The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) actually listened to the Supreme Court and put the Waters of the U.S. issue to bed with their Sackett v. EPA decision. The court is trying to set guardrails for the administration and its radical agencies to follow—will they?
The Interior department is run by a Native American, Deb Haaland, who has a radical activist background, and the Bureau of Land Mangement (BLM) is headed by Tracy Stone-Manning, who certainly has a radical activist environmentalist background. These agencies have the potential to destroy multiple uses on federal lands. Nothing is done in the Biden administration without climate change being its first consideration.
For instance, the multimillion-acre national monuments that have been created to placate Tribes and environmentalists are out of control, especially when you consider the mineral needs of the green energy boom. Those areas may seem small on the map to Washington D.C. bureaucrats, but it’s hurting families and counties—but then again it will get him the Native American and enviro votes.
Another is the proposed conservation rule that would give conservation an equal footing under the Federal Land Policy and Management Act, which the BLM required to manage grazing, timber, mining, wildlife habitat and recreation equally. I have not heard exactly how they are going to use conservation yet. Not having a clear definition is dangerous and all resource users should be concerned. I’m sure you feel as I do: It’s hard to trust the government. They don’t really want to follow the Administrative Procedure Act, and rule by presidential decree.
Grazing on public lands has been under the gun for a long time, but we have a good story to tell in landscape management. All the enviro groups have been getting involved and suing the agencies for not using the right science, which is always the environmental groups’ science, never mind traditional use. The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) seems to be involved in every environmental issue around the world. The CBD recently filed a suit against the U.S. Forest Service to curtail grazing on the Coronado National Forest in southern Arizona, saying the agency was protecting cattle grazing over other endangered species. We’ll see what the courts say.
Montanans may get some relief from the aggressive American Prairie, which has been buying up ranches in east central Montana and asking the BLM to allow bison grazing on several allotments. There has been a lot of outside money behind American Prairie, and where there is money there are politics behind it.
Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen, who is the state’s chief legal officer, filed an appeal recently calling on the federal appeals board to overturn the BLM’s July 28, 2022, notice of final decision authorizing American Prairie a general permit to graze in several allotments in northeastern Montana. The final decision violates several federal laws: the Taylor Grazing Act, the Federal Land Policy and Management Act, the Public Rangelands Improvement Act, the National Environmental Policy Act and the Administrative Procedures Act.
Knudsen said in a press release, “The BLM’s final decision granting a general use permit to graze bison is a direct attack on rural communities—attacks that have become a hallmark of the Biden administration. The BLM has bent over backward to circumvent the law and approve (American Prairie’s) plan to turn hundreds of thousands of acres of productive ranch land into a nature preserve for the wealthy.”
He continued, “From shutting out Montana ranchers during the comment period, proposing to copy and paste directly from (American Prairie’s) website, and ignoring federal law and its own regulations, it’s clear Biden’s BLM intended to rubber stamp this proposal from the start— no matter the impact on and opposition from local communities. The appeals board should step in, set aside the decision, and force the agency to follow the law.” Again, there was little local input, and the Administrative Procedures Act was bypassed.
The list of threats to public land users goes on and on. The Biden administration is attempting to run roughshod over western resource users in the West. If it’s a solar farm on public land, it’s OK, if it’s a grazing issue, the administration doesn’t seem to care. If you’re in the way of a climate change issue this administration will run over your rights. The political elite are trying to run the country and stepping on a lot of your rights. What we really need are some fresh horses in government. — PETE CROW
