The Bush Administration Proposes Weakened Grazing Rules
ACT NOW! Deadline March 2.  Your help is needed!
Forwarded by Jane Clark

The Bush administration has proposed to weaken the rules that now govern
livestock grazing on public lands by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM).
The proposed changes would overturn efforts over the past decade--including
1995 regulations by the Clinton administration aimed at improving public
rangeland condition and reducing the impacts of grazing on watersheds,
wildlife, and cultural treasures.

We need your help in defending our public lands from this attack by the
Bush administration.

See WHAT TO DO section below.

The Sierra Club believes that the Bush administrations proposed BLM grazing
regulations will damage wildlife and biological diversity. Habitat will
continue to decline as the BLM does an expensive, exhaustive, and
unnecessary grazing management process.  These regulations further limit
the BLM's ability to control illegal and resource-degrading activities on
all American's lands, and starts to gives away rights to those lands to
livestock operators.

Some Key Problems of the Proposed Rules:

1- Restricting public input into decisions about public lands grazing

The Bush administration is proposing to limit public participation to
generic, broad land use plans which are not designed to correct specific
problems. Other changes give increased powers to ranchers at the expense of
the owners of the land--the citizens--and the ecological health of the land
by precluding challenges from the public to poor decisions by the agency.

2-Ending the requirement to quickly address harmful grazing practices and
instead requiring years of detailed monitoring data before action is taken
against damaging grazing

Together, these two rule changes virtually ensure that necessary changes
will not be made. BLM professionals generally know what actions are needed
to correct problems from improper grazing because the studies they have
done are sufficient to show damage from overgrazing. A U.S. General
Accounting Office study showed that BLM had neither the money nor the staff
to perform the detailed studies proposed in the new regulations. Lacking
funds and staff, these new studies?which are usually unnecessary?will
almost never happen, allowing further damage to continue.

3- Limiting the conditions under which a grazing permit may be revoked

The Bush proposal would make it easier for livestock owners to violate laws
without fear that their permits could be revoked. Grazing permits are not
rights. Nevertheless, the Bush administration is taking decisions about
public lands from us and giving them to special interests

4- Giving ranchers ownership rights of Public Lands

This would give livestock owners ownership of facilities such as wells,
fences, and pipelines on BLM public lands even though most of those have
been built with money from BLM. This will make it hard to close overgrazed
areas to grazing or replace poor ranchers with good ones.

WHAT TO DO:
1- Write the BLM by March 2. Use this alert and your own knowledge to
detail problems with the new rules and EIS. Tell the BLM you are commenting
on both the rules and EIS. Be sure to include your name and address, and
sign those sent by mail. Send your letter US PO to:

SEND A LETTER
Director (220), Bureau of Land Management, Eastern States Office, 7450
Boston Boulevard, Springfield, Virginia 22153, Attn: Revised Grazing
Regulations DEIS
--OR?

Comment online at BLM's website at http://www.blm.gov/grazing or send an
email to [log in to unmask]  **Be sure to include your name and address.

2- COPY your Senator or Representative.
Senator _____, US Senate, Washington, DC 20510
Representative ____, US House of Representatives, Washington, DC 20515
Or online at www.senate.gov or www.house.gov

For More Information contact:
Sierra Club Grazing Committee, contact its Chair Wayne Hoskisson at:
[log in to unmask];

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