U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE

30–740 PDF WASHINGTON : 2018

THE ESSENTIAL ROLE OF LIVESTOCK GRAZING ON FEDERAL 

LANDS AND ITS IMPORTANCE TO 

RURAL AMERICA 

OVERSIGHT HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON FEDERAL LANDS 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON NATURAL RESOURCES 

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

Thursday, July 12, 2018 

Serial No. 115–50 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Natural Resources 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov 

or 

Committee address: http://naturalresources.house.gov 

(II) 

COMMITTEE ON NATURAL RESOURCES 

ROB BISHOP, UT, Chairman 

RAU ́ L M. GRIJALVA, AZ, Ranking Democratic Member 

Don Young, AK 

Chairman Emeritus 

Louie Gohmert, TX 

Vice Chairman 

Doug Lamborn, CO 

Robert J. Wittman, VA 

Tom McClintock, CA 

Stevan Pearce, NM 

Glenn Thompson, PA 

Paul A. Gosar, AZ 

Rau ́l R. Labrador, ID 

Scott R. Tipton, CO 

Doug LaMalfa, CA 

Jeff Denham, CA 

Paul Cook, CA 

Bruce Westerman, AR 

Garret Graves, LA 

Jody B. Hice, GA 

Aumua Amata Coleman Radewagen, AS 

Daniel Webster, FL 

Jack Bergman, MI 

Liz Cheney, WY 

Mike Johnson, LA 

Jenniffer Gonza ́lez-Colo ́n, PR 

Greg Gianforte, MT 

John R. Curtis, UT 

Grace F. Napolitano, CA 

Madeleine Z. Bordallo, GU 

Jim Costa, CA 

Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan, CNMI 

Niki Tsongas, MA 

Jared Huffman, CA 

Vice Ranking Member 

Alan S. Lowenthal, CA 

Donald S. Beyer, Jr., VA 

Ruben Gallego, AZ 

Colleen Hanabusa, HI 

Nanette Diaz Barraga ́n, CA 

Darren Soto, FL 

A. Donald McEachin, VA 

Anthony G. Brown, MD 

Wm. Lacy Clay, MO 

Jimmy Gomez, CA 

Nydia M. Vela ́zquez, NY 

Cody Stewart, Chief of Staff 

Lisa Pittman, Chief Counsel 

David Watkins, Democratic Staff Director 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON FEDERAL LANDS 

TOM MCCLINTOCK, CA, Chairman 

COLLEEN HANABUSA, HI, Ranking Democratic Member 

Don Young, AK 

Stevan Pearce, NM 

Glenn Thompson, PA 

Rau ́l R. Labrador, ID 

Scott R. Tipton, CO 

Bruce Westerman, AR 

Vice Chairman 

Daniel Webster, FL 

Jack Bergman, MI 

Liz Cheney, WY 

Greg Gianforte, MT 

John R. Curtis, UT 

Rob Bishop, UT, ex officio 

Niki Tsongas, MA 

Alan S. Lowenthal, CA 

Ruben Gallego, AZ 

A. Donald McEachin, VA 

Anthony G. Brown, MD 

Jimmy Gomez, CA 

Vacancy 

Vacancy 

Rau ́l M. Grijalva, AZ, ex officio 

(III) 

CONTENTS 

Page 

Hearing held on Thursday, July 12, 2018 ............................................................. 1 

Statement of Members: 

McClintock, Hon. Tom, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of California ................................................................................................... 1 

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 3 

Tsongas, Hon. Niki, a Representative in Congress from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts .............................................................................. 4 

Statement of Witnesses: 

Little, Hon. Brad, Lieutenant Governor, State of Idaho, Boise, Idaho ........ 5 

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 7 

Molvar, Erik, Executive Director, Western Watersheds Project, Laramie, 

Wyoming ........................................................................................................ 14 

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 15 

Naugle, Dave, Professor, Wildlife Biology Program, University of 

Montana, Missoula, Montana ...................................................................... 8 

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 10 

Smallhouse, Stefanie, President, Arizona Farm Bureau Federation, 

Gilbert, Arizona ............................................................................................. 24 

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 25 

Questions submitted for the record ......................................................... 28 

Additional Materials Submitted for the Record: 

List of documents submitted for the record retained in the Committee’s 

official files .................................................................................................... 48 

(1) 

OVERSIGHT HEARING ON THE ESSENTIAL 

ROLE OF LIVESTOCK GRAZING ON 

FEDERAL LANDS AND ITS IMPORTANCE TO 

RURAL AMERICA 

Thursday, July 12, 2018 

U.S. House of Representatives 

Subcommittee on Federal Lands 

Committee on Natural Resources 

Washington, DC 

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:00 a.m., in 

room 1324, Longworth House Office Building, Hon. Tom 

McClintock [Chairman of the Subcommittee] presiding. 

Present: Representatives McClintock, Pearce, Thompson, Tipton, 

Westerman, Gianforte, Curtis, Bishop (ex officio); Tsongas, and 

Gallego. 

Also present: Representative LaMalfa. 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. The Subcommittee will come to order. I would 

ask unanimous consent that Congressman Doug LaMalfa of 

California be allowed to sit with the Subcommittee and participate 

in the oversight hearing today. 

Without objection, so ordered. 

Under Committee Rule 4(f), any oral opening statements at hearings are limited to the Chairman, Ranking Minority Member, and 

the Vice Chairman. This will allow us to hear from our witnesses 

sooner and help Members keep to their schedules. 

Therefore, I would ask unanimous consent that all other 

Members’ opening statements be made part of the hearing record 

if they are submitted to the Subcommittee Clerk by 5:00 p.m. 

today. 

Without objection, so ordered. 

And now, for the time we have all been looking forward to, opening statements by the Chairman and Ranking Member, and I will 

begin. 

STATEMENT OF THE HON. TOM MCCLINTOCK, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. The Subcommittee on Federal Lands meets 

today to examine the continuing importance of grazing on Federal 

lands, as well as some of the growing challenges facing this truly 

American industry. 

The BLM and the U.S. Forest Service control 440 million acres 

of public lands, and are charged with the responsibility of putting 

them to sustainable, productive use. Gifford Pinchot’s maxim was, 

‘‘the greatest good for the greatest number of people in the long 

run.’’ An integral part of meeting this responsibility has always 

been through cattle grazing, both for fuels management and to 

supply the Nation with a vital part of its food supply. 

2 

Cattle grazing has a long and colorful history in the American 

West, and that legacy lives on today. For generations, America’s 

cattlemen and ranchers have proven themselves good stewards of 

our national rangelands, animated by a time-honored respect for 

the land, and motivated by a desire to pass this way of life on to 

succeeding generations. 

Across the United States, over 22,000 public lands ranchers 

manage over 250 million acres of public lands. Additionally, these 

hardworking families own 129 million acres of private rangeland 

intertwined with Federal lands. Their herds are reliant on forage 

from both. 

Public lands ranchers regularly go above and beyond the call of 

duty to improve their grazing allotments. They frequently pay outof-pocket on improvements that include wildfire fuels reduction, 

wildlife habitat restoration, water source management, and clearing trails. And when wildfires do occur, it is often public lands 

ranchers who are the first to respond. Their stewardship provides 

significant cost savings for Federal land management agencies that 

are already struggling to keep up with substantial deferred maintenance backlogs. 

As we will hear today, public land grazing faces growing challenges and opposition that threaten the future of this important 

industry. Ever-expanding regulatory burdens continue to drive up 

the cost of ranching on public lands. Public lands ranchers and the 

Federal land management agencies they work with daily have also 

increasingly become the targets of endless harassing litigation 

seeking to stop all grazing and many other productive uses of our 

Federal lands. 

I have often cited Eric Hoffer’s observation that, ‘‘Every great 

cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually 

degenerates into a racket.’’ 

In recent years, we have witnessed the rise of organizations 

whose business model is based on sue, settle, and award—all at 

taxpayer expense. 

The purpose of use, resort, and recreation, for which these lands 

were originally appropriated and for which our land agencies were 

originally created, would be replaced with a new exclusionary policy forbidding the public’s use of the public’s land. We have already 

seen the damage this policy of benign neglect has done to our precious forests. Now we see the same destructive ideology being 

turned against our rangelands. 

These attacks, orchestrated by well-funded political groups, are 

creating a paralyzing environment in which sound, scientific land 

management decisions are abandoned, both by ranchers and public 

lands managers, for fear of endless frivolous lawsuits filed by serial 

litigants. 

This Subcommittee’s principal priorities are to restore public access to the public lands, to restore good management to the public 

lands, and to restore the Federal Government as a good neighbor 

to those communities directly impacted by the public lands. 

Cattle grazing is integral to all three objectives. It puts our 

public lands to productive use, it provides an important management tool for fuel reduction and fire prevention, it supplements and 

extends our ability to superintend our vast public land holdings, 

3 

and it provides revenues and livelihoods for the surrounding 

communities. 

I look forward to hearing the testimony from our witnesses today 

as we seek to preserve responsible public lands ranching for 

generations to come. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. McClintock follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HON. TOM MCCLINTOCK, CHAIRMAN, SUBCOMMITTEE

ON FEDERAL LANDS

The Subcommittee on Federal Lands meets today to examine the continuing 

importance of grazing on Federal lands, as well as some of the growing challenges 

facing this truly American industry. 

The BLM and the U.S. Forest Service control 440 million acres of public lands 

and are charged with the responsibility of putting them to sustainable, productive 

use. Gifford Pinchot’s maxim was, ‘‘the greatest good for the greatest number of people in the long run.’’ An integral part of meeting this responsibility has always been 

through cattle grazing, both for fuels management and to supply the Nation with 

a vital part of its food supply. 

Cattle grazing has a long and colorful history in the American West, and that legacy lives on today. For generations, America’s cattlemen and ranchers have proven 

themselves good stewards of our national rangelands, animated by a time-honored 

respect for the land and motivated by a desire to pass this way of life on to succeeding generations. 

Across the United States, over 22,000 public lands ranchers manage over 250 

million acres of public lands. Additionally, these hardworking families own 129 

million acres of private rangeland intertwined with Federal lands. Their herds are 

reliant on forage from both. 

Public lands ranchers regularly go above and beyond to improve their grazing allotments. They frequently pay out-of-pocket on improvements that include wildfire 

fuels reduction, wildlife habitat restoration, water source management, and clearing 

trails. When wildfires do occur, it is often public lands ranchers who are first to respond. Their stewardship provides significant cost savings for Federal land management agencies that are already struggling to keep up with substantial deferred 

maintenance backlogs. 

As we will hear today, public land grazing faces growing challenges and opposition that threaten the future of this important industry. Ever-expanding regulatory 

burdens continue to drive up the cost of ranching on public lands. Public lands 

ranchers, and the Federal land management agencies they work with daily, have 

also increasingly become the targets of endless harassing litigation seeking to stop 

all grazing and many other productive uses of our Federal lands. 

I have often cited Eric Hoffer’s observation that, ‘‘Every great cause begins as a 

movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.’’ 

In recent years, we have witnessed the rise of organizations whose business model 

is based on sue-settle-and-award—all at taxpayer expense. 

The purpose of ‘‘use, resort and recreation,’’ for which these lands were originally 

appropriated and for which our land agencies were originally created, would be replaced with a new exclusionary policy forbidding the public’s use of the public’s 

land. We have already seen the damage this policy of benign neglect has done to 

our precious forests. Now we see the same destructive ideology being turned against 

our rangelands. 

These attacks, orchestrated by well-funded political groups, are creating a paralyzing environment in which sound, scientific land management decisions are abandoned both by ranchers and public lands managers for fear of endless frivolous 

lawsuits filed by serial litigants. 

This Subcommittee’s principal priorities are to restore public access to the public 

lands, to restore good management to the public lands, and to restore the Federal 

Government as a good neighbor to those communities directly impacted by the 

public lands. 

Cattle grazing is integral to all three objectives: it puts our public lands to productive use, it provides an important management tool for fuel reduction and fire prevention, it supplements and extends our ability to superintend our vast public land 

holdings, and it provides revenues and livelihoods for the surrounding communities. 

I look forward to hearing the testimony from our witnesses today as we seek to 

preserve responsible public lands ranching for generations to come. 

With that, I recognize the Ranking Member for her opening statement. 

4 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. And now, I am pleased to yield to our returning Ranking Member, Congresswoman Tsongas of Massachusetts. 

STATEMENT OF THE HON. NIKI TSONGAS, A REPRESENTATIVE 

IN CONGRESS FROM THE COMMONWEALTH OF 

MASSACHUSETTS 

Ms. TSONGAS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to all 

our witnesses for being with us here today. 

Generation after generation of Americans have endorsed the idea 

that our public lands should be managed for the benefit of all 

Americans to support a wide range of uses, including recreation 

and sportsmen activities, energy development, grazing, and protecting open spaces that provide wildlife habitat, clean water, and 

clean air. 

We all want to see this important aspect of our national heritage 

managed in an effective and efficient manner, so we rely on professionally staffed agencies like the Bureau of Land Management and 

the U.S. Forest Service. Both agencies operate under a multiple use 

and sustained yield mandate. In other words, public lands must be 

managed in a manner that ensures the development and extraction 

of natural resources while preserving their long-term value for 

future generations of Americans. 

Both the Bureau of Land Management and the Forest Service 

are invested deeply in working with local communities to develop 

on-the-ground partnerships that responsibly balance conservation 

with the needs of people whose economic livelihoods depend on 

healthy forests and grasslands. 

I want to emphasize that I understand and appreciate concerns 

from my colleagues and some of our witnesses today that public 

lands and our Federal land management agencies can at times be 

frustrating neighbors and partners. The Federal bureaucracy is not 

always the well-oiled machine that we would all prefer to see. 

Federal lands pose unique challenges in communities all over the 

country. We should be having constructive conversations about how 

we can give these Federal land management agencies more tools in 

the toolbox that will help them be better partners, so that public 

lands continue to be managed in a way that reflects our collective 

commitment to balancing conservation for future generations with 

sustainable productivity for local communities. 

This task is made more difficult by the fact that the Federal 

Government pays more to manage the grazing program than it receives in return through fees. The Government Accountability 

Office report said that in 2016 the BLM and Forest Service spent 

$135.9 million on grazing management, but only collected $26.5 

million in grazing fees. That is a loss of $109.4 million to the taxpayers. In 2017, the Bureau of Land Management loss was $60.7 

million, and it is expected to be $63.6 million in 2018. 

Ranchers on Federal lands pay a rate that is substantially lower 

than many private and state lands. The Federal grazing fee is 

adjusted annually, and is calculated by using a formula originally 

set by Congress in the Public Rangelands Improvement Act of 

1978. Under this formula, the grazing fee for 2018 is $1.41 per 

annual unit month, down from $1.87 in 2017. The Department of 

the Interior Economic Report for Fiscal Year 2016 points out that 

5 

grazing fees on state and private lands are as much as $20.50 per 

animal unit month. 

Federal land managers must have adequate resources to manage 

the thousands of grazing permits across millions of acres of public 

lands, and ensure that they meet agency standards for ecological 

health. Ranching has a significant economic impact in many rural 

communities, but it is not without impacts on the land, air, and 

water. Without careful public land management, grazing can 

increase soil erosion and stream pollution, both of which impact 

wildlife habitat and hurt overall rangeland health. The ecological 

impacts of grazing are multiplied by extreme drought conditions 

associated with climate change. 

One proposal to improve the Federal grazing program is 

Representative Adam Smith’s H.R. 3624, the Rural Economic 

Vitalization Act. This legislation would allow ranchers to voluntarily retire their grazing permits to the Bureau of Land Management and the Forest Service. Ranchers would receive fair market 

value compensation for their permits paid for by private parties. 

The legislation creates a market-based incentive for ranchers to 

receive compensation for their permits, save taxpayer dollars, and 

promote conservation. I hope that this legislation can be considered 

by the Subcommittee at a future hearing. 

Thank you again to our witnesses. I look forward to your 

testimony, and I yield back. 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. We have been joined by the Chairman of the 

House Natural Resources Committee, Congressman Rob Bishop. 

You are recognized for 5 minutes. 

OK, then we will get on to our witnesses. 

Our microphones are not automatic. You will need to press the 

button when you begin your testimony. I warn you, all testimony 

is limited to 5 minutes. That is about the maximum attention span 

of an average Congressman, so after that you might as well quit 

talking because we have stopped listening. 

And I will begin. We are very honored to have with us the 

Lieutenant Governor of the state of Idaho, the Honorable Brad 

Little. 

Welcome. 

STATEMENT OF THE HON. BRAD LITTLE, LIEUTENANT 

GOVERNOR, STATE OF IDAHO, BOISE, IDAHO 

Mr. LITTLE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member 

Tsongas, and Chairman Bishop. It is great to be here. My name is 

Brad Little. I am the Lieutenant Governor of the state of Idaho. I 

have a long history with my friends on the Public Lands Council, 

the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, and the American 

Sheep Industry. I used to be President of the Idaho Wool Growers. 

I am here today, Mr. Chairman, as you stated in your opening 

statement, to talk about how we want our fifth generation ranching 

children to have an opportunity to do what I have been so lucky 

to do in my lifetime and my father’s and my grandfather’s, and 

that is to be successful ranchers. 

One of the things I have learned in life in both politics and the 

ranching industry is change is inevitable. Adaptation and survival 

6 

are optional. I would like to talk briefly about what I think survival 

looks like in the public rangeland ranching industry. 

First, it is obviously survival of the ranches, so that they can 

continue to be there and be active parts of the management of the 

Federal lands, whether it be fire suppression, fuels management, 

wildlife enhancement, watershed enhancement, all the things that 

ranchers do today. 

Second, survival looks like those ranchers being part of those 

communities. In my current job as Lieutenant Governor, I meet 

with school trustees, hospital board members, and county commissioners in county after county in the West. Those leaders, those 

people that make those communities work, that the rest of the public of America goes out and enjoys, the backbone of those communities are those ranchers serving on the school board, serving on 

the hospital board, being part of those communities. 

Ranchers are an indispensable part of successful management of 

public lands. The reductions in AUMs being grazed, there is a huge 

cost to abandonment. Since the dawn of the West, ranchers have 

been involved in partnership with the Federal agencies. Grazing 

truly is one of the original public-private partnerships. 

Unlike government administrators who often are only there for 

a few years, ranchers are there for generations. If ranching is regulated off of the public lands, the most effective and efficient public 

land managers will be lost. 

I will tell you a personal story of an allotment that we used to 

have, a big forest allotment, where one of the conditions was we 

had to maintain the trails. This is a heavily timbered area, and 

every year in July and August we spent a lot of time clearing trails 

so we could manage our land. The sportsmen, the wildlife advocates use those trails. 

We were regulated off with the introduction of a non-native 

species that just basically made it impossible for us to operate. As 

a result, after we left with our livestock, the area burned, decimating the watershed. And now access to that area has been 

totally lost. 

When I look at wildlife habitat and fuels management being done 

today, there are several areas where the agencies have had very 

successful programs, where we are using livestock to manage wildlife, and in Idaho, in particular. Several other states have it, but 

we have been at the forefront, where since 2000, in just 6 years, 

we have 330 ranchers that are signed up. They are part of the initial attack team that all the agencies use. Today, there are 9 

million acres of real estate in Idaho that are being protected by 

initial attack in RFPAs. 

