Nevada Ranch Stand-Off Was One Big Promo for Rustic Right-Wing Millionaires
http://www.alternet.org/tea-party-and-right/nevada-ranch-stand-was-one-big-promo-right-wing-millionairesNow that the Bureau of Land Management has started returning millionaire rancher Cliven Bundy’s cows, some in the media are saying that the so-called “Nevada range war” is over.
But they’re wrong.
As Senator Harry Reid pointed out yesterday, there’s still a long way to go before this thing is settled.
Harry Reid is right.
As long as millionaire Cliven Bundy gets to graze his cattle on public land for free, in contempt of three court orders and in violation of the law, this is not over.
Bundy and the suckers he brought in from the militia movement think they’ve won a huge victory against federal “tyranny,” and will only be more aggressive about breaking the law in the future. As Robert Sands, one of the Oath Keeper militiamen who joined up with the Bundys, told USA Today, “We need to start telling people this could possibly be the spark of the next American Revolution."
That’s right—the next American Revolution!
***i know that grazing on federal land is amazingly cheap -- a dollar something per head grazing.
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"***i know that grazing on federal land is amazingly cheap -- a dollar something per head grazing"
To me, $1.35 seems incredibly cheap. Less than the cost of a small bale of hay per month. A rancher who owned the land would probably pay more in taxes. Apparently it was $1.86 in 1993, when he stopped paying (its recalculated every year)...but that's still cheap. By comparison, this link claims private grazing land leases at a low end of $9:
http://www.thewildlifenews.com/2014/04/16/the-taxpayers-shouldnt-have-to-pay-for-grazing-either/
But I think its about more than the grazing fee. Bundy has also not reduced his herd, as required by the BLM in 1993. Bundy claims that it was a 90% reduction, capping the herd at 150...meaning a drop from 1,500 to 150. But somewhere else I read that he had 900 cattle to start with...so maybe he was forced to drop from 900 to 150. This was to preserve to tortoise that everyone talks about...and generally prevent over grazing.
If it was just the grazing fee...I don't think we would have ever heard of Clive Bundy. Its the herd reduction that tripped his trigger.
I have no idea if he's a millionaire or not - but for most of us, such a reduction in our livelihood would be devastating. And apparently it has been for many of his fellow ranchers who have quit the business. Such a reduction usually doesn't mean a rancher like Bundy tightens his belt - it usually means he sells his herd and retires to Florida.
So the question at hand is - how should these federal lands be used? Should it continue to ranched? At a depressed price, or increased to market rate? Or should the land be de facto wildlife sanctuaries, once the ranchers move out? Now ranchers aren't the only ones who use federal lands at discounted rates - all sorts of mining for gold and coal, oil extraction, etc. happens on federal lands, with leases below market rate. So they aren't unique.
And I guess the next question is - why does the government own all this land? 86% of Nevada is federally owned. The map below blows my mind. What was different about the western states, when they entered the union? For many of the Midwestern states, when they were territories, land was given away to settlers. But for reasons I don't know, that practice stopped with the western states....putting settlers there in a perpetual renter status. Should the federal government own a third of the country? Or should it start selling it off? I don't know.
In the end...its the end for Bundy - he's as good as gone. But will anybody else ever graze his pseudo lease area again? Should anyone else ever graze it? Or is cattle ranching in the west slowly fading away?
For some reason, maybe I've seen too many western movies, I'd like to see it stay around. And if ranchers like Bundy are getting a free ride (or close to free), why not have them purchase the land, and start paying state and local taxes on it?
So I understand Bundy gets a free ride on that. Even if he had been paying his fees, he would be getting ALOT for his money.
So let me scream from the highest mountain top:
I don't give a fuck about Bundy!
But this episode has shined a light on ranching in the west, for me. Judging by how many of Bundy's peers have packed up and left over the last 20 years, its safe to say that it is not feasible to ranch in that part of Nevada, at current herd limits. So this type of ranching will die off.
Ok so what?
Less cattle in the west means more cattle in the Midwest, I guess. Well, let me tell you, a lot of the ranching isn't done by family farms, and some of these operations don't exactly "Preserve and Protect" the land. Something to ponder.
In the 1990's, while in the Army, we would train in southern California...and this tortoise was a concern there too. Half the training area was off limits as a result. So, apparently this tortoise's protected habitat is affecting land from California, all the way to the east side of Nevada. In fact, here's a map of the areas influenced:
Is the tortoise worth it? Do we eliminate family owned ranches (in favor of industrial cattle ranching) because of the tortoise? I think its a valid discussion to be had.
And if you go to this link, which is the source of the map,
http://www.basinandrangewatch.org/Tortoise-Revised-Recovery-Plan.html
you will see that it is an environmental group....questioning adjustments made to the tortoise boundaries to accommodate massive solar energy projects....feeding into Tea Party talking points. But its a fair question - does solar trump the tortoise? But cattle don't?
Again, why not liquidate some of this federal land?
