Republicans are balking at cheap bison grazing rates on public lands

If grazing cattle is the key to preventing wildfires why is ranch country still suffering from near daily high even extreme grassland fire danger indices? 

After calling nearly every Trump era ruling illegal Montana's Tracy Stone-Manning became Director of the Bureau of Land Management within the Department of Interior. 

American Prairie (APR) near Malta in north-central Montana got its first bison from Wind Cave in occupied South Dakota in 2005 and hopes to have 1,000 animals grazing on some three million acres of federal land owned by the Bureau of Land Management connected with corridors to a half million acres of private ground. A recent decision by the BLM allows for 7,969 animal unit months at $1.35 per AUM of permitted use with a 1:1 conversion from cattle to bison. 

Aside from the larger issue of the APR’s creation of a de facto nature reserve involving thousands of acres of public land, two main issues are intertwined in the bison grazing controversy. The first is the BLM’s decision to authorize grazing permits or leases for “privately owned or controlled indigenous animals” (including buffalo or bison) even when those animals are not used in production agriculture. The second is the BLM’s contention that the livestock industry’s view that the Taylor Grazing Act reserved BLM lands for production agriculture is a “misinterpretation” of the 1934 grazing law. That BLM has authorized a bison conservation herd under its livestock grazing permit authority remains a core issue, according to attorney Karen Budd-Falen, who pledged the livestock industry will appeal the BLM decision. [BLM Okays Prairie Reserve Bison Grazing]

That Republican welfare ranchers are angry about the ruling means it's the right thing to do.

In March Director Stone-Manning told a Republican livestock group the BLM is changing grazing rules to better protect habitat for the greater sage grouse.

The government watchdog group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) used BLM data to develop an interactive digital map that found 54 million acres of federal lands the bureau leased for livestock grazing failed land healthy standards for basic physical and biological factors (E&E News PM, March 14). While Stone-Manning did echo BLM’s comments earlier this month that the bureau “disagreed” with some of the conclusions in the PEER report, she acknowledged the backlog of environmental reviews on permit renewals, as required by the National Environmental Policy Act. “The second study that was out there that talked about the stale NEPA on a bunch of our permits is true,” she said. “It is just not OK that everybody on this screen has permits, in some cases, that are 20 years old; it’s not OK.” [Stone-Manning: BLM sage grouse changes, grazing rule coming soon]

States are scrambling to preserve habitat for bison, wapiti, bighorn sheep, pronghorns, deer, the greater sage grouse and all the other wildlife at risk to the GOP but how are public pastures for feral horses and burros either conservative or sustainable?

The grassland fire danger index will reach the extreme category in much of Montana for the next three days.

Learn more at Yellowstone Public Radio.

BLM seeks comments on RMP amendment for Pryor horse herd management. Go to: https://t.co/FQCcloGr2F. Search using the NEPA number: DOI-BLM-MT-C010-2020-004-EA. pic.twitter.com/MkEkaPwn0n

— BLM Montana/Dakotas (@BLM_MTDKs) March 30, 2022