Obama proposes doubling public land grazing fees

[idahohuntr]

http://www.hcn.org/articles/obama-s-trying-to-hike-grazing-fees?utm_source=wcn1&utm_medium=email

Seems the fees should at least cover the administrative costs of managing grazing on public lands.

Twenty years ago, fees for ranchers grazing livestock on federal public lands were a major political issue, the subject of regular national debates between conservationists and ranchers. The fee program brings in far less money for the Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service than the agencies spend on maintaining rangeland. But thanks to the power of the livestock lobby, proposals to raise grazing fees have been stymied in political controversy for decades.

Now, the Obama administration is trying again — Interior Secretary Sally Jewell has proposed an additional administrative fee of $2.50 per animal unit month (the forage needed to sustain one cow and calf, one horse, or five sheep or goats for a month).

The fee would provide $16.5 million in 2016 for the BLM — a $13.5 million net gain, considering a proposed $3 million decrease in rangeland management funding. Currently the BLM spends over seven times as much money on rangeland management and improvement programs as it collects in grazing fees; that’s $89 million versus $12 million. (The rangeland programs include things like permit administration, weed management, water development and vegetation restoration.) Income from the new fee would go toward rangeland health efforts, as well as help address a massive backlog of grazing permit renewals.

Jewell’s proposal would bump the feds’ income from grazers by 148 percent, but, because it’s a separate administrative tax, it doesn’t  violate the requirement that the baseline grazing fee (for the BLM, $1.69 per AUM this year) can’t increase by more than 25 percent annually. The move, which Interior has attempted in similar forms since 2012, appears to be a last resort to get around bitter political resistance to baseline fee increases. But the attempt has been repeatedly thwarted — stripped from Obama’s budget before being passed each fall.

If the fee were to pass — an unlikely scenario, since it has to push through  committee, including the Natural Resources Committee, chaired by conservative Utah Republican Rob Bishop — it would have a huge effect on Western ranchers. “If expenses for your business go up over 100 percent, that’s a big impact,” says Utah Cattlemen’s Association Executive Vice President Brent Tanner. And in Tanner's state, most ranchers use at least some federal land to graze their cattle, so would be affected by the new fee.

Yet conservationists have long cited the grazing fee as far too low, considering the ecological cost of livestock on public lands. The formula takes into account private land lease rates, beef cattle prices and production costs like gasoline and equipment. Thus, ranchers are supposed to pay more when conditions are good and less when conditions are worse. But that’s not what’s happened since the fee was implemented with the 1978 Public Rangelands Improvement Act. The rate crested the two-dollar mark just once, in 1981, and was at the legal minimum ($1.35) every year from 2007 to 2014.

Grazing fees on public land were always meant to be lower than those on private land because the former often provides poorer quality forage and ranchers usually have to maintain their own fencing and irrigation infrastructure. When grazing fees were established, they were supposed to increase over time, trailing private rates. But the opposite has happened, and the gap between public and private land lease rates has increased over time. “The 2015 fee is just 8 percent of what it would cost to graze livestock on private grazing lands,” reads an economic study conducted on behalf of the Center for Biological Diversity. “In 1981, when the federal fee first went into effect, it was 23.79 percent.”

So why aren’t public land grazing fees naturally going up? That can be traced to how cattle prices and cost of production figure into the fee formula; adding these two elements to the formula did not improve its ability to predict annual forage values, says a 2001 academic paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Society of Range Management. “In fact, adding these two indices ruined the predictive ability of the formula and… grazing fees have fallen further and further behind the private land lease rates through time.”

Part of the reason that grazing fees have provoked such fury from politically conservative ranchers is that they’re imposed by the federal government. And yet the BLM funnels 12 percent of its income from fees back to the states they came from. (For lands outside of grazing districts, it's 50 percent.) The rest of the income goes to a rangeland betterment fund and the U.S. Treasury. For the Forest Service, 25 percent goes back to the states and 50 percent to rangeland betterment.

