This is the second of a three-part exploration of retiring permits for grazing on federal public lands. Part 1 examined the state of the public lands grazing industry and made the case for the equitable end to abusive livestock grazing on public lands. Part 2 reviews the history of congressional and other actions to facilitate retirement of federal grazing permits. Part 3 will speculate on the future of this conservation tool.
Figure 1. The former Box-O Ranch in the heart of the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument in Oregon and California (that’s Mount Shasta, which isn’t in the monument). Much of the national monument is now livestock free, though cattle from still-active grazing allotments and other sources often trespass on monument lands. Source: Pepper Trail, Soda Mountain Wilderness Council.
For most public lands conservationists, the default go-to reform mechanism is regulation. The thought is that if you make the grazing rules better, better range management will occur. While regulation is often the preferred course of action, it’s not always so. In politics, the shortest distance between two points is never a straight line. Sometimes facilitation works better than regulation.
The Biden administration recently announced the abandonment of an effort by the Trump administration to reform BLM grazing regulations. Many of my conservation colleagues lament this event. I do not. On the matter of livestock grazing on public lands, the Biden administration often decides for ranchers and against enviros—unless (at least sometimes) it has to do with facilitating the voluntary relinquishment of federal grazing permits.
No significant reform of public lands grazing has occurred outside of the context of voluntary retirement of federal grazing permits. As detailed below, significant progress has been made, though not without reverses. In politics, it’s often two steps forward and one step back.
Backdrop to Grazing Permit Retirement: The Bovine-Friendly Wilderness Act
As a backdrop to the history of the voluntary retirement option for grazing permits on public lands, let us acknowledge that the foundational wilderness statute in the US expressly reserves grazing in wilderness areas where it was occurring at the time of designaton.
Consider the first wilderness bill introduced into the United States Senate in 1956 (S.4013, 84th Congress). It said this about livestock grazing:
Except as otherwise provided in this section . . . no portion of any area constituting a unit of the National Wilderness Preservation System shall be devoted to . . . grazing by domestic livestock (other than by pack animals in connection with the administration or recreational, educational, or scientific use of the wilderness). Sec. 3(b). [emphasis added]
Yet the same bill, just a page later, also said this about livestock grazing:
Within national forest areas grazing of domestic livestock . . . where [this practice has] already become well established may be permitted to continue subject to such restrictions as the Chief of the Forest Service deems desirable. Such practices shall be recognized as nonconforming use . . . and shall be terminated whenever this can be effected with equity to, or in agreement with, those making such use. Sec. 3(c)(2). [emphasis added]
The Wilderness Act that was enacted into law in 1964 says this about livestock grazing:
[T]he grazing of livestock, where established prior to September 3, 1964, shall be permitted to continue subject to such reasonable regulations as are deemed necessary by the Secretary of Agriculture. 16 USC 1133(d)(4). [emphasis added]
In 1980, Congress enacted legislation that said this about livestock grazing:
The Congress hereby declares that, without amending the Wilderness Act of 1964 . . . with respect to livestock grazing in National Forest wilderness areas, the provision of the Wilderness Act . . . relating to grazing shall be interpreted and administered in accordance with the guidelines contained under the heading “Grazing in National Forest Wilderness” in the House Committee Report . . . accompanying this act. 16 USC 1133 notes. [emphasis added]
Though Congress declared that it was not amending the Wilderness Act, in effect it has amended the Wilderness Act by including similar language in every subsequent wilderness bill that has involved lands where livestock grazing occurs.
How did this large grazing loophole find its way into the Wilderness Act? At the time the Wilderness Act passed in 1964, conservationists were more concerned about ongoing Forest Service attempts to declassify existing administrative wilderness areas to allow new roading and logging, than the continued grazing of livestock. The former threats were acute, while the latter threat was chronic.
Robert Wolf, who served on the staff of Senator Clinton Anderson (D-NM), then chair of the Senate Interior and Insular Affairs Committee, told me that Anderson went along with the compromise to ensure passage of the wilderness bill. Anderson, a former secretary of agriculture, knew that grazing was subject to reduction for purposes of conserving range condition. Anderson also thought that grazing was increasingly uneconomic and would decline in the future. Anderson was right, but not right enough. Ecosystems and watersheds are still declining faster than livestock grazing on public lands.
Figure 2. A bovine bulldozer in the Blue Range Wilderness on the Gila National Forest in New Mexico. On public lands, any forage consumed by domestic livestock is not available for native wildlife. Source: George Wuerthner.
Federally Funded Grazing Permit Retirement
Efforts to equitably end abusive livestock grazing on public lands center around the voluntary option, where the federal government or some other entity pays permit holders to retire their permits.
