As I understand the issue, his family has grazed the cattle on this land for well over a century. They have always paid a grazing fee to the county. The Feds came in with the Bureau of Land Management in 1993 and demanded payment instead... the land was never officially transferred in ownership, just in management. Bundy attempted repeatedly to pay the county as he always had but was rebuffed. He refuses to pay the Feds for the "privilege" of grazing on land they don't own.
That is why I said “properly”. If the county owns the land (which I have seen differing accounts of who actually owns it) and wants him to pay the Feds then he should pay the Feds. When he applied for grazing permits, he agreed to abide by the conditions of those permits. If he doesn’t agree with the terms then he should go to court (which I understand he has done several times and lost each decision). It is not up to a lease holder to decide who they are going to pay and who they are not. Apparently the courts have repeatedly told him that the Federal government has jurisdiction on the lands in question.
As I said in an earlier thread, if he knows he is supposed to pay for what he is using but doesn’t, then he is essentially stealing it. If BLM has half a brain, they should offer him a fair settlement/generous partial forgiveness on back owed fees to clear this matter up and Bundy should accept it or keep his cattle confined to his private property.
“As I understand the issue, his family has grazed the cattle on this land for well over a century. They have always paid a grazing fee to the county. The Feds came in with the Bureau of Land Management in 1993 and demanded payment instead... the land was never officially transferred in ownership, just in management. Bundy attempted repeatedly to pay the county as he always had but was rebuffed. He refuses to pay the Feds for the “privilege” of grazing on land they don’t own.”
There is almost no truth to this paragraph. They never paid a fee to the county, and instead worked with the BLM from 1954 thru 1993. The federal government has always claimed title to the land. In the early 90s, Bundy believed the theory going around at the time that the federal government could not own the land and could not regulate grazing. In every case I know of, the courts have rejected that theory.
The most recent area of grazing is land he did not graze on prior to 1998.