Wayne Hage's has passed into glory.

Pine Creek Ranch, Nye County, Monitor Valley, Tonopah, Nevada - We are sorry to inform everyone of this sad news.

They are trying to make arrangements for a possible memorial this coming Saturday (June 10th); Ramona (Hage Morrison) will keep us informed.

Vol. 18, No. 10
May 20, 2002
http://www.thenewamerican.com/tna/2002/05-20-2002/vo18no10_rancher.htm

Rancher Wins Fight for Rights
by Wayne Hage

Rancher Wayne Hage's decade-long struggle for his property rights resulted in a significant victory this year in the United States Court of Federal Claims.

On January 29, 2002, the United States Court of Federal Claims handed down a decision promising to have a widespread impact on the debate over western lands and property rights in general. It also has much to do with government accountability and the federal land management agencies that, under the color of law, have been carrying out a campaign of unlawful actions to harass ranchers and drive them off of their own lands.

The decision of Senior Judge Loren Smith resulted from over 10 years of litigation in an action entitled Hage v. U.S. The circumstances leading to the ruling on January 29th began when I purchased Pine Creek Ranch in central Nevada in June of 1978. The ranch includes a base property of 7,000 private deeded acres acquired by my predecessors under the Homestead Acts over a century ago. Like most ranches in that area, it also includes thousands of adjoining acres where our family owns water and grazing rights. These private grazing allotments were initially acquired by the pioneers who harnessed the resources and later transferred as deeded property to those who own them today. In 1866, Congress recognized western water rights previously established under local law and custom on the federal lands. Numerous state laws and court cases extended and solidified those rights.

The federal government dominates the 11 states west of the 100th meridian, with agencies like the National Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management controlling vast expanses of "federal" lands. However, the federal government does not possess complete ownership of these public lands. Ownership is divided in what is known as the "split estate": Various entities, both governmental and private, own water rights, grazing rights, mineral rights, and timber rights. I paid for and own the surface water, ground water, and grazing rights on my allotments. In the arid expanses of the West, it takes a lot of acres to feed a cow and water is as precious as gold. Without those water and grazing rights, my family's ranch and all others like it will cease to exist. For many years now, federal agencies and their environmentalist allies have been pretending that these genuine property rights are nonexistent, that our grazing and water rights are mere "privileges," completely subject to bureaucratic whim and regulation. This represents a major assault on the very concept of property rights, which is absolutely essential to liberty.

Dream Come True

Owning a ranch like Pine Creek had been a dream of mine since boyhood. I was born in Elko, Nevada, and grew up with ranching. During the hard winter of '51 and '52, many ranchers, some of them my relatives, were desperate for help. So, I convinced my parents to allow me to drop out of high school, providing that I'd come back and finish up school after helping out on the ranches. But after I got out on the range there was no turning back. At that time, the big cattle outfits would put out a roundup wagon and they'd just stay out on the range for maybe 10 months of the year. For a teenage boy that kind of life ? riding horseback on the open range ? was an adventure that made school pretty dull and uninteresting by comparison, so I just stayed with it.

During a four-year stint in the Air Force I learned that I had some academic ability as well as horse sense. I came out at the top of all my classes, learned a lot about electronics and made up my high school with a G.E.D. test. After getting out of the service I went back to ranching, while also pursuing further education. I earned a degree in organic chemistry and a Master's degree in livestock nutrition (with a minor in economics) from the University of Nevada. I figured that my combination of schooling, practical experience, and determination would enable me to successfully operate my own ranch. My wife Jean and I started with a small ranch in northern California, just over the Nevada line. That's where our five children were born, and they grew up the western way, working the ranch alongside us. When the Pine Creek Ranch ? one of the biggest and best in Nevada ? came up for sale, it was the opportunity of a lifetime.

From Dream to Nightmare

Within two months of purchasing Pine Creek Ranch, I was contacted by the National Park Service and told they were going to purchase my ranch for a national park. I inquired as to how much they were going to pay. They offered about half of what I had just paid for the property.

I asked how they had arrived at the proposed purchase price. They explained they were only prepared to pay for the base properties. The grazing allotments, they informed me, were public lands and the federal government already owned them. I asked them about the almost two hundred springs, creek wells, and other water sources on those grazing allotments that were clearly owned by me as well as the right to graze those lands. Their answer remained the same. According to them, the United States could extinguish at will my vested water rights on the grazing allotments.

Concluding our meetings, I would tell them to go home and research the topic. If it turned out that my grazing allotments were public lands, we would talk their price. If it turned out that my grazing allotments were not public land, we would talk about my price. They never contacted me again.

Under Attack

However, not long after my meeting with the Park Service, I found myself being attacked by two other federal agencies. The U.S. Forest Service (USFS) laid claim to the bulk of my water rights by filing claims on them through the Nevada State Water Engineer. Both the USFS and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) engaged in a systematic effort of harassment designed to drive me out of business. This included:

Federal employees opening gates or taking down fences so that I could be cited for trespassing when my cattle would then wander off my land.

Putting a herd of elk on my land and then citing me for failing to maintain fences that the elk destroyed.

Forest Service employees using a helicopter to scatter my cattle, making it impossible for me to collect them in time to avoid a trespassing penalty.

