NEW MEXICO FEDERAL LANDS NEWS by Frank Dubois
Allotments & Antiquities: Items Not Addressed by Trump I have previously discussed the many accomplishments of the Trump administration. This month we’ll look at two more items left unaddressed.
Livestock Grazing
W
ould you like an example of how career bureaucrats can outsmart political appointees and hornswoggle them into doing nothing? Then read on, brother, read on. In September of 2017 the BLM announced a new livestock grazing initiative they claimed provided “an unprecedented level of flexibility” to allotment holders. The BLM said they would identify 6 to 12 ranchers to issue “Outcome-Based Grazing Authorizations”. Instead of emphasizing process and prescription the new authorizations would instead place emphasis on ecological outcomes “allowing livestock operators more flexibility to make adjustments in response to changing conditions such as drought or wildland fire.” BLM said the new program would allow, “ranching operations that are both economically and environmentally sustainable.” In 2018 the BLM announced it had 11 demonstration projects in six states for its outcome-based grazing authorizations. Five in Nevada, two in Oregon, and one each in Colorado, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming. BLM said these authorizations would allow “grazing permit holders greater flexibility in the management of permitted livestock.” I must confess that I’ve considered this to be a ruse all along. I viewed it as a tactic by the BLM to appear to be doing something on livestock grazing, but without actually changing anything of substance to the program. Wholesale changes were being made to oil and gas regulations, hunting regulations and access to federal lands regulations. Changes that affected all parties involved. When it came to livestock grazing however, BLM was only proposing a demonstration project that affected 11
out of 21,000 allotments. That comes out to be 0.05 percent of BLM allotments. This was just a delay tactic and it worked, as you will see below. In January of 2020 BLM published a Notice of Intent in the Federal Register to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement concerning proposed revisions to the agency’s grazing regulations. “Administration of sustainable livestock grazing on public lands is a key part of the Bureau of Land Management’s multiple-use mission. We continue to seek ways to improve and streamline the grazing permit process to achieve greater efficiencies and service to permittees,” said Acting Assistant Secretary of Land and Minerals Management Casey B. Hammond. “This rulemaking effort is designed to strengthen and improve our administration of grazing permits across the West, and we welcome public and stakeholder ideas and perspectives.” According to BLM the proposed revisions would “update, modernize and streamline the grazing regulations” and “improve existing land-use planning and grazing permitting procedures”. The BLM held scoping meetings in four different Western states and comments were due by March 6.
Individual ranchers, ranching organizations, state agencies and other interested parties spent hundreds of hours preparing for the scoping meetings and submitting written comments. I can assure you these were “outcome-based” comments. Positive results were expected. So what was the outcome of all this effort? Zero, zip, nada. BLM had ten months to issue draft regulations and then final regulations, a tight schedule for sure. But to go three hundred days and not even issue draft regulations? Clearly, revising the range code was not a priority. The feint, dodge, delay, paralysis by analysis or whatever you want to call it of “Outcome-Based Grazing Authorizations” had served its purpose. No new range code, the Biden administration will quietly discontinue the demonstration projects, and BLM will get to keep their coveted Babbitt-era range code.
A monumental failure The initial discoveries of prehistoric ruins and archaeological sites were made by ranchers in New Mexico, Colorado and Arizona during the 1880s. These discoveries eventually led to museums and professional and amateur archaeologists excavating these sites, sometimes destroy-
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Bulls • Semen • Embryos & Females For Sale MARCH 2021
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