Lets dispense with niceties: Bundy is a freeloading scofflaw, a welfare queen in a Stetson who claimed what wasnt his. He took subsidies from U.S. taxpayers and refused to pay the $1.2 million he owed for using federal -- make that our -- land. Bundy has neither history nor law on his side in his long-running dispute with the U.S. government. He asserts that his grazing rights were established in 1880 when his ancestors settled the land where his ranch sits. By some reasoning understood only by him and his range-war sympathizers, the federal government has no constitutional right to interfere with his grazing cattle.There is a gaping flaw with this argument. As several writers have noted, the Nevada constitution, adopted in 1864 as a condition of statehood, trumps Bundys right to graze on public land. It says: That the people inhabiting said territory do agree and declare, that they forever disclaim all right and title to the unappropriated public lands lying within said territory, and that the same shall be and remain at the sole and entire disposition of the United States. Bundy no doubt is pining for the days, which he never actually experienced, when cattlemen could let their herds roam at will on public lands. That changed in 1934 when federal control of grazing was formalized under a law designed to prevent overuse and degradation of the range. The legislation was backed by ranchers (it was drafted by a rancher turned congressman), in part because it made it that much harder for newcomers to get into the business. The law, the Taylor Grazing Act, gave existing ranchers permits allowing them to run their herds on federal land. In turn, ranchers paid user fees, which were lower than what most private landowners would have charged. Because those fees capture only a bit of the costs of the grazing program, it amounts to a taxpayer subsidy to ranchers of as much as $1 billion a year. Subsequent court rulings clearly established that the law didn’t grant ownership rights to ranchers who used federal land. Bundys specific complaint dates to 1993, when regulators began a program to protect the endangered desert tortoise. They placed certain grasslands off-limits for grazing, and the government bought out the permits of some ranchers. Among others, Bundy refused to sell and kept grazing his cattle on restricted federal land without a permit.
Posted on: Tue, 22 Apr 2014 00:06:18 +0000
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