[Senate Hearing 108-87]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 108-87
GRAZING MANAGEMENT
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HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON PUBLIC LANDS AND FORESTS
of the
COMMITTEE ON
ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
on the
ADMINISTRATION'S GRAZING PROGRAMS
__________
JUNE 25, 2003
Printed for the use of the
Committee on Energy and Natural Resources
______
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WASHINGTON : 2003
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COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES
PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico, Chairman
DON NICKLES, Oklahoma JEFF BINGAMAN, New Mexico
LARRY E. CRAIG, Idaho DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii
BEN NIGHTHORSE CAMPBELL, Colorado BYRON L. DORGAN, North Dakota
CRAIG THOMAS, Wyoming BOB GRAHAM, Florida
LAMAR ALEXANDER, Tennessee RON WYDEN, Oregon
LISA MURKOWSKI, Alaska TIM JOHNSON, South Dakota
JAMES M. TALENT, Missouri MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana
CONRAD BURNS, Montana EVAN BAYH, Indiana
GORDON SMITH, Oregon DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California
JIM BUNNING, Kentucky CHARLES E. SCHUMER, New York
JON KYL, Arizona MARIA CANTWELL, Washington
Alex Flint, Staff Director
James P. Beirne, Chief Counsel
Robert M. Simon, Democratic Staff Director
Sam E. Fowler, Democratic Chief Counsel
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Subcommittee on Public Lands and Forests
LARRY E. CRAIG, Idaho, Chairman
CONRAD BURNS, Montana, Vice Chairmaa
GORDON SMITH, Oregon RON WYDEN, Oregon
JON KYL, Arizona DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii
BEN NIGHTHORSE CAMPBELL, Colorado BYRON L. DORGAN, North Dakota
LAMAR ALEXANDER, Tennessee TIM JOHNSON, South Dakota
LISA MURKOWSKI, Alaska MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana
JAMES M. TALENT, Missouri EVAN BAYH, Indiana
DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California
Pete V. Domenici and Jeff Bingaman are Ex Officio Members of the
Subcommittee
Dick Bouts, BLM Fellow
David Brooks, Democratic Senior Counsel
C O N T E N T S
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STATEMENTS
Page
Craig, Hon. Larry E., U.S. Senator from Idaho.................... 1
Domenici, Hon. Pete V., U.S. Senator from New Mexico............. 2
Rey, Mark, Under Secretary, Natural Resources and Environment,
Department of Agriculture...................................... 8
Thomas, Hon. Craig, U.S. Senator from Wyoming.................... 3
Watson, Rebecca W., Assistant Secretary for Land and Minerals
Management, Department of the Interior......................... 4
APPENDIX
Responses to additional questions................................ 27
GRAZING MANAGEMENT
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WEDNESDAY, JUNE 25, 2003
U.S. Senate,
Subcommittee on Public Lands and Forests,
Committee on Energy and Natural Resources,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:30 p.m. in
room SD-366, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Larry E.
Craig presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. LARRY E. CRAIG,
U.S. SENATOR FROM IDAHO
Senator Craig. Good afternoon, everyone. The Subcommitte on
Public Lands and Forests will be in order.
Today's oversight hearing on Federal land grazing programs
is the first since this administration has come to office, and
I am very pleased that I am joined by the chairman of the full
committee, Senator Domenici. I will turn to him for a moment
for his opening statement; and Senator Conrad Burns, on the
panel.
I also want to recognize and welcome Rebecca Watson,
Assistant Secretary for Land and Minerals Management of the
Department of the Interior; and Mark Rey, Under Secretary for
Natural Resources and Environment at the Department of
Agriculture--for those who are new to the committee--the U.S.
Forest Service. That brings it into context, I think. Last
month during Memorial Day recess, Senator Mike Crapo, my
colleague in Idaho, and I hosted four grazing workshops in
various communities across Idaho concerning livestock grazing
on Forest Service and BLM-administered public lands. It was no
great surprise how little we heard about grazing at these
workshops. Instead, we heard about lawsuits; environmental
impact statements; Endangered Species Act; bull trout; wolves;
invasive weeds; crickets; and water, or lack thereof.
Certainly ranching, in the 21st century, means far more
than livestock grazing. Generations of families have made their
homes and lived off the land since the mid-19th century. They
depended on the land and the knowledge they had gained from the
land to survive, a knowledge that only comes from living and
working
this resource for a lifetime, unlike the inside-the-beltway
environmentalism that, in spite of what may be good intentions,
has led to a ``leave it alone'' philosophy that, when imposed,
actually, in my opinion, does more harm and wreaks more havoc
on our public lands than well-managed lands, where grazing can
and should be allowed.
The modern ranchers have learned to understand the science
behind what their own common sense has taught them about making
the right decisions about rangeland health. They face new
challenges and have learned to adapt to the changing demands
that come from using public resources. Grazing has proven to be
a valuable conservation and management tool in a number of
ways.
The first issue is the use of livestock grazing to reduce
the risk of fire potential by reducing the fuel load on the
land. Rangelands that are grazed are less likely to burn as
frequently or with catastrophic intensity. Next, livestock
grazing is an important tool for fighting the spread of
invasive non-native weeds. Addressing this weed problem
requires we work together at all levels of government through
public and private partnerships to protect our land, our
livelihood, and our environment.
Ranchers are also making significant investments on Federal
lands to sustain livestock that also provide improved wildlife
habitat. The actual number of wildlife or game animals in my
State has increased dramatically over the last 40 years, in
large part because of water and water developments in a variety
of areas produced by farmers and ranchers. Last, having a
viable ranching industry has helped to prevent land
fragmentation and development. In the West, developed lands
rose from almost 20 million acres in 1970 to 42 million in
2000. The protection of sustainable working ranches and a rural
landscape has prevented a growing urbanization of important
outdoor areas. Modern rangeland management has become a
government-rancher partnership that has facilitated the
maintenance and health of the land. Without the rancher's
participation, the cost of Federal land management would
increase dramatically. We need to continue to use this
partnership to ensure the wise use and health of our public
lands.
Today, we will hear from the administration about the
current status of their grazing programs and their progress on
rangeland management. We are eager to hear about their plans,
and to assist them where possible.
Before I turn to our panelists today, let me first turn to
the chairman of the full Committee on Energy and Natural
Resources, Senator Pete Domenici of New Mexico.
STATEMENT OF HON. PETE V. DOMENICI, U.S. SENATOR
FROM NEW MEXICO
The Chairman. Thank you very much, Senator Craig. I want to
compliment you on holding this subcommittee hearing. As many of
you know, I have been very frustrated by the way the previous
administration treated the farmers and ranchers who depended on
public lands for grazing. Unfortunately, I am not completely
happy with how this administration is fulfilling its
responsibilities in this regard, either. I do understand that
the Bureau is making notable progress in working through their
backlog of permits and applications. That is a very sorry state
of affairs; and while it is not all the responsibility of the
Bureau of Land Management or Forest Service, clearly it is
something that deserves attention, consistent with the
dimension of the problem. It is a big problem. However, I
remain concerned about the level of commitment within the
Forest Service to solving the grazing issue.
There seems to be some ambivalence within the Forest
Service toward grazing that undermines the longstanding use of
public range for livestock grazing. We continue to be in a
situation in which Senator Craig and I have worked every year
to address this situation in the Interior appropriations bill.
I want to know, just how long are we going to have to continue
doing that because the agencies have to get their act together?
If there is something we must do to expedite that final date
when we will be current with grazing applications, then we
ought to know. I look forward to, if not being present for the
hearings, to finding out the results in due course.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is good to be here with you and
with the witnesses. Thanks to both of you for all you do on
behalf of the Forest Service and our public domain.
Senator Craig. Mr. Chairman, thank you. Thank you for your
statement and for being here today, and for your leadership in
this area. Now let me turn to Senator Conrad Burns.
Senator Burns. Mr. Chairman, thank you for this hearing. I
have no formal statement. I think we should hear from the
witnesses and get an exchange going, because it is 2:30 in the
afternoon. We want to cover some ground here today that I think
is very important, so thank you very much for the opportunity.
Senator Craig. Thank you. We have been joined by Senator
Craig Thomas of Wyoming. Senator?
Senator Thomas. Despite Senator Burns' comments, I'm going
to make a short statement.
Senator Burns. Really.
Senator Craig. Please proceed.
STATEMENT OF HON. CRAIG THOMAS, U.S. SENATOR
FROM WYOMING
Senator Thomas. Welcome to both of you. I know you work
very hard at causing our land management to be done as well as
possible. Of course, grazing is always a great concern. We look
to long-range problems and so on. I am particularly interested
in hearing from you about the conservation partnerships we
talked about. These are BLM, I believe, reserve common
allotments which seem to be somewhat of a controversy,
voluntary allotment restructuring, and the conservation
easements and the Endangered Species Act mitigation.
I think these are all things we need to talk about. We have
heard a little from our folks there that these ideas were
thrown out, but there was not much interchange and discussion.
We hear a lot and certainly favor the notion that there should
be more local input into these things, so we want to seek to
try and do that. I will stop, also, so we can get something
going. Thank you for being here. I look forward to working with
you.
Senator Craig. Thank you very much. Before I turn to our
witnesses, just a couple of figures that I asked staff to find.
We have been able to produce some. I say that because of what
always, to me, appears to be a solution to solving the grazing
problem in the West, or on public lands. That is, you just
reduce the numbers of livestock grazing. From 1953 to 2003--and
this is a figure from the Bureau of Land Management--we have
reduced the number of animal unit months, AUMs, in that 50-year
period 110 percent on BLM lands.
Now, we only have a figure from the Forest Service from
1983 to 2003. That is only 20 years. But during that time, the
number of AUMs reduced is 27 percent, and the number of
allotments is 10 percent, so probably similar reductions spread
across a similar time frame are also true of the U.S. Forest
Service. A benchmark, a value? Yes, it is, in my opinion. The
frequency of fire today, the phenomenal wildfire of weeds on
our public lands today, it is in part the product of this
example With that, let me stop there and first and foremost
return to Rebecca Watson to make her opening statement.
Thank you for joining us today, Madam Secretary.
STATEMENT OF REBECCA W. WATSON, ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR LAND
AND MINERALS MANAGEMENT, DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
Ms. Watson. Thank you. Good afternoon, Chairman Craig and
Chairman Domenici, and members of the committee. I want to
begin by stating that the Department of the Interior and the
Bureau of Land Management believe that public-land grazing and
the ranching community it helps to support is a keystone
Western industry. We are committed to working with ranchers and
the public to sustain public-land grazing in the 21st century.
This reflects our common-sense recognition that healthy lands,
strong communities, and thriving economies go hand-in-hand with
working landscapes. My written testimony details the status of
BLM grazing permit renewals, our sustaining working landscape
initiative, monitoring and land health efforts.
Today, I want to focus quickly on the sustaining working
landscapes initiative. This initiative is in two parts. The
first is a consideration of grazing rule changes. The second
looks at policy changes that we believe we can make without
rulemaking that will improve our ability to work cooperatively
and voluntarily with the ranching community and other partners.
I will talk first about the rule.
On March 31, 2003, the BLM published a notice of proposed
rulemaking and a notice of intent to prepare an environmental
impact statement. The rulemaking and EIS sought comments and
ideas from the public. We had some categories we wanted to
address, but we sought more input from the public. We received
substantial input. Questions we discussed in our rulemaking are
extending voluntary, temporary nonuse of a permit from 3 to 5
years; authorizing a new type of grazing unit, reserve common
allotment; reinstituting an earlier provision that allowed the
BLM and the permittees to share range improvements; and
finally, improving the administrative appeals process for
grazing.
Once we prepare a proposed rule, we will once again go out
for public comment on the proposed rule and on the draft of
EIS. The BLM is also considering policy changes to complete and
enhance these potential regulatory changes. As Senator Thomas
brought out, there has been some concern in the grazing
community about some of these proposals, but what we try to do
here is think out of the box of past practices and look at
where we are in the 21st century. The world in the West has
changed dramatically.
The population growth, the global economy, all those have
put new stresses and strains on an already hard-pressed
industry, so we tried to come up with tools that we could use
to keep ranchers on the lands but address the stewardship
concerns and wildlife and recreation concerns that the now-
large Western population holds. So the idea behind them is the
same goal that we all share: How do we keep ranching on the
land in the 21st century? So we came up with several tools--
conservation partnerships, reserve common allotments, and
voluntary allotment restructuring--to allow the land to rest,
but also with the view that the grazing could come back on
again.
That is the focus of the Taylor Grazing Act, and that is
our guiding principle of working landscapes. We will have
preliminary draft policy proposals shortly. Again, we will seek
public comment. I agree that our public comment process was not
as good as it could have been, but we wanted to come up with
some proposals and then get the comments.
Again, they were proposals and not any final policy. We are
now going to work through our Resource Advisory Councils, put
it out once again to public comment, and put it on our website
to solicit reaction. As to both of these proposals, we have
heard the public, and the proposed rule and any policy
proposals will reflect comments that we have received from the
public.
I will just conclude again by reiterating that we are
committed to the goal of sustaining working landscapes in our
efforts, and permit renewals, monitoring, and regulatory and
policy developments are all focused on that goal of working
landscapes. Thank you. I look forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Watson follows:]
Prepared Statement of Rebecca W. Watson, Assistant Secretary for Lands
and Minerals Management, Department of the Interior
Thank you for the opportunity to present testimony describing the
grazing program of the Bureau of Land Management--where we are now and
where we are headed. The BLM is committed to working with those who
work on the public land as we strive for economically productive and
environmentally healthy rangelands.