And in the endangered species area in Idaho we have the Idaho 

Governor’s Office of Endangered Species, where over the last several years we have protected 33 different plant and animal species 

under the framework of the Endangered Species Act. 

Today, I would like to advocate for Senator Barrasso’s draft 

legislation, which is part of the Western Governors’ bipartisan resolution on endangered species. 

Mr. Chairman, ranchers who have grazing permits are an integral part of the West today. Regulatory reform from here in 

Washington plays a critical role in determining the efficacy not 

7 

only for those benefits, for those communities, but whether our 

children and grandchildren are going to continue to be part of our 

great public lands in the West. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Little follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HON. BRAD LITTLE, LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR, 

STATE OF IDAHO

Good morning. Thank you, Chairman McClintock, Ranking Member Hanabusa, 

and members of the Subcommittee. My name is Brad Little. I am the Lieutenant 

Governor of Idaho, and a cattle and sheep rancher. I am also a longtime member 

of the Public Lands Council, the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, and the 

American Sheep Industry Association. In the past, I have been involved in volunteer 

leadership for these organizations, and have advocated on their behalf here in 

Washington, DC. 

My grandchildren will be fifth generation Idaho ranchers. I cannot help but wonder what the ranching landscape will look like when they are ready to take the 

reins. 

With our private lands scattered within public lands, my family has always believed in providing access to all kinds of recreationists and other multiple use activities. There are thousands of acres of the family ranch lands open for public use and 

hunting throughout five Idaho counties. My family founded the Little-Gem Cycle 

Park, one of the largest off-road vehicle parks in America. Near Boise, our private 

land is part of the city trails system. In both areas, we work with local, state and 

Federal agencies to deliver access. 

I am here today to better define the benefit to America of our public lands 

ranchers and guide you through the livestock industry’s rich history of stewardship 

for our western lands. 

I urge you to address the burdensome regulatory environment which threatens 

our way of life and those rural communities where ranching is the year-round 

backbone that sustains our schools, health care, and economies. Additionally, we 

provide access to individuals who seasonally visit our public lands. 

While current efforts by this Administration and Congress give me great optimism 

for future generations of ranchers, we still have a ways to go. More work is needed 

to create a regulatory environment where Federal lands ranchers can survive. 

In the conservation world, nearly all grand scale successes are a result of publicprivate partnerships. I would argue that grazing is the original public-private 

partnership. Livestock producers provide a myriad of benefits to the land. With the 

reduction in AUMs being grazed, there is a huge cost due to the abandonment of 

these allotments. 

Ranchers are indispensable in the successful management of our public lands. 

Unlike government administrators, who are only there for a few years, ranchers 

have been on the land for generations. They are the public lands management infrastructure across the West. If ranchers are regulated off, our country loses the most 

effective and efficient public lands managers, and the private inholdings are likely 

sold for development. 

As Lieutenant Governor, I have seen these benefits most prominently during fire 

season. Grazing reduces the fuel loads and prevents the catastrophic, fast-moving 

fires that Idaho has experienced more frequently in recent years. 

BLM’s Targeted Grazing program is an example of how ranchers and Federal land 

managers can work together to prevent these natural disasters. According to the 

National Interagency Fire Center, the average cost of fuels management (including 

prescribed fire, manual removal by chainsaw, and herbicide application) comes to 

$150 an acre. Ranchers provide this service at virtually no cost to the taxpayer. 

Ranchers don’t just prevent fires, they also fight them. Six years ago, Idaho 

created Rangeland Fire Protection Associations. These volunteers, totaling about 

330 ranchers through nine RFPAs, extend protection to 1.8 million acres of private 

land and nearly 7.1 million acres of adjacent public land. All their work is done at 

a mere fraction of the traditional costs to the taxpayer. If you want to save money, 

this needs to be duplicated across the West, in rangelands and in timberlands. 

Ranching activities also provide benefits to other multiple uses. For example, our 

cattle grazed a large Forest Service allotment in central Idaho. As part of that permit, we maintained miles of trails throughout the forest. A substantial side benefit 

was recreationists benefited from our efforts. This service was provided at no cost 

to the taxpayer. Because of the regulatory pressure, we have had to abandon the 

8 

allotment. Ultimately, the area has burned and most of the trails have been 

abandoned, leaving no access for recreationists. 

My situation is not unique in Idaho, nor is it rare across the West. 

The Endangered Species Act and the National Environmental Policy Act are the 

usual suspects. While well-intended when enacted in the 1970s, ESA and NEPA 

have evolved into weapons for habitual litigants, and the regulations they produce 

are as ineffective as they are burdensome. Species conservation doesn’t work from 

the top-down. 

In Idaho, the Governor’s Office of Species Conservation has worked since 2000 to 

protect and recover 33 different plant and animal species using the framework of 

the ESA. We tried using the same tactics to recover the Greater Sage Grouse, but 

were blindsided in 2015 when the Obama administration imposed range-wide 

mandates that did not allow for adaptive management. 

Luckily, the BLM and the Forest Service are working to put us back in the driver’s seat, so we can resume our efforts through means that work in our unique 

areas. Efforts are also underway in Congress to increase state involvement in ESA 

implementation. Sen. Barrasso’s recent legislation, crafted after the Western 

Governors’ Association bipartisan resolution last year, would give states a greater 

role in species recovery and decision making. 

In short, America’s goal should be to perpetuate our beautiful and productive 

western landscapes, while fostering the next generation of western ranch stewards. 

In closing, Mr. Chairman, ranchers with grazing permits provide an irreplaceable 

service to the land, the taxpayer, and to those who enjoy our public lands. The 

regulatory environment from Washington, DC plays a critical role in determining 

the efficacy of not only those benefits, but also the economies and communities that 

depend on them. 

Mr. Chairman, thank you and I look forward to answering your questions. 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. Thank you for your testimony. Our next witness is Dr. David Naugle. He is a professor in the wildlife biology 

program at the University of Montana. He comes to us today from 

Missoula, Montana. 

Thank you for joining us, Doctor. 

STATEMENT OF DAVE NAUGLE, PROFESSOR, WILDLIFE 

BIOLOGY PROGRAM, UNIVERSITY OF MONTANA, MISSOULA, 

MONTANA 

Dr. NAUGLE. Thanks to the Committee for the opportunity to 

testify today on the compatibility of ranching and wildlife conservation. My name is David Naugle. I am a 20-year scientist, including 

17 as professor in the wildlife biology program, University of 

Montana. I also serve as independent science advisor to USDA 

sage-grouse initiative, or SGI, part of the agency’s working lands 

for wildlife model, administered by the Natural Resources 

Conservation Service. 

SGI has proved popular with ranchers, enrolling 1,700 producers 

to conserve 6.4 million acres of grazing lands, an area the size of 

Maryland. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recognized these accomplishments when they ruled not to list sage-grouse under the 

Endangered Species Act. This proven working lands for wildlife 

model now extends nationally to New England cottontail, Louisiana 

black bear, Oregon chub, and many others. 

I help NRCS evaluate farm bill conservation outcomes to assess 

their effectiveness and improve program delivery. Two evaluations 

I just published in 2018 find grouse conservation compatible with 

a variety of locally appropriate grazing strategies that promote 

native and resilient perennial plants. Evaluations were made possible by ranchers who enrolled with NRCS in rotational grazing 

9 

systems, voluntarily capped utilization rates, modified timing of 

grazing, and periodically rested habitat. 

Non-enrolled lands, including BLM public lands, were managed 

less intensively under season-long grazing or slower rotations 

through larger pastures. 

Nest survival of sage-grouse was similar between enrolled and 

non-enrolled ranches and was consistent with that of a stable 

grouse population. Livestock presence, utilization, and rest were 

unrelated to bird use and survival. Instead, populations were driven primarily by severe weather events. 

Adequate shrub cover and low road densities maintained intact 

habitat provided by these big and intact ranches. And in a new 

twist, Montana State University researchers report that periodic 

disturbance by livestock may increase insect foods preferred by 

grouse chicks. In an example of adaptive management at its best, 

NRCS now, as a result of this new science, no longer alters grazing 

plans or offers higher incentives through the farm bill to 

rotationally graze or rest enrolled acreage simply in the name of 

sage-grouse. 

Grazing restrictions on public lands assume a 7-inch grass height 

to hide nests from predators. Our final examination shows that biased field methods incorrectly attribute higher next survival to this 

7-inch grass height, bringing current public land policy into question. Common practice is to delay data collection until bird nests 

hatch or fail, for fear of nest abandonment by the incubating 

female. Allowing nest fate to dictate timing of data collection introduces bias, because hatched nests are measured later than failed 

nests, giving spring grasses more time to grow. 

After correcting for this bias, grass heights at hatched and failed 

nests were within the thickness of a penny of one another. 

Analyses and progress suggests that sagebrush, not the single 

measure of grass height, provides the necessary concealing cover. 

Ranchers are part of the solution, who if given flexibility, may 

prove to be valuable partners in crafting solutions to common 

threats facing ranching in wildlife. In the Great Basin, this means 

reducing wildfire frequency and severity, restoring watersheds at 

risk of cheatgrass invasion, and removing invading juniper trees. 

East of the Rockies, it means addressing subdivision, energy extraction, and crop land conversions that threaten to fragment these 

large and intact grazing lands. 

In closing, 21st century technologies will help us combat these 

common threats to ranching and wildlife. So, our science team, 

with Working Lands for Wildlife, created the first-ever plant cover 

maps that tracked changes in U.S. grazing lands. Dubbed the 

rangeland analysis platform, or RAP, this web application empowers users to visualize annually the impacts of drought on production, evaluate effectiveness of cheatgrass treatments over time, 

identify post-fire sites in most need of restoration, and much more. 

Powered by our industry relationships with Google’s earth 

engine, mapping will be free to everybody starting this September 

at the site rangelands.app. 

I yield the remainder of my time back to the Chair. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Naugle follows:] 

10 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF DR. DAVID E. NAUGLE, PROFESSOR, REPRESENTING

WILDLIFE BIOLOGY PROGRAM, UNIVERSITY OF MONTANA, MISSOULA, MONTANA

Chairman and members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to 

testify today about the compatibility of ranching and wildlife conservation. 

My name is David Naugle, I am a 20-year applied scientist, including the last 17 

years in my current position as Professor in the Wildlife Biology Program, part of 

the Franke College of Forestry and Conservation, at the University of Montana in 

Missoula. I have researched the ecology of the greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus 

urophasianus; hereafter, sage-grouse) and sagebrush and grassland systems my entire career, publishing >90 papers and two books on these and related topics. Since 

2010 to present, I also serve as an independent, third-party science advisor to the 

U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Sage Grouse Initiative (SGI), part of the 

agency’s Working Lands for Wildlife (WLFW) model of species conservation administered by the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS). 

Vast grazing lands that span the western United States are irreplaceable assets, 

producing food and fiber, supporting rural economies, generating recreational revenue, and sustaining world-class wildlife populations. Working rangelands are the 

common thread that weave together these economic and societal values in the 

western half of our Nation. Thus, keeping local ranchers productive, profitable, and 

sustainable considering challenges they face—extended drought, commodity price 

swings, and societal pressures to produce more with less—is a top priority for conserving rural ways of life and wildlife populations. 

Tackling these challenges across the western geography presents a unique opportunity, but limited resources necessitate a strategic, watershed-scale approach that 

replaces ‘random acts of conservation kindness’ that fall short of achieving desired 

outcomes. As the Federal agency charged with helping private landowners solve 

natural resource concerns, NRCS created WLFW as its premier approach for delivering targeted and watershed-scale actions that proactively conserve America’s 

working lands. Fueled by the Farm Bill, this proven paradigm implements existing 

NRCS programs across whole landscapes to restore productive agricultural lands, 

maximizing their benefits for people and wildlife. 

On western grazing lands, WLFW exemplifies how to efficiently focus resources 

to yield the most effective conservation outcomes. As part of WLFW, the Sage 

Grouse Initiative (SGI) and Lesser Prairie-Chicken Initiative (LPCI) have proven 

popular with western ranchers. To date, 2,154 producers have partnered up to conserve or enhance 7.5 million acres of grazing lands, an acreage the size of Maryland, 

benefiting hundreds of rural communities and wildlife resources. 

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) recognized the value of private landowners’ conservation efforts through WLFW as a factor in their decision not to list 

sage-grouse under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Rancher participation in SGI 

remains high post-listing decision because WLFW provides win-win solutions that 

are ‘good for the bird and good for the herd.’ This winning recipe has been replicated 

across the country for Montana’s fluvial arctic grayling, Louisiana black bear, New 

England cottontail and successful restoration of the Oregon Chub. Thanks to WLFW 

all of these species are now recovering, and ESA regulation was removed or deemed 

unnecessary as a result of proactive conservation. 

As an independent, third-party science advisor to USDA, I help NRCS maximize 

returns on the Federal Farm Bill investments made with private ranchers. SGI 

Science fills two roles: (1) develop spatial targeting tools that help practitioners pinpoint where to invest in watershed-scale conservation, and (2) quantify outcomes of 

resulting conservation practices to assess their effectiveness and adaptively improve 

delivery. The Conservation Effects Assessment Project (CEAP)—a multi-partner 

effort led by NRCS—has been working since 2002 to quantify effects of conservation 

practices and programs, improve the science base for managing agricultural landscapes, and translate science into practices that benefit environmental quality. The 

CEAP was a critical piece of SGI from the start and continues to play an integral 

role in funding and distribution of science-based tools and information across 

western grazing lands. 

Across sage-grouse range to date, we have used science to critically evaluate the 

targeting and effectiveness of prescribed grazing, invasive woodland removal, conservation easements, wet meadow and riparian restoration, and fence collision risk 

to wildlife. Findings are cataloged in 37 peer-reviewed publications within the 

scientific literature. Three of these publications evaluating prescribed grazing provide new scientific evidence that further supports the importance of ranching in 

sage-grouse conservation. This previously unknown information fills the void identified in recent reviews: ‘‘This paucity of information highlights a need for more research that directly measures the effects of livestock grazing on grouse’’ 

11 

(Dettenmaier et al. 2017); ‘‘We lack empirical data describing the relationship of 

grazing to sage-grouse . . .’’ (Connelly 2014); and ‘‘empirical evidence supporting direct effects of livestock herbivory on sage-grouse habitat is lacking’’ (Beck and 

Mitchell 2000). 

Maintaining 7 inches of grass height as hiding cover has been a prevailing management strategy for these ground nesting birds. But new findings that challenge 

this long-held tenet suggest that biased field methods are often to blame for incorrectly identifying grass height as a driver of nest success. Common practice for a 

generation of scientists, including myself, was to measure grass height around nests 

directly following nest hatch or failure without regard to timing of data collection. 

Field biologists typically delay data collection until nest fate is known for fear of 

nest abandonment by the incubating female. Scrutiny by Dan Gibson and colleagues 

at University of Nevada-Reno reveal that allowing nest fate to dictate timing of data 

collection introduces bias into analyses because hatched nests are measured later 

than failed nests, giving spring grasses more time to grow (Gibson et al. 2015). 

Soon after, SGI scientists replicated the Gibson et al. (2015) study, and after correcting for this bias, median grass heights at hatched and failed nests were nearly 

identical, within the thickness of a penny of one another (0.05 inches) across reanalyzed data sets from Montana, Wyoming and Utah (Smith et al. 2018a). The implication for grazing management is that grass height may not be as crucial to nest 

success as previously thought. Moving forward, future studies should adjust methods to ensure unbiased grass height measures at predicted hatch date, and management guidelines that include grass height as an indicator of nesting habitat quality 

may need to be revisited. 

SGI scientists also have assembled a complete database for the 51 sage-grouse 

studies for which published estimates of vegetation structure and nest survival are 

available. Preliminary analyses of these data suggest that nest survival is unrelated 

to grass height across the entire species range. Instead, sagebrush cover is a better 

predictor of hatching success. Despite a lack of evidence to support its nest concealing properties, grass height across the 51 studies averages 7.3 inches, which 

may explain the origin of a 7-inch grass height requirement in public policy. This 

ongoing analysis will include similar inquiries into the role of grass height in brood 

survival, although less data is available for this vital rate. 

Additionally, SGI scientists partnered with Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks to 

conduct what is to date the most rigorous and long-term evaluation of livestock 

grazing and sage-grouse (Smith et al. 2018b,c). In its 8th year, this study in central 

Montana is evaluating how rotational grazing systems affect nesting habitat quality. 

From 2010–12, 10 ranches voluntarily enrolled in SGI rotational grazing systems; 

individually planned systems each adhere to NRCS Montana Prescribed Grazing 

standards and the following criteria designed to benefit sage-grouse: utilization 

rates ≤50 percent of current year’s growth, duration of grazing ≤45 days, and timing 

of grazing changed by at least 20 days each year. Nine of 10 landowners also voluntarily rested 20 percent of their nesting habitat from grazing for ≥15 months on an 

annually rotating basis. We compared SGI-enrolled ranches to >20 non-enrolled operations. Non-SGI lands encompassed a variety of grazing systems of which most 

were managed less intensively under season-long grazing or slower rotations 

through larger pastures, usually without annual changes in season of use. 

Findings from this evaluation show that nest survival was similar between SGIenrolled versus non-enrolled ranches, and long-term nest success was consistent 

with that of a stable population. Resting pastures from grazing did not increase nest 

survival. Rotational systems and rest had negligible effects on grass heights which 

were within a half-inch of each other on SGI-versus non-enrolled ranches. Neither 

livestock presence nor indices of utilization were related to nest site selection or survival. Females instead selected nest sites based on abundance of sagebrush cover 

and distance from roads, whereas nest failure was driven primarily by severe 

weather. 

In the same study area, Dr. Hayes Goosey, Rangeland Entomologist at Montana 

State University, is evaluating whether grazing affects sage-grouse food abundance 

by comparing insect numbers in rotationally grazed areas to those with no livestock 

grazing for over a decade. Greater abundance of insect foods preferred by sagegrouse chicks in grazed areas suggests that periodic disturbance by livestock may 

increase food availability to growing young (Hayes Goosey, personal communication, 

5 July 2018). 

Taken together, new science does not support increased nest survival from rotational grazing systems or pasture rest. The need for tall grass as hiding cover 

throughout the range of sage-grouse may be overemphasized in public land grazing 

management guidelines and policy. A variety of locally appropriate grazing strategies that promote native perennial plant communities resilient to drought, exotic 

12 

annual grass invasion, and wildfire may provide high quality grouse habitat. 

Management should instead focus on conserving areas of adequate shrub cover and 

preventing accumulation of roads and other human features that further fragment 

the remaining habitat provided by intact ranching operations. 

As an example of adaptive management at its best, the NRCS is using outcomes 

from 8 years of scientific inquiry to modify their approach to grazing management. 

Under their 528 Prescribed Grazing specifications, NRCS will no longer promote 

alterations in grazing plans to increase herbaceous hiding cover for nesting sagegrouse. NRCS offices also will no longer offer a higher incentive payment to landowners who elect to rest or defer a portion of enrolled acreage for this purpose. 

