Lawmakers OK Plan to Double U.S. Grazing Fees

House and Senate negotiators, hoping to resolve a long-simmering dispute, agreed Thursday to double fees for ranchers whose sheep and cattle graze on federal lands but rebuffed even higher increases sought by the Clinton Administration.

Led by Western lawmakers, including Rep. George Miller (D-Martinez), House and Senate negotiators voted to increase the grazing fee from $1.86 to $3.45 per “animal unit month,” the forage needed to feed a cow and her calf or five sheep for a month.

The increase would be phased in over three years.

The Administration had sought to raise the fee to $4.28 but accepted Thursday’s compromise because it includes policy changes sought by Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt to improve the management of federal lands.

Senate opponents vowed to fight the measure, with Sen. Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.) saying that he will organize a filibuster.

Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.), one of the chief authors of the compromise, acknowledged Thursday that ranchers may not like this proposal. “But try on Bruce Babbitt’s proposal, and I think they would like that less,” he said.

The measure would affect grazing on 272 million acres of federally owned land, changing a number of policies that environmentalists charge have contributed to the degradation of federal lands.

In striking the compromise, the lawmakers approved virtually all other land-use reforms sought by Babbitt in an Aug. 9 announcement, including elimination of grazing advisory boards, which granted grazing permits and were seen as too accommodating to ranchers.

The reforms would also restrict the length of time and the circumstances under which ranchers automatically would retain their grazing rights, making the ranchers more accountable for care of the land.

Ranching interests immediately denounced the compromise. Randall Brewer, president of the Public Lands Council and a rancher from Idaho, said it will “devastate tens of thousands of ranch families who have for over a century provided stewardship on the public land and food and fiber for this nation.”

Environmentalists expressed disappointment with the compromise and with the Administration’s backing of the measure. Wilderness Society spokesman Rich Hoppe said Babbitt’s willingness to retreat from the higher fees has renewed doubts among environmentalists about the Administration’s conviction in the face of opposition.

“This has become the incredible shrinking grazing-reform package,” Hoppe said. “Every time we hear someone talking about it, we find a little less and a little less. Now, it looks like the taxpayers are going to get ripped off for only half as much as they had for years. Anyone who calls that a victory has a different view than we do.”

But Babbitt spokesman Kevin Sweeney defended the compromise efforts as necessary to break more than a decade of inaction on grazing reform.