Simpson kills buyout for grazing permits

A potential federal grazing permit buyout program was killed by amendment last Thursday as Congressman Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, defended national public lands grazing during a subcommittee markup. The stricken language, which was attached to the Interior and Environment Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2011, would have created a national pilot program to allow buyers to purchase and retire grazing permits from willing sellers. Simpson has previously been engaged with the public grazing issue through his work on the Central Idaho Economic Development and Recreation Act, or CIEDRA. CIEDRA proposes to designate some 330,000 acres of land in central Idaho as federal wilderness. However, CIEDRA specifically provides for voluntary donation and retirement of grazing permits, which some see as contradictory to Simpson's latest move. Simpson also added language to the appropriations bill that would enable the BLM to continue working through what Watts called a "backlog" of grazing permits that are up for renewal. This backlog is created by old grazing permits, which come up for renewal every 10 years, and the several hundred new applications the bureau receives every year. The language has been in the Interior appropriation's bill for each of the last 12 years, but was omitted this year until Simpson reintroduced it...more