ST. GEORGE – Inspired by the actions of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy and his stance against federal control of public lands, a rancher on the Arizona Strip has also declared the Bureau of Land Management to be an illegitimate agency and said he will no longer comply with or recognize it.

“I hereby cancel all my contracts with the BLM,” LaVoy Finicum, of Cane Beds, Arizona, wrote in a letter he sent to the U.S. Solicitor General following his decision to no longer acknowledge BLM or its policies. Thus far, he has chosen to discontinue paying grazing permit fees and to ignore when the BLM allows certain allotments – or pasture areas – to be used for grazing.

So what happened to change Finicum’s mind concerning the BLM and it’s oversight of public lands?

It was his time with the Bundys during last year’s standoff, Finicum said, adding he was one of the cowboys who rode with the Bundy family and their supporters down into the wash under Interstate 15 where federal agents had taken many the Nevada rancher’s cattle.

“After that incident, I had to do a lot of soul-searching,” Finicum said. “I realized that Cliven Bundy was standing on a very strong constitutional principle – and yet, here I was continuing to pay a grazing fee to the BLM.”

In short, the Arizona rancher’s own actions were inconsistent with his beliefs, he said, so he decided to follow in Bundy’s footsteps.

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Finicum contends that the federal government – and the BLM by extension – has no right under the Constitution to regulate use of public lands.

“Our stand is that the Constitution forbids them from owning and controlling … that land,” Finicum said. “… The states are the ones that should control these public lands.”

http://www.stgeorgeutah.com/news/archive/2015/11/01/mgk-finicum-blm-dispute-bundy/#.VjZginW9-V4