Citing me with a "maintenance failure" for a single missing staple along hundreds of miles of barbed wire fence.

Arbitrary cutting of my grazing allotments because, they claimed, I had not filled out the proper form.

Employing violent and threatening individuals who were frequently drunk and also were involved in narcotics trafficking. One of these USFS drunks actually forced my wife, with all the kids in the car, off the road.
To combat this harassment, I filed numerous administrative appeals with the federal agencies between 1978 and 1990. This is a very costly process, with each appeal costing me thousands of dollars, but I had no alternative. During this period, I and other affected interests in central Nevada prevailed upon Congress to investigate. Congress began three investigations on our behalf. However, in every case, Congress turned the investigations over to the USFS to investigate itself. Predictably, the only people adversely impacted by the investigations were the people calling for them. The agency people involved in the economic vandalism of the property of Nevada citizens were given a free pass.

The issue came to a head in 1991. My family was nearly driven into the ground. We were hanging on by our fingernails financially. I had no choice but to sell the cattle and the land for whatever I could and hope that I could get out of there the shirt on my back. I was in the process of gathering my cattle when the USFS came in: automatic weapons, flack jackets, snipers ? the whole works ? as if we were dangerous criminals. The USFS confiscated over a hundred head of my cattle at gun point. But when they tried to sell them no one in Nevada would buy them because they knew they were stolen. The Forest Service, a federal agency, was engaged in cattle rustling! They had stolen my cattle and were trying to steal my land as well.

On September 26, 1991, I filed a taking case in the United States Court of Federal Claims, claiming just compensation under the Fifth Amendment for the property taken from me. Now the court was going to have to answer the question plaguing the western livestock industry for over a century. Does the rancher actually own the water, forage, and access rights in his grazing allotments? Or, does the rancher only have a conditional privilege to graze public lands, a privilege that can be terminated by the U.S. government without compensation?

When the court rendered its final opinion in January, it sent shock waves through the federal lands bureaucracy. The court said (in a 33-page opinion) that my vested water rights for livestock grazing on my allotments were compensable property rights under the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and that any attempt by the federal government to block my access to the use of that property means the U.S. is required to justly compensate for the taking. The potential ramifications of this decision are enormous; thousands of ranchers now have good hope for redress against harassment and abuse by federal agencies.

The next phase of this litigation is to show how the U.S. took the private property and to determine how much compensation is owed. I might add, perhaps it's time for the mapmakers to find a new color and designation for that one-third of the lower 48 states that has been for so long erroneously designated as federal public lands.

Wayne Hage, a rancher in central Nevada, is author of the pathbreaking book Storm Over Rangelands (1989).

GUEST EDITORIAL - From Wayne Hage

http://www.nevadafullstatehood.com/HageEditorial.htm

Wayne Hage
P.O. Box 513
Tonopah, Nevada [89049]
ewayne@direcway.com

SB 76 - WRONG ANSWER TO THE WRONG QUESTION

Thomas Pynchon once said; "If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about the answers." This would seem to be the case with Senate Bill 76, introduced by Senator Dean Rhodes, (R) Tuscarrora.

SB 76 is intended to amend 140 years of Nevada water law allowing the federal land management agencies to acquire water rights presently owned by Nevada ranchers and farmers.

SB 76 is billed as remedial legislation answering to a Nevada Supreme Court overturn of District Court Judge Gamble's ruling. Judge Gamble ruled that the BLM and USFS do not qualify for stockwater rights in Nevada because Nevada law requires an applicant for stockwater rights to be able to put the water to beneficial use. The BLM and US Forest Service own no commercial livestock.

The Nevada Supreme Court overturned Judge Gamble's decision, holding that the State Water Engineer must allow the federal agencies to apply for water rights on unappropriated water on the "public lands".
Senator Rhodes, in his water bill, then proceeds to ask the wrong question: How can we amend Nevada's water law to allow the federal agencies to demand all or a portion of a privately owned water right from Nevada's farmers and ranchers? How this question is answered is somewhat meaningless, if the end result is the conveyance of private water rights into the hands of the federal government without compensation. This is being done at a time when Nevada citizens are facing the largest tax increase in the history of the state.

When viewed within the world wide rush to control water supplies, we can begin to see what SB 76 may accomplish if it is passed into law. The quest for control of the world's fresh water reserves will probably prove to be the defining natural resource issue of the 21st century. An underlying problem in the West Bank, between the Israelis and Palestinians, is that the West Bank of the Jordan River is the primary source of fresh water for the entire region. The Golan Heights issue is underscored by the fact that whoever controls the Golan Heights can control the use of the water in the Jordan River, which Syria, Israel, Jordan and the Palestinians all rely on. The tensions between Iraq and Turkey have been exacerbated by Turkey's control of the headwaters of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers and Iraq's absolute dependence on the water they carry.

Starving Ethiopia could develop massive food production areas if it could use the water of the Blue Nile River which originates in Ethiopia's mountainous northwest. The nations of Chad, Sudan, Egypt and foreign nations with investments in those countries, all live or die by the water flowing down the Nile. Any attempt by Ethiopia to develop its water resources would bring immediate retaliation from the downstream nations.

