (Tittman 1987)

Because BLM does not account for range development expenditures by project, it is difficult to determine just where and how BLM range funds are spent. Likewise, BLM does not have an accurate inventory of range developments on BLM land, so no one really knows what is out there. It is also reported that BLM often spends range development funds on projects that are not allowable under guidelines set down by their parent funding sources. (Com. on Govt Oper. 1986)

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BLM is required to prepare cost benefit analyses for range projects. Yet more than 1/3 of the project files examined by the Inspector General's office in 5 locations in 1985 did not contain cost benefit analyses. Further, BLM often spends money on range projects that are not supported by required cost benefit analyses. (Com. on Govt. Oper. 1986) For example, according to the Committee for Idaho's High Desert, "It costs from $11.70 to $43.50 for the BLM to spray grasshoppers to prevent them from eating $1.35 (1 AUM) of forage." BLM's response? None -- it has no valid economic justification for grasshopper spraying.

BLM and FS both "improve" the range essentially whenever, wherever, and however they see fit, assuming they have the funding. Following is a general rundown of range "improvement" costs.

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Forest Service employees installing a fence. (USES)

Those ever-present barbed wire fences that criss-cross, our public land and fine our roads cost roughly $2000 to $4000 a mile to build, and an average of perhaps $10 to $20 annually per mile to maintain (depending on terrain and economic variables). Taxpayers bear most of the cost. Large sections of fence damaged or destroyed by "natural disasters" (fire, flood, earthquake, landslide, etc.) usually are repaired or replaced using tax money. I read of one case where a fire started by a permittee on his private land burned onto adjacent Forest Service land and destroyed a portion of fence and cattleguard braces. A Forest Service range conservationist called the next day offering new wooden posts.

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Taxpayers provide thousands of human "walk-overs" on public land.

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BLM and FS construct several thousand miles of fence yearly. Each year other federal agencies, states, counties, and cities erect thousands of additional miles for ranching purposes, or to keep livestock out of developed and agricultural areas, watersheds, parks, recreation areas, seedings and tree plantings, natural areas, riparian zones, etc.

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On the Pacific Coast in Los Padres National Forest, California.

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A 400' well, electric pump with concrete foundation, solar panels on a concrete base, and 5000-gallon holding tank on a special gravel bed. Note the fencing to prevent cattle from damaging equipment. Water is piped to a nearby stock water trough. Costs include never-ending monitoring, maintenance, repair, and replacement. (BLM)

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A BLM cattle watering development on a remote east-central Nevada range.

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A tax-funded, 12'-high holding tank for cattle. (BLM)

The several hundred thousand stock ponds and other stock watering systems that dot our public land vary greatly in price, according to the size and complexity of the projects. Their cost ranges from a few hundred dollars to $100,000 or more; most fall into the $2000 to $10,000 range. Several thousand new water developments are built by BLM and FS each year. Maintenance costs are high.

Believe it or not, livestockmen in Oregon successfully sued the BLM during the '70's when a water development failed and cattle were lost. Like suing Santa Claus, huh?

--Edwin G. Dimick, Livestock Pillage of Our Western Public Lands (Dimick 1990)

Range vegetation manipulation projects also vary greatly in cost. The 2 agencies annually spend several million dollars to "treat" hundreds of thousands of public acres with machinery, herbicides, prescribed burns, and grass seedings. The initial cost to seed crested wheatgrass, for example, averages around $40 per acre. After an allotment is seeded by the government and the permittee is able to produce more welfare cattle, he still pays the same $1.81/AUM grazing fee. The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance recently prepared a cost-benefit analysis of BLM's draft EIS for its proposed vegetation management program; it revealed that federal expenditures would be $320 for every $1 returned.

The Forest Service's $30.5 million 1986 range program included: construction of more than 3860 structural improvements, such as fences, water developments, and pipelines; treatment of 12,000 head of cattle for ticks and lice; placement of 315 poisoned bait stations to kill ants; spraying of 23,000 acres with herbicides and 600,000 acres with pesticides; and "forage improvement," such as burning, seeding, and mechanical treatment, on about 100,000 acres. Planning, monitoring, inventory, and administrative costs for implementing these range developments are included in range program budgets, along with general administrative costs. Other range-related expenses include, according to the Forest Service, "salaries and benefits, travel, transportation of things, supplies, materials, and equipment, and other contractual services." BLM's fiscal information on all this is very sketchy.