Because grazing management still matters for a host of ecological reasons, NRCS 

will continue implementing grazing plans that help keep ranchers profitable and 

productive, and the agency remains open to new and proven ways to reduce persistent threats to grouse through sustainable grazing. 

Decision makers find themselves at a crossroads in grazing management and 

sagebrush conservation. One path embraces the inherent variability of western 

rangelands, thus expanding decision-space by supporting adaptation to local circumstances. This approach recognizes ranchers as part of the solution, who if given 

flexibility, may prove a valuable partner in crafting innovative solutions to the most 

vexing threats facing ranching and grouse. The other path implements a uniform 

grass height stipulation, or some other overly specific metric, that lacks the 

scientific backing suggestive of success. The latter, commonly referred to as 

‘precisionism’ in the conservation sciences (Hiers et al. 2016), is strongly cautioned 

against. Such specificity has inadvertently homogenized habitats for other at-risk 

species by suppressing the system’s natural variability. 

The historic range of sage-grouse has been reduced by half as grazing lands succumb to higher intensity land uses. Not all threats are created equal (Figure 1), and 

time lost arguing about grazing is better spent doubling down on the most largescale pervasive threats that reduce usable space for ranching and wildlife. In the 

Great Basin, this means reducing frequency and severity of wildfire, and restoring 

affected watersheds at risk of invasion by cheatgrass and other exotic annuals. It 

also means ratcheting up mechanical removal of invading juniper trees, a practice 

known to increase water retention on grazing lands that space-starved grouse are 

quick to recolonize following restoration. East of the Rockies, common threats include subdivision, energy extraction and cropland cultivation. Keeping ranchers 

ranching is top priority because a single square mile of grazing land converted into 

new cropland negatively impacts sage-grouse in a landscape 12 times that size 

(Smith et al. 2016). 

Figure 1. Sage grouse face a number of threats across their range, varying in the severity of their 

impact on populations (horizontal axis) and their reversibility (vertical axis). Impacts from 

livestock grazing are generally localized, minor, and reversible relative to those of cropland cultivation, energy development, housing, or invasion by exotic annuals or pinyon-juniper woodlands. 


30740.001.eps
13 

In closing, partners desire new tools that enable conservation to be applied at 

scales that match these large-scale threats. To meet this need, WLFW and 

University of Montana have merged machine learning and cloud-based computing 

with remote sensing and field data to provide the first-ever annual percent cover 

maps of rangeland plant types for U.S. grazing lands through time (1984 to 2017). 

Through an unprecedented blend of time, space, and scale, this new technology, 

dubbed the Rangeland Analysis Platform (RAP) will empower any user to visualize 

impacts of drought on perennial forage, evaluate effectiveness of cheatgrass treatments over time, identify areas in need of restoration following wildfire, and so 

much more (Figure 2). Powered by Google’s Earth Engine, this mapping technology 

will be delivered to partners via a free online tool planned to launch September 

2018 (https://rangelands.app). 

Figure 2. Bottom left is trends in annual percent cover of annual forbs/grasses, perennial forbs/ 

grasses, shrubs and bare ground (1984–2017) in an area being invaded by cheatgrass. Bars denote 

Dun Glenn fire and subsequent smaller fires within original fire perimeter. Image to right is a 

single year of the remotely sensed data for Dun Glenn and subsequent fires. Triangle indicates 

colors corresponding to a continuum of plant functional type percentages on the remotely sensed 

image. 

Thank you for the opportunity to comment. 

SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE CITED IN TESTIMONY

Beck, J.L., and D.L. Mitchell. 2000. Influences of livestock grazing on sage grouse 

habitat. Wildlife Society Bulletin 28:993–1002. 

Connelly, J. 2014. Federal agency responses to greater sage-grouse and the ESA: 

Getting nowhere fast. Northwest Science 88:61–64. 

Dettenmaier, S.J., et al. 2017. Effects of livestock grazing on rangeland biodiversity: 

A meta-analysis of grouse populations. Ecology and Evolution 7:7620–7627. 

Hiers, J.K., et al. 2016. The precision problem in conservation and restoration. 

Trends in Ecology and Evolution 31:820–830. 

Smith, J.T., et al. 2016. Reducing cultivation risk for at-risk species: Predicting outcomes of conservation easements for sage-grouse. Biological Conservation 201:10–19. 

Smith, J.T., et al. 18a. Phenology largely explains taller grass at successful nests 

in greater sage-grouse. Ecology and Evolution 8:356–364. 

Smith, J.T., et al. 2018b. Effects of rotational grazing management on nesting 

greater sage-grouse. Journal of Wildlife Management 82:103–112. 

Smith, J.T., et al. 2018c. Effects of livestock grazing on nesting sage-grouse in 

central Montana. Journal of Wildlife Management: In-Press. 


30740.002.eps
14 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. Great. Thank you very much, Dr. Naugle. Our 

next witness is Mr. Erik Molvar. He is the Executive Director of 

the Western Watersheds Project from Laramie, Wyoming. 

STATEMENT OF ERIK MOLVAR, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, 

WESTERN WATERSHEDS PROJECT, LARAMIE, WYOMING 

Mr. MOLVAR. Thank you, Chairman McClintock, Minority 

Ranking Member Tsongas, and members of the Committee. My 

name is Erik Molvar. I have the distinct honor to be the Executive 

Director of Western Watersheds Project, one of the West’s most effective conservation groups. Our mission is to protect and restore 

western watersheds and wildlife across public lands. 

I am also, by training, a scientist. And my scientific publications 

are in the predation risk to herbivores and also in herbivore effects 

to their ecosystems. 

I would like to point out, for the benefit of the Committee, that 

the livestock grazing industry’s effects on public lands are not only 

not universally positive, as might have been presented earlier in 

this testimony before the Committee, but indeed have many negative effects on many different resources on public lands. 

I want to talk first about the fact that, according to a Public 

Employees for Environmental Responsibility study in 2012, some 

40 percent of public lands are not meeting the Federal rangeland 

health standards. These are basic minimal standards for the health 

of the rangelands that almost half of our public lands permittees 

are not meeting, as a target. This is an indicator that these problems are widespread. 

What does that mean, in terms of the actual resources on our 

public lands? Well, certainly, one of the most important impacts of 

livestock grazing are impacts to native fishes. Cattle were evolved 

in the boggy forests of Northern Europe. They are ill-suited and 

maladapted to the arid Western rangelands that you find in our 

western states. 

Consequently, when you put them out on the public lands in 

these arid areas, they tend to concentrate in streamside riparian 

areas and heavily graze the vegetation along streamsides, denude 

the banks of the streams, and wallow in the streams themselves. 

This leads to a number of problems. 

First, it causes the breakdown of stream banks. And when the 

stream banks break down, the profile of the stream turns from 

deep and narrow to wide and shallow. That means warmer water 

temperatures. 

Second, the livestock denude the grass and the shrubs from beside the stream banks that are important to shade the stream and 

keep them cool. 

Finally, when they are wallowing in the streams, livestock actually trample the redds, or the nests of salmon, steelhead, and trout, 

and kill the eggs. 

So, these are major problems for cold-water fishes that are native 

to the western United States, and a significant ecological impact 

that is very widespread in its nature. You can look at the number 

of endangered or threatened runs or populations of trout and 

salmon in the West to see that livestock grazing is having a significant negative effect on our fish fauna. 

15 

Second, you have livestock impacts on the native ungulates. And, 

of course, cattle graze very heavily in western rangelands. And the 

BLM typically has a 50/50 mix of livestock to native wildlife, in 

terms of allocation for forage. So, if the cattle are taking off 50 

percent of the grass on public lands, that means only 50 percent 

is left for wildlife, for insects, for elk, for deer, even for rabbits and 

mice. And when you take all of these different consumers of native 

grasses down, you don’t have enough grass left for the grass to survive from year to year. 

Consequently, what we are doing on our western rangelands is 

we are converting them from the native perennial bunch grasses 

that Dr. Naugle talked about being so important to sage-grouse, 

and you are converting that to non-native invasive weeds such as 

cheatgrass. Cheatgrass is the scourge of the West, and is the cause 

of many of the wildfire problems that we see today. And livestock 

grazing is the single most important mediator of that. 

Livestock grazing tramples the biological soil crusts that are the 

natural defenses of the land against cheatgrass, and livestock grazing takes out the native perennial bunch grasses that, when they 

are mature and healthy, are the appropriate competitors to cheatgrass, and can exclude cheatgrass. 

In areas that don’t have any livestock grazing for long periods of 

time, like the Dugway Proving Ground in Utah, not only do you not 

have cheatgrass, but when you do an experiment, as was done recently to try to introduce cheatgrass, you can’t get it to grow because the native healthy ecosystems have a natural immunity to it. 

With a heavy grazing of livestock, what we see is that we are 

converting our native perennial rangelands to weedy invasive 

annual species that have little ecological value and poor habitat 

values for wildlife. 

Thank you very much. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Molvar follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF ERIK MOLVAR, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, WESTERN

WATERSHEDS PROJECT

My name is Erik Molvar, and I am Executive Director of Western Watersheds 

Project (WWP), a non-profit conservation group that advocates for the protection 

and restoration of wildlife and watersheds throughout the western United States. 

WWP specializes in solving environmental problems caused by livestock grazing on 

public lands. 

I hold a Master of Science in Wildlife Management from the University of Alaska 

Fairbanks, where I studied moose behavior and ecology as part of the Institute for 

Arctic Biology. I published my scientific findings in a number of peer-reviewed 

journals, including studies on moose foraging behavior and the influence of moose 

foraging on willows and on ecosystem dynamics. In addition, I am author or editorin-chief of 17 books that focus on western public lands. Prior to becoming a professional conservationist, I worked seasonally for the U.S. Forest Service and for the 

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers surveying stream habitats for salmon and steelhead 

in northern Idaho and barging juvenile salmon and steelhead down the Snake and 

Columbia Rivers to get them past dams that otherwise obstruct their passage. 

THE IMPACTS OF LIVESTOCK GRAZING ON WESTERN PUBLIC LANDS

The grazing of domestic livestock on Federal grazing leases represents the most 

widespread cause of environmental impacts on western public lands. While oil and 

gas development garners the greatest amount of media attention, as it represents 

a spectacular environmental train wreck, livestock grazing is like a slow and invisible cancer that is insidiously and inexorably killing native ecosystems over vast 

areas. 

16 

1https://www.peer.org/campaigns/public-lands/public-lands-grazing-reform/blm-grazing-data. 

html. 2 Rich 2002. Using breeding land birds in the assessment of western riparian systems. Wildl. 

Soc. Bull. 30: 1126–1139. 

In an analysis of Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Land Health Assessments, 

Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) found that as of 2012 

more than 40 percent of BLM livestock grazing allotments were failing to meet 

rangeland health standards.1 In the wake of this analysis, BLM began to combine 

grazing leases ‘‘not meeting, but moving toward’’ rangeland health standards with 

those actually meeting land health standards, frustrating the public’s ability to discern the degree to which BLM-managed livestock grazing on public lands is causing 

environmental problems. 

It is also notable that the BLM’s own conclusions are sometimes biased to hide 

land health problems. For example, in WWP’s Duck Creek (Utah) allotment appeal, 

after more than 200 hours of expert testimony the Office of Hearings and Appeals 

ruled that BLM’s determination that this allotment was meeting land-health 

standards was in fact false. While Utah appears to be mostly meeting land health 

standards according to PEER’s review of BLM’s data, having traveled extensively 

through Utah, I have found that land health and vegetation condition in Utah is 

worse in comparison with other western states, not better. 

IMPACTS TO NATIVE FISHES

Native wildlife species (such as bison and elk) are adapted to the arid steppes, 

deserts, and grasslands of the western United States, but cattle evolved in lush, 

high-rainfall environments in northern Europe and are poorly adapted to arid environments. As a consequence, cattle concentrate along streamside (or ‘‘riparian’’) 

habitats, and livestock-induced damage disproportionately falls within these highly 

sensitive and ecologically important areas. On the Great Plains, 77 percent of bird 

species depend on riparian habitats for a key part of their life cycles.2 In desert 

environments, free-flowing springs and streams take on even greater importance. 

Livestock grazing along streamsides denudes the tall grass and shrubs that otherwise overhang and shade free-flowing streams that support trout and salmon. At the 

same time, streambank trampling by livestock breaks down streambanks, causing 

deep, narrow stream channels to degrade into wide, shallow riffles. Both of these 

factor into the loss of instream cover that trout and salmon require to hide from 

and escape their natural predators. In addition, the conversion of deep, narrow, 

shaded streams to wide, shallow streams exposed to the sun has the effect of raising 

water temperatures. 

Native coldwater fishes (i.e., trout, salmon, and steelhead) take the brunt of these 

impacts, and livestock grazing represents the single greatest impact on salmonid 

habitats across much of the West. Trout and salmon require cold, clear waters. 

Water temperatures above 80 °F can be fatal to trout and salmon, and to the extent 

that livestock impacts to streams result in higher water temperatures, these can extirpate trout and salmon populations. 

The concentration of cattle along streamside habitats results not only in 

streambank collapse but in radically accelerated bankside erosion. This raises the 

amount of suspended silt in streams, interfering with the ability of trout and 

salmon, which are visual predators, to feed on insects and smaller fishes. All trout 

and salmon spawn in depressions (called ‘‘redds’’) that they dig in stream gravels 

to deposit their eggs. The survival of the eggs is dependent on the free flow of 

oxygenated water through the gravels, and to the extent that silt from streamside 

erosion associated from streambank trampling by livestock clogs the interstices between the gravels, trout and salmon eggs are smothered and are unable to survive. 

This can lead to the failure of entire year-classes of trout and salmon. In addition, 

cattle wallowing directly in the streamcourse, a common occurrence on hot summer 

days, trample redds and crush trout and salmon eggs. 

Livestock grazing and trampling impacts have contributed to the need to list several species and/or runs of native salmonids under the Endangered Species Act, 

including the Columbia River spring and fall chinook salmon, Columbia River 

steelhead, bull trout, and Lahontan cutthroat trout. In addition, stream habitat 

damage caused by domestic livestock (particularly cattle) is responsible for the decline in Colorado River cutthroat, greenback cutthroat, and Bonneville cutthroat 

trout, which are likely to become candidates for ESA listing in the future thanks 

in significant measure to the impacts of domestic livestock. This deterioration of 

clean, cold stream habitats and loss of native trout and salmon populations has had 

17 

3Meyer 2011. Is climate change mitigation the best use of desert shrublands? Nat. Res. Env. 

Iss. 17:2. 4 Belnap 1995. Surface disturbances: Their role in accelerating desertification. Env. Monitor. 

Assess. 37:39–57. 

serious negative impacts on recreational fishing on western public lands, to the 

detriment of public enjoyment of these lands. 

LIVESTOCK GRAZING ON PUBLIC LAND IS A MAJOR CAUSE OF STREAM POLLUTION

Beyond its impacts to native fishes inhabiting streams on public lands, domestic 

livestock (particularly cattle) are a major cause of fecal coliform contamination in 

streams on public lands. Cattle have been bred to eat and gain weight at accelerated 

rates to maximize beef production, and as a result cattle manure (which like all 

manure is high in E. coli bacteria) are large with high bacterial loads. Cattle also 

concentrate along and wallow in streams, in contrast to native wildlife which range 

widely to forage, and cattle thereby concentrate their manure along watercourses. 

Based on WWP water quality sampling, E. coli levels in Wyoming streams are commonly 2 to 10 times higher than Clean Water Act standards for human contact. This 

means that for affected streams, anglers wading in the water, or children playing 

in the water, are at an elevated risk for E. coli poisoning, which is a serious health 

risk and in some cases can be fatal. The Wyoming Department of Environmental 

Quality recently downgraded 76 percent of streams from ‘‘primary contact’’ levels of 

monitoring to ‘‘secondary contact’’ standards, to cut down on Clean Waters Act violations. However, this administrative change does not change the reality that public 

lands visitors commonly recreate along streams, and continue to be exposed to these 

high levels of biohazard as a result of cattle defecating in and beside streams. 

IMPACTS TO SOILS AND VEGETATION COMMUNITIES

Like all herbivores, domestic livestock eat plants, and the heavy intensity of livestock grazing has an impact on vegetation communities. High concentrations of 

domestic livestock increase soil compaction, erosion, and loss of overall productivity 

of the land. Stocking rates on public lands as approved by the BLM and Forest 

Service are typically far too high to maintain healthy, functioning native plant communities and high soil productivity. Frequently, Federal agencies apply a ‘‘take half, 

leave half’’ principle, and grazing leases commonly allow 50 percent of the annual 

forage plant production to be removed by livestock grazing. This is a very high intensity of livestock grazing, and fails to account for additional grazing by large 

native herbivores such as elk and mule deer, grazing by rabbits and even voles 

(which can be abundant during population surges), and grazing by insects such as 

grasshoppers and Mormon crickets, which can be substantial during their cyclic population irruptions. Federal agencies may also respond slowly to reduce livestock 

numbers during drought, which is historically so common that it represents the rule 

in the arid West rather than the exception, with the result that overgrazing by livestock creates long-term damage to the productivity of the range. Overgrazing exacerbates climate change by depleting the ability of cold desert steppes and grasslands 

to sequester carbon, by not only decreasing bunchgrass foliage and conversion to 

cheatgrass, but also by the long-term loss of bunchgrass root biomass.3

In the Great Basin and on the Colorado Plateau, and across much of the remainder of the West, biological soil crusts are the key ingredient to soil productivity. 

Biological soil crusts are critical for the retention of soil moisture, prevent erosion, 

fix nitrogen (a key plant nutrient) from the atmosphere into the soil where it becomes available to plants, and provide a strong degree of immunity against invasive 

weeds, particularly cheatgrass. Livestock trample biological soil crusts, with weight 

loading on hooves and shear forces that make them highly destructive. Once destroyed, soil crusts can take up to 250 years to recover to their natural ecological 

functions.4 The Great Basin and Colorado Plateau were not originally inhabited by 

large herds of bison or other herbivores, and these fragile soil crusts therefore 

evolved in the absence of widespread trampling. The introduction of cattle and 

sheep into these areas has resulted in catastrophic impacts to biological soil crusts 

that desertifies the ecosystem and results in permanent loss of soil and vegetation 

productivity. 

LIVESTOCK SPREAD NOXIOUS WEEDS, PARTICULARLY CHEATGRASS

Livestock are the primary means by which invasive weeds, notably cheatgrass, 

are introduced and spread in native ecosystems. Scientists have traced the invasion 

of cheatgrass back to contaminated grain shipments from Eurasia, and this nonnative weed then spread along railway lines, and from there moved out across the 

18 

5Mealor et al. 2012. Postfire downy brome (Bromus tectorum) invasion at high elevations in 

Wyoming. Inv. Plant Sci. Manage. 5:427–435. 6 Balch et al. 2013. Introduced annual grass increases regional fire activity across the arid 

western USA (1980–2009). Global Change Biol. 19:173–183. 7McIver et al. 2010. The Sagebrush Steppe Treatment Evaluation Project (SageSTEP): A Test 

of State- and Transition Theory. USDA Forest Service General Technical Report RMRS-GTR237, Fort Collins, CO: Rocky Mountain Research Station, 16 pp. 

