Report Says Keeping Public Lands Open for Grazing Costs $123 Million a Year

AP ^ | November 01, 2005 | Jennifer Talhelm

[Einigkeit_Recht_Freiheit]

WASHINGTON — Federal agencies spend at least $123 million a year to keep public lands open to livestock grazing, according to a government report that environmentalists say bolsters their argument that grazing should be limited.

"If we are going to allow grazing on our public lands, the very least we should be doing is we should be recovering the costs," said Greta Anderson, a Tucson, Ariz., botanist and the range restoration campaign coordinator for the Center for Biological Diversity.

Jim Hughes, deputy director of the Bureau of Land Management -- which, with the Forest Service, manages 98 percent of grazing permits -- said the agency charges a fee set by law and is not advocating a change or an increase.

"We have many programs that cost us more ... to operate than we take in," Hughes said. "It's never been our mission to be run totally like a business."

Ranching on the millions of acres of public lands has been a mainstay of western life for more than a century. Ranchers pay a fee often based on the amount of grass and other vegetation their cows will eat. The agencies spend the money on managing permits and leases, building fences and developing water projects, among other activities.

The arrangement increasingly has caused friction as more demands are put on western lands. Environmentalists question whether taxpayers should support public lands grazing.

According to the analysis released Monday by the Government Accountability Office, grazing fees cover only about a sixth of the cost of managing the program.

In 2004, the Bureau of Land Management, the Forest Service and several other agencies spent $144 million and generated just $21 million from grazing fees.

Ranchers who hold public lands grazing permits get a deal, paying as little as $1.43 per animal unit month -- the amount of forage a cow and her calf can eat in a month -- according to the GAO.

Jeff Eisenberg, executive director of the Public Lands Council, which advocates for ranchers, said the numbers in the report don't represent the whole picture. The benefits of maintaining a way of life and keeping land free from development are difficult to quantify, he said.

[Einigkeit_Recht_Freiheit]

Ranching on the millions of acres of public lands has been a mainstay of western life for more than a century Long before these Federal agencies got involved.

Piracy has been a mainstay of life in many places for more than a century. The American Indians had a way of life for several centuries.

Times, needs and perceptions change. The world is not the same place it was 100 years ago so that is no excuse.

Privatize that land. Use the short term revenue on the debt, save a bundle on the federal employees taking care of it and tax the revenue earned from it. The ranchers get ful control. Let the market work. It's a win-win for the American people.

[Einigkeit_Recht_Freiheit]

If ranchers are being subsidzed (or need to be subsidized) it means someone could and probably is producing that same product more cheaply elsewhere. For instance, South America.

The subsidies - which you pay for with your tax dollars - distort the market making the South Americans less competitive. Combine that with trade barriers and both your taxes and your food costs more.

Take a look in your medicine cabinet (or if you are healthy in a drug store) and look at the diversity of medicines. They all came from nature. Biodiversity is hugely valuable to people. Moreover, it is God's creation and he gave us the clear instructions to manage it.

My suggestion is to sell off that land. Preserve the most bio-diverse parts (and in your defense that part of the world is not very diverse, 10,000 square miles have far fewer species that an an acre or two of rainforest)and sell off the rest. Everybody wins.

[q_an_a]

if making fees equal to expenses was the norm then the cost of visiting Yellowstone or Grand Tetons would be $50 or more person and $100 per car or RV. We have public "range lands" because the government got in the business of taking land it could not use and renting it to the people who should have owned it to begin with.

[t2buckeye]

Another thing...hate to be cynical, but WHO is providing the statistics here? If the costs of this program are being estimated by the envioronmentalists, I would double check. They have a habit of greatly inflating the numbers to try to make their case...and they get away with it because the press takes it at face value!

[Einigkeit_Recht_Freiheit]

if making fees equal to expenses was the norm then the cost of visiting Yellowstone or Grand Tetons would be $50 or more person and $100 per car or RV.

Good point. Which brings us back to the real solution which is to privatise this land.

[bkepley]

Piracy has been a mainstay of life in many places for more than a century.

Comparing cowboys to pirates won't win you many friends out west.

[Brian Allen]

The American "Farmer/Rancher:"

The new welfare rich.

Welfare handouts to farmers and ranchers are a bloody obscenity. A national disgrace. And a huge burden on our every ally's farmers and ranchers who're as often as not unable to compete when our massively-subsidized mountains of grain and butter and cotton and every other kind of produce are dumped in their traditional markets.

And then, when USAID gets its looters' hands on the massive mountains of unsaleable produce and starts dumping it in target countries, it always both bankrupts the target country's farmers, who obviously cannot compete with "free" and creates a local lootocracy that quickly steals the dumped produce and profits from it.

The nightmare that is Somalia is the perfect example of a net agricultural produce exporter whose economy and in the end whole country was devastated by USDA-subsidized produce dumped there for years by USAID.

Which, seeing the absolute disaster it had created, upped stakes and moved on to go f***-up ... um .... "help" another target country.

[And then of course, old Read-My-Lips-No-New-Taxes sent in the Marines to "tidy up" USAID's disaster. And set in motion an altogether different disaster scenario]

[Colorado Doug]

Clearly, too much is spent on (mis)management. Perhaps they need to cut back on million dollar Prebbles Meadow Mouse studies and similar enviro-boondoggles. I wonder how much botanists and range restoration campaign coordinators for Centers for Biological Diversity cost American taxpayers.

[Colorado Doug]

Let's keep the cattle high and dry.

Oh, I don't know, giving New Orleans to the cattle might be the highest and best use.

[Colorado Doug]

How in the #%*@ can they charge a fee to let some guy's cows eat grass - in the middle of nowhere - and lose money?

Well said.

[Hong Kong Expat]

The ranchers will charge whatever the public will pay. The actual cost of the item has little to do with the market price.
If enough people are going to buy a steak at $10 a pound but nobody is going to buy it at $11/lb, the rancher is going to sell it at $10 regardless if it costs him $1, $5 or $9.95/lb to make it. Value in the marketplace is based on how much the customer is willing to pay.

Now with the government, it should not support one business over another or one industry over another. When it provides below market rates for some Cattle ranchers it gives them a competitive advantage over Cattle Ranchers who have to pay for private grass lands (or maintenance for their own ranches). The Government should just raise their prices to reflect honest market rates. The Bad Ranchers will fold, the good ranchers will expand, the reduced number of Ranchers will put downward pressure on the grassland owners and it will be cheaper to produce a nice Rib-eye steak, without any additional cost to the taxpayer.