According to the family, the fees were originally supposed to be used only to assist the local ranchers. But it transformed into being used against them. Please see post #5.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3142927/posts?page=10#7
“My dad did pay his grazing fees for years to the BLM until they were no longer using his fees to help him and to improve.”
Uhhh....no. He was paying “grazing fees”, not “doing what I want you to do” fees. If he thought the BLM wasn’t doing their job, he should have pulled his cows off the land and quit paying the fees. Or he should have lobbied the government to reign in the BLM. He can’t just decide he isn’t getting a good deal from the government and quit paying. Hell, we’d all be doing that.
This is similar to people refusing to pay income taxes because the money goes to the military.
However, the feds should just round up the cattle, sell them, take their fees and give him whatever is left. There’s no need to turn this into Occupy SW
Well, the family is wrong about that point.
The fees and grazing contracts were created under the 1934 Taylor Grazing Act. The Act provided that receipts from grazing be distributed three ways: 50% to range betterment projects, 37½% to the US Treasury, and 12½% to the state.
So, no. The fees were not originally supposed to be used only to assist the local ranchers.