Today, the BLM manages grazing on more than 160 million acres of
public land in the West. We administer over 18,000 grazing permits and
leases and in 2002, eight million AUMs (animal unit months) were used.
I would like to begin by describing the status of grazing permit
renewals at the BLM, and our plan to stabilize the renewal process and
make it more useful and timely. In addition, I want to share with you
the progress we are making on our Sustaining Working Landscapes
initiative that considers both grazing regulatory and policy changes.
Finally, I will discuss the monitoring and land health efforts we are
undertaking without which our initiatives cannot succeed As we improve
the health of the land and promote the economic well-being of
communities throughout the West, our aim throughout is to achieve the
Secretary's goals of consultation, cooperation and communication all in
the service of conservation.
grazing permit renewals
By regulation, grazing leases and permits are typically issued for
10-year periods. In most years, the BLM has 1,500 permits up for
renewal. In 1999, the BLM experienced a spike in grazing permit
renewals. Over 5,000 permits were due for renewal with an additional
2,200 due in 2000. Additionally, the BLM was required to improve
environmental documentation for processing grazing permit and lease
renewals. The increased workload made it clear that the BLM would not
meet the required deadlines for permit renewals.
Congress took action to ensure that grazing permittees and lessees
could continue to graze if the BLM was unable to complete the
environmental analysis mandated by the National Environmental Policy
Act (NEPA). Since 1999, a provision has been included each year in the
Interior Appropriations bill that gives the BLM the authority to extend
grazing permits and leases under their same terms and conditions until
completion of NEPA compliance, Endangered Species Act (ESA),
consultation and other legal requirements. We recognize that this is
not the optimum situation. I would like to share with you what BLM is
doing not only to address the permit renewal workload, but also to
avoid recurrence of this problem.
As the BLM began working its way through the permit spike workload,
it became increasingly clear that simply doing ``business as usual''
was not going to provide a long-term solution to the problem.
Therefore, the Bureau has placed an emphasis on renewing expiring
grazing permits within priority watersheds with significant resource-
use conflicts or issues. Rather than rigidly adhering to a
predetermined schedule of renewals, we want to group permits with
common impacts, watersheds and land health standards. Not only does
this provide a more even redistribution of future permit renewals over
a full 10-year cycle, but it also affords more timely consultation
completion with the Fish & Wildlife Service and/or the NOAA Fisheries.
In addition, these measures will facilitate an effective review of land
health standards on a watershed basis, allow for cumulative impact
analysis, and focus restoration resources. In the long term, this will
improve and streamline our processing of permit renewals.
Of the 10,541 grazing permits that expired between fiscal year 1999
and fiscal year 2002, 8,888 have been fully processed. The remaining
1,653 are planned for completion by the close of 2005. By the end of
2009, the BLM plans to have all permits fully processed in the year
they expire.
Our experience has shown that most NEPA documents needed for
grazing permit renewals have been at the Environmental Assessment (EA)
level, with very few requiring full Environmental Impact Statements
(EISs). The overwhelming majority of fully processed permits have been
issued with terms and conditions that are substantially unchanged from
past practices.
The BLM is strongly committed to meeting the goals I have outlined.
Each BLM State Office has made very specific commitments for how it
will comply. The BLM will continue to closely monitor the status of
grazing permit and lease renewals and, as appropriate, will make
adjustments to meet our goals. However, in any given year, a
particularly difficult fire season (which may involve temporarily
diverting some BLM personnel), and other factors, such as challenges to
decisions through appeals and litigation, may test our ability to meet
our planned timeframes. Nevertheless, we do not believe this will
impede our ability to complete this process and we remain committed to
meeting our goals.
sustaining working landscapes regulatory and policy modifications
Our challenge is to work cooperatively with our grazing permittees
and the public toward a new conservation strategy premised on the
Federal obligation to manage the lands for multiple uses. The
assistance and support of those closest to the land, the permittees
themselves, are vital to our success. Our goal is to create sustainable
working landscapes that are economically sound and ecologically
healthy.
The rancher and the ranching family have played a key role in the
history and development of the American West. Both are important to the
economic vitality and quality of life of many communities throughout
the West. The rancher increasingly plays an important role in
protecting open space in areas of burgeoning population growth.
Preserving the ranching lifestyle, not only for its own merits, but for
the benefits that accrue to the land and nearby communities, is a goal
of our Sustaining Working Landscapes initiative.
The BLM is proceeding with a two-pronged approach: (1)
consideration of regulatory modifications and, (2) policy changes that
will improve our ability to work cooperatively and voluntarily with the
ranching community and other partners. On March 3, 2003, the BLM
published an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR) and a Notice
of Intent (NOI) to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) in
the Federal Register regarding the BLM's grazing regulatory concepts. A
60-day public comment period followed which included three public
scoping meetings in the West and one in Washington, D.C. Over 7,500
comments were received.
The BLM is currently analyzing the comments we received. We expect
that modifications, additions and deletions will be made to the
proposals. We will again seek public comment on the proposed rule and
draft EIS that are targeted for publication later this year.
Among the concepts being considered as part of the rulemaking
process are:
extending voluntary temporary non-use of a permit from the
current three-year limit to five years;
authorizing a new type of grazing unit called a ``Reserve
Common Allotment;"
reinstating an earlier provision to allow the BLM and
permittee to share title to range improvements such as fences,
wells and pipelines; and
modifying the administrative appeals process.
The BLM is also considering policy changes to complement and
enhance these potential regulatory changes. In order to seek public
input on these policy ideas, on March 25, 2003, the BLM announced a
series of grazing policy development workshops across the West and in
Washington, D.C. In total, 24 workshops were held. Comments were
received which are currently being reviewed as draft policy is being
developed.
Among the tools being considered to enhance citizen stewardship of
the lands are:
Conservation Partnerships--voluntary, performance-based
agreements to provide environmental services (e.g., riparian
restoration, improved wildlife/fisheries habitat, listed
species recovery) in exchange for possible incentives such as
stewardship grants, management flexibility, forage enhancement
and permit flexibility.
Reserve Common Allotments (RCAs)--forage reserve areas that
allow permittees to engage in rangeland restoration by
temporarily shifting their livestock to forage reserve areas.
This rotation would promote range recovery through rest from
grazing without jeopardizing personal economic needs. Limited
RCAs could be established under existing regulations. However,
full implementation requires regulatory modifications.
Voluntary Allotment Restructuring--voluntary mergers of two
or more allotments to increase management flexibility and
opportunities for conservation purposes. This gives non-grazing
organizations the opportunity to work cooperatively with
ranchers to develop partnerships to meet economic and
conservation goals.
In the near future, the BLM plans to present preliminary draft
policy proposals for public review. We will seek public input through
our Resource Advisory Councils (RACs), general mailings and our
Website. We want to ensure sufficient time and opportunity for
meaningful public input and dialogue, and hope to complete this public
process by the end of September. Following evaluation and
modifications, our goal is to finalize the non-regulatory policy
decisions by the end of November of this year. Throughout the process
we will keep the Congress informed of our progress.
land health assessments and monitoring
An understanding of what is going on out on the land is crucial to
appropriate management of our public lands. Sustaining working
landscapes, grazing permit renewals and an effective grazing program
all rely heavily on good monitoring data. Without that basic
information, our ability to make appropriate decisions, improve the
health of the land, and meet our obligations to the multiple users of
the public land is severely handicapped.
Over the past 25 years, our whole understanding of how monitoring
should be conducted, where it should be focused, and what it means has
evolved. Science has changed the models for explaining and predicting
changes in rangeland vegetation to a ``state and transition'' model.
State and transition models define thresholds of change in vegetation
and soils that, when crossed, become barriers to achieving healthy
landscapes. For example, when a wildfire burns a sagebrush and
perennial grass plant community that may then convert to cheatgrass, a
threshold is crossed. Moving back across these thresholds can require
expensive restoration efforts. Monitoring change in plant communities
tells us when we are approaching one of these thresholds and allows us
to make changes in management to avoid costly restoration efforts in
the future. The ``State and Transition Model'' is more accurate than
previous models and takes advantage of the most recent advances in our
scientific understanding of soils, watersheds and vegetation.
The focus of our monitoring has also changed. We have moved from
monitoring individual allotments and individual programs to a
coordinated, interdisciplinary look at resource conditions and changes
on a watershed basis. Field offices can better analyze the cumulative
and combined effects of various management activities. Our data
collection efforts are concentrated on issues and resources directly
linked to land health.
Our efforts to improve monitoring have support from a wide range of
users of the public lands. The ranching community, conservation groups
and the academic community have joined with Federal agencies to form
the Sustainable Rangelands Roundtable (SRR). This partnership will help
us to promote consistency in monitoring and development of accurate
indicators.
The Departments of the Interior and Agriculture are chartering a
joint interagency group to address assessment and monitoring issues at
the local and national levels.
We are currently working on a report, mandated by the FY 2002
Interior Appropriations bill, Pub. Law 107-63, together with the
Natural Resources Conservation Service, the Forest Service, and four
other Department of the Interior agencies, to address the needs for
completing soil surveys and ecological classification on rangelands
within 10 years. In addition, the report will outline a plan for
developing and implementing a national rangeland assessment tool.
drought
Continued drought throughout much of the West is a variable that is
threatening the livelihood of many ranchers. While we can, and do, seek
to avoid surprises by working in advance with our permittees, short of
divine intervention, there are no easy answers. Many of our regulatory
and policy initiatives may help ameliorate the effects of the normal
drought cycle, but severe, longer-term droughts (of the kind seen
throughout much of the West in the last few years) are much harder to
address.
We are committed to working in advance with our permittees and
other drought-affected partners, alerting them to potential permit
modifications as we respond to inadequate forage and/or water. In all
of these cases we work on a permit-by-permit basis at the local level
with the ranchers. We do not seek to impose a one-size-fits-all
solution, but rather seek an answer that is both right for the land and
minimizes hardship to the public land users. Solutions include
voluntarily reduced stocking levels, water hauling, new water
developments and in some cases, temporary suspension of some or all
livestock use.
We continue to try to provide as much flexibility as possible in
responding to drought conditions, but in many cases that flexibility no
longer exists. Recovery can be a slow process and adequate moisture
alone is not a cure. In some cases ``resting'' the land is the only
answer.
conclusion
The BLM is committed to the goal of sustaining working landscapes
that are economically productive and environmentally healthy. Our
efforts and changes for proposed permit renewal, monitoring, and
regulations and policy are all developed with an eye toward that goal.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify and I'll be happy to answer
any questions you may have.
Senator Craig. Rebecca, thank you very much. Now let me
turn to Mark Rey, Secretary, Natural Resources and Environment,
Department of Agriculture.
STATEMENT OF MARK REY, UNDER SECRETARY, NATURAL
RESOURCES AND ENVIRONMENT, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
Mr. Rey. Mr. Chairman, members of the subcommittee, thank
you for the opportunity to present the subcommittee with an
overview of the Forest Service grazing program. I have brought
with me today Janette Kaiser, the Forest Service's Director of
Forest Vegetation Management, and Dean Thompson, the natural
range conservationist for the Natural Resources Conservation
Service. I may call them up to the table to assist in answering
your questions.
The Forest Service has been managing rangelands for nearly
10 years, and has a long history of partnerships with livestock
producers who rely on National Forest System lands. In fact,
grazing on Federal lands was one of the earliest resource
debates at the turn of the last century. When the debate raged
over whether livestock grazing would be banned from the then
newly created forest reserves, Gifford Pinchot, the first chief
of the Forest Service, argued that grazing should be allowed,
rather than prohibited.
Then, as now, that view was based on scientific range
research first begun as early as 1897 by the Department of
Agriculture in the Cascade Mountains of Oregon, in one of our
first range laboratories. Today there are grazing allotments on
nearly half of all National Forest System lands, approximately
90 million acres of land in 33 States.
The Forest Service administers approximately 8,800
allotments which have over 9,500 livestock permits and about
9.9 million animal unit months of grazing by cattle, horses,
sheep, and goats. Nearly all of this permitted grazing is
located in the Western States, with only about 1 percent
occurring in our two eastern Forest Service regions.
The Chairman. Mr. Chairman, may I stop the witness for just
a moment?
Senator Craig. Sure.
The Chairman. I cannot stay but about 5 minutes. I wonder
if I might interrupt the witness and inquire.
Senator Craig. Please proceed.
The Chairman. Mark, one of the problems that I raised in my
very brief remarks is the issue of ranchers who cannot get
their permits issued on time because of the long delays that--
and I understand, I am not saying the long delays that you
impose, but rather, the long delays that are occurring because
of the impact of environmental impact assessments which some of
us have, within 2 years prior to carving these out, advised
that the Bureau would never get caught up if they did this. It
started in the Forest Service. They were doing it first. It is
now prevalent. Before the regime got out, they got it in both
departments.
What is the real situation? I hear we are not making very
much headway in terms of catching up. Does that mean that large
numbers of ranchers are going to be using outdated permits that
have an indication on them that they are temporary because of
the situation, as we have mandated that you all do, or what is
going on?
Mr. Rey. What is going on is an attempt to address a
problem that started in the mid-1990's that has expanded in
scope and intensity faster than our efforts to address it. In
the mid-1990's, as a result of court action, we were required
to do new NEPA analyses under the National Environmental Policy
Act at the time of the permit renewals.