Great Basin and Columbia Basin with great rapidity, carried by domestic livestock. 

Livestock overgrazing paves the way for cheatgrass, which specializes in colonizing 

disturbed habitats, by suppressing or eliminating the two primary defenses that 

western steppes and grasslands have against cheat: native perennial (multi-year) 

bunchgrasses, and biological soil crusts. Cheatgrass invasions began in the Great 

Basin and the Columbia Basin in the 1800s and reached crisis proportions by the 

1930s, and the overgrazing that established cheatgrass as a major environmental 

problem in those years continues today. As a result, cheatgrass is expanding even 

in high-elevation areas where it has heretofore been scarce.5

Native perennial bunchgrasses and biological soil crusts are the key natural 

defenses against cheatgrass, yet domestic livestock deplete or destroy both defense 

systems, all the while creating the disturbance that accelerates cheatgrass invasion. 

Perennial bunchgrasses are preferred forage for both livestock and native wildlife, 

and are known as ‘‘decreasers’’ because they dwindle early on as grazing intensity 

increases. Livestock also trample and eliminate biological soil crusts, which under 

natural conditions retard the germination and seedling establishment of cheatgrass. 

Once cheatgrass invades the understory of sagebrush habitat types, it accelerates 

range fire frequency because cheatgrass dies and becomes tinder-dry after an initial 

few weeks of growth and seed-set. Normal fire-return intervals in basin sagebrush 

communities averages 196 years, but when cheatgrass takes over fire frequency doubles to every 78 years.6 The resulting fires entirely eliminate sagebrush (because 

sagebrush does not stump-sprout), a disaster for sage-grouse and pronghorns, and 

set the stage for a cheatgrass monoculture by creating a disturbance that colonizing 

cheatgrass are highly adapted to fill. Importantly, in areas where livestock are absent, cheatgrass is a minor component, and native perennial bunchgrasses remain 

dominant, fires eliminate the sagebrush but return the area to native perennial 

bunchgrass instead of cheatgrass monoculture. This illustrates definitively that livestock grazing, not fire, is the key factor spreading cheatgrass infestations. 

Increasing fire frequency is an after-effect of cheatgrass invasion, not the cause. 

At low to no livestock grazing, native grasses and forbs remain dominant, and fire 

returns the system to native grasses; at moderate levels of livestock grazing, habitats experience a decline in native perennial grasses; with heavy livestock grazing, 

perennials are replaced by cheatgrass, and fire creates a negative feedback loop, 

returning the areas to cheatgrass monoculture. Livestock grazing where 50 percent 

of the annual forage productivity is allocated to livestock would fall into the ‘‘heavy’’ 

category, whereas grazing levels limited to 25 percent utilization for sage-grouse 

conservation fall into the ‘‘moderate’’ level of grazing.7 Thus, even moderate levels 

of livestock grazing are harmful to native plant communities (and advantageous to 

cheatgrass). 

LIVESTOCK ARE A CAUSE OF WIDESPREAD SAGE-GROUSE POPULATION DECLINES

Livestock grazing is a major contributor to the decline of sage-grouse across the 

western United States. Whereas oil and gas development has received far greater 

attention as a cause of sage-grouse population crashes in areas such as the Upper 

Green River Valley and Powder River Basin of Wyoming that have suffered from 

heavy industrial development, sage-grouse populations in areas with few roads and 

developments and zero energy and mining activity have also been declining, and 

livestock grazing is the major human-caused impact in these areas that could possibly be responsible from the deviation of large, healthy sage-grouse populations 

from their natural abundance that occurred naturally prior to the arrival of EuroAmerican settlement. Naturalist George Bird Grinnell characterized the original 

abundance of sage-grouse as follows: 

In October, 1886, when camped just below a high bluff on the border of 

Bates Hole, in Wyoming, I saw great numbers of these birds, just after sunrise, flying over my camp to the little spring which oozed out of the bluff 

200 yards away. Looking up from the tent at the edge of the bluff above 

us, we could see projecting over it the heads of hundreds of the birds, and, 

as those standing there took flight, others stepped forward to occupy their 

places. The number of Grouse which flew over the camp reminded me of 

19 

8Grinnell 1910. American game bird shooting. New York, NY: Forest and Stream Publishing 

Co., 558 pp. 9 Hagen et al. 2007. A meta-analysis of greater sage-grouse Centrocercus urophasianus nesting 

and brood-rearing habitats. Wildlife Biology 13:42–50. 10Kaczor et al. 2011. Nesting success and resource selection of greater sage-grouse. Studies 

in Avian Biology 39:107–118. 11 Christiansen, T. 2009. Fence Marking to Reduce Greater Sage-grouse (Centrocercus 

urophasianus) Collisions and Mortality near Farson, Wyoming—Summary of Interim Results. 

WGFD Report, 2 pp. 12 Ibid.; also Van Lanen et al. 2017. Evaluating efficacy of fence markers in reducing greater 

sage-grouse collisions with fencing. Biol. Conserv. 213:70–83. 13Ogle and Brazee. 2009. Estimating initial stocking rates. USDA NRCS Tech. Note Range 

No. 3, 39 pp. 

the old time flights of Passenger Pigeons that I used to see when I was a 

boy. Before long the narrow valley where the water was, was a moving 

mass of gray. I have no means whatever of estimating the number of birds 

which I saw, but there must have been thousands of them.8

The habitats of both greater and of Gunnison sage-grouse have been degraded by 

domestic livestock. For example, in the Gunnison Basin, fully two-thirds of livestock 

grazing allotments are failing to meet land-health standards for rare native species 

including Gunnison sage-grouse. 

The best-understood impact of livestock grazing on sage-grouse is the reduction 

of grass cover between sagebrush shrubs to levels that unnaturally expose sagegrouse to their natural predators. Across the vast majority of the sage-grouse range, 

the scientific consensus is that 7 inches of residual grass height must be maintained 

in breeding and nesting habitats to provide grouse the cover they need to survive.9

In the Northern Plains, where sagebrush are much sparser and afford less hiding 

cover, 10.2 inches of residual grass height is required to furnish sufficient hiding 

cover for grouse.10

While maintaining 7 inches of grass height is a habitat objective for livestock 

grazing in Federal sage-grouse plan amendments, this commitment has been undermined by a failure of BLM and Forest Service to apply it in grazing permit renewals 

and Annual Operating Instructions (AOIs). In the first year after the final decisions 

were signed on September 22, 2015 until October 7, 2016, 70 percent of all grazing 

permits in sage-grouse habitat were rubber-stamped for another 10-year term under 

their previous terms and conditions, without revision or analysis. The numbers of 

AUMs reinstated is even higher: 81 percent of all AUM permitted in sage-grouse 

habitat in the last year were renewed without any analysis and under the existing 

management regimes without including sage-grouse habitat objectives (including the 

7-inch grass height objective). An Instruction Memorandum issued to the Forest 

Service delays the implementation of sage-grouse habitat objectives in that agency’s 

AOIs, which were to be phase in for the 2018 grazing season under the current 

sage-grouse plan amendments. Furthermore, this measure is slated to be stripped 

from the plan amendments under the Draft EIS proposals for Nevada/California, 

Idaho, and Wyoming. Thus, it appears that Federal sage grouse protections from irresponsible types of livestock grazing are currently being ignored and are slated to 

be dismantled. 

Livestock infrastructure also has major negative impacts on sage-grouse. Fenceposts and corrals offer perches for raptors, and fences are a deadly collision risk for 

low-flying grouse. One 5-mile stretch of fence in Wyoming killed 146 grouse over a 

year and a half.11 Marking barbed-wire fence for visibility reduces deadly grouse 

collisions only by 57 to 70 percent, allowing 30 to 43 percent of the fatalities of unmarked fences to continue.12 Considering the vast mileage of barbed-wire fence on 

western public lands, the overall fatality level is massive. 

IMPACTS TO BIG GAME HABITATS AND POPULATIONS

Domestic livestock are direct competitors for forage with native wildlife species, 

and the degree of competitive intensity varies with the degree of dietary overlap. 

Cattle graze preferentially on grasses, but will also browse shrubs, while domestic 

sheep graze more on forbs (broadleaf wildflowers and shrubs) and to a lesser degree 

than cattle on grasses. One cow-calf pair eats a similar amount of forage as two elk 

or eight mule deer, and therefore would be estimated to displace that number of 

game animals.13 Domestic sheep compete most directly with mule deer and 

pronghorns. I have personally seen a Federal NEPA document declaring that the 

project area had enough forage to sustain 100 percent of the livestock and 75 

percent of the wildlife, a tacit admission that overgrazing was authorized. To the 

extent that mule deer and elk populations are substantially smaller today than they 

20 

14Schommer and Woolever 2001. A process for finding management solutions to the incompatibility between domestic and bighorn sheep. USDA Forest Service report, 64 pp. 15 E.g., Reynolds and Trost 1980. The response of native vertebrate populations to crested 

wheatgrass planting and grazing by sheep. J. Range Manage. 33:122–125; Connelly et al. 1991. 

Sage grouse use of nest sites in southeastern Idaho. J. Wildl. Manage. 55:521–524. 

were when Lewis and Clark explored the West, competition with cattle and sheep 

is a driving factor holding big game populations at unnaturally low levels. 

DOMESTIC SHEEP GRAZING ON PUBLIC LANDS CAUSES DEADLY DISEASE OUTBREAKS

IN BIGHORNS

Domestic sheep are carriers of multiple pathogens that cause catastrophic 

epidemics and die-offs in bighorn sheep when the two species come into contact with 

each other. Mannheimia haemolycta (formerly called Pasteurella) and Mycoplasma 

ovipneumoniae cause a form of deadly pneumonia that can wipe out an entire bighorn sheep herd following a single nose-to-nose contact between domestic sheep and 

bighorns.14 This is a relatively high-probability occurrence because the two species 

express curiosity toward each other when in close proximity. In some cases, bighorn 

sheep herds have become infected and decimated by domestic sheep diseases, and 

in other cases state agencies have eliminated thriving bighorn sheep herds to prevent disease transmission in cases where the two species have been allowed to come 

into contact. Due to this extreme disease transmission risk, domestic sheep should 

be grazed 15 miles or more away from known occupied bighorn sheep habitat, which 

accounts for the propensity of young male bighorns to wander in search of mates. 

VEGETATION MANIPULATION PROJECTS TO INCREASE CATTLE FORAGE ARE HARMFUL

TO WILDLIFE

There are many types of vegetation projects to manipulate native vegetation in 

an attempt to increase forage for domestic livestock, and which have caused significant problems for native wildlife. Some of these projects have been proposed in the 

name of wildlife habitat improvements, even though scientific support for wildlife 

habitat values has been scant, or even contradictory. 

Juniper removal projects have been proposed for sage-grouse or mule deer habitat 

improvements. For sage-grouse, projects that remove junipers from sagebrush grasslands in the early stages of juniper expansion, increased habitat values for sagegrouse are achievable. In cases where juniper removal targets mature or old-growth 

stands, which have little to no grass or shrub understory, the result is more likely 

to be the creation of a cheatgrass invasion hotspot, due to the propensity of this 

invasive weed to colonize disturbed areas. This does more harm than good. There 

is no valid scientific evidence that juniper or pinyon removal benefits mule deer, as 

this species benefits from the hiding cover aspect of juniper and pinyon woodlands. 

Mechanical destruction of sagebrush, and even the use of herbicides such as 

tebuthiuron, has been advanced as a means to improve sage-grouse habitat. The 

Deseret Ranch (managed primarily for livestock grazing and trophy elk hunting) 

initially reported an increasing population of sage-grouse compared to other Rich 

County grouse populations in response to mechanical removal of sagebrush using a 

Dixie harrow. This touched off a welter of copycat projects, but subsequently the 

Deseret Ranch sage-grouse population plummeted compared to surrounding populations, and as it stands now, Rich County sage-grouse populations inside and outside the Deseret Ranch have an overall population decline that is similar. Thus, this 

practice should be discredited as ineffective. Tebuthiuron treatments in New Mexico 

and Texas have been associated with declines in the lesser prairie chicken, which 

currently is on the verge of Endangered Species listing. 

Perhaps the most ecologically damaging habitat treatment type is the introduction 

of non-native species, such as crested wheatgrass or forage kochia, either along 

fuelbreaks or in large-scale plantings to increase forage for domestic livestock. 

Large-scale fuelbreak creation of this type threatens to fragment and degrade remaining large tracts of sagebrush that sag-grouse require to survive. Crested 

wheatgrass is known to invade surrounding habitats from plantings, and completely 

destroys the habitat value of the land for almost all native wildlife.15

LIVESTOCK GRAZING TO COMBAT CHEATGRASS IS COUNTERPRODUCTIVE

Cheatgrass is one of the least desirable forage plants from the standpoint of 

herbivores (including domestic livestock), so when cattle are released onto a range 

invaded by cheatgrass, they are likely to concentrate their foraging on remnant 

native perennial bunchgrasses instead of grazing on the cheatgrass. This further depletes the ability of native grasses to persist and to compete with cheatgrass, and 

21 

16Meyer et al. 2001. Factors mediating cheatgrass invasion in intact salt desert shrubland. 

Pp. 224–232 in Shrubland ecosystem genetics and biodiversity: Proceedings, USDA RMRS-P-21. 17 Batchelor et al. 2015. Restoration of riparian areas following the removal of cattle in the 

northwestern Great Basin. Env. Manage. 55:930–942. 18https://www.aphis.usda.gov/wildlife_damage/pdr/PDR-G_Report.php?fy=2016&fld=&fld_val=. 19Power 2001. Taking stock of public lands grazing: An economic analysis. Pp. 263–269 in 

Welfare Ranching, G. Wuerthner and M. Matteson, eds. Washington: Island Press. 

further moves the landscape toward an unnaturally fire-prone cheatgrass 

monoculture. When cheatgrass dries up, it becomes non-nutritious, and their spiny 

seedheads pierce the mouthparts of herbivores, which avoid it as a forage species. 

Cheatgrass is green and palatable to livestock for only 2 weeks or so in the spring, 

yet it is unheard of that BLM land managers limit livestock grazing in a given allotment to such a short window. As a result, even in cases where livestock grazing 

could reduce the standing crop of cheatgrass (and therefore flammability) in the 

short term, it actually increases and further entrenches cheatgrass infestations (and 

therefore fire risk) over the long term. 

Long-term rest from livestock grazing offers the best option for returning the land 

to a healthy and productive state on lands where native perennial grasses remain. 

On the Dugway military proving grounds in Utah, where livestock have not grazed 

for 50 years, cheatgrass is almost absent, and experimental introductions failed to 

establish.16 The recovery of native vegetation in the Hart Mountain National 

Wildlife Refuge, closed to livestock grazing in 1991, has been spectacular.17

LIVESTOCK-DRIVEN WILDLIFE-KILLING PROGRAMS ARE ECOLOGICALLY DESTRUCTIVE

AND POINTLESS

The agriculture industry in general, and western public lands ranchers in particular, are notorious for their propensity to kill every species of native wildlife they 

find inconvenient to their agricultural operations. Federal, state, and county extension programs routinely target native wildlife including predators (notably coyotes, 

wolves, and bobcats) and rodents (particularly prairie dogs and beavers) that are believed by farmers and ranchers to have a negative effect on their economic bottom 

line. USDA’s Wildlife Services program alone killed more than 2.7 million animals 

in 2016,18 more than half of which were native wildlife species, at the behest of the 

agriculture industry. Among this agency’s tally of death were 77,403 coyotes, 3,931 

foxes, 535 river otters, and 21,182 beavers—which is significant because beavers are 

considered a keystone species, ecosystem engineers that create healthy stream and 

riparian habitats and increased vegetation in the watersheds they inhabit. Any 

native species are classified by state agencies as ‘varmints’ with no seasons, bag limits, or reporting requirements for their killing and so there is no way to estimate 

the number of native wildlife species killed directly by ranchers through shooting 

and poisoning. Given the strong public interest in maintain healthy populations of 

native wildlife and healthy functioning ecosystems on public lands, the killing of 

native wildlife associated with public-lands ranching should be legally forbidden. If 

private agricultural operations want to impose their livestock on Federal public 

lands, the least they can do is to run their operations in a way that is compatible 

with maintaining natural population levels of native wildlife. 

PUBLIC LANDS LIVESTOCK GRAZING IS A NEGLIGIBLE CONTRIBUTOR TO LOCAL

WESTERN ECONOMIES

Far from being an important part of rural western economies, public-lands 

ranching makes a contribution that, while it may be an important (although usually 

not the only) source of income for ranchers directly engaged in it, is at the statewide 

level a rather negligible contributor to jobs and income in western states. Large 

metropolitan areas are by far and away the overwhelming drivers of western state 

economies, but even rural counties with little urban development, the economic significance of livestock production is far less than the spatial expanse of lands dedicated to it would suggest. In a 2002 analysis by noted western economist Dr. 

Thomas M. Power, livestock grazing on Federal lands makes up less than 0.1 

percent of the economies of the western states where it occurs.19

Harney County, Oregon is fairly representative of a rural western county with no 

large urban centers. According to Headwaters Economics’ Economic Profile System, 

farming (which includes ranching) makes up only 1 percent of the wage income in 

Harney County, and the combined sectors of agriculture, forestry, fishing, and hunting made up 8.8 percent of the jobs in Harney County in 2016. 

I live in Wyoming, which is often referred to as ‘‘the Cowboy State,’’ but in 2017 

farming and ranching combined tallied $617 million, making up only 1.5 percent of 

22 

20Wyoming Dept. of Administration and Information, Economic Analysis Division, Wyoming 

GDP Report 2017, http://eadiv.state.wy.us/i&e/WyoGDP97_17.htm. 21Liu, W. 2013. Wyoming Economic and Revenue Trend. Economic Analysis Division, State 

of Wyoming. 22 Cullinane et al. 2018. 2017 National Park visitor spending effects: Economic contributions 

to local communities, states, and the nation. Natural Resource Report NPS/NRSS/EQD/NRR– 

2018/1616. National Park Service. 23The Nature Conservancy 2016. U.S. Beef Supply Chain: Opportunities in fresh water, 

wildlife habitat, and greenhouse gas reduction. 24http://westernpriorities.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/290-Million-Visits-Report.pdf. 25Lorah and Southwick 2003. Environmental protection, population change, and economic development in the rural western United States. Population and Environment 24:255–272; Rasker 

et al. 2013. The effect of protected Federal lands on prosperity in the non-metropolitan West. 

Journal of Regional Analysis and Policy 43:110–122. 26Grazing Fees: Overview and Issues. Congressional Research Service Report RS21232, 

September 29, 2018. 27 Ibid. 

the state’s Gross Domestic Product.20 In 2012 it accounted for 4 percent of the 

state’s full- and part-time employment.21 Meanwhile, six National Park units in 

Wyoming received almost 7.5 million visitors in 2017, spending an estimated $882 

million in Wyoming.22 And this excludes Forest Service and BLM lands, which were 

a major tourism contributor to Wyoming in 2017, particularly due to the total 

eclipse of the sun, estimated to have produced $63.4 million by itself according to 

the Wyoming Department of Tourism. Clearly, public lands are more valuable for 

public enjoyment than for providing livestock forage. 

