The Bundys and the Armed Occupation of a National Wildlife Refuge

That screeching sound you hear is the goalposts as you drag them across the field.You asked why there would be user fees for something that is public. I gave you an example in this post, and in other posts. It is actually a very common thing to charge user fees for using public resources.

Do you know what the "change" was in 1993 that Bundy was reacting to? Something changed with the fees but I dunno what.It seems to me like this was all a response to those changes in the form of: "that's bullshit, I ain't paying for that."Then 15 years or so goes by and they're all: "Now you owe us a million dollars"."Fuck that" is an understandable response - depending on the circumstances.

No, I asked you what the user fees for grazing lands was used for.And you made something up and I called you out on it and now you're backpeddling.

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Do you know what the "change" was in 1993 that Bundy was reacting to? Something changed with the fees but I dunno what.

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From what I read the fees were still below the market rate.

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Then 15 years or so goes by and they're all: "Now you owe us a million dollars".

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I very much doubt that. More likely after 15 years of trying everything else to get him to pay his debts, they finally take him to court.

Just goes to show what it is really about: money.

What did I make up?Private citizens charge grazing fees to use their private land. Why? Because grazing land IS A RESOURCE. Why shouldn't people pay when they use resources on public lands as well?The truth of the matter is that grazing fees on public lands are a fraction of what they are on private land. The cost for public lands is $1.35 per animal per month. That's about $15 bucks per animal per year. A 600 pound steer sells for almost $1000. If someone says that the government is charging them so much they can no longer afford to raise cattle, just know that they are full of bullshit.

On public land, the permit holder is responsible for maintenance. On private land, the land owner is responsible. That the grazing fees are the same thing as bus fares.

They never repair everything they damage. There is still damage left over that BLM and other agencies have to fix. They are the same. When you are on the bus, you are responsible for cleaning up after yourself and not tearing the bus apart. Still, damages occur to the bus anyway, and those fees along with public tax dollars pay for those damages. It is exactly the same.Edited by Taq, : No reason given.

I will try to the referencep later but my memory of all the Bundy crap is that not only are they not paying but that the federal rates are below private and state land rates. That's why the locals were against the take over of the refuge to try to turn it over to the states.

The principle changes were about limiting grazing in certain areas to protect certain wildlife (ie., desert tortoise), limiting the amount of cattle to allow areas to recover from wildfire etc. Bundy ignored these limitations and grazed where he pleased and refused to pay grazing fees. Bundy's version is 'that's bullshit - I ain't beholden to no stinking Feds'. Well actually a few years went by when courts finally made explicit he was engaging in prohibited behaviour and ordered him to cease with a fine. then followed 15 years or so of orders and fines which he ignored - which amounted to $1,000,000 of him refusing to engage with them.In 1995 during tensions between the government and the ranchers, the Forest Service was attacked by a bomb. At this time, people that worked for the government were harassed, as were their children over the matter. Stores refused service to people. Bitter tensions were already building - workers were advised to travel in pairs due to safety concerns. Bundy had $31,000 in fines around this time.In the background, States and Counties in the area were trying to assert ownership and control over the land over the Federal government.In 1996, two more terrorist attacks - pipe bombs - against the Forest Service.And so it went - signs prohibiting grazing were chainsawed down, filled with bullet holes, and basically ignored.Far from this coming from nowhere - this was a long standing situation which Bundy was aware of from the outset - he even represented himself in court so ignorance of the court's instructions cannot be claimed.https://www.washingtonpost.com/...and-the-federal-governmentIn 1998 Bundy received more prohibitions along with the fine of "$200.00 per day per head for any livestock belonging to Bundy remaining on the Bunkerville Allotment after November 30, 1998." 200 x 15 x 365 = approximately $1,000,000. That's for one cow being present every day. I expect his herds amounted to more than this - he claimed a maximum of 500 I believe.