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BLM's 267,193-acre Vale Seeding Project in eastern Oregon cost about $307,692 per permittee affected. (BLM)

Approximately 90% of the mass of an iceberg floats below the surface of the water. The ranching subsidies outlined so far collectively comprise what is termed agency "range program ." Now we begin the arduous task of plucking out and revealing the indirect, unseen, and covert subsidization of public lands ranching -- a combined tax burden that represents the submerged ice.

A cattle-depleted crested wheatgrass seeding on BLM land near Walti Hot Spring, Lander County, Nevada. Though stockmen are the only significant beneficiaries, American taxpayers spend millions of dollars on such seedings. This one is marked "Keystone Seeding"

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A stock tank on public land.

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The only [recent] improvements [on my allotment] have been two accidental fires, one water tank for wildlife, the seeding of the Billy Mountain bum for erosion control, and over 10 miles of drift fence which I have built with materials furnished by county range funds and the BLM [emphasis added]

--Philip Krouse, Oregon public lands rancher, in a complaint to the Forest Service over the lack of range "improvements"

As detailed in Chapters III and IV, many BLM and FS projects not identified with ranching are designed as much, if not more, for ranching than for their alleged purposes; and, most agency programs are geared to benefit ranching in some manner. Indeed, the agencies spend far more on ranching development indirectly through these ostensibly non-ranching efforts than t rough the ranching programs themselves -- usually to the detriment of the parent program. The statistics below are taken from the most recent BLM and Forest Service annual reports (USDI, BLM 1988 and USDA, FS 1988) and from BLM's Budget Justifications, Fiscal Year 1989 (USDI, BLM 1988a). Because few figures on ranching expenditures exist, conclusions, while hard to refute, are necessarily conjectural.

The Forest Service spent nearly half a billion dollars on its Timber program in 1987, while BLM spent $7.1 million on its Forest Management program. Among the timberrelated activities intentionally designed to promote ranching are brush disposal, fuelwood cutting, and timber thinning. As mentioned, some logging projects are also covertly designed to create more grazing land, or at least land that is more grazable. Additionally, forest management in grazing areas must allow for (and is sometimes complicated by) fences, gates, grazing plans, rancher access, and livestock themselves. Reforestation and soil erosion control tree plantings, usually of pine or fir, frequently are damaged or destroyed by livestock that eat and trample the small trees and damage structural improvements.

While only a relatively small proportion of the Forest Service's Timber budget is attributable to ranching, it nonetheless probably totals several million dollars. BLM's forest program is much more geared toward ranching -- including, for example, woodland "removal of shrub stands by mechanical chaining to improve range conditions . . . ." A knowledgeable inside source informed me that roughly 1/3, or more than $2 million, of the BLM's annual forest management budget is ascribable to ranching.

 

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Instead of ridding the Trout Creek Mountains of livestock [to improve trout habitat], the Vale [BLM] District spent considerable sums of public funds in an attempt to improve fish habitat. Thousands of willow seedlings were planted, 49 small trash collector dams were constructed to improve pool habitat, and several miles offence were built to keep livestock out of some riparian areas.

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This area of Prescott National Forest, Arizona, was replanted with ponderosa pine saplings in 1972. The half-acre at right was fenced from cattle. (Rod Mondt)

Ranching's fiscal impact on federal mineral, oil, and gas programs is obscure, but a definite relation does exist. For example, mining operations are often fenced to exclude livestock. Ranching roads are rerouted. Conflicts arise over access to or use of water sources, and the government must play referee. When mineral, oil, and gas activities impact ranching or vice versa (and because ranching is nearly omnipresent, they usually do), management plans and administration must be altered. The BLM's 1987 minerals management budget was nearly $80 million, while the Forest Service's was $27 million.