As of 2015, there were 21,916 permit holders grazing commercial livestock on public lands managed by the BLM and Forest Service. Incorporating NCBA estimates 

that 40 percent of cattle in western public land states spending some time on 

Federal public land, there are about 1.75 million cattle using public land, out of a 

national herd of 90 million, meaning that only 1.9 percent of America’s cattle spend 

any time on western Federal lands.23 By way of comparison, some 290 million people visit Federal public lands each year across 11 western states, based on aggregated data from Federal agencies.24 Examining only rural (nonmetropolitan) 

western counties, the counties with the greatest proportions of protected public 

lands have shown the greatest economic growth, job growth, and population 

growth.25 Thus, if all domestic livestock using western public lands were to magically vanish tomorrow, it would likely be received as an economic crisis by the beef 

producers directly involved, but at the national scale, consumers would not notice 

the difference, and the blip in state economies would be lost in the standard-of-error 

noise. 

LIVESTOCK LESSEES GRAZE PUBLIC LANDS AT BARGAIN-BASEMENT RATES

Federal agencies have the discretion to lease public lands for private livestock 

grazing, which is supposed to be managed within the sideboards of multiple-use 

legal mandates that obligate the BLM and Forest Service to balance commercial 

uses against public recreation, wildlife habitat conservation, and watershed protection. Grazing on Federal lands is defined by regulation as a privilege, not a right, 

and holding grazing lease does not convey a property right. Although public-lands 

ranchers will at times use a grazing permit as collateral against a bank loan, a 

practice of questionable legality. Instead, holding a Federal grazing permit enters 

a rancher into a tenant-landlord relationship with the U.S. Government which manages Federal public lands in a trust relationship on behalf of the American people. 

On Federal lands leased for livestock grazing, rates are charged per Animal Unit 

Month (AUM), called a Head Month on Forest Service lands, which is defined as 

one cow-calf pair or five sheep. Federal grazing fees began at $1.23 per AUM in 

1966, and currently stand at $1.41 per AUM. Using an inflation calculator, the 1966 

grazing rate translates as $9.66 in 2018 dollars. Meanwhile, the average rate for 

leasing private pastureland in 16 western states was $22.60 per head in 2010.26 In 

FY 2015, some $79 million was appropriated to BLM for its rangeland management 

program, of which $36.2 million was expended for the administration of livestock 

grazing on BLM lands; the agency collected $14.5 million in grazing fees (at $2.11 

per AUM) that same year.27 As a result, BLM’s public lands grazing program ran 

a deficit in 2015, costing the taxpayers at least $21.7 million, and arguably $64.5 

million, each year in subsidies to public lands ranchers. 

In 2008, as a member of the Laramie City Council, I was appointed as the Council 

representative to the Monolith Ranch Advisory Committee, and personally tasked 

as part of the city’s team to negotiate grazing lease terms with a private rancher 

to graze his cattle on the city’s Monolith Ranch property. This ranch was purchased 

23 

for the purpose of perfecting water rights for municipal use. We negotiated a rate 

of $14.44 per head-month for summer grazing, which also obligated the rancher to 

plant and tend crop fields, implement irrigation, and repair or rebuild up to 5 miles 

of fencing each year. It is my understanding that the city’s grazing lease offered 

more favorable terms to the rancher than the rates charged to lease similar private 

lands in the Laramie Basin. 

It is clear that the $1.41 per AUM currently charged to public lands grazing 

lessees is far below fair-market value, and indeed is insufficient even to pay for the 

cost of administering the program, much less also cover the cost of remediating the 

damage to public lands caused by excessive or inappropriate livestock grazing on 

Federal public lands. Private-lands ranchers, who pay taxes on the private lands 

they graze, are placed at a competitive disadvantage. This is a cruel irony given 

that private-lands ranchers often are raising livestock in areas with deeper soils and 

much more abundant rainfall that make them far more ecologically appropriate for 

cattle. Western public lands are among the most arid and least resilient to livestock 

grazing damage. These lands are among the least productive places to raise domestic livestock from an economic perspective. Given that livestock grazing interferes 

with and degrades other uses of the land (including wildlife habitat, watershed protection, and public recreation and enjoyment) that may be substantially more important economically and from a public interest standpoint, running a heavily 

subsidized public-lands grazing program for the benefit of private ranching interests 

is a losing proposition for the American people. 

PERMIT BUYOUTS OFFER A VERY GENEROUS OPTION TO SOLVE LIVESTOCK-WILDLIFE

CONFLICTS

Ranching is becoming an increasingly marginal way to make a living, typically 

requiring one or more unrelated side jobs to maintain a viable income. Ranchers are 

faced with consolidation in the meat-packing industry, where four corporations control basically all the purchasing of cattle and sheep for meat production and sale. 

At the same time, drought, which has always been more the rule than the exception 

west of the 100th longitudinal meridian, brings with it cyclical decreases in water 

and forage, which are only getting longer and more pronounced with ongoing 

changes in global climate. When beef prices are low, it is difficult to sustain cattle 

operations economically, and when drought hits, it is also difficult to prevent ranching operations from cratering from an economic standpoint. It takes a perfect alignment of precipitation and commodity prices to make ranching profitable, and so it 

should surprise no one that the children of ranching families are increasingly looking to other occupations when they make their career choices. 

As a result, family ranches are increasingly run by an aging population, many of 

whom would like to retire their Federal land allotments, receive a cash distribution 

from a conservation purchaser, and either retire for good or else trim back their 

operations to a more manageable private-land operation that they can manage as 

they age. This is a beneficial outcome for the public, because the removal of livestock gives rangelands a chance to heal and recover, and increase in productivity 

without the constant grazing pressure of domestic livestock. In conservation, success 

is often measured by reductions in the losses of natural areas or a slower decline 

in wildlife populations, so the opportunity to actually increase natural health is a 

significant one. However, without the assurance that livestock grazing permits 

bought out and returned to Federal agencies for the benefit of wildlife and habitat 

restoration won’t simply be returned to livestock grazing under a different rancher, 

it is a poor investment for conservation buyers give substantial money (typically 

$250 per AUM) to a grazing lessee to retire a grazing lease. Legislation in the 

Boulder-White Clouds and Owyhee River wilderness complexes has worked well in 

stimulating the buy-out of unwanted grazing leases from willing sellers, while requiring permanent closure of these leases for the benefit of livestock and stream 

health. The Rural Economic Vitalization Act (REVA) would extend this opportunity 

and option to public lands ranchers nationwide, creating a win-win for conservationists and ranchers without children who want to carry on the family business and 

who simply would like a golden saddle to ride off into their golden years. 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. Great, thank you. Our final witness is Ms. 

Stefanie Smallhouse, President of the Arizona Farm Bureau. She 

comes to us today from Gilbert, Arizona. 

Welcome. 

24 

STATEMENT OF STEFANIE SMALLHOUSE, PRESIDENT, 

ARIZONA FARM BUREAU FEDERATION, GILBERT, ARIZONA 

Ms. SMALLHOUSE. Chairman McClintock, Ranking Member 

Tsongas, and members of the Committee, my name is Stefanie 

Smallhouse and I am President of the Arizona Farm Bureau 

Federation. I am presenting this testimony on behalf of the 

American Farm Bureau, the Nation’s largest general farm 

organization. 

America’s ranchers appreciate the chance to share information 

with you about the role we play in strengthening our Nation and 

providing food security for Americans. The relationship between 

private lands and government-owned or entrusted lands in western 

cattle ranching is a very important public-private partnership. 

This partnership maintains open space on private, state, and 

Federal lands through the management of watersheds; encourages 

capital investments for the benefit of livestock and wildlife on 

working landscapes; supplies a large workforce to manage and care 

for the public trust without added expense to the taxpayer; creates 

economic activity and sustains a tax base for rural communities; 

and it bolsters our food security through the efficient nutrient conversion of a vast natural resource otherwise unusable for human 

consumption. 

In large part, the American West was settled by farmers and 

ranchers engaged in livestock production. A significant number of 

ranching families live in the same place that their ancestors settled 

in the 19th century, much like my own family. We ranch in southeastern Arizona and my children are the sixth generation to live 

and work on this ranch. We have been recognized locally and 

nationally for our conservation ethic, and the sustainability of our 

practices is very evident in our mere longevity. We also produce a 

very fine beef product. 

The ranch is a working partnership between private, county, 

state, trust, and Federal lands. The San Pedro River Corridor is an 

area of heightened environmental awareness for the habitat it provides in an arid southwest environment. In 134 years, we have actually decreased the number of houses in our footprint, while 

increasing water sources, forage, and open space. 

The ranch provides a causeway for wildlife traveling between two 

mountain ranges. What we refer to as our uplands is primary 

government-owned or entrusted land. Were it not for our presence 

along the river, these two upland ranges would exist as solitary 

and disjunctive areas of habitat. 

Private lands are the anchor for millions of Federal and state 

trust lands, and the assemblage of this relationship results in landscape conservation. Ranchers invest in these lands. We maintain 

the improvements for everyone’s use, and are critical in preventing 

catastrophic wildfires. Without our water improvements, the 20- 

year drought in Arizona would have already decimated our local 

wildlife populations. 

The partnership is critical in providing our citizens an abundant 

and affordable, well-balanced diet. Only 16.5 percent of land in the 

United States is arable farmland, and the government owns nearly 

half of the western United States. So, with little land to farm and 

such a vast area of the country producing cellulose indigestible for 

25 

humans, cattle ranching is essential to make efficient use of our 

resources to feed Americans. 

Rural economies are largely dependent upon production indus- tries like agriculture: $1.2 billion in economic income came from 

ranching in Arizona, and 6 of our 15 counties depend on ranching 

as an economic base. 

Ranch ecologist Steve Barker has asked the question before— 

what would it cost the taxpayers of this country to provide the 

same level of management of public lands that ranchers provide 

every day? They deter poaching, resource destruction, illegal dumping, and destruction of cultural resources, all while helping and 

assisting members of the public. 

To be brief, there are 3,300 ranches in Arizona who employ a 

minimum of two people covering 24/7 shifts. Assuming a Federal 

salary of $60,000 per employee to replace this presence, the cost to 

the taxpayer would be a minimum of $792 million, and likely closer 

to $2 billion, considering it would take twice as many employees to 

cover what we do in rancher hours. This is assuming you could find 

13,000 people to live and work in these remote locations, and have 

the area knowledge and experience that these ranchers have. 

The value of this partnership to the American people is at risk. 

The NEPA process to approve necessary conservation projects has 

been slowed to the point of complete paralysis in many areas, due 

to obstruction and threat of litigation from radical environmental 

groups. NEPA is a necessary analysis, but it was not intended to 

end grazing in the West. In just one Arizona BLM office, there is 

currently a backlog of more than 160 projects. These are simple 

projects, and they are taking 5 to 7 years to gain approval. That 

is a loss for the American public. 

In closing, the existence of cattle ranching in the West is built 

upon the relationship between the American cattle rancher, like 

myself, and the public trust, like all of you. Early in the 20th 

century, it was the rancher who promoted the idea of managed 

grazing and a permit system to control overgrazing on public lands. 

In our daily work to produce food for others, we rely on the public 

to trust our attentions and our stewardship. We do not take this 

for granted. And in return, we produce safe, nutritious, and affordable food, while conserving landscapes where we work. 

A great amount of science, technology, sweat, and heart goes into 

every acre of land, drop of water, and serving of beef. We trust that 

our government and the citizenry will support us through these 

genuine efforts to keep the partnership working for all of us. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Smallhouse follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF STEFANIE SMALLHOUSE, PRESIDENT, ARIZONA FARM

BUREAU FEDERATION

Chairman McClintock, Ranking Member Hanabusa, and members of the 

Committee, my name is Stefanie Smallhouse. I am President of the Arizona Farm 

Bureau Federation and am presenting this testimony on behalf of the American 

Farm Bureau Federation, the Nation’s largest general farm organization. I am honored to be here today to offer testimony to the Committee regarding the Essential 

Role of Livestock Grazing on Federal Lands and its Importance to Rural America. 

Those of us who work in the small percentage of the population producing food 

and fiber, and the even smaller percentage who produce beef, appreciate the chance 

to share with you information about the role we play in strengthening our Nation 

26 

and providing food security for Americans. I am going to describe the relationship 

between private lands and government-owned or -entrusted lands within the world 

of cattle ranching in the West and how this relationship is an important public/ 

private partnership. This partnership maintains open space on private, state and 

Federal lands through management of watersheds; encourages capital investments 

for the benefit of livestock and wildlife on working landscapes; supplies a large 

workforce to manage and care for the public trust without added expense to the taxpayer; creates economic activity and sustains a tax base for rural communities; and 

bolsters our food security through the efficient nutrient conversion of a vast natural 

resource otherwise unusable for human consumption. 

In large part, the American West was settled by farmers and ranchers engaged 

in livestock production. When Congress began to regulate livestock grazing on 

Federal lands, a key component of that regulatory scheme as expressed in the 

Taylor Grazing Act was the maintenance of the economic stability of the ranching 

community. Many rural communities throughout the West depend on Federal lands 

grazing for their economic stability. Ranchers are good stewards of the lands they 

use. Some of the best wildlife habitat is found on these lands. Federal lands ranchers preserve open space and provide valuable environmental contributions across 

the West. A significant number of ranching families live in the same places that 

their ancestors settled in the 19th century. 

Drought, wildfire, fluctuating prices and lawsuits have made livestock ranching 

a much more challenging endeavor in recent years. Fourth and fifth generation 

ranchers face the loss of their lands. The stability of the ranching community that 

the Taylor Grazing Act sought to preserve is severely challenged. 

My own family ranches in southeastern Arizona. The Carlink Ranch straddles the 

Lower San Pedro River and operates in the same location it did over 130 years ago. 

My husband and I are raising the sixth generation to live and work on this cow 

calf operation. We have been recognized locally and nationally for our conservation 

ethic and the sustainability of our practices is evident in our longevity. We also 

produce a very fine beef product! 

The ranch itself is a working partnership between private, county, state trust and 

Federal lands. Our private lands are farmed for irrigated hay and forage crops, 

which allows us to properly rotate and manage our cattle herd for year-round 

grazing. The Lower San Pedro River corridor is primarily private and an area of 

heightened environmental awareness for the habitat it provides in an arid southwest environment. In 134 years, we have actually decreased the number of houses 

in our footprint, while increasing water sources, forage and open space. Like many 

other western cattle ranches, the Carlink Ranch provides an open space causeway 

for wildlife traveling between two mountain ranges. What we refer to as our uplands, is primarily government-owned or -entrusted land. Were it not for our presence along the river these two upland ranges would exist as solitary and disjunctive 

areas of habitat. 

The public-private partnership which exists between ranchers and publicly held 

grazing lands in the western United States allows us to conserve and efficiently 

manage the vast natural resources with which we are blessed. Some of the most 

pristine environments and riparian areas in the West exist on private ranch lands. 

These lands are the anchor for millions of grazing land acres on Federal and state 

trust lands. Western ranches tend to be vast in acreage to survive periods of 

drought, combat creeping development and mitigate for restrictive environmental 

actions. This requires an assembly of various ownership within one ranch operation; 

however, the assemblage is managed as one unit regardless of ownership and this 

is more in line with landscape scale conservation efforts which don’t start and stop 

dependent upon political boundaries. Ranchers invest in working lands infrastructure and maintain that infrastructure for livestock, wildlife, and the public in general. Cattle are an integral part of managing our forests to prevent catastrophic fire 

and ranchers play an important role in planning for prescribed burning and fire 

recovery. Grazing management on Federal lands improves watersheds and water infiltration. In Arizona, we are well into a 20-year drought. Without the development 

and maintenance of the water sources we have for our livestock, wildlife would be 

without water for most of the year. We have invested a great deal of money in controlling the invasive mesquite tree, which consumes water at an alarming rate and 

creates a monoculture with little understory vegetation to slow water infiltration. 

This partnership benefits the well-being of our citizens and their access to an 

abundant, affordable and safe source of animal protein for a well-balanced diet. In 

order to keep that supply abundant and affordable, the production of beef must be 

efficient. Only about 16.5 percent of land in the United States is arable farmland 

and used in the production of food, feed and fiber crops; from the remaining undeveloped land we must garner other food sources. Nearly half (47 percent) of the 

27 

western United States is owned by the Federal Government and produces cellulose 

indigestible for humans. The association between cattle ranching and governmentowned lands in the western United States is the highest and best use of those lands 

in assuring a complete and balanced food supply in the United States. 

Economic development in many rural communities throughout the West is limited 

to production industries such as mining, logging and agriculture. In Arizona, the 

beef industry contributed $1.2 billion in economic output in 2012 and was considered the economic base in 6 of the 15 counties. Nearly three-quarters of Arizona’s 

total land is managed by grazing (Kerna et al., 2014). Over one-third of all ranches 

in Arizona include a mixture of two or more government owned lands within the 

ranch unit and another third consist solely of Federal grazing lands (Ruyle et al., 

2000). Generally, ranch lands provide more in tax revenue than they require in 

services. 

Mr. Steve Barker, a range ecologist with a long and respected career in both the 

public and private sectors, recognized the importance of this relationship several 

years ago. He asked the question, ‘‘What would it cost the taxpayers of this country 

to provide that same level of management of public lands that ranchers provide 

every day?’’ At a minimum, each ranch employs at least two people who are on call 

for work duty throughout western rangelands 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. These 

resource managers are a presence in both the widely used recreational areas and 

the vast remote areas of the western United States. They deter poaching, resource 

destruction, illegal dumping and destruction of cultural resources, while assisting 

members of the public in areas where help is hard to find. They generate direct revenue to Federal and state governments through permits and leases for cattle 

grazing. These land managers provide their own operational equipment, buildings, 

benefits and administrative necessities. They invest in and maintain range improvements, benefiting livestock, wildlife and the public. Many of these ranchers and 

their employees have been caretakers of the same resources for their entire lives 

and often for many generations. They have years of experience and a wealth of 

knowledge of these environments. 

Using Arizona as an example, 85 percent of the state’s grazing land, not including 

tribal lands, is administered by either a Federal agency or state trust land (Ruyle 

et al., 2000). According to the USDA, in 2012 there were over 3,300 beef cattle 

ranches in production in Arizona. Given the important relationship between private, 

Federal and state grazing lands, it’s logical to assume most if not all of these 

ranches are managing Federal and/or state natural resources. State trust land management varies considerably from state to state, but if you were to assume the average salary of a Federal employee to be $60,000 annually, to replace the ranch 

workforce would be a minimum increase in Federal spending of $792 million. This 

spending would double because the Federal Government would need twice as many 

employees to cover the 24/7 presence of the rancher. A conservative estimate of the 

increased taxpayer funding necessary to manage public lands just in Arizona, if 

ranching were not a permitted use of such lands, would be over $2 billion and this 

does not include the additional staff to administer and manage the increased field 

personnel or the capital investment of the rancher. This is assuming you could find 

13,000 people to live and work in remote locations under strained working conditions. The local area knowledge and resource experience would be nearly impossible 

to replicate. 