One example of a creative buyout scheme occurred in the 1990s. The US Fish and Wildlife Service had just ended grazing on Hart Mountain in Oregon. The agency was preparing to undertake a process that would likely result in the same at the nearby Sheldon National Wildlife Refuge (NWR) in Nevada (and a tiny piece of Oregon). Grazing permittees in the refuge were feeling the pressure.
The Sheldon–Hart Mountain NWR Complex manager, the legendary Barry Reiswig, rounded up his grazing lessees and made them an offer. Half of the forage was to be left for wildlife, since it was a national wildlife refuge, after all. The Fish and Wildlife Service would monitor the coming year’s several-month grazing season, and the permittees would have to pull off their livestock once they’d consumed their half of the forage. That year, the permittees got a call just two weeks into their grazing season: the forage was half gone. “Come get your cows!”
Subsequently, all the permittees ended their operations on the refuge, concurrent with mutually agreed-upon compensation by the Conservation Fund. Some retired and some reconfigured their operations to not rely on public lands.
Following are a few other examples of buyout schemes. Details can be found in the 2011 paper “Federally Funded Grazing Permit Retirement.”
• Taylor Grazing Act Department of Defense grazing permit buyout (43 U.S. Code §315q, 1948). Since 1948, federal law has mandated that the government compensate federal grazing permittees throughout the West when their grazing privileges are reduced or eliminated for military purposes.
• Capitol Reef National Park, UT (previously a national monument proclaimed by President Franklin Roosevelt in 1937). From its establishment as a national park by Congress in 1971, it took decades to finally remove the livestock from Capitol Reef. The heroes were Senators Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Jake Garn (R-UT), along with Representatives Jim Hansen (R-UT-1st), Wayne Owens (D-UT-2nd), and Howard Nielsen (R-UT-3rd). With the exception perhaps of Owens, the delegation was supportive of compensated grazing permit retirement only because it would benefit ranchers, not nature. The National Park Service paid to retire 70 percent of the grazed area inside the park between 1988 and 1998, and the Grand Canyon Trust retired two allotments in 1999, leaving only two active permits for grazing in the park.
• Juniper Butte Bombing Range, ID (H.R.3616, 105th Congress, 1997–1998). When the US Air Force expanded the Juniper Butte Bombing Range to include more BLM holdings in the Owyhee Canyonlands in Idaho, Congress directed the Air Force to compensate affected BLM grazing permittees. Compensated they were, quite extravagantly (it was, after all, Department of Defense money). The upshot was that the Air Force then leased out its lands for livestock grazing at higher intensity than had the BLM. While increasing aerial bombing, the Air Force also effectively increased cow bombing of the landscape.
• Mojave desert tortoise Endangered Species mitigation, CA (Revised Recovery Plan for the Mojave Population of the Desert Tortoise, 2011). The Department of Defense has purchased and retired multiple federal grazing permits in the Mojave Desert as mitigation for military activities that affect the threatened Mojave desert tortoise. The military has retired permits both on lands that were previously public but have since become military reservations (see above) and on nearby public lands within the range of the imperiled tortoise.
Figure 3. Marauding bovines in the Sonoran Desert National Monument, Arizona. Source: George Wuerthner.
Congressional Facilitation of Voluntary Permit Retirement
Over the decades, Congress has facilitated payments—either by writing checks itself or enabling others to—to rid certain special areas of public lands of domestic livestock. Most often the areas have been units of the National Park System, but occasionally they have been units of the National Wilderness Preservation System. In this modern era, several congressional acts have facilitated voluntary retirement of federal grazing permits to aid conservation. It’s worth noting that acts with such provisions in Congress have often had bipartisan leadership, or at least leadership in both political parties.
• Great Basin National Park, NV (16 U.S. Code §410mm–1, 1996). Ten years after the establishment of the national park, Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) amended the law to facilitate permit retirement.
• Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park and Gunnison Gorge National Conservation Area, CO (S.323, 106th Congress, 1999–2000). Early on, the congressional language that facilitated voluntary retirement of federal grazing permits was circumspectly vague:
Nothing in this subsection shall prohibit the Secretary [of the Interior] from accepting the voluntary termination of leases or permits for grazing within the park.
In other words, the secretary could interpret this provision as allowing such, but perhaps other congressional statutes prohibit it, but maybe not.
• Steens Mountain, OR (H.R.4828, 106th Congress, 1999–2000). In this case, grazing permits were bought out and Congress paid for it, but you kind of have to read between the lines of the legislation and peruse the accompanying maps to see it. The result is the nation’s first congressionally declared livestock-free wilderness area. The heroes here were Senators Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Gordon Smith (R-OR) along with Representatives Greg Walden (R-OR-2nd), Earl Blumenauer (D-OR-3rd), and Peter DeFazio (D-OR-4th).
