Cattle Ranchers vs. The Feds: "You don't just come into a ranch and say I'm going to run it."

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Cattle Ranchers vs. The Feds: "You don't just come into a ranch and say I'm going to run it."

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"They say you can't fight City Hall," says rancher Eddyanne Filippini, but "what they're doing to us is not right."  

A cattle rancher in Battle Mountain, Nevada, Filippini and her husband Dan are fighting with the government to get their grazing rights back on land controlled by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). Permits to graze on federal lands are part of a ranch's assessed value and transferred when property is bought or sold. The BLM, a federal agency within the Department of the Interior, controls a total of 155 million acres in the U.S. that is sets aside for livestock grazing. Private ranchers like the Filipinis rely on this land to feed their cattle.

Last year, the BLM revoked the Filippinis' grazing rights on the grounds that a drought had made the land too dry. Raul Morales, the deputy state director for the Nevada State Office of the BLM, tells Reason that "Nevada has actually been in drought 8 of the last 10 years. The last four years we've had…consistent drought."

"We know how to take care of it and we do, we have for years," explains rancher Pete Tomera, a neighbor of the Filippinis who is also fighting for the return of his grazing rights. "We've done it all our lives. I mean you don't just come into a ranch and say I'm going to run it."

About 4 minutes and 30 seconds.

Produced by Alex Manning.

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Comments

[robc]

I wonder if the ranchers would accept the obvious solution?

[Dark Lord of the Cis]

Stampeding cattle through the White House and Congress?

[Swiss Servator, Switzier!]

Kinky!

/Hedley Lamarr

[Download Video Bokep]

The land is worth what the Department of Agriculture determines its worth to be!

[obat kuat cialis]

So, you're making them pay the government to stop meddling with the land they have occupied for generations. How is that NOT a protection racket?

[video bokep indo]

subsudy" of access to piblic lands? That's a common law mess I decline to touch with a ten foot pole, or even a twelve foot Swede. video bokep Why them and not some other group that maintans a public right of way? Sell the land to the ranchers? So, you're making them pa

[C. S. P. Schofield]

And what, exactly, would that be? I expect that the situation is so old amd so tangled that no simle solution is going to be without it's grossly unfair aspects. Turn the land over to the ranchers? Listen to the envirotwits howl! Terminate the ranchers' longstanding "subsudy" of access to piblic lands? That's a common law mess I decline to touch with a ten foot pole, or even a twelve foot Swede. Why them and not some other group that maintans a public right of way? Sell the land to the ranchers? So, you're making them pay the government to stop meddling with the land they have occupied for generations. How is that NOT a protection racket?

[Ron]

the ranchers pay for the use of the land so its not a subsidy. yes they don't pay much for the land but thats all the land is worth.

[Almanian!]

The land is worth what the Department of Agriculture determines its worth to be!

/gummint shill

[Anomalous]

I am the law!

[Win Bear]

Some of the BLM land used for grazing is actually in desirable locations and using it for grazing makes no economic sense. For those locations, BLM land use restrictions combined with low payments do amount to a massive subsidy.

BLM land in Nevada should be fully sold into private ownership; then the market can set the price for grazing rights.

[kbolino]

Sell the land to the ranchers? So, you're making them pay the government to stop meddling with the land they have occupied for generations.

I suppose you could make the claim that they homesteaded the land and thus are the rightful owners, vs. the government who has not done so.

Still, I think you could just parcel and auction it. Whoever pays the highest price gets the land. If that's a rancher, well then he paid no more than he was willing to pay, and if that's not a rancher, well then there is a more profitable use of the land and the prior arrangement actually was a subsidy.

[alpha mower]

What kinda dumas cowboy tries to raise cattle in the desert anyway?
These characters get subsidized use of land that isnt even designed for cattle in the first place.
Beef is raised better in the East anyway.
Dang, son.

[Unicorn Abattoir]

Dumas wrote about musketeers, not cowboys.

[Suthenboy]

I never understood cattle ranching out west. How many acres do you need to raise one cow? A hundred? A thousand?

