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Show BLM Lowers Grazing Fees Livestock operators who use lands administered by the Department of the Interior's Bureau of Land Management (BLM) for grazing purposes will pay $1.86 per animal unit month (AUMs - the amount of forage consumed by one cow in one month) for the 1982 grazing season. The new fee, which will become effective March 1, 1982, represents a reduction of 45 cents from the m grazing fee and reflects declines in the price livestock operators are being paid for beef, as well as increases in their production costs. During 1980, more than 125,000 cattle and 380,000 sheep grazed on BLM administered lands in Utah, which amounted to more than 800,000 AUMs. More than $1.7 million in grazing fees for fiscal year 1980 was collected by BLM in Utah. In 1981, BLM collected $26,451,832 in grazing fees from livestock operators in all public land states. From this amount, $4,238,000 was returned to the states where the money was collected and $13,225,916 went into the Bureau's Rangeland Betterment Fund used to pay for rangeland improvements in the BLM District where the money is collected. The remaining $8,987,916 went into the General Fund of the U.S. Treasury. Grazing fees for BLM administered lands arc set by a legislative formula incorporated in the 1978 Public Rangelands Improvement Act. The price of beef and the cost of production are components of the formula. Another formula component is known as the "forage value index" and is derived from the rate livestock operators pay for grazing animals on comparable private land. That portion of the Public Rangelands Improvement Act which established the formula for computing grazing fees will expire in 1986. Congress has told the Bureau of Land Management and the Department of Agriculture's Forest Service to conduct an intensive joint studey of Federal grazing fees and to report to Congress by December 1985. Presumably, grazing fees for 1986 and subsequent years will be determined by Congress after an appraisal of the grazing fee report. BLM and the Forest Service are now in the process of setting up the study. Actions to date include development of a contract to study state, local and other Federal grazing fee systems, a contracted survey on private grazing fees in the Northern Great Plains and tests of appraisal methodology. The draft of the required grazing fee report is scheduled to be completed by 1984. |