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Show Western Resources wrap-up: Feds slowly winning fight to hike grazing fees By Holene C. Monberg "The government position Is that the grazing fee is not an appropriate subsidy or income support." -Study ol fees for grazing liventock on federal land, 1077 The government is slowly but surely winning its battle to require livestockmen to pay fair market value to graze their animals on federal lands in the West. The U.S. Forest Service (USFS) first imposed a grazing graz-ing fee in 1906 at the rate of a nickel per cow and a penny per sheep to graze one month on national forest land. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) first imposed a grazing fee of a nickel per cow per month to graze on the public domain in 1936. Like the five-cent cigar, the days of nickel grazing fees are long gone. Interior Secretary Cecil D. Andrus and Agriculture Secretary Sec-retary Bob Bergland announced announ-ced on Oct. 21 that the grazing fee on both the Forest Service and the BLM-managed lands would be set at $1.89 per animal unit month (AUM) for the 1978 grazing season beginning begin-ning March 1. An AUM is the amount of forage or feed needed to carry one cow or 5 sheep for one month. For the past two seasons the USFS fee has been $1.60, and the BLM fee has been $1.51 per AUM. A study of fees for grazing livestock on federal lands which was conducted con-ducted by the two departments-Interior and Agricul-ture-as required under the 1976 BLM Organic Act came to the conclusion that fair market value for public land grazing would $2.38 for the 1978 grazing season. However, Howev-er, the two Secretaries determined deter-mined this would be too steep an increase. So, they put a 25 percent limit on the increase each year until fair market value is reached in 1980-81. After that, they decided, the increase is to be limited to 12 percent a year. No Win The Secretaries are in a no-win situation on grazing fees. With California charging $7.30 per AUM for grazing on state land this year, and with some federal lands in Northwestern North-western Nebraska leased at $13.50$14.25 this year by competitive bid, the environmental environ-mental and conservation factions fac-tions view the Secretaries' Oct. 21 decision as caving in to the still potent livestock interests inter-ests in the West. But the National Cattlemen's Association, Associa-tion, the Public Lands Council and the National Wool Growers Grow-ers Association, the American Farm Bureau Federation and some Congressmen from the 11 Western states charge that the feds are attempting to force livestock production off public lands. So the two Secretaries are moving very deliberately. They do not plan to put a notice of the planned increase in grazing fees in the Federal Register until after Congress adjourns; that is now expected expect-ed to be in mid-November. They will give 90 days' notice of impending rule-making prior pri-or to putting the final regulations regula-tions into effect along about Feb. 15. One or more of the livestock associations is expected ex-pected to challenge the proposed pro-posed increase, so livestock-men livestock-men may get their bills for the 1978 grazing season late next year if they use federal lands for grazing. There are 283 million acres of land under grazing permit from the Forest Service and BLM, virtually all in the 11 Western states-Arizona, California, Cali-fornia, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Mon-tana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyoming. But this public land provides for only about 4.5 percent of all the forage or feed for livestock in this country, according to Melvin D. Bellinger, a range economist econ-omist with the U.S. Forest Service, who worked on the task force that put the study together. Exclusive of dairy herds, as of Jan. 1, 1977, there were about 120 million cattle and 12.7 million sheep in this country, but only about 5 million head of cattle and 6 million head of sheep were grazed on USFS and BLM-managed BLM-managed land, according to the study. There are about 1.5 million livestockmen in this country, but only 25,000 of them hold about 32,800 permits, per-mits, leases and licenses to graze their livestock on national na-tional forest and BLM-man- aged lands, Bellinger told Western Resources Wrao-UD Grazing Important But where there are immense im-mense holdings of public land, public land grazing is highly important. Bellinger said the USFS has no figures to prove it, but he believes public land grazing has become increasingly increas-ingly important to the Western West-ern states during the current drought, particularly on the better managed public ranges. rang-es. In Nevada well over two-thirds two-thirds of all cattle in the state use public lands at one time or another during the year, according ac-cording to the report. Special studies run by the task force on two states indicated that 68 percent of all cattle in Nevada and 26 percent of all cattle in Idaho graze on the USFS-BLM-managed lands at some time during the year. Bellinger did not have any current figures of the extent of public land grazing in the 11 Western states, but he put together for WRW some figures fig-ures which show the approximate approxi-mate relationship between public land grazing and total cattle population by states. The cattle population figures fig-ures are as of Jan. 1, 1977, and are accurate. The public land grazing figures are for 1975 and are somewhat inflated because often a livestockman will have grazing pemits