Voices: Grazing action plan is a public lands heist

Lizzy Pennock and Josh Osher

Public lands are a part of our identity. We rely on them for adventure, exercise, peace of mind, and to feed our families with subsistence hunting. But recent events make clear that those in power would rather see those lands handed over to private entities.

Take last year’s East Crazy Mountains Land Exchange: the Custer Gallatin National Forest approved an exchange giving thousands of acres—essential for wildlife and the public—to the group that owns the ultra-wealthy Yellowstone Club. Critics included the Montana Chapter of Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, who condemned the decision as the Forest Service “cav[ing] to big money and their never-ending goal to lock the public out of public land.”

While the Crazy Mountains exchange and last year’s proposal to sell public lands to fund tax cuts for the wealthy inspired massive backlash, another perpetrator of public lands privatization not only escapes criticism, it’s celebrated as a pillar of America. That perpetrator is the commercial livestock industry.

Despite well documented environmental harms—trampling native plants and soils, spreading invasive species, reducing biodiversity—the livestock industry has long received favorable treatment from the federal government. The U.S. Forest Service (USFS) and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) permit private livestock grazing on 240 million of approximately 344 million acres of public lands in the lower-48. And Trump’s new joint ‘Grazing Action Plan’ makes extra clear that the livestock industry is a higher priority than the public.

This Plan is being framed as cutting bureaucratic red tape, supporting rural America, and protecting national security by increasing domestic beef production. Surely it is entirely coincidental that this effort was rolled out at the same time that “Trump’s approval rating among rural Americans has sunk to a new low.” A closer look reveals it for what it really is: politicians handing public lands to private industry, carte blanche.

The Plan encourages the USFS and BLM to slash environmental review, restock closed or vacant allotments, and increase grazing livestock by 500,000 head months over the next two years. The agencies scapegoat the laws and regulations that protect public lands and wildlife for making it too hard for ranchers to earn a living.

The reality is that long-term aridification has made much public land wholly unsuitable for grazing. Putting more cattle on more unsuitable land makes matters worse. Skyrocketing fuel and equipment prices have caused far more harm to ranchers’ bottom line than agency regulations.

So let’s set the record straight: the Grazing Action Plan is not in the public interest, despite the lands at issue being public land.

The Department of Agriculture made this plain when it directed all USFS employees to “remember that we serve them”—referring to the livestock industry. A federal agency told its employees it exists to serve private industry. The directive also warned employees to avoid "condescending or dismissive tones” with livestock operators, with failure to comply resulting in “performance discussions.”

The BLM is the same. Its recent proposal to change its grazing regulations would cut the public out of significant decisions about public lands management by removing requirements to consult the ‘interested public’ about grazing-related decisions.

We’re told it's all worth it for American food security. But only about 3% of livestock operators hold public lands grazing permits, and public lands livestock contribute roughly 2% of the nation’s beef supply. The fee to graze on public lands is a fraction of what grazing costs on private land, and we subsidize the shortfall with our taxes, along with the cost of the environmental damage that livestock inflict on the places we love most.

So while we pay for privately owned hooves to trample 240 million acres of public lands, we are also cut out of the decision-making. Whether it’s a land sale, exchange, or lease (like with grazing), the public loses.

Tell the BLM that cutting us out of decisions about public lands is unacceptable. Speak up by July 13th. This is nothing but another industry handout at the expense of everyday people who want to enjoy healthy public lands—not fight tooth and nail just to keep them.

Lizzy Pennock is the Montana-based carnivore coexistence attorney for WildEarth Guardians.

Josh Osher is the Public Policy Director for Western Watersheds Project.