I agree with you and have stated it several times that I think the government needs to start turning over the wide open spaces. Trust me, I live in the middle of it here in Eastern Washington and Idaho.
Like many things the government is involved in they don’t always get it right on property management, but this case is so established and clear to me that I am dumbfounded at what I am reading here.
He did not pay. If he can’t make his ranch pay with what he legally owns or can lease he needs to find a different occupation. There will still be hamburgers. The law is established and his peers accept it.
Where are the articles quoting other ranchers in Nevada who support what he was doing? Perhaps there are some I have not seen, but a man’s peers often understand him best of all. I don’t see that and did not hear it and he was quite the topic of discussion at church on Sunday among the cattlemen.
We should not be so anxious to choose battle when the other side has such an advantageous position. That is a recipe for defeat.
Who did they pay? Where are the legal contracts showing their purchase and ownership?
It's the talk of the town in Utah and several Utah Ranchers are at the Bundy Ranch.
All who pay grazing fees to the BLM should stop. Today.
"Then in 1998, the Southern Nevada Public Lands Management Act was passed by Congress. The Act legalized public land sales in Clark County, lands which included some of those same rancher’s adjudicated grazing allotments. The Clark County ranchers were never compensated for their vested water rights, forage rights, range improvements, easements and rights of ways. They were simply eradicated by the heavy hand of BLM regulations. Lands that were formerly deemed to be tortoise habitat were sold to developers armed with excavators and paving equipment."
"To date, a total of 69,120 acres of mostly ranch lands have been acquired—in a state which is already 87 percent government controlled. The BLM and U.S. Forest Service pursued policies burdening grazing permits with so many conditions, they forced many ranchers to become “willing sellers” of their devalued ranches and prime targets for land acquisition."
"Since 1982 Nevada has lost over one-third of its cattle production, down from 700,000 to 450,000. Sheep production, which peaked at 3 million in the 1920’s, is now down to a mere 70,000. These losses are largely due to the cuts the BLM and USFS have imposed on ranchers through grazing permits. Computing both direct and indirect economic impacts, Nevada has lost well over one billion dollars in economic activity as a result."
"Rather than following the land management laws of Congress which specifically protect rancher’s preexisting property interests in vested water rights, forage rights, easements, rights of ways and range improvements, the agencies promote policies that eliminate livestock . By extension, their policies encourage massive rangeland fires and the infestation of weeds and cheat grass—something previously not witnessed in Nevada."
"Every land law passed by Congress has provisions protecting preexisting rights. For example, Congress was very clear in the 1976 Federal Land Policy and Management Act when it stated: “Nothing in this Act, or in any amendment made by this Act, shall be construed as terminating any valid lease, permit, patent, right-of-way, or other land use right or authorization existing on the date of approval of this Act...” (43 U.S.C. 1701 notes).
"In the 1991 Fifth Amendment takings case of Hage v. U.S. filed in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, and in U.S. v. Hage, the 2007 forage right case filed in Nevada Federal District Court, as well as the Southern Monitor Valley Water Adjudication, the primary evidence before the court was an exhaustive chain of title documenting the preexisting use of and rights to the range and vested waters."
"The rancher’s preexisting property rights are the only real line of defense to stop the continued abuse of powers."