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Fifty percent of grazing fees collected by each agency, or $10.0 millionwhichever is greatergo to a range betterment fund in the Treasury. The BLM and FS grazing receipts are deposited separately.15 Monies in the fund are subject to appropriations. The BLM typically has requested and received an annual appropriation of $10.0 million for the fund. However, for FY2016, the appropriation was $9.3 million, due to a sequester of funds.16 In recent years, the FS has been requesting and receiving an appropriation that is less than the $10.0 million minimum authorized in law. For instance, for each of FY2015 and FY2016, the agency requested and received an appropriation of $2.3 million, roughly half the fees collected.

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The fund is used for range rehabilitation, protection, and improvement, including grass seeding and reseeding, fence construction, weed control, water development, and fish and wildlife habitat. Under law, one-half of the fund is to be used as directed by the Secretary of the Interior or of Agriculture, and the other half is authorized to be spent in the district, region, or forest that generated the fees, as the Secretary determines after consultation with user representatives.17 Agency regulations contain additional detail. For example, BLM regulations provide that half of the fund is to be allocated by the Secretary on a priority basis, and the rest is to be spent in the state and district where derived. Forest Service regulations provide that half of the monies are to be used in the national forest where derived, and the rest in the FS region where the forest is located. In general, the FS returns all range betterment funds to the forest that generated them.

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The agencies allocate the remaining 50% of the collections differently. For the FS, 25% of the funds are deposited in the Treasury and 25% are given to the states (16 U.S.C. 500; see Figure 1).18 For the BLM, states receive 12.5% of monies collected from lands defined in Section 3 of the Taylor Grazing Act and 37.5% is deposited in the Treasury.19 Section 3 lands are those within grazing districts for which the BLM issues grazing permits. (See Figure 2.) By contrast, states receive 50% of fees collected from BLM lands defined in Section 15 of the Taylor Grazing Act. Section 15 lands are those outside grazing districts for which the BLM leases grazing allotments. (See Figure 3.) For both agencies, any state share is to be used to benefit the counties that generated the receipts.

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Grazing Fees: Overview and Issues - EveryCRSReport.com

Thanks Mod. I didn't really want to get into reading a bunch of legal crap on federal grazing laws, but here I am.Thanks for the link, it was informative. So there was a "Grazing Fee Task Group Study of 1992" that resulted in the 1993 fee changes.From:
Grazing Costs: What’s the Current Situation?
Prepared by University of Idaho Extension Agricultural Economist, Neil Rimbey, L. Allen Torell
Agricultural Economics Extension Series No 2011-02, March 22, 2011

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Grazing Fee Task Group Study of 1992
In 1991-92, the authors, Tom Bartlett, Professor at Colorado State University (at that time) and Larry VanTassell, Professor at University of Wyoming (at that time), were asked by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and U.S. Forest Service (FS) to take another look at the grazing fee issue. We decided that we needed to do what we could to repeat the 1966 study, given the sound theoretical basis of that study. Given budgetary constraints and areas that could be covered by project staff, we chose to study those costs in New Mexico, Wyoming and Idaho. Random samples of private and public grazers were drawn in each state and face-to-face interviews conducted with permittees/lessees of public and private forage resources during 1991-92. Several publications summarize the findings of this study (Torell, et al. 1993; Bartlett, et al. 1994; Rimbey, et al. 1994; VanTassell, et al. 1997). It was enlightening and surprising to the authors and others involved in the project to find that the cost differential between public and private lands had declined to $0.13/AUM in 1992 in the three study states. The study also indicated changes in cost structure between 1966 and 1992, with higher proportion of costs associated with items such as herding, meetings and less relative cost associated with veterinary and depreciation of improvements (Table 2).

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Turns out, the fee actually went down, so I dunno what the issue is there - but I don't really care. I really don't care about the Bundy's in particular and have no interested in defending them. So some of the fee money is used on maintenance. Digging through the links in your link, I found some interesting information.First off, the grazing fees are not the primary source for maintenance costs. Also, they spend about half their money on administrative costs.From your link:

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The BLM and FS are charging a grazing fee of $2.11 per AUM through February 28, 2017. BLM and the FS typically spend more managing their grazing programs than they collect in grazing fees. For example, $79.0 million was appropriated to BLM for rangeland management in FY2015. Of that amount, $36.2 million was used for administration of livestock grazing, according to the agency. The remainder was used for other range activities, including weed management, habitat improvement, and water development.9 For the same fiscal year, BLM collected $14.5 million in grazing fees. The FY2015 appropriation for the FS for grazing management was $55.4 million. The funds are used primarily for grazing permit administration and planning. The FS collected $6.5 million in grazing fees during FY2015.