In 1995, Congress passed legislation as part of the fiscal
year 1996 Interior appropriations bill to set up a schedule for
staggering that compliance with the National Environmental
Policy Act, with the idea that we would get it all completed by
2010. There have been intervening lawsuits since that time that
throw into question both the intent of the 1995 legislation
congressional language as well as our basic capability of
meeting that 2010 deadline.
At present, we have probably about 1,500 to 1,600 permits
that are at some risk because we are behind with regard to NEPA
compliance. We can still meet the 2010 deadline as originally
indicated if we either increase the amount of resources we
devote to that, or we look for ways to streamline the
procedures that we use to comply with NEPA.
We would be happy to talk to the committee about either of
those options. My preference would be to do some of both,
because I think we are expending resources on relatively
straightforward permit renewals where nothing is changing,
where the money isn't buying us any on-the-ground investments.
Back when Congress passed that legislation in 1995, you may
recall I was on your side of the dais, and I can remember that
we asked then Forest Service chief Jack Ward Thomas where we
would be getting a good investment in on the ground by forcing
that rapid level of NEPA analysis instead of doing other things
in terms of range improvement or better monitoring programs.
He was fairly forthright, and said that he thought on the
ground results would be better if we did the latter rather than
generating NEPA documents. That is something we would like to
work on with you.
The Chairman. What I would like to say--and I hope you will
all agree--I think we have to do what makes common sense for
the rancher. If, as a matter of fact, it is useless for us to
put in extra money so we can catch up, we ought not to do it.
But if catch-up is necessary for the average rancher to be
left in a position where his assets are intact and he is not
constantly questioned because of the nebulous nature of the
permit, it would seem to me we must go to the administration
and say to them, don't send us budgets that do not have enough
money for us to get the work done.
I myself would like this record to reflect what it would
cost for a multi-year program that would catch us up, because I
don't think I have seen it. I am not sure the chairman of the
subcommittee has ever seen such a number. I am not sure the OMB
has. They never do provide it, obviously. Whether they have
been provided with it and then turn it down and give us less
money than we need, I don't know the answer to that, either.
But I think it would be good for us to know that. We could pass
that along and know where we are.
Mr. Rey. I think the unfortunate irony we find ourselves in
today is that the result of what we are achieving is neither
beneficial to the rancher nor beneficial to the rangeland
ecosystems.
We are spending too much money processing papers that
aren't producing any different or better on-the-ground results,
and that money could be better spent making range improvements,
making habitat improvements, and doing on-the-ground work.
It is not just a question of money, it is a question--as is
the case in many instances--of how wisely we spend the money
based upon procedural requirements we are bound to meet.
The Chairman. I want to remind everyone here--all of you
help me--my amendment was twice or three times on the floor,
but it is such a simple process that hurts nobody to do the
extension, and make sure that the extension does not jeopardize
the nature of it, which is what we had to write into the law.
That was such a big issue with the environmentalists that
it was number two on their national issue for at least 2 years
as something that we were using to destroy the public domain.
Obviously, it is less than that now because it is nothing in
terms of the impact on the public domain.
It is just a matter of having to do something, call it an
assessment or impact statement, that people are questioning all
the time as to validity of it when it comes to the grazing
leases. I wish you would recommend a fix with your good head.
Maybe this is what we could do, is find a way to fix the whole
problem.
Maybe we could say we don't have to continue to do them on
every lease, but rather on selective ones, one out of ten or
something, and try that on and see if we could get something
like that passed.
Mr. Rey. Or, more simply, on lease renewals where something
different is occurring, as opposed to lease renewals that are
being renewed without change.
The Chairman. Yes; or what are we going through it for?
Thank you.
Senator Craig. Mr. Chairman, thank you.
Senator Burns. Do you want to complete your statement?
Mr. Rey. I was just about done.
Senator Craig. Complete your statement, and then we will go
into additional questions.
Mr. Rey. One of the things Senator Bennett from Utah has
observed in the past is that we deal with great issues as well
as great diversions. The great issue with regard to the use of
our rangelands is fragmentation through conversion to other
uses through development.
Years ago, the national forests and grazing lands were
buffeted by miles of rural landscapes, and that is not the case
today. They are increasingly part of what we now call in the
West ``wildland-urban interface.'' In the 2000 census, the five
fastest-growing States were Idaho, Arizona, Colorado, Nevada,
and Utah. Virtually all of that growth was occurring in the
wildland/urban interface. Virtually all of that growth was
occurring as a result of the conversion of privately-owned
rangelands to subdivisions or to trophy homes.
The real challenge before us today, it seems to me, is to
embrace the remaining ranch lands as partners in slowing the
rate of development of wildland/urban interface. Within the
last 10 years, in the time period between the 1990 and the 2000
censuses, 3.5 million acres of privately-owned ranch lands were
subdivided. That in my view is the single most significant
environmental concern that we face in large parts of the West.
It is a concern that goes to water quality and water quantity
debates, fire fighting costs, and a whole variety of land use
decisions.
Rather than there being ambivalence about what we must do
with regard to the grazing issue, there is, I think, a sense of
urgency, both in the Department of Agriculture and the
Department of the Interior, that we must do what we can to
retain privately owned ranches in ranch family hands. That is
what we are focused on, both with the Forest Service and with
the Natural Resources Conservation Service, through the
prosecution of the grassland reserve and farmland protection
programs in the 2002 farm bill.
With that, the balance of my statement speaks to challenges
in other areas of the grazing program. We can talk about those
in response to your questions. I am finished.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Rey follows:]
Prepared Statement of Mark Rey, Under Secretary, Natural Resources and
Environment, Department of Agriculture
Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee:
Thank you for the opportunity to present the subcommittee with an
overview of the Forest Service grazing management program.
The Forest Service has been managing rangelands for nearly 100
years, and has a long history of partnerships with livestock producers
who rely upon National Forest System (NFS) lands. In fact, grazing on
federal lands was one of the earliest resource debates in America. When
the debate raged over whether livestock grazing would be banned from
the Forest Reserves, Gifford Pinchot, the first Chief of the Forest
Service, argued that grazing be controlled rather than prohibited.
Then, as now, that view was based on scientific range research,
first begun in 1897 by the Department of Agriculture in the Cascade
Mountains of Oregon. The Forest Service began to implement the concept
of a ``special tract permit system'' and began to collect fees in 1906
that were intended to pay for administration of the permit system. By
developing concepts such as carrying capacity and grazing systems
involving deferral and rotation, these early range scientists and
managers laid the foundation for sustainable resource use.
Livestock grazing on National Forests reserved from the public
domain is administered under a number of statutes, including the
Granger-Thye Act of 1950, the Multiple-Use Sustained-Yield Act of 1960
(MUSYA), the Forest and Rangeland Renewable Resources Planning Act of
1974, and the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976, among
others. The MUSYA specifically provides, ``It is the policy of the
Congress that the National Forests are established and shall be
administered for outdoor recreation, range, timber, watershed, and
wildlife and fish purposes.'' These laws augment the authority in the
Organic Act of 1897, which established the Forest Service and directed
the agency to regulate the use and occupancy of the forests to preserve
them from destruction.
Today, there are grazing allotments on nearly half of all National
Forest System lands, approximately 90 million acres of land in 33
states. The Forest Service administers approximately 8800 allotments,
which have over 9500 livestock permits, about 9.9 million animal unit
months of grazing by cattle, horses, sheep, and goats. Nearly all this
permitted grazing is located in the Western states (99%), with only
about one percent occurring in the Eastern forests.
trends in rangeland management
Rangeland is an important component of ecosystem diversity at a
national scale. Rangeland health is dependent on sustainable
management. The Forest Service works with other land managers to ensure
the rangeland is productive for current and future use. Invasions of
exotic species, fire, drought, and overgrazing are examples of agents
and processes that have occurred beyond their range of historic
variation on U.S. rangelands during the past 150 years, and have helped
to reduce the productivity of rangelands over time.
One of the biggest threats to rangeland is fragmentation through
land conversion. Years ago, the national forests and grasslands were
buffered by miles of rural landscape and rangeland. Now they are
increasingly part of the wildland/urban interface and development. The
Forest Service believes this change has relevance for public lands
policy in the future. We want to ensure our policies keep ranches and
working forests in operation, to keep the land whole, in the best
tradition of conservation.
When properly managed, grasslands and shrublands can contribute to
cleaner water supplies, healthy riparian areas and reduced sediment
loadings in streams and other water bodies. These lands are vital for
the production of forage for domestic livestock and provide forage and
habitat for maintaining healthy wildlife populations. These lands also
improve the aesthetic character of the landscape, provide scenic vistas
and open spaces, provide for recreational activities, and protect the
soil from water and wind erosion.
To restore and protect rangeland and grasslands the Forest Service
and the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) are working
cooperatively to provide both financial and technical assistance to
farmers and ranchers. Through the NRCS Grazing Lands Conservation
Initiative (GLCI), owners of ranchland and pasture have developed
grazing management plans for more than 80 million acres of grazing land
since 1999.
In addition to GLCI, the Department of Agriculture recently
announced deployment of a new Grassland Reserve Program (GRP),
authorized in the 2002 Farm Bill. Beginning June 30, the GRP will
provide cost share and financial incentives to help landowners restore
and protect grassland, rangeland, pastureland, shrubland and certain
other lands. The program will conserve valuable grasslands by helping
maintain viable ranching operations. GRP offers producers several
enrollment options, including permanent easements, 30-year easements,
rental agreements and restoration agreements. The Forest Service will
have the ability to hold the conservation easement under this program.
grazing permit administration
The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and other
environmental laws require the Forest Service to evaluate the
environmental effects of livestock grazing on NFS land before
authorizing this activity. Forest Service decisions in this area are
subject to administrative appeals and judicial review.
In 1995, approximately 1/2 of all Forest Service grazing permits
were due to expire. The Forest Service faced a daunting challenge to
complete the NEPA process on these grazing allotments before they
expired. In order to prevent a major disruption to livestock grazing on
National Forest System lands associated with the expiration of
approximately 4,500 Forest Service grazing permits, Congress enacted
Section 504 of Public Law 104-19 (the ``Rescissions Act'').
Section 504 directed the Chief to identify grazing allotments that
``needed'' NEPA analysis and to ``establish and adhere to'' a schedule
for the completion of that analysis. In early 1996, the Forest Service
identified 6,886 grazing allotments on National Forest System lands
that needed NEPA analysis at that time and established a schedule to
complete these analyses by 2010.
By the end of 2002, the Forest Service has completed NEPA analyses
on more than 2,300 of the 6,886 grazing allotments listed on the
schedule, or just over one-third of the total required. Unfortunately,
it is only about half of the 4,527 allotments that had been scheduled
for completion during this time.
In the 2003 Consolidated Appropriations Resolution, Public Law 108-
7 (as amended by the 2003 Emergency Wartime Supplemental Appropriations
Act) Congress enacted Section 328, which directed the Secretary of
Agriculture to renew grazing permits for those permittees whose permit
expired prior to or during fiscal year 2003. NEPA analyses would still
have to be completed on these allotments and the terms and conditions
of the renewed grazing permit will remain in effect until such time as
the analysis was completed.
The Forest Service is continuing to complete NEPA analyses at the
rate of 150 to 200 allotments per year for those grazing allotments on
the 1996 schedule. We remain committed to completing this task without
disrupting permitted livestock grazing activities, which consist of
family-run operations, seventy-percent dependent on the use of NFS land
for their livelihood.
streamlined permit process
The current decision-making procedure to authorize livestock
grazing or other activities on rangelands administered by the Forest
Service is inflexible, unwieldy, time-consuming, and expensive. For
several years, the Forest Service has evaluated alternative procedures
that would satisfy our legal obligations, provide the agency with
management flexibility, shorten the decision-making time, and reduce
the cost to the taxpayer associated with rangeland management
decisions. We believe that this can be accomplished without
compromising the integrity of the decision-making process or the
condition of the land. The objective of these new procedures will be to
protect the public's natural resources and financial interests, while
providing equitable treatment for permittees through adaptive
management.
Recently, we have begun discussions with our colleagues at BLM and
the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) to discuss the challenges of
complying with NEPA in a timely and effective manner. It has not been
unusual for the Forest Service to take two or more years to complete
the NEPA process for a single grazing allotment. This is unacceptable.
We are considering a number of ideas and plan to develop
recommendations for improvement by the end of the year. In this regard,
we appreciate the April 7, 2003, letter from seven Senators, including
Members of this distinguished Subcommittee, to CEQ regarding the issue
of NEPA compliance for grazing permit renewals.''
Additionally, the Forest Service is preparing a new chapter in the
Forest Service Handbook on rangeland management decision-making.
drought--forage and water
For the past 5 to 7 years, drought has persisted over much of the
Western United States. At present, ``exceptional'' drought (the highest
level) is centered on the panhandle of Utah, Southeast Idaho and
Southwestern Wyoming. Radiating from this center, extreme to abnormally
dry conditions exist within the Intermountain area, Southeast Oregon,
the Southwest, the Rockies, and large portions of the Great Plains
continuing down to the Gulf Coast.
Predictions for this year call for more dry weather throughout most
of the West. Although there has been some spring precipitation over
wide areas, most of the West continues to have a significant water
deficit. It will take a number of years of higher than average rainfall
to recover from the drought. In 2002, significant reductions in grazing
use on National Forest System lands occurred throughout the Interior
West and the Western Great Plains. Although it is still too early to
know the full effects of the drought, reductions in grazing use for
2003 could equal those of last year.