The quest for control of water is alive and well here in the U.S. For example, the water in Idaho's Boise Valley and the city of Boise itself is controlled by United Water Corporation. United Water has been diligently working to gain control of the farmers' irrigation water in the region through, in part, the Bureau of Reclamation. United Water is a sub-corporation of a company called Suez. Suez controls all the fresh water in South Korea. Their prospectus states their goal is to become the largest owner of fresh water in the world. Suez is owned by the United Arab Emirates.

Boon Pickens, the great Texas oil entrepreneur, has now turned his interest to buying as many water rights in the Ogallala Aquifer as possible to satisfy the future needs of Dallas and other Texas cities. In some
places today, a barrel of fresh water is worth more than a barrel of oil.

Here in Nevada, we have had numerous entities vying for control of Nevada's waters. Vidler Water Company, Las Vegas Valley Water District, and others, have been buying and seeking to control as many water rights as possible.

The federal government has participated, seeking to use the BLM and Forest Service as surrogates, to wrest water rights away from private individuals and into the hands of government and its creditors. Most of the water in Nevada is controlled by the state's farmers and ranchers. The basic strategy behind the water grab is to use environmental rules and regulations through the BLM and USFS to drive ranchers out of business. Then some entity, such as Nature Conservancy, can obtain control of the ranch and its water for pennies on the dollar. Nature Conservancy, or some other environmental group, can then convey the valuable asset to the hands of government or the government's creditors, at a handsome markup.

This attack is impacting virtually every farmer and rancher in the state. SB 76 will be an extension of this ongoing effort to take control of Nevada water resources and convey them to outside entities where their full profit potential can be exploited.

The Nevada Supreme Court did not rule that the state engineer must issue water rights to the BLM. It only stated that the state engineer must allow the BLM to file on unappropriated waters, if any of those exist. SB 76 opens the door for the BLM and USFS to extort water rights from private individuals and/or drive them out of business in the process. The valuable water resource then eventually finds its way into the hands of one of the water monopolies; like Suez. In the meantime, if some property owners wake up and bring a "taking" and compensation action against the federal government for the value of their property, SB 76 has shifted liability from the feds to the state of Nevada. Nevada taxpayers would then pay the bill.

The solution: obviously SB 76 needs to be recognized for what it is, and deep-sixed into oblivion before it can accomplish the mischief it will bring about. The best solution though, is for the individual water right
holder to make sure their title to water rights and fee land is perfected. Remember, the Nevada Supreme Court only said BLM could apply for unappropriated water on public lands. The U.S. Supreme Court has
clearly stated: "It is well settled that lands to which any right or claim of another attaches is not public land". Grazing allotments are not public lands and the water rights on them are not unappropriated.

Nevada water law created these rights and has protected them well for almost 140 years. Let's not tamper with success. Leave the amending of Nevada water law alone, but make sure we use Nevada water law properly.

Who owns "public" land?

By Henry Lamb
web posted December 1, 2003

http://www.enterstageright.com/archive/articles/1203/1203publicland.htm

Nearly 100 ranchers gathered in Farmington, New Mexico, recently to listen to Wayne Hage, and his wife, former Congresswoman Helen Chenoweth-Hage, explain how the "public" land on which their cattle graze may not be "public" at all. The U.S. Court of Federal Claims found, in Hage v. United States, that the ranchers, not the federal government, may be the true owners of the property referred to as "public" land.

Environmental organizations, and agencies of the federal government, have been trying to rid the West of cattle for decades. The Hage decision demonstrates that the "ownership" of the forage, water, and migration routes, may actually belong to the ranchers, and not to the government.

The doctrine of "prior appropriation" governed land and water acquisition in the West long before there was a United States. This doctrine means that the first person to find water, and put it to beneficial use, had the exclusive right to use the water and the adjacent land and forage sufficient to maintain the livestock the water would support.

The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, signed in 1848, decided the boundary between Mexico and the United States. Article Eight of this treaty declares that citizens living within the area assigned to the United States, would "retain all the property they possess without their being subjected, on this account, to any contribution, tax, or charge whatever."

Virtually every land law enacted since this treaty contains language that protects the existing rights of those who "possess property" as the new laws enter into force.

For half a century, there was no thought or question about whether the federal government owned the land on which the ranchers grazed their cattle. The feds got involved to help resolve conflicts among the ranchers who claimed grazing rights on the same land. Since grazing rights flowed from the prior appropriation of water rights, access to water became the basis for establishing the extent of grazing rights.

In the late 1800s, the federal government established a mechanism for adjudicating these conflicts. Based on established and recorded rights to water, the adjudicators developed a way to measure the forage that would be required to support the cattle that could be supported by the available water. This measure was called AUM – Animal Units per Month. An AUM represents the forage required by a cow and a calf for one month. Conflicts among the ranchers were resolved by the federal adjudicators, who awarded an appropriate number of AUMs to each rancher involved in the dispute, and surveyed and defined the geography in which the cows could graze.

These AUMs and the defined territory became the "allotments" attached to the water rights of the ranchers. Both the right to the water, and to the forage, and access (rights of way) to the forage, were already owned by the ranchers. The allotments were simply the adjudicated division of pre-existing rights of the ranchers. The ranchers were required to pay a fee to the government, for the cost of this adjudication.

