Ecos Drain Feds' ESA Budget,
Complain When Money Runs Out

SANTA FE — A radical anti-grazing activist group is now insisting that the federal government shouldn't spend money on agriculture if it can't afford to fund the activists' pet causes first, despite the fact that it's the group's own fault the money is gone.

Santa Fe-Based Forest Guardians says it has obtained a list of ranchers who have received money from USDA's Farm Services Agency through the agency's Livestock Assistance Program, and that it will post those names on the Internet. The group has already done that with private financial information on ranchers that a federal judge has ruled was obtained illegally.

"These people, I don't know what they 'guard,' but they sure are good professional complainers," says Erik Ness of the New Mexico Farm and Livestock Bureau.

The activists claim the federal government shouldn't give money to New Mexico ranchers for losses from drouth and other disasters when it can't afford to list any more animals under the Endangered Species Act.

During the 1990s, the Livestock Assistance Program paid out nearly $55 million to cattlemen for disaster losses, the Forest Guardians say.

New Mexico was the top state receiving aid.

But the federal government says it cannot afford to spend money listing endangered species, complains Guardians spokesperson Kirsten Stade.

The NMFLB's Ness points out that the Livestock Assistance Program and money for evaluating proposals under the Endangered Species Act are separate issues.

Inasmuch as lawsuits filed by the Guardians and other activist groups are largely responsible for shortfalls in endangered species budgets, Ness told the Santa Fe New Mexican newspaper that it's not the cattle industry's fault that the Fish and Wildlife Service can't afford to consider other species.

The Forest Guardians is one of a number of environmental groups that has sued the Fish and Wildlife Service to force it to designate a stretch of the Rio Grande as habitat for the silvery minnow. The group is still in litigation against other federal agencies, seeking to force them to release water from New Mexico reservoirs to sustain the fish.

The Livestock Assistance Program is intended to protect the food-production system in the United States, Ness points out.

"The food-production system, and protecting it from drouth and snow and disaster, is a heck of a lot more important than playing politics over some little fish," Ness contends.