Rancher Cliven Bundy speaks during a news conference along the Virgin River near his ranch on April 24, 2014 in Bunkerville, Nevada. The Bureau of Land Management and Bundy have been locked in a dispute for a couple of decades over grazing rights on public lands. (Photo: David Becker / Getty Images)
The US Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is shirking promises it made to crackdown on the misuse of public lands.
Released documents show that the agency has completely shelved planned regulations to root out ranchers engaged in illegal cattle grazing on BLM lands.
The internal records show that throughout 2017, the agency’s timeline for implementing the new rules on cattle grazing slipped from “ongoing” to “on hold.” The regulations are now missing entirely from BLM’s 2018 regulatory agenda.
The Government Accountability Office previously found that BLM didn’t record the vast majority of illegal grazing incidents.
“Agency staff told GAO that they handle most incidents informally — their preferred practice — and do not record them in databases or consistently in paper files, because, in part, they do not consider it a priority,” a 2016 report found.
Following those findings, the BLM agreed to a number of GAO recommendations to better monitor ranchers illegally exploiting public lands. The newly released documents, however, show the agency no longer intends to comply.
The latest records were released Thursday by the watchdog group, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). They were obtained following a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.
“Grazing trespass is a form of theft against the public that BLM chooses to ignore,” PEER Advocacy Director Kirsten Stade said in a statement blasting Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke.
“When he suggests that federal grazing programs are well regulated, Secretary Zinke is talking through his hat,” Stade added.
PEER also noted that the lack of rules “compounds the embarrassment” already suffered by BLM at the hands of one of the most notorious ranchers accused of illegal cattle grazing: Cliven Bundy.
Bundy, who had allowed his cows to graze illegally on Nevada public lands for decades, defied Bureau orders to stop, and even rallied an armed standoff at his ranch to intimidate BLM agents in 2014.
Last month, a judge in Las Vegas declared a mistrial in the federal case against Bundy.
We’re not backing down in the face of Trump’s threats.
As Donald Trump is inaugurated a second time, independent media organizations are faced with urgent mandates: Tell the truth more loudly than ever before. Do that work even as our standard modes of distribution (such as social media platforms) are being manipulated and curtailed by forces of fascist repression and ruthless capitalism. Do that work even as journalism and journalists face targeted attacks, including from the government itself. And do that work in community, never forgetting that we’re not shouting into a faceless void – we’re reaching out to real people amid a life-threatening political climate.
Our task is formidable, and it requires us to ground ourselves in our principles, remind ourselves of our utility, dig in and commit.
As a dizzying number of corporate news organizations – either through need or greed – rush to implement new ways to further monetize their content, and others acquiesce to Trump’s wishes, now is a time for movement media-makers to double down on community-first models.
At Truthout, we are reaffirming our commitments on this front: We won’t run ads or have a paywall because we believe that everyone should have access to information, and that access should exist without barriers and free of distractions from craven corporate interests. We recognize the implications for democracy when information-seekers click a link only to find the article trapped behind a paywall or buried on a page with dozens of invasive ads. The laws of capitalism dictate an unending increase in monetization, and much of the media simply follows those laws. Truthout and many of our peers are dedicating ourselves to following other paths – a commitment which feels vital in a moment when corporations are evermore overtly embedded in government.
Over 80 percent of Truthout‘s funding comes from small individual donations from our community of readers, and the remaining 20 percent comes from a handful of social justice-oriented foundations. Over a third of our total budget is supported by recurring monthly donors, many of whom give because they want to help us keep Truthout barrier-free for everyone.
You can help by giving today. Whether you can make a small monthly donation or a larger gift, Truthout only works with your support.