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]; - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Make your voice heard! Find out how to get Take Action Alerts and other important Sierra Club messages by email at: http://www.sierraclub.org/email