The Forest Service has actively coordinated drought management with
Federal, State, and local government agencies and officials. The agency
is actively participating on national, State, and local drought task
forces coordinating drought relief to our permittees. We are working
closely with industry representatives to provide up-front information
about what we are doing and seeking input from them as to their needs.
Locally, the Forest Service is managing drought impacts on a case-
by-case basis. District Rangers and Forest Supervisors are working hard
to provide the greatest amount of flexibility to permittees when it
comes to changes in their use or impacts to their operations. Local
officials are communicating early in the process to ensure the
permittee is informed and has enough time to implement temporary
changes or a long-term strategy. The Agency is coordinating with
universities and user groups to best address the concerns at the local
level. The Forest Service will continue to do so until we return to
more normal conditions.
In this time of critical forage and feed shortage, the Department
is sensitive to the livestock producers' needs while we work to ensure
our actions are consistent with the purpose of good land stewardship.
The Forest Service will continue to work with permittees, local groups
and the State to develop drought management plans and identify
restocking criteria where needed.
monitoring
The ecological conditions of rangelands affect the social and
economic stability of many rural communities. To assure these lands are
capable of providing sustainable products for future generations the
ecological condition of these lands are monitored to specific
standards. Implementation and effectiveness monitoring are the two
types of monitoring which the Agency uses. Implementation monitoring is
an annual measurement of vegetation to assure permit compliance with
written instructions for either the permittee, or the Forest Service,
or both. Effectiveness monitoring is long-term (every 5-6 years) where
vegetation is monitored to assess prescriptions and objectives set
forth in Forest Plans, allotment management plans or other relevant
documents. Effectiveness monitoring is the basis for determining what
if any modifications to the grazing strategy are needed to provide
ecosystem sustainability.
On some National Forests there is an established program which
encourages the grazing permittee to conduct much of the implementation
monitoring. In some instances the permittee, working in conjunction
with other Federal agencies, universities and rangeland consultants,
have developed a successful, collaborative monitoring program.
The Forest Service is currently working with industry
representatives to develop a national Memorandum of Understanding that
will improve our cooperative implementation and effectiveness
monitoring. This is a great opportunity for both entities to
collaborate on long-term goals and objectives for rangeland resources.
Congress, in its FY 2003 House Interior Appropriations Report,
asked the Secretary of the Interior and the Secretary of Agriculture to
prepare a report on how they would address the long-term monitoring,
ecological classification of vegetation and soil survey work which is
needed to efficiently address rangeland conditions. The report should
be available later this year.
While there have been improvements in rangeland conditions on
National Forest System lands since the Forest Service started
regulating livestock grazing over 100 years ago we must continue to
work collaboratively with our partners to restore and rehabilitate
rangeland areas so they may be productive for current and future
generations. Managing rangeland resources is an important task for the
Forest Service, and we appreciate the Subcommittee's interest in this
subject.
coordination between the forest service and the bureau of land
management and local communities
Some National Forest System lands are intermingled with or adjacent
to lands administered by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). The
Forest Service is working with the BLM on common resource issues
including grazing use, to improve consistency and resource management
across agency boundaries. We have long standing agreements that provide
for interagency management and cooperation.
The Forest Service and BLM also have a number of co-located offices
operating under the banner of Service First. In these situations, the
management official in charge manages both National Forest System
lands, as well as BLM lands. In some cases the two agencies entered
into an agreement that provides for one Federal agency to manage
another's grazing program under their respective authorities.
In addition, there are numerous planning groups helping to manage
lands of mixed ownership. These groups include coordinated resource
management (CRM) groups, watershed management groups and others. The
underlying goal is to manage an area as a landscape.
At the national level, the Forest Service and BLM have been
coordinating revisions of our respective manuals and handbooks, with
the goal of achieving greater consistency in our grazing programs while
being mindful of the different enabling legislation governing our
respective agencies. We have been cooperating in the development of
standard monitoring techniques, as well as protocols for inventorying
rangeland resources. We are working to coordinate the use of data for
managing adjacent lands at the local level.
The Forest Service will continue to work closely with the BLM and
local communities to manage our Federals lands in a cooperative fashion
to ensure the rangeland is healthy, sustainable, and productive.
This concludes my statement. I would be pleased to answer any
questions that you may have.
Senator Craig. Thank you very much. Mark and Ms. Watson,
thank you again. Let me start with some questions. While both
of you have struggled with the issue of permit renewal--I guess
my first question goes to you, Rebecca. I know this goes back
before your time, certainly. How did the BLM get in the
situation where it, in 1999, found a spike of 5,000 permits due
for renewal?
Ms. Watson. I think it goes, as you said, back before my
time, but it is a combination of completing certain use plans
between 1977 and 1983. There was a decision to issue 10-year
grazing permits. That was combined with a decision by the
Interior Board of Land Appeals on the NEPA issue.
Those things came together and created a high backlog. In
1999 and 2000 alone, some 7,200 of BLM's total 18,000 permits
expired. I think that the BLM initially took a random approach,
taking care of these grazing permits kind of as they came up.
That wasn't efficient, and in fiscal year 2001 BLM took a
watershed-based assessment strategy and focused on high-
priority areas and areas where there are good skills to get
those permits processed in a more timely manner.
We think we are making a lot more progress. As to Senator
Domenici's question as to when we might be done with this
process, we look to 2008, fiscal year 2008. We believe all the
permits will be completed by then and that we will then be in a
place with this strategy to address the permits coming up in
2009, and not get in the same situation because we have done
the NEPA, and we will be able to move forward better.
Senator Craig. What you are telling us, in essence, is you
have a plan. It is my understanding the Forest Service doesn't.
Mr. Rey. No, we have a plan. The question is what path we
take. When we try to--
Senator Craig. You are not yet executing a plan, then?
Mr. Rey. No. We are catching up, but we are not catching up
fast enough to meet--
Senator Craig. To be done by 2008?
Mr. Rey. To be done by 2010, without two things occurring.
One is a devotion of significant additional resources to do
that task, and only that task; and/or, two, ameliorating some
of that by expediting some of the procedures we are operating
under now.
I suspect it will end up being a combination of the two. I
think that it is incumbent upon us to see if we can result in
some improvements in these procedures so the money that we do
add to this effort is spent more wisely than would otherwise be
the case today.
Senator Craig. My time has just run out, or nearly. I want
to turn to my colleagues here. I ask this question of you,
Rebecca. You have a plan in place and you are executing it. You
think you will be complete by 2008. Has this backlog, and your
effort to push it out of the way by doing the things you are
now doing, damaged the agency's ability to conduct other
aspects of rangeland management in the program?
Ms. Watson. Yes. I think there is no question that it has,
similar to Mark's answer to Senator Domenici's question. This
paperwork requirement takes resources away from on-the-ground
improvements for the monitoring and some things that really
make a difference, both to the public that is interested in
public-land grazing, and to the ranchers themselves. It has
impacted our ability to do something that I think really makes
a difference to the landscape we manage.
Senator Craig. If there was one consistent theme we were
hearing throughout our hearings in Idaho last month, it was
that all of the Forest Service and BLM folks in the most part
are in the city, are in the office doing paperwork, not out on
the ground working with the permittees, monitoring and
managing. I think that speaks to the problem that we have at
hand here. I will turn to my colleague from Montana, Mr. Burns.
Senator Burns. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mark, you have been
down there at the Department of Agriculture now, and you can
tell me if I am all wet or not. But I will tell you, every time
I had a little meeting or we have a little situation and we
call agencies out, we take a look at a river or something, they
all have new pickups. Everybody shows up and everybody has a
pickup. I have never seen two of them in one pickup yet.
Then they say they are not getting their work done. You
always come up here and ask for more resources or more money to
complete what we should be working on, and it still doesn't
happen, because somebody gets a better idea: maybe we had
better be working over here. I never see any--their shirttails
are pretty close to the backside. That is what kind of worries
me a little bit, because I don't see these people working. I
just don't.
I think if you could give me some people--of course, they
go to work at 8:30, and I will tell you a story about that--and
they go home at 4:30 or 5 o'clock. I don't understand that,
when we are paying them by the month. I would work them a
little longer, I think. Let me talk about this.
The Horse Butte allotment up in Yellowstone Park, you are
pretty familiar with it, and of course we are to in Montana.
Give me your educated guess on that. Would it be beneficial to
implement a categorical solution on permit transfers and
renewals?
Mr. Rey. I think that where nothing else is changing except
where we are renewing a permit or transferring it to a
different owner who is going to manage it in the same way, that
that is the kind of government action that NEPA contemplates
could be covered by a categorical solution.
So yes, I think that is one of the things we are looking
at. The important caveat there is that nothing else is changing
on the ground; it is simply a ministerial action to renew a
permit or to transfer the ownership, the title of the permit,
from one owner to another.
Senator Burns. When we are going to use it for the same use
under the same conditions and we have monitoring plans in
place, there has been no abuse on the range, I don't know why
we have to jump through all these hoops. I don't understand
that at all. Rebecca, we worked out in--Julie, when did we do
the search--
Ms. LaPeyre. 1996.
Mr. Rey. 1996.
Senator Burns. It was before then, wasn't it? It doesn't
make any difference. We worked out a cooperative plan between
the grazing, BLM, and the Forest Service on your plan like
you've got here on the conservation partnerships, sustaining
working landscapes, and this type of thing.
I would hope that you would familiarize yourself with that
agreement up there, because basically I think that has been a
working kind of a model that we can use for the grazing
industry. Part of that was in Silver Bow County, part was in
Beaverhead County. It worked pretty well. It is still working
today.
In fact, they worked all that out up there with the Smiths.
I would familiarize yourself with that allotment. Maybe we can
sort of make it work. I am aware that the BLM has been
restructuring certain parts of their grazing policy and want an
update of how the process is moving along. Can we expect--what
can we expect at the end of the day?
Ms. Watson. As I said, we did an announcement of proposed
rulemaking. We threw out some questions. We had more from the
public. I would say that the ranching industry and community
supported that type of a proposal being addressed in our
rulemaking.
I believe our proposed rule, which will go out again for
comment, will come out by the end of this year, so we would put
that out for comment along with our draft environmental impact
statement. So I think that our schedule, November--by the end
of September.
Senator Burns. Do you think there will be any loss of AUMs
at the end of this, if the rules that you are proposing go in?
Do you think there is a chance for a loss of an AUMS?
Ms. Watson. That is a hard question to answer, I guess.
Senator Burns. It sure is. Just take an educated guess.
Ms. Watson. These rules and proposals are designed to keep
people on the land and to manage the land in a better way so we
can keep these ranching families on the lands. There has been
no analysis of whether AUMs would be lost or gained, but the
idea is that we support the ranching industry. That is the
focus, as I said, is how do we keep them on the land and
fulfill their responsibilities on range health.
Senator Burns. We talked a little, but I want the record to
note I had a good friend who was in the sheep industry in Big
Timber, Montana. What it is about is controlling the fuel load
on our forest floors for fire prevention. We can't prevent all
the fires.
Tommy Thompson--he ran the thing up there for a long, long
time. He will tell you, and I think a lot of other people will
tell you, if there is a very active grazing program on our
forest lands, there are less fires. It is one way to control
the fuel load on the forest floor, and especially in the
meadows and this type of thing.
I would suggest that be put somewhere as a working tool to
control fuel load and this type of thing. I want to work with
you on these renewals, but I am always a little skeptical about
the loss of AUMs. I think we ought to work a little more on
what we did up there with those joint agreements. In other
words, are there some areas where maybe some years the entire
pasture will be rested, won't be grazed at all?
If grazers know and there is a rule and a guideline to
follow, they can work within those guidelines; but they have to
be consistent in the long term because they can't change their
plans in a year's time. I just look forward to working with you
on those rules and on the categorical exclusions. We ought to
take a look at that.
Senator Craig. Conrad, thank you. Let me turn to Senator
Craig Thomas.
Senator Thomas. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We had a meeting
this morning with the conserve ecosystems operation. That is
the private universities and so on working with the agencies.
Has BLM or the Forest Service worked with them in terms of
helping get scientific information and private sector input?
Ms. Watson. I don't recognize that name, but I recognize
the description. The answer would be yes.
Senator Thomas. I would hope so, because it seems like that
is always what we hear: well, we don't have the manpower to do
this. They aren't able to do the NEPA, EISs, and all those
things. This is an opportunity, I think, to be able to get some
other kinds of assistance. The administration is committed,
aren't they, to having more local input into decisions that are
made in the country?
Ms. Watson. Yes.
Senator Thomas. Do you think that is happening?
Ms. Watson. I believe so. I think we are making an effort.
Like any effort, people might find it falls short in one
instance or another. But I think when I learn of that, I try to
address it with clear communication.
For our Secretary, that is the theme of her tenure:
communication and consultation. We are making a strong effort.
We are working with our publics to improve that communication.
We have come up with a nationwide response towards addressing
invasive weeds, and trying to work with them and get that local
input. That is one tool we use.
Mr. Rey. What we have tried to do, particularly in States
where we have drought problems, is to utilize the expertise of
universities, State agriculture agencies, the Natural Resources
Conservation Service, the Agriculture Resources Conservation
Service, and local soil and water conservation districts to
work with us and our permittees to do a better job of
evaluating what the implications of drought are going to be and
where we will have to make some shifts. We have committees of
that nature operating now in North Dakota, in Idaho, in
Arizona, and in New Mexico.
