The Interior Department had been sued by the Western Watershed Project (WWP), claiming the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) unlawfully withheld information on the BLM’s outcome-based grazing initiative.
“Outcome-based grazing appears to be a ploy to put private ranchers in charge of grazing on public lands, and sidestep standards that might otherwise protect our lands and wildlife,” said Scott Lake, Idaho director of WWP.
BLM’s grazing initiative was first announced in September 2017 and aims to give more flexibility to a selected group of permittees holding grazing permits from the BLM.
The group said it requested information about the project from the government in April 2018, but did not receive a response.
WWP claims that the Trump administration made “secret arrangements” within the industry, and was attempting to “conceal these arrangements from public view.”
David Bahr, an attorney for WWP concluded, “Outcome-based grazing promises to be an environmental disaster, and because this is taking place on public lands, the public has a right to know what’s going on.”