This simple process of adjudicating the existing rights of ranchers, evolved, to enlarge the fee to cover not only the adjudication costs, but to also provide a portion to local government, and to create a "range improvement fund," which could be used by the ranchers to help defray the cost of capital improvements to the range.

Environmentalists, and in recent years, the federal government have ignored these historical facts, and have held that the land and water in the West belong to the federal government, and may be used by the ranchers only with the permission of the government, expressed through the allotment of AUMs for which the ranchers pay.

This new interpretation of the ownership of "public" land was imposed on Wayne Hage a decade ago, when his cattle were taken by the government and sold, because Wayne did not have the permits the government said were necessary. The government has gone on a rampage in recent years, to remove cattle from the West, using the same assumptions and techniques against ranchers whom the feds say are "trespassing" on federal land.

The Hage case may pull the rug, floor, and foundation from the government's efforts to exercise control of land that it may not own, after all. In his ruling in the Hage case, Judge Loren A. Smith said, "...the Court is not of the Opinion that the lack of a grazing permit that prevents access to federal lands can eliminate Plaintiff's vested water rights...that predate the creation of the permit system."

Ranchers who can demonstrate a clear chain of title to water rights and the adjacent forage may well, in fact, own the "public" land which the federal government claims.

http://www.inlibertyandfreedom.com/sagebrush.htm

Sagebrush: America Foreclosed
By Wayne Hage - Stewards of the Range 11.29.01
http://www.sierratimes.com/archive/files/nov/29/arwg112901.htm

Chairman Don Young (R-AK) of the House Resource Committee, with considerable help from left wing extremist George Miller (D-CA) and his cadre of environmentalists, were recently successful in the passage of the Conservation and Reinvestment Act (CARA), HR 701. Senator Murkowski (R-AK), is preparing to secure passage of the same legislation in the Senate as S 25. CARA would provide money for the purchase of private property by federal, state, local governments, Indian tribes and environmental groups. 2.4 billion dollars per year would be made available from offshore oil revenues. Opponents of the bill say it would eventually eliminate the ownership of private property in America. In so doing, it signals the end of Congress as an independent branch of government.

The debate on HR 701 for all its exuberance avoided the fundamental question. Why does the government need our land? Basic economics tells us that all wealth originates in the land and by extension the sea. The hallmark of a free society has always been citizen ownership of the land. The hallmark of a totalitarian society has been government control of the land.

A free society is, of necessity, a society in which the government must come to the people for its operating budget. A government that must depend on the people for its source of income is one that must listen to what the people and their representatives have to say. The United States was originally structured on the strict premise that the government be limited in land and resource ownership. Indeed, history shows us that free societies and private ownership of the resource base are inseparable, the degree of freedom and the degree of private ownership being basically proportionate.

Coercive or totalitarian societies demand government ownership or control of the resource base. If government controls the means of production it has a source of income independent of the people and certainly does not need the permission of the people to justify its actions. In a coercive or totalitarian society, the people do not need representatives or a Congress to protect property rights that do not exist. They do not need a common law of property because the people have no property. They do not need a Constitution to limit the power of government to intrude into the people’s property rights because the people have no property rights. Government is total; totalitarian. It can, and does, rule by decree.

It has often been stated that the only reason for government is to protect property. The founders of the United States system of constitutional government often expressed this concept. The statement is just as true of a coercive form of government as it is of a free society. In a free society, government functions to protect the people’s property from government. In a coercive society, government functions to protect the government’s property from the people.

The United States, which was founded on the concept of representative government has evolved toward a coercive form of government. The United States government, which originally was limited to owning land necessary for forts, dockyards, and other needful buildings, and then, only by purchase from the states with the consent of the state legislature has emerged today as the ostensible owner of 43% of the nation’s land. When land ownership by states and local governments is added, the private citizens of the nation own less than 50% of the nation’s resource base.

This erosion of private control of the means of production in the United States has been growing throughout the nation’s history with a major change coming after the Civil War when western lands began to be nationalized as collateral to secure the nation’s foreign debts. National forests and national monuments joined the original national parks, but the biggest increase in nationalized lands corresponds with the birth of the environmental movement. Laws passed to "protect" endangered species, clean air, clean water, etc., have one primary function.

That function is to drive the United States citizens off the resource base. What were once domestically owned mines are now mostly owned by international mining conglomerates. Domestic oil and gas producers have largely been absorbed by energy producing corporations of global proportions. Domestically owned timber production has been largely eliminated, leaving large corporate and international interests in control of the nation’s timber resources.

If we continue to follow the money, we find that the international corporate entities, which have come to control so many of the nation’s resources, are themselves tied to international banking and financial institutions. The global economy has come of age and the independent domestic producer of natural resources is rapidly disappearing from the American landscape. Where he still remains he is maligned as a despoiler of our mother earth and regulated into economic strangulation.

If one were to attempt establishing a birth date for the modern day environmental movement, the evidence clearly points to the early and mid 1960’s. Almost overnight we went from the long held premise that the world and its resources were created for the benefit of man and that private ownership of resources was the best method to insure resource conservation and renewal; to accepting the dogma that resources of and by themselves have some heretofore unrecognized mystic value and only collective control of resources under government can adequately protect them.

