Proposed Law Boosts Rangeland Grazing Fees 36% Higher Fees Offset By Assurances Of Access To Millions Of Acres Of Federal Land

Ranchers would pay one-third more to graze livestock on federal lands but would gain new, long-term assurances of access to millions of acres under a House bill proposed Wednesday.

The legislation would remove the “administrative whim of bureaucrats” from determining uses of Western rangeland by setting the policy in law, said Rep. Bob Smith, R-Ore., the House Agriculture Committee chairman.

“Ranchers would pay higher grazing fees, but would have the security of knowing that the rug won’t get jerked out from underneath them,” Smith said during a hearing before the livestock panel of the Agriculture Committee.

Ranchers throughout the West rely on 270 million acres of federal land to feed their cattle and sheep, and their use of the land has long been a battleground for environmentalists and recreation enthusiasts who want grazing sharply curtailed.

A more-sweeping Republican bill failed in last year’s Congress. Smith said his version stays away from major controversies in that measure, such as whether national grasslands should be set aside mainly for grazing.

Under Smith’s bill, the grazing fee would rise from about $1.35 per animal now to $1.84, an increase of 36 percent. It would be based on a new formula determined by the cost of feeding a cow and calf or seven sheep for one month.

The fee is much lower than that charged by private landowners, which can reach $8 or more per animal. But Smith said federal land is not as desirable and shouldn’t cost as much.

“They are the roughest lands. They are certainly not equal to private lands, or even state lands,” Smith said in an interview.

Frances Hunt of The Wilderness Society, however, told the House panel that the higher fee would still be a “bargain basement” deal that will “return only a fraction of the costs of the federal grazing program to taxpayers.”

The Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management spend about $5.81 per animal per month on grazing, meaning the system acts as a taxpayer subsidy to ranchers.

Hunt and Thomas Lustig, attorney with the National Wildlife Federation, said the legislation has numerous flaws, including giving too much power to ranchers in managing rangeland and making it more difficult to prove that the land has been damaged by livestock.