That is proving very helpful. They are all public
employees, so in a strict sense it is not an advisory
committee, but they come from different perspectives with a lot
of State and local on-the-ground experience.
Senator Thomas. That is good. But I do hear fairly
consistently from people on the ground that what we talk about
here in terms of policy doesn't always show up on the ground.
For instance, I am told that this last group of hearings--
they were not hearings, but meetings, on the working
landscapes--there was no input asked from the grazers; that all
they did was listen to what the BLM was going to do. The
reserve common allotment would allow grazing lands to be
improved. Where would they find the reserve allotments?
Ms. Watson. First, I would like to respond to your question
about whether or not we were reaching out to other folks. Jim
Hughes, who is with me here today, the Deputy Director of the
Bureau of Land Management, personally attended most, if not
all, the sessions reaching out to the public. The intent of the
multiple sessions we had on the policy proposals we made was to
solicit input from people around the West on this issue, so we
intended to get comments. We received comments on those
proposals.
Reserve common allotments are commonly known as grazing
banks. In fact, I saw one working up in Cody, Wyoming. That is
where some of these have come from, from on the ground, where
people are finding solutions to problems. Here they worked with
a partner, in this case I believe it was the Nature
Conservancy, who worked with the Hart Mountain Ranch to
purchase some land. They had some goals they wanted to do.
The ranch was having trouble with grazing. They were able
to rest the land, move the cattle over to the property owned by
the Nature Conservancy, and they all received a benefit. So the
idea, again, is as we get lands--and there could be grazing
groups, associations that have some lands--it is a safety
valve.
Again, perhaps a piece of public land, ground, is in need
of some rest. We want to be able to find a safety valve so we
can move the cattle somewhere else, so we don't have to take
nonuse and the rancher doesn't have to take the impact of the
loss of income.
Senator Thomas. That is great if you have an alternative;
but in most cases there are no alternatives, there are no
allotments. That seems to be the problem.
Ms. Watson. I think we feel there are alternatives out
there. There is a lot of movement and change in the ranching
communities now. For good or ill, there are a lot of sales,
people getting out of the ranching business. There are
opportunities to find partnerships there where we can work
together.
We think it is a useful tool. Again, it is a voluntary
tool. If it is not workable in a certain situation, then it is
not workable. But where it is, it can provide relief and make a
difference to a rancher who is trying to continue in the
business.
Senator Thomas. Conceptually, it is a good idea, if there
are resources available to do that. Let me say, the person who
was there did a good job with very limited information
available to him, because--apparently during the meetings he
had been provided with much information but was not able, then,
to ``exchange it.'' These were the hearings that took place
there.
Ms. Watson. I'm sorry for that.
Senator Craig. Thank you very much. Rebecca, you mentioned
in your testimony that--it goes back to what Senator Thomas was
just talking about--the public comment period was not as good
as it could have been. I think those were your words. I
happened to write them down as you said them. What would you
have done differently, if they were not as good as they could
have been?
Ms. Watson. I think we could have done a better job of
reaching out to folks simultaneously as we put these proposals
out. The way I have described it, it is sort of the chicken and
the egg. We could have gone out and said that we were looking
at a plan to make policy changes to improve your ability to
stay on the land, and, ``Give us your ideas.'' Or we could have
done what we did here, that ``These are some proposals.
What do you think of them? What other ideas do you have,''
to kind of get the ball rolling. That is what we chose to do,
but that seemed to get us started off on the wrong foot, so we
are trying to now reach out. I personally am sending Mr. J.O.
Ratliff, who is my special assistant, to many grazing meetings
around the Western States to explain these proposals better,
solicit input, hear the concerns, and try to improve the
understanding of what we are trying to do.
Again, we are not trying to take people off the land. We
are opposed to that. We want to keep ranching on the land for
the reasons that Mark described. These are our open space
stewards. They take care of our wildlife. They provide water
for the wildlife. We think they have a valuable role in public
land management. We are trying to think of ways to keep them
there. You know better than anyone the opposition that is out
there, and how do we give our ranching community the tools to
stay on the land?
Senator Craig. I would agree, there is opposition. There is
outright radical opposition that believes there ought not be
any livestock grazing on any public lands. I understand their
position, but I very much disagree with them. There is also a
growing belief out there that the fragmentation that is going
on, the urban-wildland interface that is occurring, in part is
a product of such dramatic reductions in AUMs that you have
destroyed the economic viability of the ranching unit.
There is a margin of operational viability. Once that is
destroyed, the ranch goes, and the private land goes into some
other use, or it is broken up. So when you talk to us about a
new plan, a reach-out, an effort to devise a variety of things,
and yet you cannot make the statement, when asked the question
by Senator Burns, that you don't know if this will result in
the reduction of AUMs--the reduction of AUMs destroys the
economic viability of the operating unit that results in the
fragmentation of the very land we are concerned about.
I would have hoped that a stated goal, while it would have
been risky and bold and criticized, would be no reduction in
AUM. We have gone from 18 million AUMs for BLM in the 1953 to 8
million in 2003; from 9.5 million in 1993 to 8 million in 2003.
The name of the game in range management for all these years
has been get rid of the numbers, get rid of the livestock.
Now, a variety of other things have been applied
underneath, some of them productive, such as rest and rotation.
Those are all combinations of the way we utilize the resource
itself. But the end product of those efforts has been the very
frustration we have today. What did I do a couple years ago?
I hustled around here and got some money to go out and
acquire a chunk of private land of a ranch to turn it into
public land, so that I wouldn't destroy or we wouldn't destroy
the winter migrating pattern of mule deer down in Caribou
County, Idaho. Why was that pattern being destructive? Because
the ranch that sustained that pattern by openness and
connectivity of the State, Federal, and private land was being
subdivided because the ranching unit was no longer viable,
because its AUMs had been cut 75 percent in 20 years, the
Forest Service and the BLM. As a result, the mule deer were
stacking up on fences in the winter migration.
The Nature Conservancy and Safari Club, International, were
frustrated and concerned. In an address--in an effort to
sustain that wildlife pattern, we had to go out and acquire the
private land in a State that is 63 percent public land to do
that. That is my great frustration. My question of you, then,
Rebecca, would be this.
I know the BLM has annual reports on its performance and
accomplishments on rangeland management work. Could you please
provide for the committee a comparative analysis in a table
format of the BLM's accomplishments in range programs for each
year of the past 20 years? And here we go, me criticizing you
people for being in the office instead of being out on the
range. But I am quite concerned that those in these offices
here don't get to a range, except during August recess and
other times. Their job here isn't range monitoring.
Could you give us some kind of comparative analysis of the
annualized work that goes on or has gone on in relation to the
program? I think that would be extremely valuable.
Ms. Watson. Yes. I would be happy to do that.
Senator Craig. Mark.
Mr. Rey. I think we can do the same thing.
Senator Craig. We would like the same thing from you. But
more importantly, do you have in place, or are you working on
to put in place now the same kind of program that BLM has in
the context of time lines and certainty, or relative certainty,
as to when we get these permits restructured and issued?
Mr. Rey. We have the same time line. My problem with the
time lines is that it is predicated on an increase in resources
that I am not convinced is the best way to proceed. What I am
interested in doing is exploring with the committee and others
ways that we can accelerate the rate of achievement of that
time line at lower cost. I would like to be able to reprogram
that cost back into the actual on the ground work.
Senator Craig. We would like to accomplish that, too. But
in the meantime, and during the time of the process--
Mr. Rey. We will send you that, along with a comparative
analysis.
Senator Craig. I have other questions, but Senator.
Senator Thomas. Just a couple. Mark, this permitting
process seems to have been--continues to be one of the
problems, the time it takes. I think you indicated 68,000 or
something to do it? Is that something that ought to be changed
in the regulations or in the law that could be--where you could
continue to do what we should be doing to conserve the
resources, but do it more efficiently?
Mr. Rey. The principal things we need to look at are the
amount of time and effort we are putting into environmental
analysis on renewals where nothing is changing. I question
whether that is the wisest expenditure of the time and money
that we have available.
What I want to look at is ways to accelerate that part of
the work so I can devote the money we do have to portions of
the work where the analysis is actually going to achieve a
tangible, desirable result.
Senator Thomas. It looks like the allotments could fall
into different categories, and those categories receive
different kinds of----
Mr. Rey. Yes.
Senator Thomas. Is it the NEPA requirement that is so
burdensome?
Mr. Rey. That is probably the largest burden of the time
and resources. It is not the only one, but it is one of the
ones that is most amenable to the development of different
procedures than the ones we are using now.
Senator Thomas. Do you have any thoughts, Rebecca--are
there things that ought to be changed, either by the Congress
or by the regulatory agencies, that would speed up the work and
still allow it to accomplish the tasks?
Ms. Watson. I think that is something that we are looking
at in the Department of the Interior, and together with the
U.S. Forest Service, taking a look at how we can work more
efficiently with NEPA. We are examining that issue right now. I
think there are always ways to improve NEPA implementation.
We have demonstrated some of those in the healthy forest
initiative. I think there might be similar efficiencies here. I
would get back to the point that Mark made earlier, that we are
doing a lot of paperwork here. Meanwhile, there are concerns
about the landscape. Couldn't we put our efforts better into
monitoring and doing things on the ground that matter, rather
than going through paperwork?
We are in the situation that we are in. It is not really
helping what everyone on both sides says they are concerned
about, which is the health of the range. I guess--do we really
want to make a process that doesn't result in a good end
product more efficient? Maybe that is where we are, but it
would be nice if we could put our money on the ground.
Senator Thomas. It would be nice if we were not driven so
much by lawsuits, too.
Ms. Watson. That would be a happy world.
Senator Thomas. Indeed. Mr. Chairman?
Senator Craig. Thank you very much, Craig. To paraphrase
one of the ranchers in Challis, Idaho, last month, put a BLM
person in the pickup beside me, or on a horse beside me, as
often as you can, and we will work out a way to improve this
range and still raise cattle on the range. I thought that was a
phenomenally common-sense statement.
He said, we want to do it right, and we want to make sure
that when we do it, they see that we are doing it right,
instead of to come out here with a yardstick and return and
say, whoops, the grass stubble is just a certain height, and it
is in violation thereof.
Get the cattle off. It is not day-to-day management as much
as it is long-term goals and some practices that combine to
produce quality range. We have got to get more people on the
land working with these ranchers and a consistency of policy.
That was heard throughout, that concern, throughout these
hearings.
I think that was most valuable. Both of you have stated
that your folks are in the office shuffling papers at a very
high cost to the environment, interestingly enough, and the
rangeland, or the resource itself, in many instances.
That shouldn't be the case. A question probably of both of
you: Some environmental groups have suggested establishing a
process that would allow them to purchase a grazing permit from
a rancher with the grand design to then permanently rest that
allotment. How would you respond to this kind of a proposal? I
ask that of you, in the first part, Mark, and then Rebecca. If
you would respond, please.
Mr. Rey. There are instances in specific areas where we may
be trying to achieve an individual land management function
that justifies retiring a lease. I think in the case of BLM and
Grand Staircase Escalante there was some justification.
The proposal that you are referencing, however, is a broad
and generic proposal that asserts as its basic premise that our
wildlands will be better off if we can successfully and perhaps
more humanely reduce the number of ranchers that we have out
there. As a general proposition, it is one of the stupidest
ideas that I have ever heard.
I have heard a lot of stupid ideas, including a few that I
have advanced. Because once we have accomplished that
objective, we will have the rancher, who we have bought out,
with little or no choice but to sell his base property to the
first subdivider or trophy home developer who comes down the
road. And I have to ask myself, what have we gained in those
transactions?
Senator Craig. Rebecca.
Ms. Watson. I would echo what Mark said. I think it is a
stupid idea and a nonproductive idea, simply from a fiscal
sense. It is some $2.2 billion to accomplish their goal, and in
the end it is a result that they should not want.
Again, removing ranchers--public land grazers from the land
results in negative impacts. It results in a subdivision that
is there forever. Mines, timber, grazing, those are temporary
uses. A subdivision lasts forever. A Wal-Mart is there for a
long time. That is habitat that is lost. That is recreational
land that is lost. That is land--empty space that we from the
West love just seeing empty.
So that is not a result that anybody should want. It is not
a result that we want at all. We believe the Taylor Grazing
Act--if your land is in a Taylor grazing district it is
designed to be grazed. Certainly, you can relinquish your
permit; but as for permanent retirement, that is something that
cannot be done by the BLM. We believe it can only be done by
Congress.
We believe you can retire land for a period of time through
a land use plan amendment, but again, the ultimate goal is
bringing the land back to grazing health. I would take the
opportunity to clarify my answer to Senator Burns. Even though
I am from Montana, I had a hard time following his question.
The premise of my statement was that we want public land
grazing to last. We understand the connection between AUMs and
financial viability. What we have found when you do some rest/
rotation--and all of those tools that I mention in my policy
are basically various forms of rest/rotation. It is designed to
bring the land back to health so it can take more AUMs. This is
the example I cited to him in Wyoming.
That is what happened there, that more AUMs were put back
into that ranch property. That is our goal, to have sustainable
ranching. I just wanted to clarify that.
Senator Craig. Thank you, Rebecca, for doing so. I know one
of the great concerns among the livestock and public land
grazing industry is that once off the land, never again to come
back. While many allotments have gone into rest or AUMs have
been turned back--and there is phenomenal flexibility out there
on most rangelands today to rest and move livestock elsewhere,
assuring them the same AUMs within a reasonable distance of the
operating base property.