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(Ginny Rosenberg)

[Due mostly to livestock:] By 1980 nearly all the willows were gone. Flooding destroyed 60% of the trash catcher dams and siltation reduced the habitat effectiveness of the remainder.

--George Wuerthner, "A Case of Poor Public Range Policy" (Wuerthner 1990a)

In the Trout Creek Mountains, the BLM plans to spend $400, 000 over the next several years [the early 1990s] installing fences, pipelines, reservoirs, and other improvements on 500,000 acres to protect fish and fragile desert streams from cows. The agency takes in about $87,000 in grazingfees annually from the ranchers who lease the four grazing allotments.

--Kathie Durbin, "Storm Brews Over Livestock Grazing" (Durbin 1991)

And just think fishy, you can the cow can live in the same stream."

--Spruce Grove, Mendocino National Forest, California. (Rer Kowz)

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"This fence was constructed by the Forest Service to control [exclude] livestock grazing and to protect important wildlife habitat." (Don Morris)

As detailed elsewhere, federal wildlife programs are largely at the mercy of the ranching industry. In 1987 the Forest Service spent $42.6 million on its Wildlife and Fish Habitat Management program. Funds were used to "treat" 124,138 acres with prescribed burning, herbicides, mechanical devices, and seedings; to plant trees and bushes; to develop water sources; to fence livestock from riparian areas; to build instrearn structures; and so on. Most of these projects benefited ranching, while many were necessitated by ranching. Likewise, BLM spent about $17 million in 1987 on its Wildlife Habitat Management program for "58 fence modifications, 611 instream structures, 124 new water facilities, 40,995 acres of prescribed burns, 242 water facility improvements, 148 miles of fences [mainly to exclude livestock], 16 spawning bed stabilization projects, 81 strearnbank stabilization projects, 314 acres of chainings, 2773 acres of seedings," and other developments.

For example, several years ago cottonwood along the Gila River Box in Arizona was not regenerating due to livestock grazing. In response BLM planted and fenced individual cottonwood saplings and installed drip irrigation. The project was funded through the district's wildlife budget. (Wuerthner 1989) Recently it was destroyed by marauding cattle.

The BLM's wildlife program is much more heavily geared to ranching than is the Forest Service wildlife program. It is safe to assume that at least $15 million annually of combined BLM and Forest Service wildlife expenditures are necessitated by, or designed to benefit, ranching.

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Under stockmen's relentless pressure to eliminate livestock competitors, BLM has spent well over $100 million in federal taxes on its Wild Horse and Burro program since the late 1970s. While thousands of horses and burros already languish in federal corrals awaiting adoption, BLM reported that it appropriated $14,735,000 in 1988 to capture, hold, and make available for adoption an additional 8500 animals. In 1980 BLM reported that it "expended an average of $100,0.00 per year to fund" research projects at 6 Western colleges and universities to explore methods to reduce free-roaming horse populations and their competition with livestock. The Forest Service says it captured and made available for adoption 156 horses and burros in 1987, though it doesn't state in its fiscal report how much it spent doing so. In sum, about $12-$15 million annually is spent by the agencies to remove free-roaming horses from public land, mostly to placate the ranching establishment.

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BLM's Wild Horse Distribution Center in Burns, Oregon.

(BLM)

These [BLM instrearn restoration structures] remain fimctional within the ungrazed Lower Big Creek study site because they have been relatively undamaged by livestock Outside the exclosure, however, where heavy grazing continues, most of the structures have been destroyed by livestock trampling and subsequent streambank erosion.

--Williarn Platts and Rodger Nelson, "Characteristics of Riparian Plant Communities and Streambanks with Respect to Grazing in Northeastern Utah" (Platts 1989)

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A fenced cottonwood in the Gila River Box, Arizona. (George Wuerthner)

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A structure designed to stabilize bank erosion on central New Mexico BLM cattle range.

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This "Watershed Restoration Project" is basically a livestock grazing enhancement project. Coronado National Forest, Arizona. The roadside has been devegetated.

