Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt restored a grazing permit to Hammond Ranches Inc. (HRI) Jan. 19 as one of his last acts before leaving office. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) released a proposed decision in late December to reissue a grazing permit to the ranching family after they were one of four parties who applied for the Bridge Creek area allotments in the Steens Mountain in Oregon.
A brief protesting period followed the release of the proposed decision, where environmental groups were sure to make their voices of opposition heard. Nonetheless, Bernhardt signed a final decision in favor of the Hammonds to apportion available forage within the four Bridge Creek area allotments; assign a grazing preference; issue a 10-year livestock grazing permit with allotment management plans; and authorize the construction and removal of range improvements within the allotments.
“The parties are advised hereby that, as Secretary of the Interior, I am exercising jurisdiction over this matter in accordance with 43 C.F.R. § 4.5,” Bernhardt said in the decision, adding there are no further administrative appeals available.
“Because the duly adopted regulations establishing these processes for decisions rendered by the BLM do not and cannot preclude the secretary from exercising reserved statutory authority, this decision properly concludes administrative proceedings on this matter.”
The family has been fighting for grazing rights on the 26,000 acres of allotments since father-and-son Dwight and Steven Hammond were convicted of arson on the allotments in 2012. Their permits were not renewed in 2014, but were in 2018 by then-Secretary Ryan Zinke. Environmental groups then sued the Department of the Interior and in late 2019 Zinke’s decision was rejected by the courts. BLM then opened the application process for the allotments in early 2020.
Application process
During the application process, the BLM Burns District Office reviewed the four applications and determined all applicants met the mandatory qualification criteria for grazing authorizations. During the application process, the office also prepared an environmental assessment for the Bridge Creek area allotments and found no significant impact.
BLM also distributed a questionnaire to applicants regarding additional detail related to the regulatory factors, and one applicant withdrew their application. In addition to supplemental information, each applicant was also required to submit a grazing plan. Names and identifying information were redacted from the submitted materials and the applications were reviewed by a panel of BLM specialists.
A total of 160 protests were submitted during the two-week-long protesting period.
In their protests against the decision, the Sierra Club and Western Watersheds Project (WWP) took issue with the lack of public involvement in the application process. In response, Bernhardt wrote, “Section 4130.1-2 does not provide for consultation, cooperation, and coordination with the interested public (or anyone else).”
He also noted the two organizations claimed BLM ignored requests from a different organization and did not make the applications available to the public. Bernhardt wrote in response that BLM responded to a Freedom of Information Act request filed by WWP, but suspended it following a request by a WWP attorney.
“Contrary to assertions raised in some of the protests received, I disagree that HRI’s performance during the 2019 grazing season renders it ineligible for a new permit,” Bernhardt wrote. “To be sure, the grazing that occurred in 2019 varied from terms and conditions on the permit face; however, HRI was responding to direction provided by the BLM, which, in turn, was reacting to court-ordered limitations on specific allotments.”
He continued that given the circumstances, he declined to treat the departures from the permit conditions and regulations as substantial compliance issues or regulatory violations that precluded the ranch’s eligibility.
“Had HRI willfully failed to adhere to permit terms or refused to comply with direction from the BLM in the 2019 season, a different result may have been appropriate, but that was simply not the case,” Bernhardt wrote.
He added that HRI had the greatest need for the available forage, and is also a family-run business that has utilized public lands for decades and has private lands among the allotments. This structure makes the Bridge Creek area allotments integral to rotating through private lands.
“This is not to say that HRI—or any applicant—is ever entitled to public forage; this is only to recognize that such a longstanding practice of coupling the use of public and private lands may in at least some circumstances create a comparatively exceptional need unmatched by other applicants,” Bernhardt said.
He noted that his decision is not based on financial considerations or the ability for the family to operate without access to public lands, but rather, “it is reflective of the value I place on preserving family-run ranching operations and their connections to public lands.”
He concluded, “I hereby deny all protests to the proposed decision apportioning the available forage in the Bridge Creek area grazing allotments and confirm the apportionment of such forage to HRI.”
In response to the final decision, WWP voiced their opposition by saying, “It is outrageous—although sadly predictable—that the Trump administration has reached down into the Burns Field Office of the BLM and seized control to make sure they could give the Hammonds preferential access to public lands.”
The group claimed the allotments had “only begun to recover” after the family’s cattle were removed in 2014 and the “sage grouse habitats and trout streams have yet to be fully restored by the damage.”
To view the final decision in its entirety, click here.— Anna Miller, WLJ editor