We raise about one cow per acre here in Louisiana.

Do what you want, but it seems unwise to me.

[Swiss Servator, Switzier!]

See http://reason.com/reasontv/201.....nt_5293763

[Marty Feldman's Eyes]

How many acres do you need to raise one cow? A hundred? A thousand?

Have you been out there? It's basically sagebrush as far as the eye can see. There's probably 1 blade of edible grass per 100 acres.

[Wasteland Wanderer]

It's sagebrush as far as the eye can see because it's been overgrazed. There used to be a fair amount of basin wild rye and other bunch grasses, with limited stands of sagebrush, rabbit brush, etc., but cattle grazing cut them back to the point that the sagebrush could move in.

Cattle ranching in Nevada is seriously dysfunctional, probably because so much of the land is owned by the feds. When Nevada was settled, they used a homesteading system that was designed for areas with far more abundant resources. It limited the amount of land that could be claimed by each homesteader, so all the good areas around creeks and marshy areas were homesteaded, and all the high-desert was left to the feds. But you need a large amount of land to graze cattle because it's so dry...and so for a while it was a free-for-all, because it was public lands. Then the feds started regulating it, but they don't charge nearly enough, so it still amounts to a subsidy and the cattle ranchers abuse the hell out of it, not moving their cattle nearly enough and allowing them to overgraze. Tragedy of the commons.

[Agammamon]

To answer you and alpha mower - the reason that you raise cattle out here is because there's thousands and thousands of acres that aren't really suitable for *people*.

Unlike the East Coast - which, despite it inhabitants, is a pretty hospitable place.

So, it can take a hundred acres to raise one cow - but there are millions lying empty. Unlike, say upstate New York where it may only take 10 acres, but there are people who want to live on those acres also.

The economic limiter for raising cattle out here is not space (unlike in more populated areas) but water.

So, we should be looking a water prices for ranchers, where I suspect the *real* subsidies and market distortions are, not space.

[Jackand Ace]

Oh please. Stop yer whinin' about these welfare queens. They live on subsidies for things like sagebrush clearing, pest removal, even roads. We pay for that. Edward Abbey warned us all decades ago about cattle ranchers, particularly the few (like Cliven Bundy) that use public land because they haven't yet found out how to make it without taxpayer help:

"As I've already pointed out, subsidized Western range beef is a trivial item in the national beef economy. If all of our 31,000 Western public-land ranchers quite tomorrow, we'd never even notice."

Here is the simple fact...cattle ranchers will overgraze if allowed to, and when its not their land (and its land owned by the public) there is even less incentive to stop overgrazing. And overgrazing ruins the land. It destroys it. Here, even cattle ranchers recognize the problem facing them from overgrazing.

"At least six out of 10 of your neighbors overgraze every pasture every year. That's the finding of a survey I conducted in 1999 by randomly selecting 500 commercial cattlemen and asking them to describe their grazing practices. Of course, they didn't respond, "I overgraze." In fact, most of your neighbors may not even know what overgrazing is or understand its consequences. But the data they provided shows that the majority of ranchers overgraze their lands routinely."

http://beefmagazine.com/mag/beef_stop_overgrazing

Stop apologizing for them.

[Xeones]

Today joe p. boyle independently "discovers" the Tragedy of the Commons.

Doing the Lord's work in some of the toughest subsidized cattle ranches in America.

[Swiss Servator, Switzier!]

*stands, applauds*

[Win Bear]

Today joe p. boyle independently "discovers" the Tragedy of the Commons.

A Tragedy of the Commons really only exists in "communal" property; that is, when government has explicitly removed some asset from the private markets and tries to administer it itself. As such, it's not a separate economic problem that needs addressing, it is simply another example of the failure of socialism and communism.

[a capitalist]

"If all of our 31,000 Western public-land ranchers quite tomorrow, we'd never even notice."

joe thinks these guys aren't productive enough

[Jackand Ace]

They are welfare queens. Maybe like you.