The 1987 FS fiscal report shows that its Soil and Water Management program spent about $34 million (some of these funds are appropriated from timber sales). As an "example of a watershed improvement project," the report includes a photo of a newly bladed dirt tank in a meadow. The caption reads, "Benefits provided for improved wildlife habitat and increased forage production" -- but the tank will be used by far mostly by cattle, and it is locatcd in an area already endowed with water sufficient for wildlife but insufficient for cattle.

BLM spent $17.3 million in 1987 on its equivalent program, Resource Conservation and Development. Included were "brush control, seeding, soil stabilization, water detentions and diversions, dikes, pipelines, reservoirs, spring developments, water catchments, wells, cattleguards, and fencing," much of it necessitated by destructive ranching. Much of this activity was unquestionably designed to benefit ranching, yet it is all listed under a nonranching category.

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The gully erosion is caused mostly by a livestock-degraded watershed and the direct impact of cattle on the drainage itself.

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A BLM attempt to reduce range soil erosion -- a foot high postand-wire-mesh fence.

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An erosion control structure on cattlized BLM range in central New Mexico. Most of these types of developments are located in remote areas, so few Americans ever see them.

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This cutbank stabilization structure on BLM range in Socorro County, New Mexico, probably cost several hundred thousand dollars. Note the size of the human figures at top-center.

Ranching is the only permanent, general consumptive activity allowed in designated Wilderness Areas. Roughly half of Western Wildernesses are grazed by livestock, and ranching detracts from their management, environmental health, and public use more than any other land use. BLM spent over $7 million on Wilderness Management in 1988, probably at least $1 million of this to build ranching-related developments, mitigate ranching impacts, minimize conflicts due to ranching, and accommodate Wilderness planning to ranchers' demands. The Forest Service administers 70 times more Western Wilderness than does BLM, and spent $10.3 million in 1987 on its management.

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Forest Service benches upended and damaged by cattle.

On their 1987 Recreation programs, the Forest Service and BLM spent approximately $100 million and $15 million respectively (excluding Wilderness funding). Ranching heavily influences these programs. For example, hundreds of Western campgrounds have been fenced to exclude cattle. Those that are not are often trampled and denuded by invading cattle, and helpless campers are left with dust, flies, and cowpies. Livestock damage tent sites, tables and benches, barbecue grates, water lines, drainage ditches, fences, walkways, signs, docks, backpacking shelters, ramadas, buildings, and other recreational developments. Livestock diminish and pollute drinking water sources, necessitating water developments, filtration, and chlorination. To protect natural areas, as well as archaeological and historical sites, hundreds of fences have been erected, while areas left unprotected often have been damaged. Much of the West's 200,000 or so miles of foot trails is trampled, eroded, and covered with livestock excrement. Recreation planning and management must be geared to accommodate ranching; hunting and fishing are adversely affected. And so on. It is probable that public lands ranching forces the Forest Service and BLM to spend at least an extra several million dollars annually on their Recreation program .

We are in the process of developing a plan to conduct a two stage controlled bum on a 2560 acre area of ponderosa pine and chaparral on the Walnut Creek Allotment ... In addition, we intend to construct a 3 wire pasture division fence ... to better implement the Summer Flex pasture rotation system on the allotment.

--Emilio S. Lujan, District Ranger, Prescott National Forest, Arizona

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Fire fighting and prevention, while costly to the public, is often lucrative to the livestock grazier. If not for ranching much of it would be unnecessary, especially on rangelands where there is usually little considered "of value" other than forage and fences to protect. Funding for FS fire fighting and protection in 1987 was $284 million. Most of this amount was, of course, attributable to the protection of structural developments and saleable timber, but ranching also figures prominently. BLM's 1987 Firefighting and Rehabilitation budget was $83 million. Two-thirds of the fires fought with this money were on rangeland; nearly all of the remaining third was on grazed forest, and only 1% was on "commercial forest."