• Big Jacks Creek, Bruneau-Jarbidge Rivers, Little Jacks Creek, North Fork Owyhee, Owyhee River and Pole Creek Wildernesses, ID (Public Law 111-11, 111th Congress, 2009). Senator Mike Crapo (R-ID) was the steadfast champion on this.
Fun fact diversion: In 1996 I gave a speech at the Idaho Conservation League’s Wild Idaho conference on the shore of Redfish Lake. It was my first speech on the joys of facilitation language for voluntary retirement of federal grazing permits (a hard sell at the time to the conservation community). In the audience was then-Representative Mike Crapo (R-ID-2nd), who afterward told me that he loved the idea.
• Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument, OR (Public Law 111-11, 111th Congress, 2009). In addition to extending the grazing permit retirement option to all grazing allotments in and near the national monument, the legislation established the Soda Mountain Wilderness, which was politically facilitated by coupling it with grazing permittee buyouts. The heroes were Senators Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Gordon Smith (R-OR). Representative Greg Walden (R-OR-2nd) tried but failed to torpedo the bill. Nonetheless, he held a press conference claiming credit after enactment of the law.
• Bighorn sheep, rangewide (H.R.2055, 112th Congress, 2011–2012) .When native bighorn sheep come into contact with domestic sheep, the former in all likelihood will die from a pneumonia that domestic—but not wild—ovines tolerate. Alas, legislation introduced by Representative Mike Simpson (R-ID-2nd) to facilitate the retirement of domestic sheep allotments was good only for fiscal year 2012. Great concept. Had it continued, there would be significantly more bighorn sheep alive today.
• California Desert Conservation Area, CA (H.R.2055, 112th Congress, 2011–2012). The same annual appropriations bill that contained Representative Simpson’s bighorn sheep provision had a provision by Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) to extend the grazing permit retirement option to the entire California Desert Conservation Area. Senate staffers did a better job of drafting that provision in that it became a permanent law that didn’t expire at the end of the fiscal year.
• Oregon Caves National Preserve, OR (H.R.3979, 113th Congress, 2013–2014). Congress established a companion “national preserve” (like a monument, but hunting allowed) that enveloped (but maintained) the existing Oregon Caves National Monument. Livestock trespassing from adjacent national forest land were threatening the monument’s water supply and harming other resources. The legislation included a BLM grazing allotment also held by the national forest permittee, which included an important rare species of plant. Senators Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Jeff Merkley (D-OR) and Representative Peter DeFazio (D-OR-4th) were the heroes in this effort.
• Boulder–White Clouds Grazing Area, ID (Public Law 114-46, 114th Congress, 2015). The provision applies to any grazing permit entirely or partially within a large delineated area that includes a portion of the Sawtooth National Recreation Area and adjacent BLM holdings, including the Hemingway-Boulders, White Clouds, and Jim McClure–Jerry Peak Wildernesses (Figure 4).
Figure 4. The Boulder–White Clouds Grazing Area in Idaho. The grazing allotments within the orange boundary are eligible for retirement. The three most vivid colors indicate wilderness areas. Source: Office of Rep. Mike Simpson.
Voluntary Permit Retirement and Recent National Monument (Re)Proclamations
In 2017, President Trump issued two new proclamations (9681 and 9682) that severely gutted two national monuments in Utah. Grand Staircase–Escalante was first proclaimed by President Clinton in 1996 (6920, 1.7 million acres), and Bears Ears by President Obama in 2016 (9558, 1.35 million acres). Trump deleted 0.86 million and 1.1 million acres, respectively.
Fun fact diversion: Trump’s new, generally shrunken Bears Ears National Monument included 0.0112 million acres of previously undesignated BLM land that Obama did not include. Biden included this 11,200-acre (17.5-square-mile) area in his reclaimed boundary. Let’s call this area Trump Park, as it’s the only federal land he actually proclaimed as a national monument.
Biden’s (re)proclamations (10285 and 10286) not only restored the lost acreage but also imposed a voluntary grazing permit retirement provision, which Clinton and Obama had not:
The Secretary shall manage livestock grazing as authorized under existing permits or leases, and subject to appropriate terms and conditions in accordance with existing laws and regulations, consistent with the care and management of the objects identified above and in Proclamation 6920 [9558].
Should grazing permits or leases be voluntarily relinquished by existing holders, the Secretary shall retire from livestock grazing the lands covered by such permits or leases pursuant to the processes of applicable law.
Forage shall not be reallocated for livestock grazing purposes unless the Secretary specifically finds that such reallocation will advance the purposes of this proclamation and Proclamation 6920 [9558].