The value of this partnership to the American people is at risk of being lost to 

a dysfunctional regulatory system which slows productivity to the point of complete 

paralysis when confronted by the threat of litigation. The National Environmental 

Policy Act (NEPA) was a mandate to the Federal Government to consider the effects 

of their actions, encourage mitigation to reduce negative impacts, and disclose what 

impacts might result from the action. It was not intended to provide a spring board 

for special interest groups to file frivolous lawsuits against government agencies for 

no other reason than to be obstructive, endanger the sustainability of family ranches 

and earn revenue. This process has veered away from the framework of logical 

thinking, scientific evidence and partnership planning. 

NEPA requires the consideration of the environmental impacts of any major 

Federal action significantly affecting the quality of the human environment. 

Compliance with traditional NEPA requirements has placed a tremendous burden 

on the agencies. 

In just one of Arizona’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Field Offices there 

is currently a backlog of more than 160 improvement projects. Projects which could 

be a positive benefit for the land, livestock, wildlife and the public as a whole are 

sitting inactive in the NEPA process due to the tactics of environmental organizations. Simple fence line and pipeline projects requiring very little NEPA analysis are 

28 

taking upwards of 5–7 years to gain approval. During this time, funding assistance 

for the projects is lost and the greatest losers are the American public. 

Responsible grazing is consistent with environmental and conservation goals on 

the rangeland. While we recognize that NEPA is a Federal requirement, we support 

modifications to NEPA to expedite the process, make compliance cost effective, recognizing the appropriate role of the permittee in the public involvement process and 

creating standards that are attainable. It is clear that the current requirements are 

too much for the agencies to comply with. The large number of allotments and 

permits, coupled with the dwindling manpower and resources of the agencies, will 

again inhibit Federal land management agencies from keeping up with their schedule. Congressional oversight of Federal land management grazing programs is required to ensure Federal implementation is effective and efficient. Agencies should 

focus on cutting red tape so that more time and effort is devoted to on-ground 

improvements. In addition, greater flexibility should be provided to land managers 

and permittees, while at the same time improving the conservation of the land. Both 

Congress and the agencies need to start thinking of how to resolve this problem 

now. Unless solutions are found, western rangelands and the rural economy will 

continue to decline. 

In closing, the existence of cattle ranching in the West is built upon the important 

and sometimes strained relationship between the American cattle rancher and the 

public trust. Early in the 20th century, it was the rancher who promoted the idea 

of managed grazing and a permit system to control overgrazing on public lands. In 

our daily work to produce food for others we are dependent upon the public to trust 

our intentions, our operations and our stewardship. We do not take this trust for 

granted and strive to better our operations daily. In return we produce safe, nutritious and affordable food while conserving the landscapes where we work and live. 

A great amount of science, technology, sweat and heart goes into every acre of land, 

drop of water and serving of beef. We trust that our government and the citizenry 

will support us through genuine efforts to keep the partnership working for all of 

us. 

REFERENCES

Kerna, Ashley, George Frisvold, Russell Tronstad, and Trent Teegerstrom. 2014. 

‘‘The Contribution of the Beef Industry to the Arizona Economy.’’ Cooperative 

Extension. Department of Agriculture and Resource Economics. The University of 

Arizona. 

Ruyle, George B., Russell Tronstad, Diane W. Hadley, Philip Heilman, and David 

A. King. 2000. ‘‘Commercial Livestock Operation in Arizona.’’ Livestock Management in the American Southwest: Ecology, Society, and Economics. Ed. R. Jemison 

and C. Raish. Elsevier Science. 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD BY REP. MCCLINTOCK TO MS. STEFANIE

SMALLHOUSE, PRESIDENT, ARIZONA FARM BUREAU FEDERATION

Question 1. H.R. 2936, the Resilient Federal Forests Act, which was passed by the 

Committee included a categorical exclusion to expedite bureaucratic environmental 

reviews for many activities, such as maintenance of water infrastructure to benefit 

wildlife and livestock and fence modifications to better distribute livestock and improve wildlife habitat. Time and again, we heard how important this CE would be 

to grazers and land managers alike. However, this common-sense streamlining 

continued to face opposition from the environmental left. 

1A. How does red-tape created by Federal laws like NEPA and the ESA impact 

your family’s ability to continue its heritage of responsible grazing on Federal lands? 

Answer. I believe both laws you reference in your question were passed with the 

good intentions of implementing practical natural resource management and species 

protection in tandem with production activities. However, much has changed since 

the 1970s, including monitoring techniques, range management prescriptions, water 

delivery systems, and the role that radical environmental organizations play in disrupting science based Federal land management decisions. Availability of news tools 

such as Categorical Exclusions can increase the efficiency in the Federal decisionmaking process as well as accomplish the goals underlying goals of the environmental law while allowing sustainable livestock production on public lands. 

It is necessary in ranching to adjust and improve current production practices and 

infrastructure to remain efficient, sustainable and competitive. The ranching of 

29 

today is very different from that of a century ago. In consideration of riparian areas, 

unpredictable weather, proactive management of resources, administrative changes 

in agency offices and labor shortages, land managers must be able to build and 

maintain fencing and water infrastructure to move and manage cattle efficiently. 

These practices are done with the intent of conserving the land and water while producing quality beef. As the NEPA process becomes more cumbersome and slowmoving due to litigation, and as the ESA restricts many activities on public lands 

encumbered with critical habitat areas, it becomes more difficult to move forward 

with routine ranching activities. Because of the bureaucratic red tape involved with 

these laws, routine activities can often take 2 or more years for permitting. Under 

those conditions, staying in business becomes increasingly difficult. Moreover, installation and maintenance of rangeland improvements and new conservation practices can be very expensive and do not pay for themselves. In these cases, ranchers 

often apply for private, state and Federal funding in the way of cost share and 

grants to offset the initial investment strain for the rancher. When red tape slows 

this process down, the funding can be lost which effectively kills the project. When 

projects don’t get built or even maintained, the natural resources suffer, the rancher 

suffers, and the local economy suffers in the long term. 

As a trained wildlife biologist who worked for the Bureau of Land Management 

in my previous career, I believe wildlife in most instances are perfectly adapted not 

only to co-exist with grazing and rangeland infrastructure, but absolutely benefit 

from many rangeland developments. Today, most practices are planned with wildlife 

use and/or mitigation in mind through required specifications. 

1B. Would streamlining provisions like the one I described that was included in 

H.R. 2936 be helpful to reducing the red tape faced by grazers and Federal land 

managers? Would it make it easier and faster to implement smart grazing practices 

on Federal lands that adapt to the needs of the landscape. 

Answer. Yes, and ranchers are a valuable partner in resource management and 

rehabilitation following a catastrophic event such as wildfire. In addition to the 

changes suggested in my previous comments, which also apply to this question, 

H.R. 2936 would simplify environmental process requirements, reduces project 

planning times and reduces the cost of implementing forest management projects 

while still ensuring robust protection of the environment. Farm Bureau policy supports amending current law to provide common-sense relief to the bureaucratic gridlock that has plagued implementation of management decisions on our Nation’s 

forests and rangelands. 

The poor health of Federal forests and grasslands threatens wildlife habitat, 

watersheds, and neighboring non-Federal lands, as well as the vitality of rural communities across the country. 

The Resilient Federal Forests Act provides Categorical Exclusions (CEs) under 

NEPA that will allow needed land management projects to be more quickly prepared, analyzed, and implemented. It will also allow forest recovery projects to proceed more quickly, addressing a dire need created by recent wildfire seasons. 

Federal land management agencies are experienced with developing management 

techniques to reduce invasive pests, thin hazardous fuels, create and maintain habitat for species, recover damaged timber and protect water quality. Expediting these 

projects will efficiently mitigate risk and help maintain critical partnerships with 

permittees and rural communities. 

1C. How else can Federal laws and regulations be streamlined to better support 

smart grazing on our public lands? 

Answer. The greatest threat to grazing on public lands is not so much the laws 

which were enacted with good intent, but how those laws have been hijacked 

through the use of litigation against the Federal Government by environmental 

groups. This has paralyzed routine actions involving Federal lands grazing and 

rangeland management. 

The Equal Access to Justice Act: Farmers and ranchers are often targets of activists who seek to drive policy making through litigation. As such, we are very sensitive to how the EAJA functions, and we support reforms to the law to assure that 

it is not manipulated by legal activists. Farm Bureau policy supports legislation to 

reform the Equal Access to Justice Act. 

Endangered Species Act: For the last 30 years, Congress has been unable to successfully provide meaningful changes to the ESA. In the meantime, the U.S. Fish 

and Wildlife Service, the National Marine Fisheries Service, and activist judges 

have broadened and strengthened the regulatory power of the ESA through rulemaking after rulemaking. 

30 

It has been nearly 30 years since the last significant amendment to the ESA was 

signed into law. 

Today, the ESA provides ‘‘protections’’ for 1,661 domestic species at a cost to the American taxpayer of roughly $1.4 billion a year. (FY 2016). However, only 3 

percent of species have been successfully recovered and removed from the list since 

the law was enacted 45 years ago. 

ESA modernization is necessary because there are clear shortcomings associated 

with the upkeep and recovery rate of listed species. Congress intended for the ESA 

to recover species from the brink of extinction, but the law fails to accomplish its 

intended purpose by prioritizing species listings over actual recovery and habitat 

conservation. Unfortunately, the law fails to provide adequate incentives for working lands species conservation and imposes far-reaching regulatory burdens, which 

restrict agriculture’s ability to produce food, fuel and fiber for consumers here at 

home and around the world. 

For agricultural producers, farm and ranch land is the principal asset used in 

their business. ESA restrictions are especially harsh for farmers and ranchers because the law can prevent them from making productive use of their primary business asset. Unlike other industries, farmers and ranchers typically live on the land 

in which they work and operate with a strong focus on both economic and environmental stewardship. 

Despite the fact that the ESA was enacted to promote the public good, farmers 

and ranchers bear the financial brunt of providing food and habitat for listed species 

through restrictions imposed by the ESA. Society expects that listed species be 

saved and their habitats protected, but this cost falls on the landowner upon whose 

property a species is found. 

Of course, no one wants to see American wildlife disappear from our landscape, 

but it is time for common-sense reform that brings farmers and ranchers to the 

table. I am encouraged by efforts such as those by the Western Governor’s Association to propose meaningful reform to this burdensome regulatory scheme. The legislative package introduced this month by members of the Congressional Western 

Caucus is similarly a breath of fresh air to American farmers, ranchers, and landowners. By enacting these bills and recommendations into law, the ESA will be 

modernized to provide clarity and certainty, encourage voluntary conservation, increase local government and stakeholder involvement, and chart a path for real 

recovery of threatened and endangered species. 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. Great, thank you very much for your testimony. We will now move to questions by the Committee members, 

and I will begin. 

Mr. Molvar, in your prepared statement you say that livestock 

grazing is like a slow and invisible cancer that is insidiously and 

inexorably killing native ecosystems across vast areas. Is your 

counsel to this Subcommittee to ban cattle grazing outright on the 

public lands? 

Mr. MOLVAR. Chairman, Western Watersheds’ position is that if 

there is going to be public lands livestock grazing on western public 

lands, it needs to become compatible with the native ecosystems 

that are out there. 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. Well, you have basically testified that it is 

completely incompatible. 

Mr. MOLVAR. I am sorry, sir? 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. You have testified it is completely incompatible. Are you advocating banning grazing on public lands in its 

current form? 

Mr. MOLVAR. I have testified that it is causing major ecological 

problems, and that those ecological problems need to be solved. 

And if the livestock industry is incapable of solving these problems, 

then there is a real question of whether the public has an interest 

of having livestock on those particular public lands where those 

problems—— 

31 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. So, you are not going to tell me whether you 

are going to counsel us to ban it or not. 

Mr. MOLVAR. It is not our official position to ban livestock 

grazing throughout western public lands. 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. OK. And in your statement you say that you 

are the author or editor in chief of 17 books that focus on western 

public lands. How many of these are peer-reviewed books on wildlife and land management? 

Mr. MOLVAR. They are all popular books. 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. On hiking, as I understand it. 

Mr. MOLVAR. Most of them. 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. Dr. Naugle, in your statement you say you are 

the author of more than 90 papers and 2 books. How many of these 

are peer-reviewed papers and books on wildlife and land 

management? 

Dr. NAUGLE. All of them. It is the gold standard for science. 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. OK. In your view, then, is targeted grazing 

compatible with wildlife and land conservation? 

Dr. NAUGLE. Yes. 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. Mr. Molvar tells us that, from his perspective, 

cattle grazing promotes cheatgrass overpopulation. You have testified exactly the opposite. Would you care to comment on the discrepancies in your two conclusions? 

Dr. NAUGLE. I think we are wrapped around the axle on some 

of the local grazing issues, and I just don’t want us to take our eye 

off the prize of the big threats that are facing us in the West, in 

terms of wildfire and cheatgrass. We need ranching to help us 

tackle those. 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. So, in your view, targeted grazing is 

compatible with wildlife and land conservation? 

Dr. NAUGLE. Yes, it is an option we are going to need even more 

as catastrophic wildfire continues to eat up the open space that is 

available to wildlife and ranching. 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. And what environmental benefits have you 

noted through such practices? Obviously, fire suppression. 

Dr. NAUGLE. Fire suppression is one. I will stay in my lane on 

sage-grouse, since I spent my career on that. And our new science 

is showing that in grazed pastures compared to idled pastures that 

haven’t been grazed for up to 10 years, Montana State University 

work is showing that there is actually more food in the form of 

insects for growing sage-grouse young. 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. Would you care to critique Mr. Molvar’s 

analysis of the subject? 

Dr. NAUGLE. I wouldn’t. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. OK. In your testimony, you described the 

Working Lands for Wildlife program is creating win-win solutions 

all across the country. You attribute this success to the collaborative approach that pairs ranchers and Federal land management 

agencies to achieve effective conservation goals. 

What is it about this private-public approach that works so well? 

Dr. NAUGLE. Working Lands for Wildlife, part of NRCS, works 

primarily on private lands. But we understand, in our approach, 

that to keep a rancher ranching, that they also require allotment 

32 

renewals on public land. So, we use the strength of the farm bill 

on private lands, and we also always seek to find compatibility on 

public land to keep them sustainable and productive. 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. Lieutenant Governor Little, I appreciate your 

remarks about well-intended laws like NEPA and ESA being 

weaponized by radical groups, groups whose business model basically is, as I said in my opening, sue, settle, and award. 

One such group, Advocates of the West, which has represented 

western watersheds on several frivolous lawsuits, boasts in its annual review that a sizable 31 percent of their entire budget comes 

from attorney fee awards, a majority of those from judgment funded under the EAGA. 

Could you expand on how the actions of these litigious groups 

are undermining livestock grazing on public lands in your home 

state? 

Mr. LITTLE. Mr. Chairman, they are devastating, particularly 

when commodity prices are down, cattle and sheep prices are down. 

They are very disruptive. People’s bankers are not very understanding when the security of a year-round operation is jeopardized 

by a permit renewal or some kind of litigation that means a rancher can not have that year-round operation that they put together 

for sometimes over 100 years. 

So, it is the instability that really creates a problem, not only for 

the rancher, but the community that is dependent upon that yearround operation. 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. Thank you. My time has expired. 

Ms. Tsongas. 

Ms. TSONGAS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I, for one, appreciate 

that ranching has long supported many western families and lent 

a unique character to that part of our great country. 

And I have respect for it, but at the same time I think we have 

to balance those economic interests with the multiple use mandate 

and sustainability of our Federal lands. That is the challenge we 

face over and over again on this Committee. 

Mr. Molvar, the Rural Economic Vitalization Act would authorize 

voluntary grazing permit retirement and buy-out financed by private parties. This is one possible policy solution that creates an 

economic incentive to decrease the ecological impact of grazing on 

Federal lands. In your opinion, how would the buy-out of unwanted 

grazing leases from willing sellers benefit public lands ranchers 

nationwide? 

Mr. MOLVAR. Mr. Chairman and Representative Tsongas, the 

Rural Economic Vitalization Act would authorize permits that are 

bought out for conservation purposes to be permanently closed, 

thereby giving conservation purchasers the assurance that their 

purchases will be a good investment in the future of the lands in 

question, and will actually remove the cattle for the long term. 

In environmental conservation, for the most part, we are now 

fighting a fighting retreat as human footprints expand and wild 

places and native ecosystems shrink and species head toward 

extinction. When you actually retire a grazing permit, and the livestock are removed, that means the grasses get to recover, the wildlife get to have their full measure of forage, the habitats go back 

33 

toward a native state, and you lose the invasive species like cheatgrass over time. 

So, nature actually has a chance to heal, and you can move the 

environment in a positive direction. It is rare in conservation to be 

able to move the environment in a positive direction. For the most 

part, we are basically trying to fight as hard as we can to hold on 

to what few wild areas we have left. 

Ms. TSONGAS. And we have to remember this Act does talk about 

willing sellers. 

Lieutenant Governor Little, as a rancher whose family has been 

long in that field, do you see a program like this offering an option 

to those families who have been invested in ranching for decades, 

if not longer, but who want to retire from that field? Do you see 

this as a way forward for some family ranchers? 

Mr. LITTLE. We would never advocate for the wholesale buy-out. 

There might be instances where, in small areas, it can be used. But 

for the most part, if you permanently retire livestock, you have lost 

that tool. And more importantly, if you close off an allotment, the 

rancher retires, moves away, everybody that supports the rancher 

moves away. We have lost that initial attack that we have for fires, 

for noxious weeds, for other rapscallions that may be out there on 

the public land doing whatever it might be. So, the loss of that tool, 

the downside versus the upside, should be measured very, very 

carefully wherever it is looked at. 

There are instances where some small changes to allotment will 

make a great difference in whatever prescribed landscape the 

public decides they want to have there. But the loss of livestock as 

a tool is a catastrophic move that the public needs to be very careful about implementing. 

Ms. TSONGAS. But do you see any benefit to the family ranchers 

themselves, who are just trying to find a way out which provides 

them with some financial security? 

Mr. LITTLE. Well, if the alternative is a closure of their allotment, there are some instances where it might be. But for the most 

part, it should never, ever be the first choice. It should be the last 

choice because there are some resources so critical, it happens all 

the time in the development field. 

But remember, the unintended consequence of that permit being 

retired. What happens to that private ground that is adjacent to it? 

And what happens to the total public good of having that intact 

ranching community that Dr. Naugle talked about as far as sagegrouse habitat, wildlife habitat, being able to manage these ecosystems to where you are generating the right kind of winter feed 

for the ungulates? 

The total consequences of it are more often negative than they 

are positive. 

Ms. TSONGAS. Thank you. I would love to have this bill come 

forward from our robust discussion. But, I have lost my time. 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. Thank you. 

Ms. TSONGAS. Thank you. 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. Mr. Westerman. 

Mr. WESTERMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to 

the witnesses today. 