Another event of world significance took place as the modern environmental movement was being formed. That event was the collapse of the Bretton Woods agreement. The synergism of these two events has had a greater impact on the constitutionally protected rights of Americans than any other two events in the nation’s history. Under the guise of protecting endangered species, endangered habitat, wild rivers, old growth timber, clean water, clean air and a host of other frauds; property, wealth and personal freedom is being confiscated by government at an ever accelerating rate.

The Bretton Woods agreement emerged from a meeting of the allied nations of WWII as the war was concluding. The meeting held in Bretton Woods, New Jersey in 1944, was prompted by the urgent need for a stable world foreign exchange system to deal with postwar rebuilding. The world’s foreign exchange system had been experiencing various degrees of instability, sometimes bordering on chaos, since the breakdown of the world gold standard at the onset of WWI. That instability had been a major contributor to a worldwide depression and a second World War. The US was so impacted by the collapse of the gold standard and the ensuing depression of the 1930’s that in 1933 President Franklin Roosevelt invoked the War Powers Act and by executive order confiscated gold held by American citizens. This gold was used to back the foreign exchange capabilities of the US in world trade.

Prior to 1933, a US citizen held gold and gold denominated currency and bonds as primary forms of money. Currency and bonds were freely convertible to gold upon demand. After 1933, if a US citizen was caught with a gold coin in his possession, he was subject to a $10,000 dollar fine and or 10 years in prison. Gold-backed debt instruments of the US were converted to non-gold backed debt instruments.

This posed a major dilemma for holders of US treasury bills, bonds and notes. The question became if treasury debt instruments are not convertible to gold, what are they convertible to? The federal reserve notes they would have to be redeemed in were again nothing but lower denominational debt instruments. Where was the real collateral value behind this debt? The standard answer to that question was—the natural resources and all other assets of the US provided the collateral value backing treasury debt. Bondholders were assured that there was far more oil, gas, gold, silver, iron, copper, timber and other resource values in the federal lands of the western US and Alaska than there was debt. Bondholders were, if anything over collateralized. Besides, they were assured; because the debt was internalized, meaning only US citizens could own US debt, we in fact owed the debt to ourselves. The new treasury debt offerings even though not backed by or convertible to gold were adequately if not abundantly secured.

Under the Bretton Woods agreement the US dollar, convertible in foreign exchange for gold became the world’s key currency. Foreign holders of US dollars could demand gold convertibility and it would be honored. It remained illegal for US citizens to hold gold. The Bretton Woods agreement held together for twenty years but by the early 1960’s signs of disintegration of the arrangement became apparent. As the US continued to borrow money on its assets and to issue debt currency and other dollar denominated debt instruments, foreign holders of dollars became uneasy as to the ready convertibility of their holdings to gold. Francis Charles de Gaul was the first to sound the alarm demanding that France’s dollar holding be exchanged for US gold.

This uncertainty was aggravated by the excessive borrowing brought on by the US involvement in the Vietnam War and huge domestic spending to support the "great society" programs of the Johnson administration. The selling of US debt to foreign interests (externalizing the debt) was necessary to support these efforts. There was insufficient lending capacity domestically to support this massive increase in spending.

When it became apparent to foreign holders of dollars and dollar denominated US debt instruments that the US may not be able to redeem these holdings in gold, foreign cashing of dollars for gold increased.

When Nixon took office in 1968 the problem of convertibility was at a crisis stage and the Bretton Woods agreement was rapidly falling into disarray. On Aug 15, 1971 Nixon sounded the Death bell for the Bretton Woods agreement by closing the "gold window."

Alarm quickly spread among foreign holders of US debt. They asked the obvious question. If US debt was not convertible to gold, what was its value? What collateralized US debt? In an effort to stave off a world financial crisis, the natural resources and other assets of the US were pledged as collateral for foreign held debt. This, in effect, left domestic holders of US debt unsecured. Their collateral base shifted to secure foreign held debt and stave off a massive liquidation of US debt instruments by foreign debt holders.

This action, in turn, raised further questions by foreign debt holders. If the natural resources of the US were the collateral for foreign held debt; why were domestic mining companies, oil companies and timber companies continuing to develop that same resource base? This question had been anticipated during the previous decade and had manifested itself in the passage of the Wilderness Act by Congress in 1964. It led to the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency by executive order in 1970; the official sanction for the environmental movement had occurred.

The environmental movement has accomplished two major goals since the 1960's. It has been effective in driving domestic mining, oil and timber companies off the resource base and into the hands of international entities which also represent the holders of massive amounts of US debt obligation.

The environmental movement has also been very effective in forcing the transfer of private land into the hands of government. When one follows the money trail to find out where the environmental groups obtain the means to finance litigation, legislation and propaganda to achieve these ends that trail leads to major corporations, banks, and foundations whose investment portfolios are top heavy in unsecured US debt obligations. Only a massive increase in the government’s asset base can make that unsecured debt good.

In simple terms, the resource base of the US has been mortgaged by a profligate central government and the creditors are positioning themselves for foreclosure.

