Replies

It is because he did not pay his bills. He does not have the right to use public land for grazing without the fee just because his family did in 1884.

What statute can you cite for your claim? How do you know this rancher's rights weren't grandfathered from a time long before the existence of the BLM and that what the gov't has done here essentially constitutes a taking?

FReegards!

You hit the nail on the head, and I see it in courthouse deeds or contracts all the time, and the democrat leftist control freaks have even gone so far as to hide those facts.

That would be the Taylor Grazing Act of 1934, which was passed in response to overgrazing on public lands managed by the federal government. The reason the BLM has a grazing lease system in place is for the protection of the public lands by limiting erosion and degradation of these rangelands which can be caused by overgrazing.

Bundy has had an opportunity for 20+ years to substantiate his claims. He has not provided any evidence that he held grandfathered grazing rights to public lands. His legal defense was as follows:

Bundy principally opposes the United States’ motion for summary judgment on the ground that this court lacks jurisdiction because the United States does not own the public lands in question. As this court previously ruled in United States v. Bundy, Case No. CV-S- 98-531-JBR (RJJ) (D. Nev. Nov. 4, 1998), “the public lands in Nevada are the property of the United States because the United States has held title to those public lands since 1848, when Mexico ceded the land to the United States.” CV-S-98-531 at 8 (citing United States v. Gardner, 107 F.3d 1314, 1318 (9th Cir. 1997)).
Moreover, Bundy is incorrect in claiming

that the Disclaimer Clause of the Nevada Constitution carries no legal force, see Gardner, 107 F.3d at 1320;
that the Property Clause of the United States Constitution applies only to federal lands outside the borders of states, see id. at 1320;
that the United States‘ exercise of ownership over federal lands violates the Equal Footing Doctrine, see id. at 1319;
that the United States is basing its authority to sanction Bundy for his unauthorized use of federal lands on the Endangered Species Act as opposed to trespass, see Compl. at ¶¶ 1,3, 26-39; and that Nevada’s “Open Range” statute excuses Bundy’s trespass. See e.g., Gardner, 107 F.3d at 1320 (under Supremacy Clause state statute in conflict with federal law requiring permit to graze would be trumped).

While I think Bundy is legally in the wrong here, I think it abhorrent that the federal government thinks it's appropriate to mount a small-scale, armed invasion of BLM agents to remove cattle when it won't lift a finger to remove 12 million illegal aliens who are also trespassing and doing exponentially more damage to the land and the economy than grazing cattle.

"How do you know this rancher's rights weren't grandfathered from a time long before the existence of the BLM and that what the gov't has done here essentially constitutes a taking?"

If I understand the history right (And I'm no expert. I googled for 10 minutes.) The Federal government acquired these lands by paying Mexico for them. Then the government allowed homesteading but didn't allow big enough tracts to be homesteaded to be viable. So settlers homesteaded the tracks near water supplies and grazed their cattle on the public lands still owned by the Federal government.

Initially grazing was free, but then the Federal government began imposing grazing fees some 25 years ago.

The homesteads aren't as valuable without the grazing rights. But at the same time, I doubt that the Feds ever promised to allow grazing indefinitely. That was a risk that the homesteaders took.