'Til the cows come home: the fatal flaw in the Clinton administration's public lands grazing policy.

• Author: Feller, Joseph M.
• Position: Symposium on Clinton's New Land Policies

Livestock grazing is the most extensive commercial use of public lands in the United States. The two largest categories of public lands are the national forests, managed by the United States Forest Service, and the public lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). Grazing is authorized on approximately 159 million acres, or about 90 percent, of the 177 million acres of BLM lands in the western United States.(1) The 18 million acres of BLM lands that are not used for livestock grazing consist mostly of lands that cannot be grazed because of lack of forage, lack of water, or physical inaccessibility. The amount of BLM lands that have been placed off-limits to cattle and sheep by deliberate decision, as opposed to physical or economic infeasibility, is very Small.(2) Virtually all BLM lands that can be grazed, are grazed.

Livestock grazing is also authorized on most of the land included within the nation's national forests. Grazing allotments include about 85 million acres, or 60 percent, of the 144 million acres of national forests in the lower 48 states.(3)

Despite the enormous amount of public lands devoted to livestock grazing, the public lands contribute little to the nation's meat supply. Although most public lands grazing is by beef cattle, the public lands produce only about two percent of the feed consumed by beef cattle in the United States.(4) The other ninety-eight percent comes from feed crops grown on private lands and from private and state-owned pastures and rangelands. For sheep production, the public land percentage is higher (eleven percent), but still Small.(5)

Why does so much land produce so little? The answer is simple. Because of their general aridity, the public lands, which are concentrated in the far western United States, are remarkably unproductive of livestock forage. In the humid eastern United States, one acre of land may produce enough feed to support a cow through the year. On BLM lands in the western United States, it takes an average of over one hundred acres of rangeland to feed a cow.(6) On the driest BLM lands, it takes several hundred. The rugged terrain of much of the western public lands, which makes livestock management difficult and expensive, further detracts from their productivity.

Measured in human terms, western public lands are also a small part of the nation's livestock ranching picture. Although the public lands are often portrayed as an essential component of the ranching lifestyle and culture, ninety-seven percent of the nation's ranchers do not use public lands.(7) Even in the far western states where public lands are concentrated, seventy-eight percent of ranchers do not use public lands.(8)

Although they are unproductive of livestock forage, the arid and semi-arid western public lands are rich in other resources. BLM lands alone provide habitat for over three thousand species of wildlife,(9) including over one hundred species that are threatened or endangered.(10) Despite their general aridity, BLM lands contain over 30,000 miles of fishable streams.(11) More than 150,000 archeological sites have been recorded on BLM land, even though the majority of BLM acreage has not yet been inventoried.(12)

Last, but not least, the mountains, deserts, and canyons of the western public lands provide outdoor recreational opportunities for tens of millions of Americans who live in, or visit, the far western states. BLM lands alone support over seventy million visitor-days of recreational use annually.(13) By conventional economic measures, the value of the recreational resources on western public lands far exceeds the value of the livestock forage there.(14)

Because of the high importance of non-commodity resources on the western public lands, the adverse impacts of livestock grazing on those resources should be a matter of great public concern. These impacts are numerous and serious. Livestock grazing has radically altered vegetation over tens of millions of acres, destroyed riparian areas, polluted streams, created massive soil erosion, displaced wildlife, desecrated archeological sites, and spoiled prime recreational areas.(15)

2. The Legal Standard

   Given the poor economics of grazing on much of the public lands, and given grazing's serious impacts on other, more valuable resources on the same lands, it is natural to question whether grazing should be continued on all of the public lands where it is currently permitted. A rational approach would be to continue grazing only where its economic benefits exceed its costs by a margin sufficient to justify its environmental impacts. On lands that cannot be profitably grazed without unacceptable degradation of ecosystems, on which the costs of mitigation measures exceed the value of the livestock forage, on which the government's costs of grazing administration exceed the rancher's profits, or on which grazing conflicts with other, more valuable land uses, grazing should be terminated.

   Existing law not only allows, but requires, such an approach. Both BLM and the Forest Service have legal authority, and a legal duty, to discontinue grazing on particular areas of land if they determine that grazing on those areas is doing more harm than good. What is lacking is the political will to exercise that authority.

   While public lands statutes clearly contemplate that livestock grazing will continue to be a permitted use of substantial areas of BLM and national forest lands,(16) there is no legal requirement that it continue to be permitted on all land managed by these agencies. Both BLM and the Forest Service are required to manage their domains in accordance with the principle of "multiple use."(17) For BLM this principle is defined in the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 (FLPMA);(18) for the Forest Service it is defined in the Multiple Use-Sustained Yield Act of 1960.(19) The two definitions are virtually identical. BLM's definition is as follows:

   The term "multiple use" means the management of the public lands and their various resource values so that they are utilized in the combination that will best meet the present and future needs of the American people; making the most judicious use of the land for some or all of these resources or related services over areas large enough to provide sufficient latitude for periodic adjustments in use to comfort to changing needs and conditions; the use of some land for less than all of the resources; a combination of balanced and diverse resource uses that takes into account the long-term needs of future generations for renewable and nonrenewable resources, including, but not limited to, recreation, range, timber, minerals, watershed, wildlife and fish, and natural scenic, scientific and historical values; and harmonious and coordinated management of the various resources without permanent impairment of the productivity of the land and the quality of the environment with consideration being given to the relative values of the resources and not necessarily to the combination of uses that will give the greatest economic return or the greatest unit output.(20)

   Clearly the principle of multiple use does not mandate that all possible uses take place on all areas of the...