Ranchers with Grazing Permits: Individuals who hold permits to graze within federally-controlled lands. The permit is for access to the land only - individual ranchers must make range improvements such as roads, fences and water developments. The water is owned privately under state law. The ranchers have many privately owned rights on federal land under federal law such as ditches and rights-of-way. There is a difference between what a federal land rancher pays as a grazing fee to the federal government and what a private land rancher charges to graze his private lands. While the federal land rancher gets nothing but the land for his fee, the private land fee includes the water and improvements, fences, roads, chutes, and sometimes, even management of the herds.
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Interior Columbia Basin Ecosystem Management Plan (ICBEMP): A
massive federal management strategy for 72 million acres of federally-controlled land in 7 states east of the Cascade Mountains and west of the Rockies. The total area involved is almost 145 million acres, only slightly smaller than Texas. (see ALRA's fax alert, click here) The House subcommittee on Forests & Forest Health held a hearing on 2/26/98 and a field hearing was held 4/14/98 in Nampa, Idaho. The full House Resources committee held a hearing on 3/10/98. The Senate Energy Committee held a field hearing in Spokane, Washington on 5/28/98. Comment period ended May 6, 1998. Language has been added to the FY ’99 Interior Appropriations to end the project and deny any funding for implementation.
House Forest & Forest Health Subcommittee held a field hearing 8/14/98 in New Mexico regarding the number of cattle and sheep are allowed to graze on Forest Service permits. One issue of major concern is the agency’s tendency to settle lawsuits out of court, without consulting the ranchers whose permits are affected by those settlements.