on both national forest and BLM land, so that both USFS and BLM will count the same herd twice in their calculations. However, the figures do not include the sheep population, and 20 percent more sheep than cattle graze on public lands, although they do not eat as much forage. The figures which Bellinger developed devel-oped for WRW, as of Oct. 28, are contained in a box on this page. Public lands are usually the source of forage for livestock for only part of the year. The key importance of public land grazing in the West is that it often makes a farm-ranch-livestock operation viable, because be-cause with a private land base and a public land permit the rancher has a successful operation. op-eration. But he must have both to do so. Fair Market Value Fair market value is defined defin-ed by the study as the value added to the non-fee cost of operating on public grazing land so that the total cost of grazing on public land equals the total cost of operating on comparable privately leased grazing land. An exhaustive study undertaken in the late 1960's using 1966 data came to the conclusion that the difference differ-ence was $1.23 on a weighted average, and in 1969 both Interior and Agriculture set out to wipe out this difference over a 10-year period. They hoped to bring up the cost of the public land grazing fee to fair market value by 1978. The USFS fee in 1966 was (Cont. on Page C2) Feds winning fight to hike grazing fees (Cont. from Page Cl) 51 cents per AUM and the BLM fee in 1966 was 33 cents per AUM to graze livestock on public land, on the average. Four moratoriums have occur-res occur-res in the past nine years for a variety of reasons. Meanwhile, Mean-while, the latest study indicat ed that fair market value had moved up to $2.38 because of the generally upward movement move-ment of costs. So the departments depart-ments are going to try again to bring public land grazing fees up to fair market value by the 1980-81 period, and to try to maintain it at that level after that. It won't be easy. The response that the Interior-Agriculture briefers received re-ceived on Oct. 20 when they outlined the Andrus-Bergland decision to the staffs of interested inter-ested Members of Congress was "strictly negative," Bellinger Bel-linger told WRW afterwards. As all livestock operators are currently caught in a cost-price cost-price squeeze, livestock permittees per-mittees on federal lands are unususally cost-conscious and therefore want to keep the grazing fee at the present level "rather than allowing it to go to fair market value," the study found. 'The government govern-ment contends it should be collecting fair market value as the best measure of equity and to assure there is no competitive advantage of (public land) permittees over private land lessees and private priv-ate landowners," it said. The two Secretaries recognize that livestockmen are in a cost-price squeeze, but they question, on grounds fully spelled out in the study, whether or not the grazing fee should be used to subsidize public land graziers. They decided it should not; if graziers grazi-ers are to be, subsidized, another program providing for a direct subsidy should be used. Also the Secretaries are directed by law to receive fair market value for public land grazing. UDALL ATTEMPTS Chairman Morris K. Udall, D-Ariz., of the House Interior Committee has quietly undertaken under-taken to strengthen his position posi-tion as Committee chairman. During the past month tidal ti-dal named Robert A. Revel-es, Revel-es, a native of Miami, Ariz., who has worked in the Congressional Con-gressional offices in the past of both Udall and his brother Stewart while a member of Congress, as associate staff director of the Committee. In this newly created post, Rev-eles Rev-eles has been given the assignment as-signment of determining ways by which the Committee can operate more efficiently. There has been a lot of criticism of Udall's management manage-ment of the Committee since he assumed the chairmanship in January. Some of the criticism criti-cism appears unfair to Udall, in the view of long-time Capitol Hill observers, because be-cause the Committee rules were changed in 1971 so that Sub-committee chairmen are in charge of scheduling legislation legis-lation and also of the staff handling Subcommittee busi- ness. Nevertheless, some criticism criti-cism of Udall appears to be valid. He forced the House Mining Subcommittee to hold hearings on the revision of the 1872 Mining Law on Oct. 13-14 and Oct. 18 here, even though the mining industry wanted field hearings. The official reason for the Washington hearings was to allow Interior Secretary Cecil D. Andrus to explain the Administration proposal to repeal the 1872 law, but Andrus protested he would have preferred to put off his appearance until next year. Meanwhile, the question of field hearings is still up in the air. Udall split up jurisdiciton over the coal slurry pipeline legislation between the Mining Min-ing Subcommittee headed by Rep. Abraham, Jr., D-Tex., and the Public Lands Subcommittee Subcom-mittee headed by Rep. Teno Roncalio, D-Wyo. When the two Subcommittees deadlocked deadlock-ed over the legislation, Udall sought to move it into the full Committee and to start markup mark-up on it in November. With Congress due to adjourn next month, Committee members were reluctant to stay in Washington to work on the coal slurry pipeline measure, so the best compromise that Udall was able to come up with was an agreement to take up the measure in full Committee in January. |