2000 News Archive
PRODUCERS URGE AGENCIES TO SUPPORT PERMIT RENEWAL
WASHINGTON D.C. (August 9, 2000) – To avoid widespread financial hardship among Western cattle ranchers, the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association and the Public Lands Council recently requested that federal agencies support grazing permit renewal language.
NCBA and PLC sent a letter to Bureau of Land Management Director Tom Fry outlining producer concerns. It is important that no interruption of grazing occurs on federal lands, especially since extreme drought and wildfires are consuming arable land, the groups said. These conditions have forced the agency to move much of its professional staff into fire fighting roles, leaving range management and permit renewals as low priorities.
The Senate and House passed version of the Interior Appropriations bill that include language protecting grazing permit renewal through FY 2001. NCBA and PLC will urge the conference committee to safeguard that language as it crafts a compromise measure.
The Department of Interior and the BLM have said that permit renewal language in the Interior Appropriations Bill is not necessary, and that they will complete all of the FY2001 renewals along with the carry over of FY2000 permits from this year. They took this position before the current drought and fire situation.
“Should the range land fire situation worsen and begin to affect your ability to complete permit renewals in a timely manner, we would hope you would rethink your position on permit renewal protection language,” the letter stated. “It would be tragic for permittees to be forced to deal with fire consuming large amounts of forage from their grazing permits, and then have to deal with the loss of access to other permitted lands due to permit renewals that were not completed.”
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Producer-directed and consumer-focused, the National Cattlemen's Beef Association is the trade association of America’s cattle farmers and ranchers, and the marketing organization for the largest segment of the nation’s food and fiber industry.