Some conservationists, like John Horning from WildEarth Guardians, think that working with ranchers to retire grazing permits altogether may be a more realistic way to protect rangeland health than increasing fees, which at the moment, is a political non-starter. “There are two things that have eclipsed (the grazing fee debate)," Horning says, "the public lands movement, which is all about acres of protection; the second is climate change. Grazing is just barely on the radar.”

[bigtex]

And just think WA DNR (basically the only WA state agency that allows grazing) has a AUM fee of around $10. Yet the only time the federal rate was above $2 was almost 35 years ago.

I'm sorry, but it seems like an increase is not only needed, but also a no-brainer....

[bobcat]

The increase is obviously WAY overdue.

[JimmyHoffa]

Seems like small increments would've been better than a large jump.  Almost makes you think Interior doesn't want it to happen.  Propose something of that impact and not expect some strong opposition from grazing state reps...  Is there some kind of political set up going on?

[Skillet]

So, of I understand this correctly - Washington ranchers that run DNR leases in the state are paying 5 times the lease rates of their competitors here and nationwide that are running leases on federal lands?
If this is accurate, I say let's give our ranchers a level playing field and support this increase.

[Bean Counter]

How about giving land back to the states that the federal government has no business ownining in the first place?

[BAR C3]

Here's a news flash!!! Fee increases are only being proposed to cripple the cattle industry. OB is anti- beef and will do anything to cripple it. His wife is out promoting not to eat beef and to eat green. If you support increases, your supporting OB and the liberal agenda in my book. 
As a beef owner, if you think your paying high prices for beef now, you haven't seen anything if this passes. 

[Knocker of rocks]

Here's a news flash!!! Fee increases are only being proposed to cripple the cattle industry. OB is anti- beef and will do anything to cripple it. His wife is out promoting not to eat beef and to eat green. If you support increases, your supporting OB and the liberal agenda in my book. 
As a beef owner, if you think your paying high prices for beef now, you haven't seen anything if this passes. 

At most, grazing produces less than 5% of the domestic animals we eat.  There are other factors which play a much greater impact on the price of beef

Grazing use on public lands has declined from 18.2 million AUMs in 1954 to 7.9 million AUMs in 2013. In most years, the actual use of forage is less than the amount authorized because forage amounts and demands depend on several factors, such as drought, wildfire, and market conditions, as noted earlier regarding annual public land grazing levels.
(source: BLM as cited below)

An AUM is one Animal Unit Month, so basically represents 1/12 of an animal.  There are about 88 million cattle in the US, and many sheep.  Even discounting the sheep, these would account for 1,056 million animal unit months. 

Tripling  the BLM's numbers to account for state, USFS and other federal grazing would give about 24 million AUM of grazing on public land, or about 2% of the nations total. 

http://www.blm.gov/wo/st/en/prog/grazing.print.html
http://www.cattlerange.com/cattle-graphs/all-cattle-numbers.html

[Bean Counter]

Here's a news flash!!! Fee increases are only being proposed to cripple the cattle industry. OB is anti- beef and will do anything to cripple it. His wife is out promoting not to eat beef and to eat green. If you support increases, your supporting OB and the liberal agenda in my book. 
As a beef owner, if you think your paying high prices for beef now, you haven't seen anything if this passes. 

Wait a minute--are you telling me that if we increase labor, wage, and business expenses that prices won't stay the same?? 

[JimmyHoffa]

If my math and assumptions were right, grazed cattle should go up 3-4 cents a pound.

[bearpaw]

Ranchers had a bad run for many years, I think it's good that grazing fees were kept low to help keep ranchers in business. We would lose more if those ranchers all lost the ranch. But inflation occurs with everything and now ranchers are making good money on beef. I don't have a problem with bringing grazing leases up to speed, but it seems like it would be more appropriate to phase in the increase over a 2 or 3 year period rather than one huge increase all at once. That would be like a truck driver going to the fuel stop the next day and having to pay 5 times as much for fuel. It's much easier to absorb incremental increases in costs.

