BLM's CAN'T reg's

Handshake

CAN’T!

Migration of Rights

By Stephen L. Wilmeth

            Competing demands seem to rule too much of life.

            The morning was spent in a monthly Soil and Water Conservation District board meeting so getting a horse loaded and to the ranch wound up being an early afternoon affair. The true priority of the day was to continue to move our herd out of the Coldiron Pasture into the Burris Pasture in a scheduled rotation, but the late arrival pushed it to second place on the list.

            Tertius was ready, though, and, after getting our rigs spotted, we jumped out and started a bunch of pairs just east of the Rincon drinker. By the time we got to Winston, we had several hundred pairs. The lead cows walked right by the troughs and headed north along the power lines just like they were supposed to do.

            All was good until we started hitting heavy annual growth in the creosote treatment area. We’d come almost three of the first miles in a little over and hour, but the next two miles took us nearly to sundown to complete. The trailing cows started dropping their heads and we had to drive them every step of the way. They didn’t want to leave.

            By the time we got the drags to the crossing at the Fenceline drinker, the lead cows had spread out in every direction working on the lush new growth. We had lathered horses before we shut the gate and blew a deep breath.

            Such is the life of working constantly with limited help.

            Handshake

            The email blast said there were some 200 ranchers at the BLM scoping meeting in Las Cruces the afternoon and early evening of February 11.

            The meeting was one of four public open houses in the entire West for the purpose of addressing the revisions mandated by the president regarding the federal grazing program. Lots of familiar faces were there, and huddled groups of friends and colleagues outnumbered the lines at the tables manned by federal officials explaining the points of the process.

            Ranchers far outnumbered the anti-ranchers (which is a very rare dynamic).

            At most basic issue, was a document predicated on the total absence of trust. The parameter of making such a statement is derived from the fact that the estimated 29,754 words in the grazing regulations are populated by less than 200 connected words that overtly state what you can do. The remaining, in one way or another, describe what you can’t do or must do to get an ok from the authorized official to get something approved or cleared.

            This is an instructional can’t document. It is limited in negative expanse only by the imagination of the citizen rancher to ask the question.

It is the diametrically opposed contract to the prevailing bond of trust shared by those in attendance … a handshake.

Migration of Rights

The law setting in motion this regulatory strait jacket was the Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA). That was the law that altered the disposition and management of federal lands from a matter of disposal to a matter of managed retention (the law that assured the future of unequal states west of the 100^th Meridian as arrayed against the backdrop to the east and rising sun of equal states).

To get this law passed, western states were promised several things. The first promise was the assurance of multiple use which affirmed the allowance to ranch or mine or cut timber competitively with the rest of the states.

The second promise was the assurance and sanctity of valid existing rights. The third promise was the assurance that land use plans would be formulated by the needs and input of state and local government bodies. The fourth promise was derived from the passion play of land to be inventoried for wilderness preservation by assuring the process would be a scientific endeavor, but coordination would be honored. The latter was also to be ruled by a distinct and specified timeline.

How has this all worked out?

Rather, than arraying any metaphoric conclusions of bludgeoning rights, eliminating innovation, elevating a police state, reinventing a modern reservation system, contributing to range deterioration, or elevating the environmental state by redefining all eight managed values of FLMPA a much more simplistic marker can be described. It’s pure and simple.

Forty to sixty percent of the cattle of the West have migrated eastward into the colonies of equal states.

Can’t!

The submittal of public comments is being promoted.

We will respond by the deadline knowing all such comments heretofore for such requests are largely a waste of time. How are these things scored anyway? That was a universal question asked of the BLM officials and contractors working the recent scoping meeting. The answer was a committee of qualified bureaucrats will evaluate and come up with recommendations.

Oh, boy.

Another realization is the fact that the current body of regulatory requirements is not going away. Any changes will be made to that burgeoning body of Can’t. There isn’t a mandate other than to update and modernize the regs, improve permitting efficiency, invent opportunities to involve the public, promote land health, and provide comments.

Wouldn’t we feel better if the process was truly a mandate and the demand is to cut the number of words in the body of Can’t by 62%, increase can words to at least 2.5% of the total, conclude all NEPA work within a one year period from time of signatures, recognize the official agent as the range con working with the producer, demand innovation, create a body of regs which will guide a scoring mechanism that drives agency funding, and reintroduce the novelty of a handshake on field reviews between that official agent and the citizen producer at risk?

To those who understand such nuances, we are a Republic.

Stephen L. Wilmeth is a rancher from southern New Mexico. “A republic masquerading as a democracy fueled by public comments doesn’t work.”