How many fires could be allowed to burn naturally instead of being suppressed to protect forage, range "improvements," 30,000 public lands ranch headquarters, and livestock? How many destructive fires are indirectly or directly the result of public lands ranching: cheatgrass, "weed," and brush "invasions"; artificial forage monocullures; range activities that start accidental fires; range arson; and range fire suppression that allows fuel to build up to dangerously high levels? (For example, ranching-spread cheatgrass is credited with extending Idaho's fire season by 2 months [ONDA 19901.) How much of the brush disposal, herbiciding, controlled burning, and forest thinning done in the name of fire prevention is actually done to benefit public lands ranching? No one knows for sure, but it is clear that without public lands ranching fire prevention costs could easily be reduced by millions of dollars per year.

In 1990 there were more than 375,000 miles of maintained dirt roads in National Forests (Foreman 1991). Federal appropriations of $63 million were used in 1987 to perform road maintenance on FS roads. If we assume only 10% of these costs were attributable to ranching, it adds up to $6.3 million -- approximating the $8.1 million taken in from FS grazing fees that year. Forest Service road construction funding that year was $233 million. An overwhelming percentage of these new roads were logging roads; yet if merely 1% were ranching roads their cost would amount to $2.3 million.

Far more miles of road traverse BLM land, where there is probably several times as much driveable land. Many BLM staffers have admitted to me that by far more of the roads on BLM land are for ranching than for any other purpose. Most are built and maintained by counties and states. Some are engineered by BLM and contracted out for construction and maintenance. The contractees are sometimes the same permittees using them for ranching -- the local rancher with a Cat and blade -- so in effect these people are paid by the government to build and maintain their own range developments.

According to a phone interview with BLM engineering staff in Washington, DC, the actual amount spent on road maintenance is buried in the BLM's budget for buildings, recreation, facilities, and transportation. But they indicated that roughly $3-4 million annually has been spent in recent years on BLM road maintenance. Funding for road construction has been much less, and available only sporadically in recent years; permittees are encouraged to build BLM roads themselves' However, an Arizona BLM official stated that $300,000 was procured for road construction in that state in 1988.

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Though roads are a major form of ranching development on public land, neither the Forest Service nor BLM link road construction and maintenance to range programs. And many are constructed and maintained by these and other agencies with taxpayers' money under pretenses. These include "old logging roads" (that happen to still be maintained and that services ranching areas), "fire fighting access roads," "wildlife maintenance roads," "forest management roads," "administrative roads," and (the all-time favorite) "general public access roads" (which were often never requested by the general public, are rarely used by the general public, and just happen to lead to a range development or livestock foraging area).

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Large cattle guards such as this cost tens of thousands of tax dollars each.

The next time you bounce over one of those tens of thousands of cattle guards in rural areas, picture $3000 to $25,000 tax dollars floating off to that big ranch in the sky. Our collective generosity also provides those tens of thousands of "CATTLE GUARD," "CATTLE XING," "WATCH FOR LIVESTOCK," "CLOSE THE GATE!," and allotment boundary signs. BLM alone reports spending well over $1 million each year installing and maintaining signs.

The Forest Service spent $15 million in 1987 maintaining its 11,200 buildings and related support facilities, and $25.7 million constructing new facilities. Most of this activity was in the West; perhaps a few million dollars of it would not have been necessary without public lands ranching. The BLM spent about $5 million in 1987 on building construction and maintenance; chalk up another million to ranching.

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A partial cost of buildings and their maintenance is another obscure cost of public lands ranching. Utah BLM Henry Mountain Resource Area headquarters.

FS and BLM expended roughly $10 million on law enforcement in 1987. Because the 22,000 ranchers spread evenly across Western federal land exert such powerful control and so heavily impact this land, special agents and law enforcement rangers from these agencies (and state police and county sheriffs) spend much time settling conflicts between ranchers and other public lands users. Disputes over trespass. access, and use are especially numerous, and threats and assaults by stockmen and their hired help are common. Officials also must investigate and process those accused of harming livestock, interfering with ranching operations, and tampering with range developments. Further, the extensive webwork of ranching roads has introduced much of the illegal activity, such as the looting of archaeological sites, that occurs on public land. In sum, public lands ranching probably adds more than a million dollars annually to BLM and Forest Service law enforcement programs.

The Forest Service produced 94 publications pertaining to range and grazing in 1986, and dozens more indirectly relating to ranching. Along with dozens produced by BLM, this amounts to hundreds of thousands of dollars expended annually.