34 

Ms. Smallhouse, in your testimony, you have talked about how 

important grazing and ranching are for rural Arizonians. I am from 

Arkansas. We have about 5.6 million acres of private and public 

lands that are set aside for grazing. I know that is a small number 

compared to out West. We measure our cattle farms in acres, and 

you measure your ranches in sections. 

Nevertheless, it is very important to our state’s economy. Beef 

cattle actually make up half of all the farms in Arkansas, and that 

economic value is not only felt across the 4th District that I represent, but all across the state. 

As a young man, I was in the Future Farmers of America. I 

remember learning the creed, and the line in it sticks in my mind 

that says, ‘‘I know the joys and discomforts of agricultural life.’’ I 

actually had one of these small cattle farms at one time and it 

made me joyful and brought me some discomfort. I was happy 

when I got those cows, had a lot of discomfort when we had 

drought and there was no grass for them to graze, when predators 

killed my calves. And then I was very happy when I sold my herd 

to my friend. But I understand the challenges that ranchers and 

cattle farmers face. 

Ninety-seven percent of our farms in Arkansas are small family 

farms. When the Federal Government makes it harder to ranch, 

they are typically the ones that lose out. What impact do Federal 

regulations have on our rural families all across the country? 

Ms. SMALLHOUSE. Well, any time you make someone’s job more 

difficult it has a negative impact and costs you money out of not 

only your pocket, but your ability to produce for the country. 

We have the Endangered Species Act, as to what was referred to 

before. This is something that is a very serious issue for folks 

ranching in the western United States. Sixty percent of habitat is 

on private lands, and those Federal lands tie those private lands 

and keep them into open space. So, any time you have an endangered species designation on your property, it restricts what you 

can do. The Federal Government manages species that are even 

candidate species for endangerment, and also continues to manage 

in the same way once they have been de-listed for about 5 to 7 

years. So, it could be a pretty binding regulation if you find yourself in that situation. 

That is sort of what leads to our NEPA delays, and how long it 

is taking for very simple projects that have no impact upon endangered species or the health of the environment. It is taking them 

so long to get through. 

When it takes you 5 to 7 years to get a conservation practice on 

the ground, and you have funding available to you through the 

NRCS programs—we have ranchers who have lost $150,000 in cost 

share, so they were willing to invest another half of that of their 

own money. That is a loss to the American public and management 

of the public lands, but it is also an income loss to that rancher, 

and makes it more difficult for them to stay on the land. 

Mr. WESTERMAN. And even though we have seen farm incomes 

shrinking significantly over the past decade, grazing still provides 

steady family wages in many places across the Nation. Some of our 

anti-grazing opponents argue that seasonal recreation jobs like 

35 

guiding and working in an outfitter can serve as a replacement for 

grazing. 

Given not only your background as a rancher, but your experience living and working in the West, do you believe this to be true? 

And can these seasonal jobs really replace ranching? 

Ms. SMALLHOUSE. Representative Westerman, can you repeat the 

question? 

Mr. WESTERMAN. Do you think that seasonal and recreational 

jobs could replace ranching in the West? Could they provide those 

steady family incomes, like ranching does? 

Ms. SMALLHOUSE. For the rancher? 

Mr. WESTERMAN. Right. 

Ms. SMALLHOUSE. Absolutely not. I think that you are looking at 

seasonal jobs. That is a seasonal job. I have to eat every day. I 

don’t know, some people may be able to eat seasonally, but my 

family needs to eat every day. 

Mr. WESTERMAN. Thank you and, Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. Mr. Gallego. 

Mr. GALLEGO. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you all for being 

here. 

Mr. Molvar, grazing on Federal land is highly subsidized, and 

costs American taxpayers millions of dollars every year. Both the 

Forest Service and BLM spend much more on administering the 

grazing program than they receive in the actual grazing fees. 

In your opinion, would there be significant economic impact to 

rural western economies if Federal grazing fees were adjusted to a 

level that would at least allow the Forest Service and BLM to 

break even, in terms of the administration of the program? 

Mr. MOLVAR. Representative Gallego, certainly the current grazing rate of $1.41 per animal unit month is far less than the 

$22.60 in those same western states that private grazers pay to 

lease private grazing lands. 

And I would like to point out, when I was on the City Council 

of Laramie, Wyoming, I was on the Ranch Advisory Committee, 

and I negotiated a private grazing lease with our lessee. That 

grazing rate that we negotiated was $14.44 an animal unit month 

for summer grazing, and that included that the permittee had to 

pay out of his pocket to fix or replace 5 miles of barbed wire fence 

every year and plant and tend the city’s crops that were irrigated 

on the Monolith Ranch. 

So, the idea that the Federal Government is allowing private 

livestock to graze on public land for this pittance of $1.41 an 

animal unit month, instead of charging fair market value, even as 

it runs these giant deficits at taxpayer expense, means that the 

U.S. taxpayers are funding huge subsidies to the livestock industries for the privilege of having cattle to graze on their public 

lands, to reduce the fish populations that they want to fish for, to 

reduce the elk and deer populations that they want to hunt for, 

and to degrade the health of the land, overall, where they want to 

camp and recreate. 

And when you get right down to it, when you look at the pluses 

and minuses in the economics, what you find is that the vast majority of the American public cannot see the benefit of paying to 

have this private use on public land with these kinds of impacts. 

36 

Mr. GALLEGO. When was the last time the fee did increase? 

Mr. MOLVAR. Well, most recently the fee decreased. I believe it was $2.11, and then it went down to about $1.83, and then it went 

down to $1.41. We are talking about $1.41 compared to 1978, when 

they started the program, it was $1.35. So, it is $.06 more than it 

was in 1978. If you do the inflation calculator, you find that the 

grazing fee, just by pure inflation, ought to be at least $9.00 an 

animal unit month. 

And importantly, Representative Westerman talked about his 

private land’s livestock grazers. They are paying the full market 

value. They are paying the taxes on the lands where they graze. 

They are competing, in some measure, with these public lands 

grazers that, in fact, make up only 1.9 percent of the beef produced 

in the United States. 

So, why are we so vastly subsidizing these 22,000 ranching families in the West to produce a product that makes up 1.9 percent 

of America’s beef at the cost of all of these land health problems 

and all of this public recreation benefit? It just does not make a 

great deal of sense. 

Mr. GALLEGO. Kind of sticking on this subject matter, in 2016 

there was a report by the GAO on authorized grazing, and they 

found that the Forest Service and BLM could not accurately report 

unauthorized grazing figures because, according to agency officials, 

the agencies prefer to handle most incidents informally with a telephone call and not to actually record anything. And further, the 

penalties assessed by the Forest Service when unauthorized 

grazing occurs are so low that it doesn’t act as a deterrent. 

Knowing the Federal program is already operating on a deficit 

and the charge rates are far below market value, would you agree 

that it is time for the agencies to strengthen their internal controls 

relating to tracking and mitigating unauthorized grazing, as well 

as raising the penalties and actually enforcing the penalties to a 

level that provides an actual meaningful deterrent to those illegal 

grazers? 

Mr. MOLVAR. It is absolutely true that illegal grazing on Federal 

public lands is far more widespread than is reported. The BLM 

range management officials are thinly stretched, understaffed, and 

they are stuck in their offices, so they are not out on the land to 

see these grazing trespasses that are chronic. 

Cliven Bundy is the most famous grazing trespasser, but he is 

certainly far from the only one. Western Watersheds Project, in our 

field work, sees this all the time. And it is far past time for the 

United States to start operating its public lands grazing program 

with some kind of accountability, so that grazing permittees that 

are actually grazing more cattle than they are allowed, or grazing 

in places where the cattle are not permitted to be, are held to account. And ultimately, if they have several violations, they ought 

to lose their permit. 

Mr. GALLEGO. I yield back. 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. Chairman Bishop. 

Mr. BISHOP. Thank you. I appreciate the opportunity of being 

here and listening to the testimony. I would also like to tell Mr. 

Westerman when you sold your cattle, that is not isolated. It is the 

same thing as the two greatest days in the life of anyone who owns 

37 

a boat—when he bought it and when he sold it. So, it is the same 

thing. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. WESTERMAN. Been there, too. 

Mr. BISHOP. Yes. Doctor, can I ask you a simple question? 

Because you mentioned sage-grouse, and I have a passing interest 

in that issue. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. BISHOP. But I appreciate the data that you are giving us, because the conventional wisdom, especially the old Fish and Wildlife 

management’s conventional wisdom, was that grass height and elevation of the land were the two key factors. You are saying that 

there are other factors that could be successful in making sure that 

habitat takes place? 

Dr. NAUGLE. Yes. A centerpiece of science is to continually test 

assumptions. And with our new grass height evaluation, we found 

that a generation of scientists, myself included, have been measuring this the wrong way. 

I will go biological on you for a minute. We have always feared, 

as scientists, of approaching a nest from an incubating female, for 

fear that she would abandon the nest. So, if you have a nest that 

fails early, perhaps it is predated, it takes a couple more weeks for 

the other nest that is successful to hatch young. So, that gives 

those spring grasses a lot longer to grow. 

Well, we go to those nests that fail, and we wait until they hatch, 

so that the incubating female doesn’t leave, and we have artificially 

created this relationship of grass height to nest success. When we 

go and remove that bias by establishing a common time frame for 

all the nests, there is no difference in grass height. That is that 

thickness of a penny. So, we are kind of wrapped around the axle 

of this precisionism concept, where kind of a one-size-fits-all right 

now on that land policy—— 

Mr. BISHOP. So, what you are telling me is there is an old science 

that has been assumptions and there is some new science that is 

challenging those assumptions all the time. 

Dr. NAUGLE. Yes, sir. 

Mr. BISHOP. Governor Little, or Lieutenant—well, Governor 

Little. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. LITTLE. I answer to both. 

Mr. BISHOP. OK. The state of Idaho has a habitat plan. They 

have been required to do it. Does your habitat plan take into account these changes in scientific basis? Does it do it far sooner than 

the Fish and Wildlife Service back here in Washington does? 

Mr. LITTLE. Any good resource plan is adaptive. And there isn’t 

hardly any piece of real estate that doesn’t have different nuances. 

And that is the beauty of having these big issues addressed at the 

state and local level, where the scientists and the resource managers on the ground go out and look in each and every one. 

But time and time again, what we have discovered in Idaho is 

the two biggest threats to sage-grouse are invasive species and fire. 

And if you don’t address those two big challenges, the nuances—— 

Mr. BISHOP. And you are saying grazing can help on the fire 

suppression at the same time? 

38 

Mr. LITTLE. Absolutely. For fuel management, most important is 

initial attack. The fact that the agencies continue to consolidate 

their firefighters and the ranchers are dispersed, and it is that initial attack where it saves you, the people that have to write the 

checks for these fires, saves you an enormous amount of money by 

having that initial attack by those ranchers who are out on the 

ground. 

Mr. BISHOP. So, the fact that, under past DOI policies, AUMs 

have been declining and decreasing in the United States actually 

harms in this process. It harms in causing more fires, it harms actually not having the habitat for these endangered species. 

And you didn’t even talk about ravens, another endangered 

species that eats the endangered species. And try to tell me which 

endangered species is actually the more important there. 

I have one last question to ask you, because I am running out 

of time and there are so many issues that you all brought up here, 

some of them good, some of them really comedic. 

However, it has been brought up about how people are willing to 

pay more money for private property for grazing than they are on 

BLM land. I can understand that, because private property is better for grazing than BLM land. Is there some logic to that? 

Mr. LITTLE. Well, Mr. Chairman, if you had a map of the West, 

my ancestors, when they came here, they homesteaded all the 

water. Unfortunately, this Committee’s jurisdiction is over a lot of 

dry ground. It is rocky and steep, and it doesn’t have access. 

Mr. BISHOP. You mean like Dugway, which is actually a bombing 

range? I am sorry you can’t grow cheatgrass there. 

Mr. LITTLE. So, it is the fact that these ranchers are put together 

with that private ground, where the water is, and—— 

Mr. BISHOP. I am over time, so I am going to cut you off. I 

apologize for that. 

Let me ask one last question, though, maybe to Mr. Westerman. 

While you were grazing cattle did you actually have 170 lawsuits 

brought against you, like BLM does? 

Mr. WESTERMAN. Not even one lawsuit. 

Mr. BISHOP. OK, fine. 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. Mr. Pearce. 

Mr. PEARCE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Ms. Smallhouse, we have the Federal agencies that oversee 

grazing in New Mexico right next door to you. I suspect they are 

similar DNA when you deal with the agencies. And we had the 

Forest Service kick 17 ranchers off their historic allotments, saying 

that the grass wasn’t high enough. Mr. Molvar mentioned the grass 

height as being a key. 

So, we asked for their science. They responded by sending us a 

picture of an orange bucket turned upside down, a 5-gallon bucket 

turned upside down, and said it is not as high on the bucket as it 

is supposed to be. 

Do you ever run into that kind of science, when you are dealing 

with the agencies in Arizona? 

Ms. SMALLHOUSE. Unfortunately, yes, that is the case. I haven’t 

heard of anything close to an orange bucket, but I think that 

ranchers, one of the roles they fill on these permits, is actually 

going out and running range transects. So, the information that 

39 

they are gaining on their allotments is valid and useful scientific 

information that otherwise, I guess, we would just be getting from 

an orange bucket. 

Mr. PEARCE. Yes. So, what we did is actually engage the 

scientists at New Mexico State, which the government didn’t bother 

doing. And they actually said the grass is probably higher than it 

had ever been historically, so all 17 ranchers got the opportunity 

to reinstate their claim there. 

You have heard Mr. Molvar’s testimony, that grazing on Federal 

lands is a gift, it is less than maybe one-twentieth of the cost. It 

is just rainbow stew out there. The ranchers are willing to come 

and just take advantage of it. 

Now, in western New Mexico, where we have most of the public 

lands, we are actually seeing the ranchers on public lands decrease. 

So, the animal units are actually decreasing across the West since 

we have no Federal land and we don’t have a tax base because they 

were only able to tax the property, they are not able to tax the 

land. So, our counties are simply going broke out in the West. 

Are you finding that ranchers are standing in line to get access 

to these Federal lands with this rainbow stew that Mr. Molvar 

points out is available at such cut-rate prices? Are you finding a 

different thing than I am finding in New Mexico, Ms. Smallhouse? 

Ms. SMALLHOUSE. I think that ranchers do what they do because 

they love their job. I certainly didn’t fly in a private jet here. So, 

the subsidization that is being talked about, you have to remember 

that the price of beef is nearly the same as it was 20 years ago. 

So, to talk about grazing permit prices and how they need to increase with inflation, well, that would mean that you would be paying a lot more for your pair of boots and the steak that is on your 

plate. 

Ranchers are price takers, we are not price makers. And the 

American public has shown that they support safety nets for agriculture since we passed the first farm bill, because it is food security. So, I think it is very important to recognize that when you 

talk about the struggles and the permit costs for Federal lands. 

Mr. PEARCE. Mr. Naugle, you heard Mr. Molvar’s testimony that 

actually the cheatgrasses are probably responsible for a lot of the 

fires, that they burn more easily. 

I grew up in New Mexico, and we have had Bermuda grass, we 

have had bluegrass, we had grama grass, we had Johnson grass. 

And every single bit of it, when it is dry, when I dropped a match 

into it, would be within 5 to 50 acres to 100 acres within the flash 

of an eye. Do you find scientific merit in the idea that cheatgrass, 

the proliferation of that across the West is the reason we are burning our forests down? 

Dr. NAUGLE. Cheatgrass grows earlier in the spring. It cheats, it 

takes advantage, and then it dries and cures and becomes rapidly 

flammable. 

Mr. PEARCE. Other grasses are not? They are not rapidly 

flammable when they dry? 

Dr. NAUGLE. They are, but cheatgrass out-competes perennials. 

The perennials are the deep-rooted component of the native system 

that is more resistant and resilient to fire and would be preferable, 

from a wildlife—— 

40 

Mr. PEARCE. Because our scientists in New Mexico show us that 

100 years ago, when we didn’t have the number of trees per acre 

that we do now, that actually we had grasslands, and I suspect it 

wasn’t cheatgrass back then, and that, instead of forest fires, we 

actually had grass fires. And they would burn all the grass in an 

area, regardless of what kind it was, but we didn’t have the destruction to our watersheds that we have now, because now the 

Forest Service management allows the trees to proliferate. 

So, if we are really concerned about the watersheds in the West, 

we would have a balanced thinning program in our forest, to where 

we wouldn’t burn everything, and then the next rain, the resulting 

mudslides into the creeks, into the watersheds are destroying all 

the fish, all the wildlife in the West. 

You can take a look at Bonita Lake in New Mexico to see exactly 

what happens there. It was the water source for Alamogordo and 

Holloman Air Force Base. It used to be 75 feet deep. After one fire 

and then the next rain it has 50 feet of fill, killed all the fish. It 

is not usable for water any more. So, that is the destruction of the 

watersheds. 

I don’t think the grazing or cows is destroying the watersheds 

nearly as much, Mr. Chairman, as the fires across the West. I 

would yield back my time. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. Mr. Thompson. 

Mr. THOMPSON. Thank you, Chairman. Thanks, members of the 

panel, for being here. 

Ms. Smallhouse, thank you for coming to testify before the 

Subcommittee. The Resilient Federal Forest Act, which was passed 

by the Committee, included a categorical exclusion to expedite 

bureaucratic environmental reviews for many activities, such as 

the maintenance of water infrastructure, livestock, and fence modifications. These CEs would improve wildlife habitats and better 

distribute livestock. 

Time and again, we hear how important this CE would be to 

grazers and land managers. However, this common-sense streamlining continues to face opposition from the environmental left. 

How does the Federal red tape like NEPA and the Endangered 

Species Act impact your family’s ability to continue its heritage of 

responsible grazing on Federal lands? 

Ms. SMALLHOUSE. Chairman McClintock, Representative 

Thompson, I appreciate that question. 

The fact is that we have tried to make this process more common 

sense in areas of conservation improvements, so that ranchers can 

take advantage of good times when they can implement these practices, and for the benefit of endangered species, as you mentioned. 

All of these things benefit the species that are out there. 

The categorical exclusions continue to be an issue in the fact that 

if a permit gets renewed through more of a streamlined process, 

there can be no changes to the permit. There can be no new improvements. You can only maintain what was already there. And, 

like any business, you want to invest in your business, you want 

to make it better. It becomes more and more difficult, the harder 

it gets to do these things. 

It was mentioned earlier that BLM employees are strapped and 

in their offices too much, and not able to go out and manage. And 

41 

I would argue that is because they are doing too much paperwork 

related to lawsuits. That is not helpful to getting conservation practices out on the ground. 

Mr. THOMPSON. Some people portray categorical exclusions, when 

we debate those, we incorporate those into legislation, they portray 

that as the fact that we just totally ignore environmental concerns. 

I want to get your opinion. Is that true? Or are we just talking 

about addressing those environmental concerns in a more streamlined, efficient manner? 

Ms. SMALLHOUSE. It is about addressing them in a more 

streamlined, efficient manner. 

If you have a fence line and you need to go out and fix it, the 

environmental impact is going to be absolutely minimal. And 

NEPA was created in such a way that you could recognize those 

processes which have very minimal environmental impact and be 

able to utilize the law efficiently. But when you are under the 

threat of litigation constantly, you can’t even do that. 