The environmental laws passed by Congress have facilitated this process. Since the breakdown of the Bretton Woods agreement, Congress, by following the environmental agenda, has reniged on its primary charge of protecting the citizen's private rights and has unwittingly engaged in the plunder of the people’s property.

HR 701 and its companion bill, S 25, represent the latest and most blatant activity of Congress to disenfranchise the American public from the cornerstone of all civil rights; private property.

Ironically many of the members of Congress, who have loudly decried the president's use of executive orders, to circumvent the will of Congress, voted for the passage of CARA. When the executive branch of government gains control over a major portion of the productive capacity of a nation it no longer needs the approval of its citizens or their representatives to determine policy. It can rule by decree.

Congress, by its failure to exercise its constitutional charge to protect private property, has created an executive branch that no longer is dependent on the approval of the people or their representatives to make policy. The executive branch has gained independence from the people and Congress with an independent asset base and ability to borrow against that asset base. Rule by presidential executive order has often rendered the role of Congress irrelevant. HR 701 and S 25 would complete the process by making possible the conveyance of virtually all private property into the hands of government. This legislation amounts to a death wish by a Congress that long ago forgot the essential principles upon which a free society is based.

Wayne Hage is a board member of Stewards of the Range. Check out more at their website www.stewardsoftherange.org

An American Original: Wayne Hage

http://www.libertymatters.org/libertymattersjournal/july_1998.htm

Throughout American history, men of great character have risen to the cause of liberty, sacrificing their personal safety to ensure liberty for generations to come. After fighting a twelve year battle for his land with the federal land management agencies and national environmental organizations, Wayne Hage filed one of the most important cases of our time. Few have had the courage of their convictions to place everything on the line for our precious constitutional principles. Wayne Hage is such a man. Liberty Matters recently met with Wayne for this personal interview.

LM: You have a long history fighting for property rights, what were some of the first issues you worked on?

WH: When I was ranching in the state of California in the 60’s and 70’s, I was quite heavily involved in the California State Chamber of Commerce. I chaired a committee in the state chamber dealing with land use and taxation. At that time we were just starting to see the environmental movement rise to the forefront. I had the opportunity of sitting across the table with people who later became active in the environmental movement.

One of the things that probably drove home where the environmental movement was coming from, was Assembly Bill 10. AB 10 attempted to socialize all of California agriculture. It was an effort to take away all private property rights, put everything under the control of bureaucracy, and do away with any type of mechanized agriculture putting people back to using horse and ox power. We realized that behind this legislation was a very serious movement that had international backing. Our own people in the California Chamber and some of the conservative groups in California said that there was no way we could stop this bill. We did defeat that bill, and the way we beat it was to run another bill through the Senate which accomplished everything that the assembly bill purported to accomplish, but we did it from a private property perspective.

Dealing with that group in California more than 20 years ago gave me a taste of what the nation was in for. The environmental movement has nothing to do with the so-called protection of the environment, that was the window dressing, that was the issue used to take private property without compensation.

LM: From the moment you purchased Pine Creek Ranch, the federal government harassment began. Why do you think you were the target of their campaign?

WH: The issue that focused the federal government’s attack on myself came within about two months of purchasing Pine Creek Ranch in June of 1978. I got a call from two guys with the National Park Service who were visiting Tonopah. I met them at a local restaurant where they informed me that they were going to buy Pine Creek Ranch. They offered me about half of what I had just purchased the ranch for, so obviously we didn’t do business. When they saw that I wasn’t going to sell the place on their terms, the harassment began. The agencies work together, and the environmentalists pretty well dictate what goes on with the land management agencies such as the Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service and Corps of Engineers. After I refused to sell, the Forest Service began just common old harassment to increase the cost of operation so much for Pine Creek Ranch, that I would eventually be frozen out and they would get the ranch by default.

LM: Why did they target the Pine Creek Ranch property?

WH: Pine Creek Ranch is a very picturesque area, it has high mountains on two sides on the northern end. The home ranch headquarters is supposed to be one of the most remote spots in the contiguous 48 states. Also Pine Creek is a large source of fresh water in Central Nevada. The water that we use for stockwater and irrigation can gravity flow to Las Vegas or Los Angeles. It has a very high dollar value if used for domestic or municipal purposes in one of the large metropolitan areas. It has caused a lot of people to look somewhat covetously at the property.

LM: In 1991, the Forest Service confiscated your cattle armed with semi-automatic rifles and wearing bullet proof vests. How were you able to keep a cool head when they were obviously trying to provoke you?

WH: Well, the basic reason is a solid Christian grounding as far as an outlook on life. That is, make sure you keep your own house clean, obey the law and do what is right to the best of your ability. I also spent a little time in my earlier years working for the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management. I knew that part of their unwritten procedure in dealing with people is to provoke confrontations because one of the easiest ways, and one of the only lawful ways for a federal agency to come after an individual citizen, is if that citizen has in any way physically threatened them. So, when they are trying to create a situation that is adverse to the private citizen, they create confrontations and push people past the point of control to where they’ll do something that could be construed to be of a violent nature. Knowing that this is part of their practice, the strategy is don’t take the bate.

