You say that many ranchers are being forced out by "ruinous fees". They pay a $1.35 per month per unit. That is so cheap it probably doesn't cover the administrative costs, much less management costs.
Then you tell me I need to read up Wayne Gage. You don't even know the man's name but somehow you are an expert. I'll be glad to tell you, and point out that he did it right, and won, though he didn't win much. He didn't call in the militia. One element of the Hage case was that the courts ruled that the agency did have the authority to require Hage(or any other grazer including Bundy) to reduce their herd. The second element was that the agency could not trump Hage's water rights, and that is what he won on. Hage's prior appropriation water rights were in conflict with Federal Reserved water rights. Federal Reserved water rights had been established by SCOTUS in 1908 but the courts had been re-interpreting these rights late in the 20th century. Its possible another Hage type case could come up but not likely.
Cases like Hage and Bundy are few and far between. Of the over 13,000 grazers there very few conflicts and most everybody pays on time. Many conflicts center around one grazer's stock on another grazer's allotment. And conflicts over the wild horses are common. More importantly, the Nevada Cattlemans Assos doesn't support Bundy
It is a fact that the grazers face uncertainty and the land available to graze will continue to shrink. You can look at it as shrinkage during that period from the Taylor Grazing Act up until FPLMA in 1976 plus the shrinkage from FPLMA in 1976 up until today.
We know a lot about the post FLPMA changes because BLM has published this data. That data covers the time period of 1976 to 2000 and we can say that trends during that period continue on until today, 2014.
For a couple of examples.
In 1976 there were around 11,000 cataloged archeological sites covering about a million acres. By 2000 there were over 235,000 covering over 14 million acres.
During that same period coal production on these western federal lands increased 7 fold. There were grazing allotments converted to coal production. This happened because of the Clean Air Act. Who do you hate worse? The BLM administrating FLPMA or EPA administrating the Clean Air Act? Or could it be the Wild Horse and Burro Act. Or the Endangered Species Act.
You say the tortoise is not endangered. If you have done the science, you need to call Bundy and tell him to sue, and you can be his expert witness.
One interesting tidbit about Bundy I found interesting if it in fact is true.
Bundy, based upon info I’ve seen published owns less than 160 acres of land.
The rest is gov’t land he was running his cattle on and not paying the grazing
fees for many years now. If his land acreage is correct then Bundy is
essentially a tenent rancher using someone else’s land. Based upon the
contractual arrangement to use the land Bundy depends upon someone else
to establish the rules.