Lost in all the hoopla over “y’all queda” and “VanillaISIS” is any basic history of how public rangelands in the West–and in eastern Oregon in particular–got to this point. I’ve seen no mention in the press of two laws that are probably more responsible than anything else for the alienation and animosity the Hammonds felt towards the government.
The first law, the Public Rangelands Improvement Act of 1978, set a formula for calculating grazing fees based on beef prices and rancher costs. When the law was written, most analysts assumed per capita beef consumption would continue to grow as it had the previous several decades. In fact, it declined from 90 pounds to 50 pounds per year. The formula quickly drove down fees to the minimum of $1.35 per cow-month, even as inflation increased the costs to the government of managing the range.
The 1978 law also allowed the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to keep half of grazing fees for range improvements. Initially, this fund motivated the agencies to promote rancher interests. But as inflation ate away the value of the fee, agency managers began to view ranchers as freeloaders. Today, the fee contributes will under 1 percent of agency budgets and less than 10 percent of range management costs. Livestock grazing was once a profitable use of federal range lands but now costs taxpayers nearly $10 for every dollar collected in fees.
Ranching advocates argue that the grazing fee is set correctly because it costs more to graze livestock on federal land than on state or private land. But the BLM and Forest Service represent the sellers, not the buyers, and the price they set should reflect the amount that a seller is willing to accept. Except in cases of charity, no seller would permanently accept less than cost, and costs currently average about $10 per animal unit month.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/tug-war-over-federal-lands-leads-standoff
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