LM: When you and your wife Jean filed the takings case Hage v. United States, you

did something different and filed your case in the US Court of Federal Claims. What convinced you to take this step?

WH: One of the biggest insights of how to properly sue the federal government on property issues came from the environmentalists themselves. Back in the early 1980’s, the US was attempting to install a race track MX missile system. It was a massive project and would have included two-thirds of the State of Nevada, and portions of Idaho, Utah and California. The people most directly impacted were the ranchers and we happened to be right in the middle of it. A suit was brought, I wasn’t party to that suit, but I was on the board of litigation. The environmentalists were involved in the suit on the same side.

At a meeting in San Francisco I had an enlightening conversation with a legal researcher for the combined environmental movement. She told me, ‘you ranchers can stop the MX, you have property rights on that range and if you’d stand on that we environmentalists could paper the government to death and they would lose.’ I agreed with her and asked how she learned about this. She explained that the environmentalists thought all they needed to do to get rid of the ranchers was to get an Executive Order from some president who would be favorable to the environmental movement. When Carter was elected, they began drawing up an Executive Order and in researching the legalities involved found that the ranchers own those grazing allotments, that they are private property. I asked if she was afraid that we would use that information against them later on. She said she expected us to, but before we get that done, the environmentalists will have so many environmental regulations and rules laid on us that we’d all be broke.

The essence of that discussion confirmed for me that they knew what they were doing. I knew that any resolution of this issue had to be on the basis of property. When they come in at gun point and confiscate your livestock and tell you you can’t clean your irrigation ditches, that’s pretty plain that they’re telling you you can’t use your property. Obviously, we had a takings issue, a Fifth Amendment issue.

LM: Why are the principles in this case so important to you?

WH: It goes right to the basic premise of what constitutes a free society. There are no such things as civil liberties if you do not have private property and a force of law and justice to protect that private property. The founders of this nation knew that. The wise men over the ages who have helped structure free governments have known that. If we are going to give up on private property then that is another way of saying we are going to give up on civil liberties and surrender to the tyrants. We’re going to subject ourselves and our offspring to a future of slavery. In other words, a return to the same type of climate that existed throughout so much of the world and kept people in poverty and bondage and despair prior to the establishment of free government in the western world in recent centuries. If you’re going to stand back and let people violate with impunity, the basic premise of private property, then we may as well throw in the towel on the rest of our civil liberties because it’s not a matter of if, it’s only a matter of when are we going to lose the rest of them. If a person’s cattle on his own range allotment isn’t safe, if his own ditches and water rights aren’t safe, if his patented private property is not safe, and if they can take those things at gun point, well then certainly they can take anything else they want at gun point. They can take your stock and bond portfolio, they can take your bank account, whatever other type of property you might have.

LM: How have you been able to gather the support for the case?

WH: Right from the beginning there were people who jumped on board, people who well understood what the implications were, what was going to be lost if we didn’t successfully fight it and what was going to be won if we did. Many have stayed with us over the seven years that we’ve been in court. But we didn’t get the support of the Livestock and Agricultural organizations that you would normally think would stand behind us. All the government has to do is suggest to one of the officials in those organizations that if they support that Hage case then maybe they’ll find endangered species on their range next, or maybe they’ll find a wetlands on their farm, or maybe their crop subsidies will be jeopardized. If it hadn’t been for the people at Stewards of the Range, we would have been left high and dry with no support for the case.

LM: Since the filing of the case, the federal government has applied a tremendous amount of pressure on you to drop this action. What has kept you in this fight, when it would have been much easier to walk away?

WH: We are not fighting over whether I personally end up owning Pine Creek Ranch or I don’t. That’s not the issue. The broad issue is whether me, my children, my friends, my acquaintances, my fellow countrymen are going to be able to see a free society in the future. When you begin to look at it in the broad perspective and see what the implications are if you let government go uncontrolled, government will become a thief, government will become a destroyer of free society and the people themselves. All we have to do is go back to the debates on the Constitution where the founders of this country hammered on this theme continuously, that it was essential for whatever kind of a central government we had that we bind it with the chains of the Constitution. What has happened in recent generations is people have willingly loosened those chains. Now we have a monster on the loose. Some of us are working diligently to try and get the chains back on which has been the thrust with this litigation. But until we get government back in control, nobody’s property is safe, nobody’s freedom is safe.

LM: Why do you think our nation is facing this Constitutional crisis and what can people do about it?

WH: The reason we’re facing this constitutional crisis is because the people of the nation as a whole have forgotten the basic premises upon which the Constitution was based. This country was founded on basic Christian principles. It was founded on the concept that under God, people are sovereign in their own right. So, we structured the Constitutional form of government under the common law, the common law being an expression of the ten commandments. A person was free to do anything they wanted to do—they could succeed, they could fail, they could do whatever they wanted to do in life as long as they didn’t infringe the life, liberty, or pursuit of happiness of someone else.

John Adams pointed out that the Constitution was created for a moral people. That it would not be effective if we some day became an immoral nation. In the beginning, we had a country that acknowledged in all of its institutions the basic Christian background. We have gone from that point to where we have laws on the books that purge any resemblance of Christianity from our public institutions. We have replaced the Christian philosophy with the philosophy of Fredrick Nietzsche which is basically situational ethics — God is dead. As long as you can get away with it it’s not wrong, there are no absolutes, it’s simply just another shade of gray. When you really carry situational ethics to it’s ultimate, you have the classic criminal mentality. A society which embraces this philosophy is no longer capable of being the guardians the Constitution required to maintain that free society.