[kbolino]

"At least six out of 10 of your neighbors overgraze every pasture every year. That's the finding of a survey I conducted in 1999 by randomly selecting 500 commercial cattlemen and asking them to describe their grazing practices. Of course, they didn't respond, "I overgraze." In fact, most of your neighbors may not even know what overgrazing is or understand its consequences. But the data they provided shows that the majority of ranchers overgraze their lands routinely."

That sounds like one of them real sciencey studies there, don't it. "First, I decided on my conclusion, then I harassed somebody to support it" x 500.

[Jackand Ace]

Nope. Just a rancher, conducting a survey for a ranching organization, and then getting it mentioned in that lefty media outlet...Beef Magazine. I know know...must be another liberal conspiracy to you.

[kbolino]

Strawmen burn real well, don't they?

[Jackand Ace]

I will let you know when I light one.

[Old Man With Candy]

Cute how he says that even before the flame goes out on the lighter and he's reeking of smoke.

[kbolino]

Does the brief euphoria you get from posting faux witty nonsense make up for your permanent and abject lack of intelligence?

[Pathogen]

"..If all of our 31,000 Western public-land ranchers quite tomorrow, we'd never even notice"

Yeah, at ~$4.40 a pound on average (a 16% increase in less than one year), and rising.. I'm sure we'd never even notice a rounding error like 31,000 beef producers calling it quits...

[Jackand Ace]

You wouldn't.

[Cytotoxic]

This whining about over-grazing misses the part where the wild horses do most of the damage at least in the west. They graze all year. They are ruinous and protected by a retarded law passed in the '90s.

[PH2050]

I've had horse meat that actually didn't taste too bad. We should be able to hunt them.

[Wasteland Wanderer]

It's both, actually. There are lots of areas in Nevada with no horses that are still overgrazed, and where the horses are it gets even worse.

[Agammamon]

OK, I'm not going to address the issues in this post beyond the 'tragedy of the commons' but.

This is *not* communal land. Yes, the ranchers don't *own* it (they rent it) but they do have stake in it.

The issues are two-fold.

1. The government *owns* it and, theoretically, its current grazing restrictions are an attempt to preserve the land's value - so, absolutely no tragedy of the commons problem here.

2. The ranchers (as renters) are pulled between long-term need to preserve this land for their future use and short-term need to be able to produce and not go out of business.

That's where the conflict is. The rancher's feel they can strike that balance, the federal government doesn't want to take the risk that they can't.

[Paul.]

Land ownership would solve this problem. It would certainly avoid the "tragedy of the retards" issue.

[Almanian!]

The Tragedy of the Retards can never be avoided. You know why?

They all want cake...

[Swiss Servator, Switzier!]

"You might be saying 'no, no,no!', but all they hear is 'who wants grazing rights'. You know what? They do. They all want grazing rights"

[Cloudbuster]

I'll take the chicken.

[Agammamon]

The land is already owned - by the government.

The fedgov is imposing these restrictions is *exactly* what an owner would do if the value of his property were threatened.

This may not be the *best* action (I'm not qualified to say) but there's not 'tragedy of the commons' happening here.

[Wasteland Wanderer]

Problem is, because it's owned by the feds the ranchers think they have a right to use it, because it's public lands. And it's a cast iron-bitch to get rid of the cows when the ranchers have them grazing in areas they aren't supposed to be. So functionally, it almost is a "commons" situation.

[Agammamon]

But not because 'no one owns it'.

You can say that the fedgov is managing it poorly, and/or that they have too strong an incentive to bow to outside interests, but *not* that its communal land that is being ravaged as each user seeks to extract the maximum value he can before someone else does, destroying the resource in the process.

[Ivan Pike]

Give the land to the States or back to the Indians (if practicable). Get the Fed out of the land business.

http://www.spokesman.com/blogs.....fer-bills/

[Steve G]

Get the Fed out of the land business

Concur. I'd trust a BLM bureaucrat's assessment of the state of their land as much as I'd trust a USDA bureaucrat telling me what to eat.
Might be time for some out of the box thinking.
http://www.ted.com/talks/allan.....anguage=en

[Win Bear]

Giving the land to the states solves little, you just exchange one set of incompetent bureaucrats for another. The land should be auctioned off to private buyers, with the money going to paying off the national debt.

