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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWelfare Ranchers Paid Feds $1.35/Month Per Cow To BLM; Private Grazing $20.10/Month
The poor, oppressed, ranchers! Won't someone think of the children?
The takeover of a federal wildlife refuge in Oregon appears to be more than just a protest of the impending imprisonment of two ranchers who set fires that spread into public lands. The armed demonstrators are led by Ammon Bundy, whose father, Cliven, has refused to acknowledge the legitimacy of the federal Bureau of Land Management to own some public lands or to regulate their use for grazing. But the government is giving the Bundy family a pretty good deal on the grazing rights it refuses to pay for.
In 1993, the bureau declined to renew Cliven Bundys grazing permits in parts of Nevada that were reserved for a threatened desert tortoise. But Bundy continued grazing his cattle there anyway and refused to pay any fines or fees. He claimed that the land really belonged to him, so why should he have to pay over $1 million in fines?
Now his son has furthered the fight by seizing the Oregon refuge. In a news conference Sunday, Ammon Bundy explained that he was there in protest of the unconstitutional transactions of land rights and water rights. Those transactions, though, can be a pretty good deal, regardless of their constitutionality. According to a 2015 report by the Center for Biological Diversity, the Bureau of Land Managements fees for grazing cattle on public land are much lower than the fees charged by private landowners, and theyve only become cheaper in recent years.
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In 2012, the bureaus fees for grazing were 93 percent cheaper than the average market rate in 16 Western states ($1.35 versus $20.10 per AUM, which is a fancy acronym for the amount of land needed to support a cow and her calf for a month).
EDIT
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-armed-oregon-ranchers-who-want-free-land-are-already-getting-a-93-percent-discount/
Vinca
(50,303 posts)erpowers
(9,350 posts)I guess I should not be surprised that while Cliven Bundy is complaining about black people getting a government subsidy he is getting at least one subsidy from the government and it is bigger than the subsidy most black people get. Cliven Bundy and people like him are just ridiculous. They have no problem getting things from the government, but howl like mad when black people get things from the government.
Jim Beard
(2,535 posts)government took the cattle from Bundy's in Arizona, they had not paid grazing fees for years and their grazing contract stopped. Time to lease it to someone who will pay.
Jim Beard
(2,535 posts)Don't they just lease the land and stock it with cattle they have bought? They don't lose land, they just lose the land lease.