[Jingles]

Aw come on folks we all know OB, being from Chicago wouldn't know the difference between cattle guard and cattle prod wants to raise the permit fees because he found out the cattle guards aren't getting a living wage

[BAR C3]

Ranchers had a bad run for many years, I think it's good that grazing fees were kept low to help keep ranchers in business. We would lose more if those ranchers all lost the ranch. But inflation occurs with everything and now ranchers are making good money on beef. I don't have a problem with bringing grazing leases up to speed, but it seems like it would be more appropriate to phase in the increase over a 2 or 3 year period rather than one huge increase all at once. That would be like a truck driver going to the fuel stop the next day and having to pay 5 times as much for fuel. It's much easier to absorb incremental increases in costs.

Bearpaw thanks for the support and you bring up some good points. I personally don't lease land, but know many that do. If the prices were raised periodically with inflation many wouldn't squabble to much. But to slam everybody now, will cripple many ranchers. This was the first year I have been in the black in years! And that's with the highest feed bills I have ever had. Most of you know Ranching is up and down. It's usually down.

Right after I wrote my response within a day, the government came out with a study hammering red meat. They trying to control our everyday lives with there false propaganda.

[bearpaw]

Ranchers had a bad run for many years, I think it's good that grazing fees were kept low to help keep ranchers in business. We would lose more if those ranchers all lost the ranch. But inflation occurs with everything and now ranchers are making good money on beef. I don't have a problem with bringing grazing leases up to speed, but it seems like it would be more appropriate to phase in the increase over a 2 or 3 year period rather than one huge increase all at once. That would be like a truck driver going to the fuel stop the next day and having to pay 5 times as much for fuel. It's much easier to absorb incremental increases in costs.

Ranchers did have a bad run for a few years. Should have never gotten to those extremes. Only reason it did was because the governments hand has been in it for a long time. If it was just left to something as simple as supply and demand everything would have worked itself out on its own in a much simpler way. But the government did get involved a long time ago and made a mess of it.

Take a look at this https://www.whitehouse.gov/2013-taxreceipt   with much pressure they are at least now claiming they are telling you where your money goes? But when you try to click on estimated income it will only go to $80K married with 2 children.  $80k with 2 children is a decent living, but why will they top their example at that? Could it be because when you go over that it gets really scary how much and where your tax dollars go?

So if you are married and make 80k and have 2 kids you pay $50 a year towards agriculture. Why? And that is on a fairly small income.  I have never asked to get subsided in my business, and bearpaw I have never seen you ask for that in yours either. So why should some small groups and not yours or mine get it on lean years and not others?

Also notice #3 on the list they nicely call Job and Family Security. Almost makes you feel good about it..... That is welfare and similar programs , pubic housing, and indian money.

I won't disagree with you but would add these comments:

If we had not helped the ranchers I'm quite sure more would have lost their ranches. I'm not saying things are not all messed up due to gov interference.

We also helped large auto makers, banks, dozens of countries, illegal aliens, and anyone who is too lazy to work in this country is still subsidized with a free ride. I simply don't see ranchers as being the bad guys and don't regret that we saved a few ranches from being lost to big corporate ag.

Ranchers had a bad run for many years, I think it's good that grazing fees were kept low to help keep ranchers in business. We would lose more if those ranchers all lost the ranch. But inflation occurs with everything and now ranchers are making good money on beef. I don't have a problem with bringing grazing leases up to speed, but it seems like it would be more appropriate to phase in the increase over a 2 or 3 year period rather than one huge increase all at once. That would be like a truck driver going to the fuel stop the next day and having to pay 5 times as much for fuel. It's much easier to absorb incremental increases in costs.

Bearpaw thanks for the support and you bring up some good points. I personally don't lease land, but know many that do. If the prices were raised periodically with inflation many wouldn't squabble to much. But to slam everybody now, will cripple many ranchers. This was the first year I have been in the black in years! And that's with the highest feed bills I have ever had. Most of you know Ranching is up and down. It's usually down.

Right after I wrote my response within a day, the government came out with a study hammering red meat. They trying to control our everyday lives with there false propaganda.

Maybe Michelle will support beef? 

[Knocker of rocks]

We also helped large auto makers, banks, dozens of countries, illegal aliens, and anyone who is too lazy to work in this country is still subsidized with a free ride. I simply don't see ranchers as being the bad guys and don't regret that we saved a few ranches from being lost to big corporate ag.

That's a good point