[sarcasmic]

"I mean you don't just come into a ranch and say I'm going to run it."

Nobody ever told this guy that government is the idiots (with guns) who tell the experts how to do their job.

[Agammamon]

The federal government is run by *experts with guns* who tell the idiots how to do their job.

[Tionico]

so, they were not successful in taking back Cliven Bundy's grazing rights, so they are now turning to other ranchers who know what they are about, and are taking care of their lands and herds with an eye to the long term. The ONLY solution to this issue is one that was put forth during the Bundy fiasco: remove ALL lands across the USA from federal ownershiop/control, and return them to their respective states, This was spelled out as what would happen as each of the states negotiated their charters of statehood when considering joining the Union. It needs to be actuated.The Constituion provides for FedGov to own or control ONLY those lands necessary for the Capitol in DC (not to exceed ten miles square), naval installations, military forts necessary for national defense, courthouses, ost ofices and post roads. Grazing land in NEvada, Utah, Arizona, and every other western state are NOT ALLOWED for FedGov to own.

[tz]

I don't know if you've seen this:

http://www.ted.com/talks/allan.....ate_change

Managing nature usually destroys it.

[Jackand Ace]

Putting thousands of cattle in a small space, forcing overgrazing, running off other animals from land they inhabit isn't nature. Wake up.

[kbolino]

Nature is just fuzzy bunnies singing kumbaya and telling fireside stories!

[Dweebston]

I don't argue with his premise, but the wrapper argument has been wrong and going strong for centuries now. And that same argument?humanity is a vicious alien species that must be preempted at every level?will ironically be used to squelch efforts against desertification, because the natural order is above all pristine and should be kept inviolable, even if it means introducing life to an encroaching lifeless environment.

[PH2050]

Terraforming Mars is EVUL AND UNNATURAL!!!!11

/enviroderp

[Migrant Log Picker]

Yeah, and not using DDT to protect poor Africans has killed millions of them....but Rachel Carson would appprove. Why do progs hate poor people?

[heart_of_flint]

"Permits to graze on federal lands are part of a ranch's assessed value and transferred when property is bought or sold."

Neither of which means they are irrevocable. Ranchers should expect the government to comply with the terms of the permits, not their own self-serving assumptions of the permits' value. Reason wouldn't dream of challenging a private landowner who declined to allow further grazing. Imagine the fit these ranchers would have if the leases were opened to competitive bids.

Also, it doesn't sound like the Fed's are "coming in to" a ranch, but rather shutting the ranchers out. I guess that would have made for a weaker headline.

[Cytotoxic]

It would still be capricious bullshit.

[wsh38754]

Nathaniel . although Stephanie `s rep0rt is super... I just bought a top of the range Mercedes sincee geting a check for $4416 this last four weeks and would you believe, ten/k last-month . no-doubt about it, this really is the best-job I've ever done . I actually started seven months/ago and almost straight away started making a nice over $79.. p/h..... ?????? http://www.Jobs-Cash.com

[Notorious G.K.C.]

Reason re-uses and recycles, but it doesn't reduce.

[Derpetologist]

I have to admire the dishonesty of claiming that someone who refuses to pay grazing rights is receiving a subsidy or is stealing from the govt.

Not giving is the same as taking and taking less is the same as giving back.

[Sudden]

MALE GRAZE!

[Dweebston]

Or insisting that the feds transacting with the state creates a marketplace in conditions that would have trust-busters salivating had it taken place between a pair of private conspirators. And to then parlay that total misapprehension into a mendacious argument that goes against the grain of his own anti-market prejudice.

[Thymirus]

It needn't necessarily entail dishonesty. Plenty degenerates among us wholeheartedly believe that the august, benevolent, and ever-charitable state's apportionment of such privileges as grazing rights is a generous favor -- a gift -- a rancher ought to exhibit appreciation and humble gratitude for.