Figure 5. A creek in the Aspen Range on the Caribou National Forest, Idaho. Yah, it should be shaded with vegetation and have fish in it. Source: George Wuerthner.
In contrast, in August 8, 2023, to protect objects of historical interest from uranium mining, President Biden proclaimed (10606) a new national monument adjacent to Grand Canyon National Park called Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni—Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument. Starkly missing is any grazing permit voluntary relinquishment language. Also, livestock will continue to dominate the monument as the proclamation expressly exempts livestock grazing from having to be consistent with the purposes of the monument.
Nothing in this proclamation shall be deemed to prohibit grazing pursuant to existing leases or permits within the monument, or the renewal or assignment of such leases or permits, which the BLM and Forest Service shall continue to manage pursuant to their respective laws, regulations, and policies [ . . . but not to protect the values for which the BNIKAFGCNM was proclaimed].
Unlike in the case of the resurrected national monuments in Utah, the conservation community didn’t seriously advocate for grazing permit retirement language in this proclamation. Also, the affected Tribes wanted voluntary grazing permit retirement to be an option in Utah but not in Arizona.
Private Buyouts of Federal Grazing Permits
The lack of legislated permanence has not stopped private conservation organizations from reaching agreements with federal grazing permittees and lessees. These private organizations are willing to take the risk that the buyouts might not be permanent, given that either the Forest Service or the BLM might later open the retired allotments to grazing.
The Sagebrush Habitat Conservation Fund has herded livestock off of more than 0.6 million acres of public lands, some with legislated permanence, some not. The organization says it is “involved in ongoing negotiations for an additional 2,000,000 acres of public land grazing retirements through cooperatively developed agreements with public land ranchers.” The National Wildlife Federation boasts it has retired 1.5 million acres of federal grazing allotments since 2002.
Several other low-profile “administrative” (no legislated permanence) retirements have happened. Some have not ended well in that a new presidential administration has come in and queered the deals. For example, the Grand Canyon Trust bought grazing permits in the Grand Staircase–Escalante National Monument with the expectation that a libertarian-leaning Department of the Interior in the G. W. Bush administration would retire allotments. Didn’t happen.
Figure 6. Delphinium nuttallianum, aka common larkspur. Source: Walter Seignund, Wikipedia.
Another Twist: Paying to Impose Grazing Permit Conditions
In some cases, federal grazing permittees are paid by private conservation interests to change how they operate their federal land grazing operation. For example, the Property and Environment Research Center (PERC) has a new “partnership” with a ranch operation to reduce livestock conflicts with grizzly bears. Under the PERC-rancher agreement, the amount of livestock grazing will remain the same but will be done in half the time, thereby reducing the time window for wild griz to kill domestic livestock. The grazing timing also reduces the domestic livestock’s chances of eating the native and very toxic-to-livestock larkspur by timing the grazing to occur after the plant is no longer blooming.
Fun fact diversion: Larkspur is nature’s way of telling ungulates—be they native elk, pronghorn, sheep, or deer, or domestic bovines and ovines—to back off as the place is being overgrazed. Larkspur is the common name for about three hundred species in the Delphinium genus. Domestic gardeners love larkspur for its attractiveness to bees, butterflies, other insects, and hummingbirds. My favorites, D. nuttallianum and D. bicolor, favor prairies and the sagebrush steppe. (Full disclosure: I am a member of the super-secret Larkspur Society, which formed at Hart Mountain in the Oregon desert in the late 1970s. Some of the founders are dead, some are not. There are many new members who don’t know they are members.)
Figure 7. The beautiful and useful larkspur in Utah. Source: USDA Agricultural Research Service.
PERC (Property and Environment Research Center) is a libertarian organization that generally loathes government and worships markets. I call it a “somewhat conservation” organization because if PERC has to choose between protected nature or free markets, it will always choose the latter. As a flexitarian, I believe market solutions are sometimes the best solutions for nature conservation, but not always. PERC prefers creating markets to address livestock grazing on public lands, while compensated voluntary federal grazing permit retirement uses the market to end the market in livestock grazing on public lands.
In next week’s installment we’ll turn from the history of the voluntary retirement option to its future as a conservation tool.
For More Information
Appel, Peter A., and Christopher Barns. 2017. “Grazing in the National Wilderness Preservation System,” 53 Idaho Law Review 465.
Kerr, Andy, and Mark Salvo. 2000. “Livestock Grazing in the National Park and Wilderness Preservation Systems,” Wild Earth 10(2): 53–56.
Salvo, Mark, and Andy Kerr. 2000. “Congress Designates First Livestock-free Wilderness Area,” Wild Earth 10(4): 55.