BLM's Planning and Data Management program spent $24.6 million in 1987, and will spend twice as much in 1989. The purpose of the program is to "improve RESOURCE management decisions" and to develop an effective data management system. This involves problem identification and analysis, conflict resolution, coordination with other agencies, public relations, and modernization of data processing. Because much of this relates directly to ranching, we may assume that at least several million dollars of this program would be unnecessary without public lands ranching.

The Forest Service spent $27 million, and the BLM $12 million, on survey-related activities in 1987, a small portion of it due to ranching allotments. BLM and National Forest land management plans, Environmental Impact Statements, appeals processes, etc. are also sponsored by the federal government. Ranching is involved in much of this, to the tune of millions of dollars.

The Forest Service received roughly $150 million from government sources in 1987 for research. Ranching-related research included watershed management and rehabilitation; wildlife, fish, and range; and fire and atmospheric sciences. The multi-million dollar Rocky Mountain Forest and Range Experiment Station in Ft. Collins, Colorado, is one of 8 regional experiment stations. Drop a few million more into the public ranching trough.

Aside from range programs and possibly roads, perhaps the single biggest expenditure category for federal ranching is general administration, for which in 1987 FS and BLM spent $263 million and $87 million respectively. That year the Forest Service listed 27,400 full-time, 2901 part time permanent, and 15,783 temporary employees, while the BLM employed 6814 full-time personnel.

The agencies' range programs include salaries for their hundreds of full-time range specialists. But thousands more employees in other programs and general administration spend part of their time on ranching-related matters, trying to accommodate their specialties to the exorbitant demands and destructive impacts of the livestock industry. These include everyone from road maintenance crews to wildlife biologists to recreation staff to upper level bureaucrats. (Even the President of the United States and his staff must meet with public ranching representatives, study and sign appropriation bills, and consider livestock industry needs when dealing with matters pertaining to Western federal lands.) Non-range personnel -- BLM resource area managers and FS district rangers, particularly -- spend countless hours each year listening to ranchers' complaints; writing reports; conducting "educational" tours for the public; attending range-related meetings, hearings, and such; assessing base properties, applications, permits, and fee matters; and communicating with politicians on range affairs. Much time, effort, and money also is expended attending meetings of, and pandering to, grazing "advisory" boards. Agency clerks prepare and check grazing permits, changes in permit conditions, bills, sales of base properties, and all sorts of ranching arrangements. Little of this is linked to ranching fiscally.

Obscure general administrative costs also include utilities; office supplies and activities; procurement and contracting; purchase and maintenance of vehicles, equipment, and supplies; landscaping; and much more. The BLM and Forest Service also maintain state and regional offices, respectively, and both have headquarters in Washington, DC, where regulations and policies affecting ranching administration are established.

In conclusion, from the above we may conjecture that very roughly $200-$250 million, total, is spent annually by the BLM and Forest Service directly and indirectly on public lands ranching -- not $65 million or so as claimed by these agencies. This corresponds closely to the common "educated guess" that roughly 1/4 of the BLM budget and 1/15-1/20 of the Forest Service budget are dedicated to ranching. (Logging-related expenses eat up well over half of the Forest Service's annual budget.) In 1987 the Forest Service was funded at $2.2 billion and the BLM at $659 million. These amounts multiplied by 1/20 and 1/4, respectively, would equal about $100 million and $165 million, or $265 million total.

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I retired from the position of Central Region Habitat Biologist, Oregon Dept. offish & Wildlife in 1982. For the last 27 years of the 29 in that position I have planned, programed, administrated and physically worked on cooperative habitat projects of various kinds on and with the Ochoco Forest. Through my Regional Habitat program I have spent thousands in public funds, more than Id like to admit, on these cooperative projects through the years- Projects, few if any of which would have been needed were it not for livestock grazing. Projects such as erosion seedings, fire rehab seedings, prescribed bums, vegetation control, water developments, free and shrub plantings and miles of fencing; all projects considering for continuance of livestock grazing or habitat conditions resulting from it.

--Harold H. Winegar, in letter to Ochoco National For