LM: What impact is the case having on the environmental agenda?

WH: As people begin to understand this case, they also begin to understand the corruptness and the depth of criminality that exists in the environmental movement. It demonstrates that the environmental movement has nothing to do with the protection of the environment but has everything to do with the destruction of private property rights. This case bears that out so vividly that the more people are exposed to it, the more that fringe area around the environmental movement comes back and in some cases becomes very strong supporters.

LM: Do you consider your cause to be anti-government?

WH: I’m not anti-government. In fact I’m one of the strongest advocates of government there is. That’s why I work to expose this environmental agenda, which is anti- government. The end result of their agenda is anarchy and chaos and the destruction of any form of effective government. The environmental agenda flies in the face of the common law that was given to this people when this nation was founded. The environmental movement has worked over time to destroy and undermine the very precepts of government in which this nation had its origins and thrived so effectively for so many years. I’m fighting those anti government people in the environmental movement.

LM: What advice would you give to a landowner facing the same challenges to their property rights that you have faced?

WH: The basic advice that I would give anybody facing a challenge from government taking, regulatory or physical, is number one, exhaust your administrative remedies the most effective way that you can and if that sounds complicated, let me make it simple. Do not enter into the argument over rules and regulations. Concede up front that if the government wants to make rules and regulations that’s their business. Your argument needs to be what that government action is doing to your property and the value of your property. Keep your arguments simple and keep it dealing strictly with property and value. Refuse to get dragged into the trap about wetlands, endangered species, or any of the other issues that they try to sidetrack you with and eventually get you into Federal District Court. If a person will follow that track, they can exhaust their administrative remedies most effectively, they can do it in the most cost effective manner and it puts them in a very strong position when they go into the U.S. Court of Claims.

Wayne Hage lives on Pine Creek Ranch outside of Tonopah, Nevada.

Liberty Matters News Service

January 31, 2002

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Major Victory in Hage v. United Sates
Landmark Takings Case Decided in Favor of Property Rights

http://www.libertymatters.org/newsservice/2002/newsservice1_31_02.htm

The long anticipated final decision on the property rights at issue in Hage v. United States, the takings case filed by Nevada ranchers, the Wayne Hage family, has finally been issued by Senior Judge, Loren A. Smith. On January 29th, Smith ruled Hage owns extensive property rights on his grazing allotments, specifically water rights, 1866 Act ditch rights of way, the right to have their livestock consume the forage adjacent to their waters and ditches and the right of access thereto.

The Hages had filed their takings claim against the US Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management in 1991 after excessive regulations and physical takings of their property had run them out of business. They filed their case in the US Court of Federal Claims in Washington DC, placing the important question before the courts what property rights do ranchers own on their grazing allotments?

“The court specifically rejected the position of the BLM and Forest Service that ranchers have no property rights on their grazing allotments,” commented Hage attorney, Ladd Bedford. “The court further stated that if the government’s interference with these rights makes it impossible for the rancher to use them, the Government will be required to pay compensation for their loss.”

In addressing the issue of the Hage’s access to their water rights, Judge Smith’s opinion stated the following:

“The Government cannot deny citizens access to their vested water rights without providing a way for them to divert that water to another beneficial purpose if one exists. The Government cannot cancel a grazing permit and then prohibit the plaintiffs from accessing the water to redirect it to another place of valid beneficial use. The plaintiffs have a right to go onto the land and divert the water.”

The court did rule against Hage’s argument that he owned the surface estate of his allotments, but plaintiffs are not troubled by the courts position. “When you combine everything the court has ruled that we own in this final decision, it is clear that the key property rights essential to a western livestock grazing operation are recognized,” noted plaintiff Wayne Hage.

The court also clarified the relationship between the rancher and the grazing permit system by stating the grazing permit is a license and the government has the authority to exercise reasonable regulations. However, because of this landmark decision, ranchers now may be protected from abusive grazing regulations if they cause the taking of access to the ranchers’ 1866 Act ditch rights of ways or water rights.

“For the first time in history, a federal court has defined the balance between the western ranchers property rights and the governments ability to regulate,” explained Bedford. “This decision is a major step forward for the security of federal land ranchers.”

The court has set up an aggressive briefing schedule to complete the final phase of the case: determining whether the Hage’s property rights as determined in the courts Final Decision were taken by the government. If the Hages prevail in this final stage compensation will be awarded to them for the taking of their property, and the rights of every other rancher affirmed in this decision will have the same protection.

“For ten years Stewards and its members have been working towards the protection of ranchers property rights,” commented Frank Duran, president of Stewards of the Range. Stewards is the organization that has funded and supported this case since it’s filing in 1991. “We now have the most important legal precedent ever set in modern times to protect these rights, and we look forward to wining the next and final round, proving the government must compensate western ranchers when their actions go too far.”

Stewards will be providing a decision analysis by the attorneys along with the final decision through their website at www.stewards.us

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