Written by Terry Noonkester
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.”
—John F. Kennedy
Is the Malheur occupation over? Absolutely not.
Although the protesters have been taken away, the divisions between the protesters and the governmental agencies has deepened. LaVoy Finicum has become a martyr. The use of hundreds of FBI, Oregon State Police, county sheriffs, and other law enforcement personnel has created the impression of a police state. Arrests of occupiers and associated journalists has added suspicion of civil rights violations. American citizens see the iron-fisted approach the government and court system adopted in the Stephen and Dwight Hammond court cases. Sympathy is spreading for those jailed.
For those not raised on a ranch, the issues regarding the ranchers’ eroding property rights are not easily understood. Therefore, I will start with an analogy for those of us raised in more urban environments. Let’s say that you purchase a home that costs $ 200,000 to build. However, this home has additional property rights because there is additional land use available to the owner in the form of an exclusive golf course, fish pond, and swimming pools. Because of these extra property rights, the price of the home is increased to a million dollars.
After a few years, the homeowners association starts changing the rules. First they raise the association fees to cover the cost of more intensive management practices. Then they decide the golf course is being overused so the homeowner is now restricted to playing golf just one day a week and the golfer must pay for each use. Years later they decide the golf course should not be used at all in the winter months because the ground is too wet and the foot traffic is damaging the soil. Then the swimming pools were drained and closed because there wasn’t enough water for the fish pond. The following year the golf course was closed permanently from the 7th to 11th holes because an endangered tortoise was found on the 9th hole. The membership in the homeowners association expires every 15 years, so it is necessary to file a new application if you want the remaining rights to the golf course complex. If you have caused problems for the association, your application can be rejected.
This is the type of bureaucracy the ranchers and farmers are subjected to through BLM, the Forest Service, Fish and Game and an assortment of other agencies. The property value of the home on the golf course would definitely be reduce and the homeowner may very well have the right to sue an out-of-control homeowners association. The impact of government policies that erode property rights of a ranch or farm are harder to fight. The federal government made the laws and policies and owns the courts.
The ranches and farms are also the families source of income. A change in grazing rights that cuts the number of cows allowed to graze to a tenth the original number, will also cut a ranchers income from that right to a tenth. A rancher or farmer who losses his water rights or grazing rights would be forced out of business.
A ranchers use of public lands is sometimes perceived as a “freebie” the rancher is getting from the government. This is not true. Water rights and grazing permits that are on public lands have value as private property and are bought, sold or leased when transferred. Depending on local demand, these rights can be expensive. These rights are part of a farm or ranch on private land called the base property and add value to that private land. Grazing permit fees are calculated on an animal unit per month (AUM) basis. A cow is one AUM that costs the rancher $2.11 per month of grazing in the year 2016. The BLM collected $12.1 million for grazing fees in 2014. Depending on the area, water rights can cost thousands of dollars per ace-foot as a one time purchase.
The emergence of the modern Sagebrush Rebellion started in the 1970s about the time BLM made drastic changes to its livestock grazing program. Many animal units were slashed from the permit allotments and fees were increased. New conditions of use are added to protect the environment. Permits expire after various numbers of years, leaving the rancher vulnerable to totally losing the right to graze livestock.
BLM also had devastating affects on the people owning mineral rights when the rules regarding mining claims were changed in the 1990’s. Timber rights have also been hit with many restrictions. The large international corporations involved in the timber, agriculture and mining industries are prospering with their investments in the United States while family owned businesses are struggling.
The Malheur Occupation is a continuation of a series of protests resulting from these government abuses of property rights. A network of the people harmed by tyrannical administration of public lands has formed in the western states. A growing number of journalists, computer broadcasters, and Second Amendment activists have found a common cause of protesting against governmental abuses. The mainstream media has lost credibility as the population learns to check the facts on social media. Attention is now shifting to how fairly the Multnomah County Detention Center and the Federal District Court in Portland will treat the Protesters. The Malheur Occupation was just the beginning.
Within the right wing echo chamber you here the lies over and over. Talking about grazing privileges as if they were rights. Over regulation putting us out of business. Jack booted federal thugs. The lies are repeated by the Utah delegation and state elected officials. These representatives of the people say exactly the same thing.
What happens when things get out of hand and there is violence. These same elected officials say the people are frustrated and angry. When violence takes place it is not our fault. We have the constitution behind us. The feds are the ones intimidating us and we won’t take it any more.
Well this is all playing out on the national stage with riots in the streets at Trump rallies. Trump says the same thing. The people are angry with their government and this anger sometimes turns to violence. The country is getting a well needed lesson. Malheur is doing the same.
A question that I keep asking is what will happen to grazing fees if federal lands are turned over to the state. Ken Ivory and company says the lands won’t be sold. He also says that we don’t get enough income from public lands. I doubt that grazing fees would disappear. SITLA (State Institutional Trust Lands) grazing fees are three to five times more expensive than the current federal rate of $2.11 per AUM. Private grazing is about seven times the federal rate. Are ranchers willing to pay a significantly higher rate to the state? BLM also spends a lot of money, some of it from the grazing fees it collects, to improve grazing conditions. Would the state continue to invest in range land improvement?
I think the feds spend 7 or 8 times what they collect in fees. This is not about fees IMO. It is about control.
Ranchers do NOT own rights. They have temporary ownership of privileges. That times and circumstances and social values change is to expected and welcomed. That ranching and its minimal economic contribution is outweighed by tourism and recreation and ecosystem richness is a reflection of social turnings and not evidence of an advancing bureaucracy into the ranching lifestyle. Ranchers have had a run of the place for decades. Now the rest of us wonder WTF and ranchers, understandably, are resistant.
The grazing rights that pre-exist the Taylor Grazing Act of 1934 are a true ownership right. See the excerpt from the Taylor Grazing Act:
“Nothing in this subchapter shall be construed in any way to diminish, restrict, or impair any right which has been heretofore or may be hereafter initiated under existing law validly affecting the public lands.”