Deferential serfs are a scourge, and they're absolutely full of shit.

[Cytotoxic]

If the grazing rights are being awarded for less than a free market would, then yes it is more or less a subsidy. I think this is a small evil compared to federal land ownership.

[CatoTheElder]

As I noted above, the Department of Interior spent $20.5 billion in 2011 in its administration of public lands and received revenues of $7.5 billion. Most of the revenue was from oil&gas; leases.

So, taxpayers are indeed subsidizing these ranchers and other users of federally-owned land to the tune of $13 billion per year.

Of course, the government is wasting most of its budget and rewarding cronies who use its land.

I am convinced that everybody, except a few cronies, would be better off if the US government exchanged land for debt held by its bond owners. The US government is so incompetent that I don't think even the ChiComs couldn't do worse if it owned its share of the land.

[Cytotoxic]

That is not well thought out. That 13 billion doesn't go to cattle farmers. It's a subsidy for bureaucrats.

[Migrant Log Picker]

This is a great point, Cato. I live in Montana land Missoula has hundreds if not thousands of fedgov land managers.

And they don't actually engage in fedgov land management. they write "studies" with lots various ologists and defend lawsuits by obstructionist green types.

I worked with a lot of great USFS people 20 or 30 years ago. It's now a wasteland. Since the USFS now doesn't do any management why the fuck are these people on the payroll. If the only option is to let it burn the only people that should be on the payroll should be firefighters.

If the greentards want no management then we certainly don't need managers at all. No management, no need for most USFS personnel at this time. I figured this out 20 years ago and it sort of sent me toward libertarianism.

[Thymirus]

It's stupendously sad and shameful that it's considered permissible for the federal government to administer, or own, land in any case -- or a government on any level, for that matter. Relinquish control of it all, sell it to private individuals and entities, and eliminate this horrible bullshit permanently.

[gbear]

I wonder if dingy harry is behind this?

[Francisco d'Anconia]

While I acknowledge the libertarian argument against, I like the notion of public land.

[Francisco d'Anconia]

I'll be turning in my card this afternoon.

[Cdr Lytton]

It's like the Totin' Chip that was brought up in the other thread (ah that brings back memories)- you only have to turn it in after all four corners are cut off.

[Cdr Lytton]

It's like the Totin' Chip that was brought up in the other thread (ah that brings back memories)- you only have to turn it in after all four corners are cut off.

[Cdr Lytton]

Or eight corners if the squirrels get to it first.

[Migrant Log Picker]

I don't disagree FDA, I live in Missoula and have spent my whole Montana life in the river drainages near here. Access to resources that used to be the Kings in olden days is ok by me.

The problem is that at present watermelon types want to fuck with property rights. They want to go beyond agreements with Fish and Game and force private landowners to bend to their will.

Yeah, some of these people have a lot of money and I don't really care about them, but these greenie twits won't ever stop with their bullshit. They are common in Missoula and believe that they have the right to somebody elses shit, I'll call out these twits whenever they show their fucktarded heads.

[See Double You]

I live in Missoula, too! We should get drinks sometime.

[Cytotoxic]

I saw a kind of dumb documentary a year ago about these guys riding Mustangs to the Canadian border. It was interjected with information about the BLM's efforts to manage wild Mustangs, which are protected under a stupid '90s law as if wild Mustangs have inherent value and rights. These awful animals over-graze the shit out of land all year round. The BLM has an index to estimate how many animals the land can support-which I would bet dollars to donuts is an educated guess-and they have way more animals. So they have to helicopter-herd them and have them held in pens for adoption. Can't just have the military shoot them up because that's not socially acceptable! Gotta spend more money on something you shouldn't even be managing in the first place.

The doc's other stupid theme was that public land is good because otherwise the trek they are going through might not be possible, as if I should care.

[Dweebston]

Public land is good because mismanaging it requires a corp of bureaucrats who otherwise would need to find gainful employment producing value and bettering the welfare of humanity.