But I think that is the greater concern, that once off the
land, never to return. There is about 30 years of history to
cause that feeling to exist against public land--with public
land grazers. I think that is the concern that you will find,
in the pushback, if you will, unless there is flexibility in
the program to move that livestock elsewhere and sustain the
AUM while you are offering the rest, the flexibility, and maybe
the rehabilitation in the given property.
Mr. Rey. I think we will have the opportunity to prove our
intentions if, Lord willing, this drought does start to reverse
itself, because many of our permittees have taken voluntary
reductions in the face of the extreme drought conditions based
on the promise that when those conditions turn around, that
those AUMs would be restored.
We intend to restore them when the range and drought
conditions improve.
Senator Craig. That will be an opportunity. We certainly
hope in certain areas of the Southwest, especially now--we got
some turnaround on the western side of the Great Plains area,
in the State of Idaho. Parts of Montana and Wyoming have
improved dramatically, but it is not the case in Arizona and
New Mexico.
Let me close by this observation. It occurred to me about 4
or 5 years ago--I happened to be out in south central Idaho in
the Shoshone district of the BLM having meetings, doing a town
meeting or something, and it was a late August afternoon.
It was hot, and, quite typically, a thunderstorm developed.
Lightning struck, and a range fire was started. It started on
an allotment, or actually, two allotments where the livestock
had been taken from them 7 or 8 years before, and the
allotments had never been touched.
They were wading in grass. They were beautiful, no question
about it. The riparian areas, the willows, the water was all
there. Five years later and 175,000 acres later, nothing was
there. All of the riparian zones, all of the willows were
burned to little piles of ashes as that fire roared through
there, so hot and so aggressive that Shoshone district would
not put firefighters on the ground.
The only thing that stopped the fire as it rushed from west
to east that afternoon was the highway that goes from Twin
Falls to Sun Valley, and that highway stopped it for just a few
moments. It jumped that highway and went on for another 25,000
acres, until it hit nothing but lava rock, and it finally
stopped. All of the rest/rotation, all of the effort to
rehabilitate that rangeland, disappeared in one firestorm.
While grass can come back, the ability to bring those
forests back and to bring the riparian area back took a decade,
in a semi-arid high desert environment of that kind. To me,
that was the best example of the worst example, or the worst
example of the best. While moderate grazing would have not
allowed the fuel buildup that occurred, and the total wipeout
of the resources--of course, that is now getting played out in
another dramatic way in Arizona and New Mexico, as we speak.
As Mark knows, this relates to Forest Service management,
and all the fuel-loaded lands of the Forest Service that are
timbered. Sometimes the best thought-out ideas, when carried to
the extreme, create some of the most difficult, if not
impossible and destructive, situations. What was beautiful in
the morning of that day was destroyed for decades in the
evening of that day. There was no middle ground. Mother Nature
at her best did her worst.
Thank you all very much for coming. We will work closely
with you on these, certainly both with you, Rebecca and Mark,
where we can help adjust, create flexibility, create some
exclusions where it fits appropriately, where we can sustain it
in rulemaking and sustain it before the courts.
I am quite confident some of these efforts will be
challenged. They are not radical, but they are certainly
opposed by some. But it is clearly worth trying because failing
to do so is, in my opinion, not going to reverse or neutralize
the decline in the livestock numbers that I have talked about
here that have occurred over the last good number of decades.
We would like to sustain for the West, and especially for
the rural West, a livestock grazing industry. We think it is
important to our States and to the people involved. We think it
is important to the economy of the country to be able to do so.
We also believe it is a very important management tool of
the lands in question and the resource we are concerned about.
Thank you for coming today. We appreciate your time.
(Whereupon, at 4:05 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.)
APPENDIXES
----------
Appendix I
Responses to Additional Questions
----------
[Answers to the following questions were not received at
the time this hearing went to press.]
Questions From Senator Wyden
Question. Interior Secretary Norton recently sent a letter to the
Grand Canyon Trust stating her support for private interests to
``retire'' grazing permits for conservation use. A few years ago at the
Oregon Cattlemen's Association annual meeting in Hood River, I endorsed
an approach where ranchers and conservation groups can collaborate
rather than fight in court. What progress are your agencies making to
actively support collaborative efforts throughout the West and in
Oregon?
Question. Assistant Secretary Watson, in spite of Secretary
Norton's letter, I understand these collaborative efforts are being
hindered because of Interior's reluctance to recognize these willing-
buyer, willing-seller transactions; consequently, potential fenders are
unwilling to put up the money for the permits. Can you explain this
behavior?
Questions From Senator Domenici to Mark Rey
Question. Unfortunately, I have heard a lot of frustration from
ranchers in New Mexico in their dealings with Forest Service. I am
particularly concerned with what is happening on the Gila National
Forest. It's my understanding that about 85% of the Forest was grazed
at one time. Environmental groups have applied strong pressure to
remove grazing in this area. I'm hearing that there has been an 87%
reduction in AVM's in areas bordering the wilderness and a 33%
reduction in other areas.
1. How does the Forest Service justify an 87% reduction in and
around the Wilderness portion of the Forest when the Wilderness Act
says that grazing in Forest Service Wilderness ``shall be permitted''?
2. Is there a scientific basis for this degree of reductions?
3. If so, can you have your staff provide the Committee a summary
of this data and the rationale for these reductions?
Questions From Senator Craig to Mark Rey
permit renewal
Question. Your testimony would indicate to me that the Forest
Service has yet to figure out how to address its backlog on permit
renewal. Its now been eight years since the Recision Act passed, and it
appears that little progress has been made. Can you get a Forest
Service strategy in place within 60 days for completing this backlog?
sawtooth national recreation area
Question. In April, Federal District Court Judge B. Lynn Winmill
renewed an injunction protecting wolves on public lands in Idaho's
Sawtooth National Recreation Area.
1. Is there flexibility within this court order for the SNRA to
work with the grazing community to find acceptable methods for
protecting livestock from predation?
2. Do you believe the SNRA will be able to complete NEPA in
accordance with the schedule ordered by Judge Winmill?
3. If not, what steps will the Department take in response to the
order?
Supplemental Questions on the June 25 Grazing Hearing
Questions From Senator Craig to Rebecca Watson
monitoring
Question 1. With your staff committed to addressing the permit
backlog and lawsuits. How much effort is actually being directed toward
range monitoring?
Question 2. I would be interested in learning about BLMs lawsuit
situation the effects grazing. I know much of this information is
difficult to track but can you provide me information as to:
--How many lawsuits?
--How much is spent annually responding to this litigation,
including additional workload imposed by court orders?
--Identify where the funds come from to address the cost of
responding to litigation?
--What impact do these costs have on the BLM's on-the-ground
management capability?
Appendix II
Additional Material Submitted for the Record
----------
Statement of American Farm Bureau Federation
The American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) is pleased to offer this
statement for the hearing record. AFBF's membership includes most of
the livestock producers in the United States, including those who graze
livestock on federal lands. Our members graze livestock on lands
managed by both the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management
(BLM).
AFBF has been a full participant on behalf of our members in the
debates surrounding livestock grazing issues. We were a plaintiff in
the landmark litigation, Public Lands Council, et. al. v. Babbitt,
which challenged the controversial ``Rangeland Reform'' grazing
regulations all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. We have actively
sought relief to the dilemma of trying to timely address grazing permit
renewals that plague both the Forest Service and the BLM. We have been
actively engaged with the Forest Service and the BLM on a number of
grazing issues that affect our members.
There have been a number of livestock grazing issues that have
arisen over the course of the past few years. We would like to present
our views to the committee on some of these issues.
1. Grazing Permit Renewal
In the mid-1990's, both the Chief of the Forest Service and the
Director of the BLM directed to their field level staffs that
documentation required by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)
had to be completed before livestock grazing permits held by area
ranchers could be renewed or transferred. At the time, both agencies
were facing a significant number of permits expiring during that year.
Both agencies quickly realized that they were not going to be able
to complete NEPA documentation for all of the expiring permits, meaning
that they could not be renewed. Innocent ranchers who had complied with
all the terms and conditions of their permits and who had done nothing
wrong, suddenly found themselves facing the loss of permits because the
issuing agency could not complete the required paperwork.
Congress came to the relief of the ranchers and the agencies,
albeit via different routes. In 1995, Congress required Forest Service
units to establish a schedule for completion of NEPA documentation for
their permits, and allowed permits expiring before the scheduled NEPA
work to be renewed on the same terms and conditions as the expiring
permit, pending completion of NEPA work. For the BLM, Congress added a
similar provision in the Interior Appropriations bill, which allows for
renewal of that provision one year at a time as necessary. The American
Farm Bureau Federation strongly supports both of these provisions.
Both agencies found it more and more difficult to meet their NEPA
obligations. Budgets for range were slashed. Agency manpower was
reduced. Forest Service range personnel were cut by nearly half in the
eight years since the Rescissions Act schedule was enacted, and the
remaining agency personnel were often pulled away from their range
duties for other duties, such as wildfire control.
The result was that the agencies could not meet the obligations
imposed during different times. The Forest Service fell behind on its
1995 schedule, and once again innocent ranchers faced the loss of their
permits despite having done nothing wrong. Farm Bureau strongly
supported the inclusion of a provision in the 2003 Interior
Appropriations Act that treats permit repeals for the Forest Service
the same as those for the BLM.
Farm Bureau views the 2003 Appropriations Act provision as a
temporary fix to resolve a situation that is outside the control of
either the BLM or the Forest Service. As scarce resources and manpower
shift from one area to another within the agencies, it becomes
increasingly difficult for them to maintain NEPA compliance on expiring
or transferring permits. The continuing provisions in the Interior
Appropriations bill are necessary to protect permittees until the
agencies can catch up with their NEPA work, their NEPA responsibilities
under current funding and manpower constraints.
We also advocate streamlining NEPA procedures so that livestock
grazing permits can be more expeditiously renewed or transferred. We
believe that categorical exclusions from NEPA documentation for certain
types of grazing permit renewals or transfers should be explored. We
will work with the agencies and/or Congress to accomplish these.
2. Proposed BLM Revisions to Grazing Regulations
In 1994, Secretary Babbitt significantly amended the BLM grazing
rules. These amendments, among other things, eliminated the statutory
concept of ``preference'' as an adjudicated right. Another amendment
eliminated permittee of range improvements that they had built and paid
for. They also would have allowed for entities to purchase and retire
grazing permits by allowing ``conservation use'' of allotments as a
permitted use. All of these changes adversely impacted ranchers.
AFBF and livestock organizations challenged these amendments in
court. The case was heard and decided by the Supreme Court.
An Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR) to revise the
grazing regulations was published earlier this year. AFBF strongly
supports these revisions to eliminate the unworkable and unfair
amendments promulgated in 1994. Attached is a copy of the comments we
submitted on the ANPR.
Restoring an ownership interest in range improvements will allow
ranchers an increased opportunity to obtain operating loans from their
banks by allowing such improvements to be listed on their balance
sheet. Restoring the full meaning of ``preference'' will restore the
full amount of grazing opportunity as contemplated by the Taylor
Grazing Act. Elimination of ``conservation use,'' struck down by the
Supreme Court, will retain grazing permits for grazing purposes.
Our positions on other proposals is contained in the attached
comments.
3. Reserve Common Allotments
One new idea that would be incorporated into the revised
regulations is the concept of a reserve common allotment. A reserve
common allotment program would provide for unused allotments in an area
to be available for use by permittees whose own allotments have
suffered damage from wildfire, disease or pests, or is being restored.
It would provide flexibility for both ranchers and the agency by
providing alternate forage for ranchers and encouraging the restoration
of allotments by the agency.
AFBF generally supports the reserve common allotment concept under
appropriate circumstances, which include:
Reserve common allotments should come from vacant or unused
allotments, and not from existing permittees being removed from
their allotments.
Reserve common allotments might be taken from allotments
where the permittee elects to take non-use, so long as the
consent of the original permittee is obtained and agreement for
compensation or maintenance of the allotment is made.
Permittees who use common allotments, or who allow their
allotments to be used as such, should not lose their water
rights for lack of beneficial use.
Reserve common allotments should be available only to
qualified BLM permittees whose own allotments have been damaged
by drought, fire or pests, or which is undergoing restoration.
Reserve common allotments should be grazed at current
carrying capacity, and not used as a subterfuge to reduce or
eliminate grazing in an area.
Reserve common allotments should not be used as an excuse
for entities not engaged in the livestock business to purchase
associated base property and turn the permit over for light or
no grazing.
There should be a limit on the amount of reserve common
allotments within any given area.
Reserve common allotments should not be permanent.
4. Working Landscapes Proposal
Together with the ANPR on revisions to the grazing regulations, BLM
announced a program it calls ``Working Landscapes.'' BLM sees this
program as a voluntary way for ranchers and the BLM to jointly provide
increased enhancement for other values, such as wildlife habitat.
The ``Working Landscapes'' approach currently would provide such
incentives through conservation partnerships, conservation easements,
mitigation for endangered or threatened species, or voluntary allotment
re-structuring to reduce overall grazing pressures.
``Working Landscapes'' should provide a number of tools to achieve
conservation ends, not be the only way to achieve them. For example,
the BLM proposal to obtain conservation easements in exchange for
checker-boarded BLM land should also include an option for the rancher
to purchase the BLM land as well.