Mr. THOMPSON. Thank you. 

Governor Little, thank you for being here. The Western 

Watersheds Project has been an active litigant against seeking to 

halt grazing in the name of sage-grouse protection. However, it 

seems that their litigation track record is inconsistent with its 

goals. 

In one such instance, the USDA APHIS wildlife services completed a full NEPA analysis and made a final decision to approve 

targeted and scientifically supported predator control of ravens in 

those areas where the bird was found to be significantly harming 

sage-grouse populations by destroying the eggs and attacking the 

chicks. 

As a resident and elected official of the state of Idaho, a state 

that has taken a leadership role in promoting sage-grouse species 

recovery, how would you characterize the threat that the ravens 

and similar predators pose to sensitive sage-grouse populations? 

Mr. LITTLE. Well, if you are going to manage these things, which 

we absolutely need to, manage the resource, manage the critical 

wildlife species, there is no question that sage-grouse falls into that 

category. 

We need to go back and look at the genesis of both the 

Endangered Species Act and NEPA, and that is to restore the 

species and not to allow these super laws to overlap and cause a 

disruption on what we should be doing—not only the disruption 

and not managing and, obviously, logically, that ravens, compared 

to the desert tortoise, where that was an issue in an earlier life 

that I had, or today in sage-grouse—that we don’t allow these fine 

points of litigation to get in the way of what the big goal is, and 

that is to restore these species. 

We have had a few court rulings recently where they said, look, 

there has been a consensus by the community. The public has had 

their input in the NEPA, and the court has ruled that this is within the authority of the agency to do this. We just need to accelerate 

that going forward to where we are doing the right thing to actively manage these species and not be frozen in time in just doing 

nothing, because it is not good. 

42 

And the worst thing is what a terrible waste of the Federal agencies and the land manager’s time it is, instead of getting along with 

active management. 

Mr. THOMPSON. Thank you. 

Thank you, Chairman. 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. Mr. Tipton. 

Mr. TIPTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Very interesting 

discussion. 

I would like, Lieutenant Governor Little and Ms. Smallhouse, if 

you would expand a little bit more in terms of the benefits of 

grazing, if you agree with that, in terms of being able to deal with 

wildfire. 

I come out of Colorado. We have several significant fires that are 

burning right now: the 416 Fire near Durango, Colorado; the 

Spring Creek Fire, which is now the second-largest fire in Colorado 

history, over 107,000 areas; and the Lake Christine Fire near 

Basalt, Colorado. 

In terms of being able to actively manage some of those lands, 

and to be able to have the grazing, how important is that? Because 

as I have looked through our areas, they are mostly watershed, as 

a matter of fact, is being impacted in the 416 Fire, and going to 

have some long-term economic impacts. 

When we are looking at feed for wildlife, when we are looking at 

impacts on our water, when we are looking at the impacts, actually, to endangered fish in the streams, once that area burns, how 

important is it to be able to use that tool in the toolbox of having 

responsible ranchers graze? 

Ms. SMALLHOUSE. Chairman McClintock, Representative Tipton, 

the grazing of forest land, it is about much more than even just 

wildland forests. It is about overgrowth. Overgrowth causes catastrophic wildfires, as you have suggested. It also creates less percolation into the ground for our watersheds. This is something we 

are extremely concerned about in Arizona, as I know you are in 

Colorado, as well, in the Colorado River Watershed. 

So, grazing management offers the opportunity to manage the 

understory, manage those watersheds so that we get maximum 

water infiltration, and also break up these monolithic forest stands 

that we have that lead to these catastrophic wildfires. 

I don’t know who said it, but someone said nature makes for a 

poor gardener. Nature burns the forest to the ground, and it takes 

100 years to get it back. It is imperative that we have ranchers out 

there managing for the public’s best interests. 

Mr. TIPTON. All right. Governor Little? 

Mr. LITTLE. Well, big ecosystems require specific management. 

And whether by litigation edict or by over-arching rules from the 

Potomac River, you just don’t get it done. These ecosystems evolved 

over years, and there are places where we need to really work. And 

the biggest threat right now is fire. 

My ancestors had a history of being fire introducers, and then 

my ancestors’ ancestors, the tribes, that was part of what they did. 

They utilized fire in certain instances. But today we have a whole 

different situation to where we have to be in front of these big, catastrophic fires because of the big changing effect that a hot fire will 

have, and that is initial attack and fuels management. 

43 

And the livestock industry is a key component of both of those 

aspects, initial attack, and we know what field we have the cattle 

in, and our rotation. We can say, from a fire standpoint, when we 

are there with a manager that says you need to get up this road 

to get in front of this fire, because that is a rested field, and that 

is the important part, we know that we have fuels controlled in another area. So, being a part of the solution when we have a fire 

is something ranchers do. 

Mr. TIPTON. Thank you for those comments. I am pretty much 

a firm believer that some of the best custodians of our public lands 

happen to be our ranchers and what they are able to contribute, 

putting in stock ponds that wildlife can drink out of, and taking 

care of invasive weeds that come in. And I appreciate that work. 

Mr. Naugle, I would like you to speak a little bit more. We have 

sage-grouse as an issue in our district. We have actually found 

some ways to be able to reinvigorate the species through science. 

It has worked in Colorado, but it is going to take a collaborative 

process at the local level, working with local ranchers and farmers, 

to be able to actually reinvigorate that species. 

Would you speak to the importance of having that local commitment, given that we have a different type of geography in a lot of 

our areas that the species are in? 

Dr. NAUGLE. Heterogeneity across the sage-grouse range is enormous. And through USDA’s Working Lands for Wildlife and doing 

the outcome-based evaluations for NRCS, being part of those 

teams, I see that every time that you have some of those local folks 

that understand that variability you always come out with a better 

outcome that is more durable. 

Mr. TIPTON. Great, thank you. 

My time is expired, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. Mr. Gianforte. 

Mr. GIANFORTE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for calling this 

hearing on this important topic, and for the experts we have at the 

panel today. 

Montana has a rich history of ranching and grazing, which extends back before our statehood. Many of our ranchers are fourth, 

fifth, and sixth generation families that know the land, have 

worked through extreme drought, heavy flooding, and varying seasons. Our ranchers have been stewards of the land because their 

livelihoods have depended on it. 

The only constant has been an increasing Federal presence in 

their lives. Over 30 percent of Montana’s land is federally owned, 

including large swaths of central and eastern Montana, the base of 

our grazing community. It is important to have agencies that work 

with, not against, our ranch families to accomplish rangewide 

goals. 

I have heard from many ranchers in Montana that complying 

with Federal regulations can threaten their very viability. The experience of over 100 years of working the land, combined with new 

data from work like that of Dr. Naugle’s, can create a collaboration 

that keeps the land in production, as well as improving critical 

habitat for species like the sage-grouse. 

My questions are for you, Doctor. It is great to have you here. 

Thank you for making the trip out. You have really made it your 

44 

life’s work to study the nexus of ranching, grasslands, and sagegrouse. And in your testimony you highlight some of the misrepresentations surrounding sage-grouse studies, specifically the 7-inch 

grass height rule. 

After groups tried to use a study which you were a participant 

in to shut down public grazing, you responded appropriately that 

overgrazing was not the problem, but we could still use more information. Could you elaborate a little bit on some of the other factors 

that contribute to the success or decline of sage-grouse? 

Dr. NAUGLE. The range of sage-grouse from its historic range has 

been cut in half. And I have a hierarchy in my mind, and grazing 

is one of those compatible land uses that, if you can have ranchers 

on the team, to get that local durability, compared to these big and 

over-arching, vexing issues like catastrophic wildfire, cheatgrass, 

invading pinyon-juniper—where we live in eastern Montana, the 

biggest one is when we lose ranchers to farming. We published a 

paper 2 years ago that showed that every time 1 square mile of big 

and intact grazing lands gets cultivated into a wheat field, it affects sage-grouse on a landscape 12 times that size. So, when we 

do voluntary conservation easements, apply other NRCS farm bill 

practices, they have to match that tremendously large scale at 

which sage-grouse and ranchers view the landscape. 

Mr. GIANFORTE. How can our ranchers help improve the 

landscape habitat through volunteer programs? 

Dr. NAUGLE. We sat down with the Fish and Wildlife Service and 

we have conditioned these practices with NRCS, so that they are 

good for grouse and good for ranching. So, it is that win-win solution. If they decide to come in, and that is their family’s decision, 

we can offer, through NRCS, a set of practices that we know will 

be good for grouse and we know will help their bottom line and 

their sustainability. 

Mr. GIANFORTE. OK, and as it warms up, we have had some 

discussion here about wildfires. And that is certainly where our 

concern turns, particularly in Montana. 

Have you done any research on grazing and landscape resiliency 

to fire? What can you share with us? 

Dr. NAUGLE. Again, back to the deep-rooted perennials that are 

resistant to fire, resilient, and then, when we do have a fire, the 

ability to have budgets to go ahead and get in fast and spray preemergent herbicides and seed those areas to try to get a jump on 

cheatgrass so that they remain native and intact. 

Mr. GIANFORTE. Have you done any research on the effect of 

grazing and its interaction with wildfires? 

Dr. NAUGLE. Not personally, I have not. 

Mr. GIANFORTE. OK. Does grazing reduce fuel loads? 

Dr. NAUGLE. Yes, there is new work. It is not mine, but it shows 

that it is not necessarily the shrubs that always carry the fire, but 

it is the herbaceous vegetation between the shrubs. So, if you graze 

periodically and keep fire loads in check, you may still have a fire, 

but it may be a few thousand acres, and not a million. 

Mr. GIANFORTE. And you say there is scientific research on the 

interaction between grazing and wildfires and fuel loads that you 

might be able to point us to? 

Dr. NAUGLE. Yes. 

45 

Mr. GIANFORTE. OK. Thank you, I yield back. 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. Mr. Curtis. 

Mr. CURTIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I also would like to 

express my appreciation to those who have come to testify today. 

If I could start with Ms. Smallhouse, you represent the Farm 

Bureau. If your work in Arizona is anything like the Farm Bureau 

in Utah, your state is lucky to have you, and the influence of the 

Farm Bureau in Utah is very important. 

I represent a number of counties that have up to 92 percent 

Federal land. There really is no legitimate option for private land 

in these situations, as you can well imagine. These counties are 

also struggling. We have double-digit unemployment in many of 

these counties. And I am wondering if you can comment about the 

importance of grazing on economic development in our rural counties and rural parts of our states. 

Ms. SMALLHOUSE. Chairman McClintock, Representative Curtis, 

thank you for the question. Living in a rural area of Arizona, I experience firsthand how difficult it is for these local economies to 

keep going. There are a lot of areas, especially in these areas that 

are heavily public lands, there is very limited opportunity for economic development. Most of the economic development that can 

keep these communities going are the opportunities that exist on 

those public lands. 

Now, there are several opportunities. There is recreation, there 

is sportsman’s use, and there is basically grazing. The recreation 

and the sportsman’s use would be very difficult to continue without 

grazing there as a base use on those lands. So, not only by removing grazing from these public lands and these rural areas are you 

impacting the rancher and that part of the rural economy, but you 

are also stripping away the potential for further economic development through those other uses. 

Mr. CURTIS. Is it fair to say that, as a general rule, these prices 

that are set for grazing, that nobody is really getting rich in these 

rural communities off these prices? 

Ms. SMALLHOUSE. Well, I think you can tell by the amount of 

people going out of the ranching business that that is not the case. 

We certainly don’t have people, as was said before, rushing to the 

BLM office to pick up these permits. It is something that you do 

because you love, and you love the land, and you want to manage. 

Mr. CURTIS. Thank you. I am working on some public lands bills 

and you might have well experienced the controversy that comes 

with public lands bills. What do you think is the best way to resolve the conflicts that come surrounding these Federal lands that 

we have? 

Ms. SMALLHOUSE. I actually think that the conflicts are very 

specific, narrow, and targeted. I think the general public supports 

our use of public lands. I think the general public is very supportive of agriculture, in general. 

I think what we have is groups of environmental organizations 

who have discovered how to use environmental laws like the 

Endangered Species Act and NEPA as a tool, like a bat, over our 

heads. And that is not what those laws were intended for. I think 

that if we had a laser focus on how to address the misuse of NEPA 

46 

and ESA, then that would be very helpful in keeping these 

programs efficient and effective. 

Mr. CURTIS. Is it fair to say that these ranchers often feel 

villainized and that they are made out to be the bad guys through 

this environmental process that you described? 

Ms. SMALLHOUSE. As was mentioned earlier, I certainly don’t 

think being referred to as a cancer is a compliment. 

Mr. CURTIS. Good point. 

Dr. Naugle, a lot of my ranchers are concerned about the decreased amount of grazing that is allowed on Federal lands. It 

brings a lot of uncertainty to their lives, and they see a pattern of 

fewer and fewer animals on the land. Are there potential benefits 

to increasing grazing in certain areas? 

Dr. NAUGLE. I can speak to the compatibility of grazing and wildlife conservation. There are two new studies that are not mine, the 

first one is actually from the University of Idaho that shows a 

higher sage-grouse nest survival in grazed versus idled pastures. 

And then they are also looking at insect abundance, and finding 

that periodic grazing by livestock increases food abundance. And, 

of course, that is in a dryer system farther west than in the Rocky 

Mountains, where I do most of my work. 

Mr. CURTIS. Very well, thank you. 

Mr. Chairman, I yield my time. 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. Mr. LaMalfa. 

Mr. LAMALFA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for allowing me to sit 

in today on the Committee. 

Panelists, thank you for coming here today. Obviously, it is a 

tough issue when you have the enviros versus the people out there 

being stewards of the land. What I looked at is that if we did not 

have grazing on these western lands—and I would like to toss this 

first to you, Dr. Naugle, what would it look like in the West, if we 

did not have this, as far as fire suppression and things you mentioned there with the rotation of the landscape? 

If this was completely cut off, like Mr. Molvar would like to see 

happen with very little to no grazing on these western lands, as a 

management tool, as well as whatever economics people might, 

what would that look like in 20 years? 

Dr. NAUGLE. Heterogeneity is enormous. I would caution myself 

against ever making a sweeping general statement, but I believe 

some ecological sites would have the potential to grow more vegetation. Sites that are already over-run with cheatgrass would become 

more flammable. And I don’t think anybody would disagree that, 

from a grouse perspective, our next biggest issue is catastrophic 

wildfire that is most vexing. 

Mr. LAMALFA. Indeed. Anecdotally, I can show you photographs 

here of grazed management areas where a wildfire burned right up 

to the fence line where the grazing stops, and they were able to get 

a handle on the fire, obviously, at that point. 

Ms. Smallhouse, what would you have to offer on that thought? 

What would our western lands look like if we didn’t have this as 

a tool? 

Ms. SMALLHOUSE. I think it is very difficult to ask questions like 

that, because questions like that tend to assume that everywhere 

surrounding those lands looks like it did 200 years ago. In order 

47 

for us to not have a human presence on these watersheds, we 

would not be able to exist. And I think that sometimes the argument is presented by environmental organizations that we can 

manage our lands as if that were the case, and it is not. 

So, I think it just depends on where you are at. Like Dr. Naugle 

stated, it just depends on where you are at and the management 

that is taking place. I think there are definitely areas that would 

have a negative impact from that. And it would not only be on the 

environment, but it would also be to local economies and just families like my own. 

Mr. LAMALFA. Well, environmental groups don’t tend to care 

about local economies, as they are all about every last fish or every 

last grouse. In my own back yard, for example, we have the 

Shasta-Trinity Forest and Plumas that have 14 and 22 vacancies 

for grazing allotments currently. And once those have been allowed 

to lapse, and then boom, you are into the weaponizing of the NEPA 

process, which basically puts complete brakes on ever getting back 

in there, due to the cost, due to the hassle involved in doing that. 

So, areas like mine suffer with even more wildfire in that situation. 

Mr. Molvar, are you a beef user, consumer? 

Mr. MOLVAR. Since I joined Western Watersheds Project and I 

started learning more about the impacts, I eat a lot less beef than 

I used to. I think hunted native species provides most of my red 

meat, pronged-horn antelope, specifically. 

Mr. LAMALFA. Would you expect 300 million Americans out there 

that like meat products to be doing that, as well? 

Mr. MOLVAR. I would not. But on the other hand, as 98 percent 

of America’s beef is produced from private lands, if the public lands 

livestock grazing program were to magically disappear tomorrow, 

which I am not suggesting that it will, that America’s beef consumers would not only have just as much beef as before, but they 

wouldn’t even notice a price difference. 

Mr. LAMALFA. Wouldn’t notice a price difference? I think they 

would in the West. 

Lieutenant Governor Little, what would be the effects in your region, which reminds me a lot of my own Northern California, of the 

continued effort to weaponize the NEPA process and, in general, 

run the beef business out of our public lands? Many times they are 

adjacent to private lands, in which case we see the Federal Government lands are bad neighbors to private lands. You can ask the 

Hammonds about that. 

Mr. LITTLE. There are a lot of ancillary impacts, obviously, and 

what I alluded to in my testimony about the loss of that infrastructure in those communities. People that go to enjoy the public lands 

in the West rely on the hospitals, rely on the schools, rely on the 

commerce that exists there. And if those families are displaced, and 

it is only seasonal occupants, a lot of those communities will 

collapse. 

Mr. LAMALFA. Indeed, all those people that come from the city 

and like going hiking in these back woods and all those wonderful 

outdoor activities would find there is no infrastructure to support 

them should they get in trouble, right? 

Mr. LITTLE. And the fact that the private land that is provided 

would probably, in many instances, be subdivided if they didn’t 

48 

have that adjacent permit to operate. The beef industry, particularly in the states that we represent up here, is very dependent 

upon that critical time period when that livestock is on those public 

lands. It is that winter range, that summer range that makes the 

rest of a ranch operate, whether it is a forest permit or a BLM 

permit, which is an integral part of these ranches that have been 

built for hundreds of years. 

Mr. LAMALFA. Indeed, urban ideology and not having any idea 

what it is like to operate or live in those rural areas, other than 

visitation. Thank you, sir. 

I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. MCCLINTOCK. Thank you. I want to thank our witnesses for 

their expertise and guidance. It has been a very interesting 

hearing, and their presence here is much appreciated. 

We may have some additional questions. If we do, we would ask 

that you respond to them in writing. Under our Committee Rules, 

Members would have to submit witness questions within 3 

business days following the hearing, and the hearing record will be 

held open for 10 business days for those responses. 

If there is no further business before the Subcommittee, without 

objection, the Subcommittee stands adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 11:28 a.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.] 

[LIST OF DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD RETAINED IN THE

COMMITTEE’S OFFICIAL FILES]

Rep. Grijalva Submissions 

— Study entitled ‘‘Ecological Impacts of Public Land Grazing in 

the American West and Why These Impacts Need to be 

Reduced or Eliminated,’’ by Roberta L. Beschta and J. Boone 

Kauffman, Oregon State University, dated July 25, 2018. 

— Testimony of the Public Employees for Environmental 

Responsibility dated July 12, 2018. 

Æ