Grazing Reform Bill Passes
Full House By Wide Margin

WASHINGTON — Ranchers would have to pay 48 cents more for each cow and calf, horse or every five sheep and goats they graze on federal lands, under legislation passed late last week by the House.

But with the 36 percent increase in rates will come much awaited stability in payments, say supporters of the bill, which passed 242-182 Thursday.

Ranchers will "be able to go to the banker and say this is what it's going to cost and this is how long I'm going to be here," said Rep. Bob Smith, D-Ore., the bill's sponsor.

"Everybody I know borrows money. Bankers hate to lend money for the unknown," he said. Smith owns a ranch in Oregon.

Opponents of the bill predictably claim it doesn't go far enough to protect 270 million acres of federal land from environmental damage and that it continues "taxpayer subsidies" of ranching.

The bill "is unfair and it leads to abuse," said Rep. Bruce Vento, D-Minn., the bill's most vocal opponent during the debate.

"It's good for the livestock industry, good for the environment, good for the taxpayer and good for the management of public lands," countered Bob Smith, chairman of the House Agriculture Committee.

Smith agreed to changes in the bill to alleviate opposition from environmental activist groups and from Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, who has said he will recommend a presidential veto of the legislation.

One compromise included striking a provision that would have given ranchers more local control of range land.

"Although environmentalists will continue to oppose the bill, I don't think it will be with the same zeal," Smith said.

As for the veto threat, proponents were unsure if Babbitt still plans to recommend it. Smith said many of Babbitt's objections to the original bill had been solved, and others were with the Senate bill instead of the House version.

Under current regulation, ranchers pay $1.35 per animal unit month on federally owned rangeland. The new bill calculates fees according to a legally prescribed formula based on market values, instead of the current legislative mandate.

Also, ranchers who follow regulations and prove to be good stewards of rangeland can graze a particular piece of land for 10 years.

The new fee is expected to bring in an additional $6 million in annual revenue, a total of $16.4 million in fees a year.

One amendment by Rep. Charles Stenholm, D-Texas, changed the bill to remove concern that it would enact a new property right for ranchers and scrap a provision allowing expansion of the ability to sublease land. Also removed was a section giving ranchers effective control over local councils that make grazing policy recommendations.

Supporters said the measure would increase the focus on science-based environmental management of public land and improve cooperation among government, environmentalists and ranchers.

"I believe this bill is a significant step in the right direction," said House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga. "It offers greater stability and sound economic management for family ranchers across the United States."

The House defeated, 212-208, an amendment by Vento to increase the federal grazing fee for large producers by either 25 percent or to the level states charge for grazing on their land, which is usually higher.

But lawmakers agreed on a voice vote to raise the fee to those state levels or higher for foreign holders of grazing permits. This would affect eight permit holders from Canada, Australia and Switzerland who graze some 77,500 animals on public land.

The national grasslands were left out the bill because lawmakers didn't want to repeat a controversy that snarled previous legislation.

"They tried to find something that would eliminate a lot of the resistance that basically stopped passage of something last time," Rep. John Thune, R-S.D., said Thursday.

Then-Sen. Larry Pressler, R-S.D., came under criticism from hunters, state wildlife managers and environmental activists in 1995 when he pushed a grazing bill that would have removed the grasslands from the Forest Service and put them under the agriculture secretary's direct control.

There are 3.8 million acres of national grasslands, about two million acres of which are in North Dakota and South Dakota.

Ranchers said the Forest Service wasn't giving grazing the priority it deserves in deciding how to manage the land.

The bill passed by the House applies only to rangeland run by the Bureau of Land Management or in the national forests.

The Senate isn't expected to vote on the bill until next year.

In related developments, a bill by Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., to prevent the Forest Service from evicting ranchers with permits that don't comply with recent environmental rules was given final congressional approval last week and sent to President Clinton.

The bill, if signed, would allow the Forest Service to keep its current operating plans in place until next season, when the Forest Service normally implements its new annual operating plans for grazing allotments.

The measure was opposed by environmental activist groups that wanted the Forest Service to obey a California appeals court order and impose the new regulations retroactively to permits already in force.

Domenici’s measure followed a ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that ordered the Forest Service to enforce new rules to protect the Mexican spotted owl and other species in New Mexico and Arizona even if existing permits had not yet expired.

A Domenici news release said the measure "simply gives the Forest Service time to adequately resolve this issue ... in a way that minimizes the impact on individual permittees."