We do not oppose truly voluntary agreements entered into by
ranchers with the BLM. Ranchers wishing to engage in conservation
measures with the BLM on a voluntary basis should be given the tools to
do so.
5. Livestock Grazing as Part of the Healthy Forest Initiative
We believe that livestock grazing can be an important toll in
implementing the administration's Healthy Forest Initiative. The
initiative is designed to reduce fuel loads on our nation's forests and
rangelands in order to prevent the likelihood of catastrophic
wildfires.
Livestock grazing is useful in reducing fuel loads on rangelands,
and it also helps to eliminate certain harmful invasive plants. We urge
the Committee and the agencies to consider livestock grazing as a tool
that might be used in fuel reduction or restoration projects as part of
the Healthy Forest Initiative.
These are some of the main livestock grazing issues that affect our
members. We appreciate the opportunity to present this statement, and
look forward to working with the Committee to resolve these issues.
To Whom It May Concern:
The American Farm Bureau Federation is pleased to offer its
comments on the Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking and the scoping
request for preparation of an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) on
changes to grazing regulations in the lower 48 states.
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) will develop an Environmental
Impact Statement (EIS) in connection with a proposed rulemaking to
amend its regulations relating to livestock grazing. The agency has
listed a series of subject areas that will be considered for the new
rule. Unfortunately, the agency has provided no further explanation of
these subjects or any further indication of what changes they would
like to make.
Farm Bureau members graze livestock on lands managed by the Bureau
of Land Management, predominantly in the Western United States. The
passage of the Taylor Grazing Act in 1934 prescribed an orderly method
for allocating forage on public lands to be administered by BLM. The
purposes of the Taylor Grazing Act were to protect grazing resources,
and stabilize the Western livestock industry. Grazing districts were
established in many parts of the West. Grazing was determined on the
basis of ``preference,'' which gave those who historically used the
land and lived and ranched near the federal lands the first right to
secure newly-issued grazing permits. Grazing preferences were
adjudicated in each grazing district throughout the West. Ranch units
in the West are comprised of privately owned lands and also federal
grazing permits to graze livestock on federal lands. Ranchers relied on
grazing preferences, and also rely on the public lands to make their
ranching operations viable.
The system had worked reasonably well for 60 years, when Secretary
of the Interior Babbitt drastically changed it. ``Preference'' was
replaced with ``permitted use,'' which stripped permittees of the
benefits of their adjudicated forage amounts. Range improvements that
permittees funded and built were taken away from them, with title
vested in the United States. Grazing permits were given to entities
that had no interest in using the lands for livestock grazing, and
regulations allowed these entities to put the allotments into a
permanent non-use category of ``conservation use.'' Surcharges were
levied on permittees who subleased their allotments to their neighbors
in need of forage.
The system that had been in place for 60 years was suddenly thrown
out of whack. Change is needed to restore the balance and to stabilize
a livestock industry that has been devastated by drought and low
prices.
We support the efforts of the BLM to amend the grazing regulations.
Changes are needed to make the grazing regulations more workable for
all concerned parties. We believe, however, that regulatory amendments
should go farther than those subject areas set forth in the Advance
Notice.
Reserve Common Allotment. This new concept proposed by BLM would
develop a system of BLM lands held in reserve, to be allocated for use
by livestock permittees whose allotments are unavailable due to
restoration projects or natural conditions such as drought or wildfire.
This concept could provide greater flexibility to both the BLM and
to livestock permittees. It provides an outlet for producers whose
allotments are unusable due to weather, fire, or other reasons beyond
their control. This concept could also encourage both producers and BLM
to undertake needed restoration projects on federal lands if there is
alternative forage available for producers. If that is the intention of
BLM, a reserve common allotment program would be beneficial to
permittees as well as the grazing resource.
We support the concept of a reserve common allotment program under
appropriate circumstances. Some issues that need to be addressed in
regulations implementing a reserve common allotment program include:
Reserve common allotments should be drawn from vacant or
unused allotments and not created by removing permittees from
existing allotments. This should be spelled out in the
description. Reserve allotments might also be drawn from areas
that were historically grazed, but which have not been grazed
in recent years.
Reserve allotments might also be drawn from allotments where
non-use is taken for reasons other than needed rest. This would
require the consent of the permittee who has taken non-use, and
would require compensation or agreement for maintenance of
fencing and other range improvements contained on the
allotment.
Permittee water rights in most states is predicated on
making beneficial use of water for a specified period of time.
Permittees who use RCAs, or permittees who allow their
allotments to be temporarily used for RCAs may inadvertently
find that their water rights under state law have been
forfeited due to non-use. Permittees should not lose their
water rights either for using a RCA or for allowing an
allotment to be used for a RCA. This issue must be clarified
and resolved prior to development of any RCA program.
The agency should also devise a fair and equitable process
for allocating forage under the reserve common allotment
program.
Rules should also specify whether more than one permittee
would be allowed to use a reserve allotment at a time. If so,
rules implementing such a program should specify requirements
such as branding and separation requirements to ensure orderly
use of the allotment.
Any placement of allotments into a RCA must be truly
``voluntary'' on the part of the landowner. There must be no
coercion or ``friendly persuasion'' on the part of any BLM
employee to have someone place an allotment into a RCA.
RCAs must be available to qualified BLM permittees whose own
allotments are unusable due to drought, fire, pest infestation
or restoration work.
RCAs shall not be a subterfuge for taking ``conservation
use.'' Any RCA must be used for grazing at its carrying
capacity, and not be used as an excuse to cut or eliminate
livestock grazing.
RCAs should also not be an excuse to allow entities not
truly engaged in the livestock business to purchase private
base property and turn any associated permit over for light or
no grazing. RCAs should be used, and should be a true safety
valve for permittees displaced by circumstances beyond their
control. Permittees whose allotments are rendered unusable by
bad management practices should not be eligible to participate
in the RCA program.
There should be a limit on the amount of RCAs in a given
resource area. Allowing no more than 10 percent of an area to
be in RCA for example, might serve as a benchmark.
Ranchers Share Title to Range Improvements. This change would
restore a provision that gives permittees some title to the range
improvements that they make and pay for. The title might be held
jointly with the United States for more permanent improvements. Farm
Bureau and other livestock organizations unsuccessfully challenged the
provision vesting title to BLM in court.
We support reinstatement of co-ownership of range improvements.
Farmers and ranchers who pay and construct range improvements
should have an ownership interest in them. They should be able to list
range improvements that they construct as assets on their balance
sheets for purposes of determining their eligibility for bank operating
loans. Permittees will be in a better position to obtain financing if
they are allowed to have an ownership interest in range improvements.
Providing co-ownership with permittees will also give permittees an
incentive to construct and maintain range improvements on federal
lands.
Extending Permitted Non-Use From Three to Five Years. The BLM is
proposing to extend the period for which a permittee can take non-use
from three to five years. This change would provide greater flexibility
to producers and to the forage resource. Ranchers benefit because it
provides them greater flexibility to address situations which caused
the non-use in the first place. Grazing forage also benefits if
additional time is needed to address situations such as drought that
might require non-use.
An extension of the non-use period must be accompanied by other
changes in order to be acceptable. There is some concern among our
members that extending the period of non-use to five years would allow
allotments to be placed in a de facto ``conservation use.''
``Conservation use'' was added by Rangeland Reform as a permitted use,
to allow non-livestock entities to obtain grazing permits and not use
the allotment for grazing for the permit term. A five year non-use
should not be a subterfuge to achieve ``conservation use,'' which the
courts have said is outside the scope of current BLM authority.
Permittee concerns on this issue are heightened by the recent BLM
action in the Grand Staircase Escalente National Monument in Utah,
where grazing permits were transferred to an affiliate of the Grand
Canyon Trust and essentially retired from grazing use.
Another necessary and integral part of any extension of the non-use
period to five years is restoration of a provision in the regulations
requiring that a person must be ``engaged in the livestock business''
as required by the Taylor Grazing Act. That will ensure that allotments
will actually be used for grazing and not for other uses.
It is also important that the original concept of the grazing
``preference'' as an adjudicated amount of forage allocated to a
permittee be restored through these regulations in order to protect any
amount of non-use from being lost in subsequent years. Taking
authorized non-use should net result in lost or reduced grazing.
Restoration of the grazing preference concept as originally included in
the Taylor Grazing Act will help ensure such protection. (Discussed
below in greater detail.)
We also believe that allotments for which five year non-use is
taken should be part of the Reserve Common Allotment program for at
least a few years for which non-use is taken. Such a requirement would
allow the management of the allotment during the period of non-use, and
keep the allotment grazed during this time. It would also allow the
original permittee to return to the allotment at the end of the non-use
period.
Clarifying That BLM Will Follow State Law With Respect to
Acquisition of Water Rights. There have been efforts by some federal
agencies to claim reserved federal water rights or otherwise acquire
water rights outside the state water system. Continued drought and
increasing water demands make this a critical issue. Any water rights
should only be acquired through the process established by state water
law.
Rangeland Reform also provided that water rights on federal lands
for livestock grazing purposes were to be acquired in the name of the
United States to the extent allowed by state law. We would support an
amendment that would allow water rights for livestock grazing be
acquired in the name of the permittee as was allowed before 1995.
Non-Permit Related Activities as Prohibited Activities. ``Rangeland
Reform'' amendments enacted in 1995 greatly expanded the list of
prohibited activities that could result in the suspension or
cancellation of a permit. Under Rangeland Reform, a permit could be
cancelled for any violation of any state or federal environmental law,
without regard to whether it was in the furtherance of livestock
grazing under the permit. The current rule only requires that a
violation be ``related to'' grazing use.
BLM managers should not be authorized to take actions against a
permittee for actions that do not violate the terms and conditions of
the permit itself, and permit terms and conditions should not contain
items that are not part of grazing administration. Permittees who abide
by the terms and conditions of their permits should not have action
taken against their permit for violations of law or regulation outside
the permit. Any such violations should be addressed within the confines
of the particular law or regulation allegedly violated, and not by the
additional action against a grazing permit. These statutes provide
ample authority for addressing alleged violations on their own terms.
Giving BLM the authority to also address such issues by allowing permit
actions provides too much opportunity for abuse.
State law in some cases allows state leases to be cancelled for
activities unrelated to livestock grazing. For federal regulations to
allow for federal grazing permits to be suspended or cancelled when
action is taken against state leases allows permits to be suspended or
revoked for reasons unrelated to livestock grazing. We suggest that
current language be modified to reflect this issue.
Permit Qualifications. The Taylor Grazing Act requires that
landowners ``be engaged in the livestock business'' in order to acquire
a grazing permit or preference. Rangeland Reform removed that
requirement, in order to allow for ``conservation use'' of grazing
permits. The Rangeland Reform provision was struck down by the Tenth
Circuit Court of Appeals as violative of the Taylor Grazing Act, and
that ruling was not overturned by the Supreme Court in its review of
Rangeland Reform. However, it was never removed from the BLM
regulations.
We support provisions that strike ``conservation use'' wherever
that term is found in the regulations and restore the requirement that
permit and preference holders ``must be engaged in the livestock
business'' as required by the Tenth Circuit Court and the U.S. Supreme
Court. Because the courts have already ruled that the changes made by
Rangeland Reform were illegal, the restoration of the regulations to
the pre-1995 language merely represents housekeeping, as opposed to
substantive changes in the rules. Both changes must be made in order to
comply with the courts decisions.
These changes are also necessary if the BLM intends to enact a
Reserve Common Allotment Program that is acceptable to ranchers and
permittees.
Re-emphasizing Consideration of Economic, Social and Cultural
Impacts for National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) Purposes. NEPA
requires that economic and social impacts be considered in
environmental impact statements and environmental analyses. Secretary
Babbitt had essentially eliminated consideration of cultural heritage
of an area for NEPA purposes. Livestock grazing forms a vital basis for
the rich cultural heritage of the West. That heritage needs to be
remembered and considered in any NEPA analysis.
Changing the Definition of ``Grazing Preference.'' The term
``grazing preference'' is defined by the Taylor Grazing Act to mean the
amount of forage to which a landowner is entitled. Grazing preferences
were adjudicated throughout the West in accordance with the Taylor
Grazing Act. ``Preference amounts'' are forage in either active use or
in suspended non-use.
A major component of Rangeland Reform was the removal of the
concept of grazing preferences as defined by the Taylor Grazing Act.
These rules replaced preferences with ``permitted use,'' which is the
amount allowed to be grazed by the BLM. This was the primary challenge
that livestock organizations raised to Rangeland Reform in the courts.
The Supreme Court upheld the government's concept of ``permitted
use.''It eliminated preference holders' rights to additional forage
within their preference amounts should it become available. We support
reinstatement of the definition of ``grazing--preference'' to the way
it was defined prior to 1995.
Streamlining the Appeals Process. BLM is also open to suggestions
for ways to streamline its appeals process.
BLM is in the process of streamlining the appeals process
applicable to wildfire management decisions. One proposal is to clarify
who is eligible to appeal a decision. The proposal would require that
in order to file an appeal of a wildfire management decision, a person
has: (1) have a ``legally cognizable interest'' that is a
particularized interest or injury that is more than a general citizen
concern about the issue; (2) have commented either orally or in writing
on the decision; and, (3) only raise issues on appeal that were raised
in their comments.
We believe that the same criteria proposed for wildfire management
issues should also be applicable to livestock grazing issues. We
supported the changes to the wildfire management appeal regulations,
and would support a similar proposal for livestock grazing appeals.
They are fair and reasonable, and conform generally to established
``standing'' requirements for suing in court.