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From the Government Accountability Office I found:

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The 10 federal agencies managed more than 22.6 million AUMs on about 235 million acres of federal lands for grazing and land management in fiscal year 2004. Of this total, the Department of the Interior's Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Forest Service managed more than 98 percent of the lands used for grazing. The agencies manage their grazing programs under different authorities and for different purposes. For BLM lands and western Forest Service lands, grazing is a major program; the eight other agencies generally use grazing as a tool to achieve their primary land management goals. In fiscal year 2004, federal agencies spent a total of at least $144 million. The 10 federal agencies spent at least $135.9 million, with the Forest Service and BLM accounting for the majority. Other federal agencies have grazing-related activities, such as pest control, and spent at least $8.4 million in fiscal year 2004. The 10 federal agencies' grazing fees generated about $21 million in fiscal year 2004--less than one-sixth of the expenditures to manage grazing. Of that amount, the agencies distributed about $5.7 million to states and counties in which grazing occurred, returned about $3.8 million to the Treasury, and deposited at least $11.7 million in separate Treasury accounts to help pay for agency programs, among other things. The amounts each agency distributed varied, depending on the agencies' differing authorities. Fees charged in 2004 by the 10 federal agencies, as well as state land agencies and private ranchers, vary widely.

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Regarding comparative costs between federal and private land, also from your link:

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Grazing fees have been contentious since their introduction. Generally, livestock producers who use federal lands want to keep fees low. They assert that federal fees are not comparable to fees for leasing private rangelands because public lands often are less productive; must be shared with other public users; and often lack water, fencing, or other amenities, thereby increasing operating costs.

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So it's a bit complicated

Heh - tell me about it. One jolt of curiosity later and I'm knee deep in it As near as I can tell - the main change was limiting grazing in certain areas to protect certain wildlife (ie., desert tortoise), limiting the amount of cattle to allow areas to recover from wildfire etc.Bundy's attitude was of the sort of 'hey - my great grandparents have been grazing on these lands forever, so I have every right to continue grazing my cattle here - Federal regulations be damned.' So not only did he continue to graze in prohibited areas, but he also stopped paying the fees and so was also grazing without a permit. Bundy in particular aside - the same reasoning seems to apply to the other ranchers in the area - including the terrorists.That said - you have seen the title of the thread you are in, right? It does seem to be about Bundy and you've contributed directly to 5% of this topics posts and replies to your posts constitute 9% of this thread... Sounds similar to other situations where fees are applied, right? Which means, from the ranchers point of view - they should be seen as a bargain, right? Though it is also probably also true that not all damage, wear and tear and so on is down to cattle grazing. There is talk in the same documents about off-road vehicles causing damage, for instance. Naturally some of this will be ranchers vehicles - but I expect there are also recreational vehicles causing damage too. Who'd have thought government funding systems could be so complex? For completeness we should probably also look to the Transit system funding. A cursory glance shows they generally lose money on a ticket vs costs look - and also rely on subsidies to avoid the loss making trips from being eliminated. But that's as much detail as I care to go into that can of worms Bloomberg - Are you a robot?

Discounting the joke I posted first, in my original post I wrote:

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A particular judgement is on a case-by-case basis, and I have no interest in debating the Bundy case, itself.

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I just wanted to make a counter-point to there being "nothing more" than greed, in the general sense of opposition to legal court ordered property confiscation. 'Cause there's the principle too.

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I think I've made that point, so I'll stop there.I certainly won't read about bus fares - I don't even remember the last time I took public transportation. The ranchers claim the cost to them is more on federal land vs. private land - despite the fee being lower.

https://www.yahoo.com/...ison-nevada-standoff-204538586.html (More at the link)