The court's action now makes it easier for the federal government to reduce numbers of cattle and sheep across the West's wide-open prairies, forests and rangelands as part of efforts to stop overgrazing, protect fragile streams and restore endangered species. The ruling does not affect privately owned land. What the Supreme Court has done is reaffirm that the secretary of the interior, and not the ranchers, rule the public rangelands,'' said Johanna Wald, an attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group in San Francisco. The ranching industry described the ruling as the latest in a series of setbacks that will make it more difficult for livestock operators to make a living on federal land or to obtain loans from banks. Cattle grazing is the biggest commercial use of public land in the West.
Grazing occurs on much of that acreage.
The BLM, whose lands were affected by Monday's court ruling, controls 176 million acres in the Lower 48, most of it in 12 Western states. The report found that large corporations and millionaires, such as hotel mogul Barron Hilton and computer heiress Mary Hewlett Jaffee, benefit the most from below-market grazing fees and other rules. At issue Monday was a lawsuit filed by livestock groups against the U.S. Department of Interior, seeking to overturn environmental reforms put in place by the Clinton administration in 1995. Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt said they were an attempt to reduce ecological damage. Numerous biological reports have found that overgrazing, particularly in stream areas, has driven birds and fish to the endangered list.