We strongly support the elimination of the concept of ``interested
public'' from the grazing regulations. The current rules allow for
anyone to interject themselves into discussions between BLM and
permittee with respect to allotment management and grazing management.
In no other aspect of business relationships does this occur. We
support the right of an aggrieved member of the public to appeal a
grazing decision and to be involved in BLM planning activities, but
they should not be involved in day-to-day management issues as
``interested public'' currently are.
We would also support a provision that would eliminate the ``full
force and effect'' provisions of Rangeland Reform.
Examine Whether BLM Should Authorize Temporary Locked Gates on
Federal Lands to Protect Livestock Operations. This issue needs more
explanation. The description leads one to believe that BLM could limit
access to federal lands for livestock permittees. If this is the case,
we oppose it.
There is another scenario, however. Barring access to federal lands
by a private person is currently a prohibited act. Thus, a livestock
permittee cannot currently close gates to federal land entrances, even
if a temporary closure would not affect public access. If, however, the
regulation were changed to allow BLM to authorize a temporary closure
so the permittee could take some action that was beneficial to the
ranch operations, it could be something we could support. Comments
should describe this scenario and state that it should be enacted.
Requiring a Permittee to Apply for a Renewal. The proposal would
establish an application process for renewing grazing permits. This is
a two-edged sword. On the one hand, requiring an application process
provides some protection under the Administrative Procedures Act from
adverse actions resulting from failure to comply with NEPA. On the
other hand, it creates a burden for the producer and provides too much
discretion in the hands of the agency. Requiring a permittee to apply
for a permit renewal will also increase the importance of the
performance review in the renewal process, and could lead to using the
performance review as an excuse not to renew a permit.
Categorical Exclusions for Certain Permit Transfers or Renewals.
BLM policy requires that they complete analyses under NEPA prior to the
renewal of grazing permits and other permit transfers. This has caused
a major problem for the BLM because the agency has encountered
difficulty in completing the required analyses time. This has caused
problems for permittees, who would be denied the privilege to graze
through no fault of their own. For the past five years Congress has
enacted a specific provision in the Interior Appropriations Bill to
alleviate this situation and allow otherwise expiring permits to be
renewed, and others to be transferred.
BLM should consider streamlining its regulations to expedite the
NEPA process with regard to grazing permits. Grazing permit transfers
that do not impact the environment but only involve paper changes
should not be subject to NEPA documentation. Minor permit changes might
include transfers that do not change the terms and conditions of a
permit or transfer title from one permittee to another in the middle of
a permit term. Such actions should not have to be subject to the
preparation of NEPA documentation. Categorical exclusions were proposed
for BLM wildfire management decisions. BLM should consider the same
treatment for grazing permit actions in this rulemaking. Also, BLM
cannot keep up with the NEPA paperwork that is required to renew or
transfer permits, and spends more time and money on paperwork as a
result. Categorical exclusions would remove the permit action backlog,
and allow BLM to spend more time and money on the ground.
This rulemaking is an appropriate time to consider rules or policy
changes that would remove the necessity of requesting Congress every
year for a ``fix'' for the NEPA dilemma regarding permits.
Grazing Surcharge. The surcharge imposed for subleasing permits
should be re-opened and reexamined. The surcharge, added by Rangeland
Reform in 1995, should be eliminated. The surcharge is a burden for BLM
to administer, and serves no discernable purpose.
One of the reasons for the imposition of the surcharge was the
allegation that permittees were sub-leasing their grazing allotments at
a significant profit. As alleged, they would receive upwards of $10 per
Animal Unit Month for the same forage that they paid the BLM $1.35. We
commented at the time that we do not condone the practice of taking
advantage of the federal lands in that manner.
But we also mentioned that there were good reasons for charging
more than the federal grazing fee. Sub-lessors provide more services
for their sub-lessees than are provided by the BLM in grazing permits.
Each of those services costs the sub-lessor money. Studies have shown
that when the costs of these additional services are balanced out, the
relative costs are comparable.
If this is still a concern, we offer this possible solution instead
of the surcharge. A sublease would list all the items and the costs of
the services provided in the sublease, including the grazing fee and
any additional service provided beyond those provided by the permit.
Make BLM Procedures More Compatible With the Endangered Species
Act. The Endangered Species Act (ESA) continues to make it more
difficult for permittees to graze livestock in accordance with the
terms of their permits. While ESA jurisdiction resides with other
federal agencies, there are changes BLM can make to its regulations to
ease ESA burdens on permittees.
a. Bring permittees in as part of any section 7 ESA
consultation involving their allotments. The Endangered Species
Act requires that any time an action is ``authorized, funded or
carried out'' by a federal agency, it must consult with the
Fish & Wildlife Service or National Marine Fisheries Service
anytime the action ``may affect'' a listed species. In most
cases, the party most affected by the outcome of any
consultation is a private entity holding or applying for a
federal permit, such as a grazing permit. Yet, current practice
does not allow the private party to participate in the
consultation to any meaningful extent. Full private
participation would assist both the BLM and the Fish & Wildlife
Service or National Marine Fisheries Service (the Services) to
arrive at a more informed and meaningful decision. The Services
rules are silent on third party participation. BLM rules could
be amended to include private applicants or permit holders as
full parties with BLM in the process.
b. Notify permittees of any ``citizen suits'' under the ESA,
Clean Water Act or other environmental laws. Another problem
that we have encountered with the ESA is citizen suits that
challenge livestock grazing on BLM lands are most often filed
against the BLM and not the private permittees. Although the
permittees are the parties that are most adversely impacted by
such suits, they are often not aware of such cases, and not
made aware of them. Injunctions may be obtained, or cases
settled, without any opportunity for the permittees to
participate. This issue can be corrected simply by BLM
communicating with permittees that a citizen suit has been
filed or that a Notice of Intent to Sue has been filed that may
affect their allotments or grazing privileges. This will allow
the permittees to take whatever action they deem appropriate to
protect their interests. Notification to a grazing association
(where they exist) could be construed as notice to all of the
permittees. A provision added to the BLM regulations requiring
such notification would address this problem.
Monitoring
The definition of ``monitoring'' should read as follows: ``The
orderly collection, analysis, and interpretation of resource data to
evaluate progress toward meeting management objectives. This process
must be conducted over time in order to determine whether management
objectives are being met.''
In addition to establishing monitoring studies, BLM should continue
the periodic evaluation of rangeland resources on existing monitoring
locations using the same procedures to ensure continuity over time and
ensure that all monitoring data collected on BLM lands remains
available in allotment files for use in evaluation trends in resource
conditions over time.
The Grazing Regulations should also contain a separate section
titled ``Monitoring''. The direction in this section should include the
following language:
BLM field office or district managers shall develop, in
consultation with allotment owners and local land grant universities,
resource management objectives, including but not limited to wildlife,
threatened and endangered species, and recreation impacts, at the
allotment level. They should develop both short-term and long-term
monitoring programs based on current and historical quantitative
vegetative data that have the technical ability to determine if
allotment resource objectives are being met. At the discretion of the
Grazing Board, findings may be subject to peer review. It is the intent
of this section that, to the extent feasible, field level data and
documented observations collected during this monitoring program be
collected at the same time and location with participation by both the
BLM and the allotment owner, and that both parties be responsible for
the interpretation of this data. The action office will prepare an
annual report on the monitoring activities under its jurisdiction and
will report the status of progress toward meeting allotment/lease
objectives as they are determined by the BLM and permittee/lessee
within their respective field offices or districts.
This section should also require periodic reports be developed in
consultation with the permittee, showing how the monitoring data and
documented field observations are tracking, and whether allotment level
resource objectives are being accomplished.
Payment of Fees
Farm Bureau recommends that, for purposes of billing AUM the
conversion ration for sheep should be changed from 5:1 to 7:1.
Full Force and Effect Decisions and Petitions for Stay of Decisions
We recommend that Sec. 4160.3, Final Decisions, be revised as
follows:
``A BLM decision timely appealed by a grazing permittee or lessee
shall not be effective pending a final agency decision following a
hearing on the record. During the pendency of the appeal, the terms and
conditions of the existing or prior permit shall be in effect.
``When the authorized officer determines that the current
authorized grazing use poses an imminent likelihood of irreparable
resource damage, after consultation with, or a reasonable attempt to
consult with, permittees or lessees, the state with responsibility over
lands in the area and other land owners, the authorized officer may
declare an emergency and place the decision in effect prior to the
hearing or final administrative decision. The decision will be
effective for the 30-day period provided for filing an appeal.
A declaration of emergency by the authorized officer must show
sufficient justification based on the following standards:
(i) the relative harm to the parties if the decision is
effective pending appeal;
(ii) The likelihood of BLM's success on the merits;
(iii) The likelihood of immediate and irreparable harm if the
decision is not effective pending appeal; and
(iv) whether the public interest favors placing the decision
in effect pending appeal.
A review of BLM grazing decisions over the past ten years shows
that very little actual data from state-of-the-art rangeland studies
were the basis for grazing decisions. In addition, the Interior Board
of Land Appeals has incorrectly applied the burden of proof to the
appellant instead of BLM, as is required by the Administrative
Procedures Act (APA). If decisions are not suspended, the permittee/
lessee could well be placed out of business pending final disposition.
Burden of Proof
Farm Bureau requests that Sec. 4160.4 be amended to include the
following language:
``During the process of adjudication of the appeal, the burden of
proof shall be on the proponent of the rule or order, the BLM, and the
standard of proof shall be a preponderance of evidence showing that
BLM's decision is supported by scientifically-based facts.''
In 5 U.S.C. 556, of the APA, it states, in part, that the standard
of proof is a preponderance of the evidence and the burden is on the
proponent of the rule or order. The BLM grazing regulations have an
obligation to reflect the letter and intent of U.S. statutes that
govern their activities. The BLM is subject to ALL of the direction in
the APA, including this subject. This change will result in fewer and
higher quality decisions.
The APA provides uniform rules regarding adjudications before
administrative agencies and review of final agency actions. Regarding
the former, the APA governs all adjudications ``required by statute to
be determined on the record after opportunity for an agency hearing'' 5
U.S.C. Sec. 554(a). Section 9 of the Taylor Grazing Act (TGA) requires
that the Secretary of the Interior provide ``rules and regulations for
local hearings on appeals from the decision of the administrative
officer in charge'' 43 U.S.C. Sec. 315(h). This provision means that
all ``matters which arise in the administration of grazing districts''
are ``required by statute to be determined on the record,'' triggering
all APA requirements for formal adjudications. See LaRue v. Udall, 324
F.2d 428, 432 (D.C. Cir. 1963); Ralph and Beverly Eason, 127 IBLA 259,
261 (1993); Ericsson, 98 IBLA 258, 263 (1987).
With respect to formal adjudications, Section 7(c) of the APA
provides that ``the proponent of a rule or order has the burden of
proof. . . . 5 U.S.C. Sec. 556(d) (1988). The U.S. Supreme Court has
held that Sec. 7(c) requires the proponent of the rule or order to meet
its burden by a preponderance of the evidence. Steadman v. Securities &
Exchange Commission, 101 S.Ct. 999 (1981). In passing the APA,
``Congress was primarily concerned with the elimination of agency
decision making premised on evidence which was of poor quality-
irrelevant, immaterial, unreliable, and nonprobative--and of
insufficient quantity--less than a preponderance.'' Id. at 1008.
It stands to reason, that since all BLM decisions pertaining to
``matters which arise in the administration of grazing districts'' are
subject to the APA, and that the APA requires the ``proponent of a rule
or order'' to have the burden of proof by a preponderance, then any
time BLM affirmatively issues a decision impacting established grazing
rights, they would have to prove, on appeal, any such decision by a
preponderance of the evidence. The IBLA has, in fact, applied this
burden of proof to appeals involving grazing trespass alleged by BLM.
See Ericsson at 255, Wayne D. Klump, 130 IBLA 119,130 (1994); John L.
Falen, 143 IBLA 1 (1998). However, the IBLA has failed to apply the
appropriate standard for the remainder of ``matters which arise in the
administration of grazing districts,'' requiring instead that an
aggrieved rancher bear the burden to prove BLM's fault by a
preponderance, even when BLM is clearly the ``proponent of the rule or
order.''
Any doubt regarding the correct standard of proof applicable in an
administrative proceeding subject to the APA was settled by the Supreme
Court in Steadman. The court found that the decision must be in
accordance with the weight of the evidence. The court further found
that Sec. 7(c) of 5 U.S.C. 556(d) was intended to establish a standard
of proof and that the standard adopted is the traditional-
preponderance-of-the-evidence standard.
Conflicting Applications
Section 4130.1-2 conveys the criteria an action office shall use to
determine who among competing applicants for federal livestock AVM's
would receive these AVM's. Farm Bureau requests that item (d) in this
section that now reads, ``public ingress or egress across privately
owned or controlled land to public land,'' should be removed from these
regulations as criteria for consideration by BLM in the allocation of
federal AVM's.
The subject of whether a person currently, or in the future, will
grant public ingress or egress across his or her private lands is in no
way related to whether the applicant would be the best steward of the
use of federal forage. It should not be a criterion in determining who
might be entitled to a grazing permit.
Farm Bureau greatly appreciates BLM efforts to make its rules
relating to livestock grazing more workable. We hope that you will
consider these suggestions. We look forward to working with the agency
to develop a set of regulations that works better for everyone.
Sincerely,
Richard W. Newpher,
Executive Director, Public Policy.