[Cytotoxic]

I posted this earlier but I want it to be seen again: Honduras to build land title registry using bitcoin technology (Factom)

[PH2050]

Interesting experiment. Looking forward to see how it works out.

[PB]

The land within the confines of a State belong to the State and it's people.. This is the crux of the matter..

Nothing will change until Western States take control of that which was to be there's when they entered the Union.

Should the federal government have the right to establish a limited number of Federal Park?

No.

Millions of dollars monthly are shunted to federal agencies to "Manage National Parks".. Are the Jackasses seriously suggesting the State of Arizona is incapable of managing the Grand Canyon.. or the People of Colorado, Alaska incapable of managing their lands.

National monuments/heritage/make up some crap to keep coal fields out of production to enrich some favored Corporation. We all know what a monument is.. Thousands of acres it isn't,

Can a compromise be found ?

No..

Federal Government Oaf ficials benefit immensely politically from the Lands, Jobs and Contracts they dole out to manage lands that are not theirs.

It must end

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[Jackand Ace]

Bull. When states like Nevada willfully sold that land to the federal government because they so desperately wanted to join the union, then that is a fair transaction. It's called the marketplace. Me and you own that land now, not those ranchers. And the American people don't want it overgrazed. You do? Then win an election and change it. Yikes. Who knew so many libertarians hate the marketplace and want the actual owners of property to lose their rights. Are you a socialist?

[Jackand Ace]

Do explain how it was illegal. Nevada desired to enter the union. The price to do so was that land. And they agreed. American citizens now own that land. Oh, so now it was a bad deal? Too bad. That's the marketplace. Hate to break this to you but no one is going to sell Manhattan back to the Indians for trinkets. But maybe you want someone to force you to sell the house you bought 20 years ago for only the price you paid. So much for the sanctity of the marketplace, eh?

[Jackand Ace]

And there it is! Libertarian solutions. You can't win in the marketplace, you can't win at the ballot booth, then get out your guns. Infantile you are.

[Sudden]

Doesn't count

[Derpetologist]

If your only principle is might makes right, it's pretty silly to appeal to rights when someone else has the might.

[Dweebston]

Market, as in, one seller and one buyer and no competition. In the private sphere the anti-trust lawyers would be all over that, but in Jackand's fairyland we call it a marketplace.

[Cdr Lytton]

Keep it coming strawfucker. Nevada was a US territory prior to admission, not independent. It was Congress that pushed for admission of Nevada in time for the 1864 election and after the residents of the territory voted down a proposed state constitution.

[Cytotoxic]

American citizens now own that land.

Care to show us your share certificate? Can you sell it? Homestead your land parcel? No? THEN YOU DON'T OWN IT.

[Dweebston]

That's his entire premise. The feds predominate and given his secular zealotry we must force these recalcitrants to bend the knee in reverence to the feds.

[CatoTheElder]

We should be clear about two other things.

First, government is incompetent to manage real estate that is outside of its Constitutional purview. It owns 500 million acres of land, one-fifth the US land area, has no financing costs, and loses money every single year. The Department of Interior collected $7.5 billion in charges for the use of this real estate, mostly oil&gas; royalties, but also timber concessions and grazing fees. However, it had gross budget outlays in fiscal 2011 of $20.5 billion. Thus, Interior's net outlays?financed by taxpayers?were $13 billion in fiscal 2011.

Second, the Constitution is a dead letter.

[Cdr Lytton]

Nevada sold their land to the Feds? Utter bullshit. It was a territory (aka property) of the US after being ceded by Mexico.

[Cytotoxic]

Then win an election and change it.

Ha ha no fuck you and your rules.

[Cdr Lytton]

Further, the section of the Nevada constitution dealing with unallocated public land is recognizing that such land _remains_ the property of the federal government and the people/state of Nevada forgoe making any claim on it. That section was required by Congress as part of the law that granted statehood to Nevada as soon as they drafted a state constitution that met Congress's guidelines. It was not voluntary.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

....written by old, dead white guys some of whom were slave owners.