A fellow named Hage has fought things in court for as long as Bundy. The court ruled:
In the present case, the Governments actions over the past two decades shocks the conscience of the Court, and the burden on the Government of taking a few minutes to realize that the reference to the UCC on the Estates application was nonsensical and would not affect the terms of the permit was minuscule compared to the private interest affected. The risk of erroneous deprivation is great in such a case, because unless the Government analyzes such a note in the margin, it cannot know if the note would affect the terms of the permit such that the acceptance is in fact a counteroffer.
The Government revoked E. Wayne Hages grazing permit, despite his signature on a renewal application form, because he had added a reference to the UCC to his signature indicating that he was not waiving any rights thereby. Based upon E. Wayne Hages declaration that he refused to waive his rightsa declaration that did not purport to change the substance of the grazing permit renewal for which he was applying, and which had no plausible legal effect other than to superfluously assert non-waiver of rightsthe Government denied him a renewal grazing permit based upon its frankly nonsensical position that such an assertion of rights meant that the application had not been properly completed....
...The Government has sufficiently proved an ongoing trespass to warrant a permanent injunction, although not so broad an injunction as the Government desires. Defendants are also entitled to an injunction, as outlined, infra. There is a great probability that the Government will continue to cite Defendants and potentially impound Defendants cattle in the future in derogation of their water rights and those statutory privileges of which the Government has arbitrarily and vindictively stripped them. There is also a probability that Defendants will continue to permit their cattle to graze in excess of the incidental grazing permitted during stock watering that cannot reasonably be prevented. The Court will therefore enjoin all parties in certain respects and will require Hage to apply for a permit and the Government to grant it...
...THE COURT FURTHER FINDS that the denial of E. Wayne [*192] Hages renewal grazing application for the years 19932003 was an abuse of discretion, as well as a violation of due process, as the only reason given for the denial was that the applicant noted near his signature that he did not thereby relinquish certain unidentified rights under the UCC, a superfluous condition that cannot possibly have affected the terms of the permit. It is this violation that has led to all of the allegedly un-permitted grazing to date and the BLMs refusal to offer any permit to Hage himself.
IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that the Government is enjoined from unreasonably interfering with the ability of Defendants Wayne N. Hage and the Estate of E. Wayne Hage to bring cattle to those water sources and attendant ditches in which these Defendants have vested rights to water their cattle as identified herein. The Government may impose reasonable regulations upon access to these water sources, such as specifying which routes shall be used for ingress and egress, if it is necessary to impose such restrictions for legitimate purposes. Reasonable regulations are those that neither prohibit access to the water nor restrict access to the water in a way that unreasonably burdens the ability to access and use the water.
A more productive course of action might be for the state of Nevada to sue the BLM, arguing the BLM is violating public law by trying to eliminate grazing on public land in violation of federal law.
The state of Nevada can probably sue the BLM on some ground of tortious interference I would guess.