THE PRESIDENT ON POLICY: On the campaign trail, Obama promised to put “an unprecedented level of emphasis on the conservation of private lands.” He has backed conservation efforts — everything from the “Roadless Rule,” which limits development in wilderness areas; to the Conservation Reserve Program; to a measure backed by Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) that would reallocate $2 billion in federal funds by cutting payments to farmers and putting the money into land conservation.

THE PRESIDENT’S PERSONAL LAND: The 43rd President, George W. Bush, hosted heads of state and lead the Free World from his 1,583-acre ranch in Crawford, Texas. Obama’s real property holdings are strictly urban: a $1.6 million house in Chicago’s Kenwood neighborhood and 200-year-old corporate digs in D.C. provided by his employer.

No related posts.

KEN SALAZAR
DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR

THE DEPARTMENT: Interior is the most influential department when it comes to policies affecting landowners. Covered under its jurisdictional umbrella are the National Park Service, the Bureau of Land Management, the Mineral Management Services, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

THE NEW SECRETARY: A senator from Colorado since 2004, Salazar and his brother John (who serves in the U.S. House of Representatives) and six other siblings grew up on a 1,200 acre ranch near the San Antonio River that was originally settled in the 1860s by their great-great grandfather Francisco. Their childhood home had no electricity or running water. Salazar will be one of the most recognizable cabinet secretaries, thanks to the cowboy hat he wears regularly with business attire.

THE EXPECTATIONS: Environmental and conservation groups praised Salazar’s appointment, even though he has not always been their favorite senator. Still, they like the fact that Salazar has long been an advocate of national parks protections, and a critic of oil and gas development on public lands in the western U.S. Cabinet watchers believe that will translate into a rollback of George W. Bush’s moves to open some federal lands to drilling — particularly in Utah. And, landowner groups, especially ranching groups, also have had kind words so far.

TOM VILSACK
DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

THE DEPARTMENT: A powerhouse both in Washington and in rural America, the USDA does everything from providing support to family farmers to regulating food safety.

THE NEW SECRETARY: Vilsack was a two-term governor of Iowa when, in 2006, he became a Democratic presidential primary opponent of Obama. His campaign fizzled almost immediately and he dropped out after three months, eventually becoming co-chairman of Senator Hillary Clinton’s campaign. Apparently the new president isn’t holding any grudges against Vilsack.

THE EXPECTATIONS: The challenges for Vilsack are significant thanks to the current recession. The credit crisis has squeezed farmers; once-hot commodities are now sinking in value; and farmers big and small are cutting jobs to stay profitable. That’s put rural America, which depends on federal policymakers for direction, market regulation, and, often, hard cash, in a worrisome mood.

STEPHEN CHU
DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY

THE DEPARTMENT: The main regulator of industries who generate and supply power — in all its literal forms — the Energy Department also funds hundreds of scientific research projects.
THE NEW SECRETARY: Chu is a Nobel Prize-winning physicist, the first Nobel winner selected to a presidential cabinet. He is also the former head of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

THE EXPECTATIONS: Obama made a plethora of campaign pledges related to energy, and it’ll be Chu’s job to try and deliver. He’ll push to cap greenhouse gas emissions, change regulations related to offshore drilling, and move the U.S. away from foreign oil, in part by creating tax breaks and other incentives for development of renewable energy — including wind farms, which are of particular interest to large landowners such as T. Boone Pickens, whose Mesa Vista Ranch was featured in the Fall 2008 issue.

No related posts.

ENDANGERED SPECIES ACT: The most significant changes to the nation’s most important rule for protecting wildlife came under President Bush. And no change was more substantial than the one that came just weeks before Bush was to leave office. Under a new rule announced by both the Interior Department and Commerce Department, federal agencies will no longer need to consult with independent wildlife experts — or the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service — to determine if any of their projects might have an impact on a given endangered species.

• THE IMPACT ON LANDOWNERS: Mixed. A boon for those hoping to see specific projects proceed at a faster pace. A curse for those hoping to either bolster protections for certain species or use the Endangered Species Law to prevent the feds from pushing through new dams, highways, et cetera.
 
MONUMENTAL NATIONAL MONUMENT EXPANSION: Just days before he left office, Bush designated some 195,280 square miles as “national monuments.” But don’t expect marble sculptures to be erected there anytime soon. Most of the areas that are now protected from development, mining, or oil exploration, are underwater. They include various reefs and sea floors in the Pacific Ocean — parts of the Mariana Trench among them.

• IMPACT ON LANDOWNERS: Positive. True, private landowners don’t have property 20,000 leagues under the sea. But, by focusing on protecting so much of the ocean from commercial use, Bush spared landowners from the kind of 11th-hour protections that other presidents have employed.

A ROADLESS RULE TO NOWHERE: The Bush Administration spent eight years trying to rewrite Clinton Administration rulemaking that prevented commercial activity in road less wilderness areas.

• IMPACT ON LANDOWNERS: Mixed. For landowners whose properties abut federal lands that are not designated as federal wilderness areas, whether Bush’s efforts to change Clinton’s rules were good or bad is a matter of perspective.

DRILL, BABY, DRILL: As Barack Obama was planning his train trip from Philadelphia to Washington, President Bush and his Interior Department were proposing a major expansion to oil and gas drilling areas on both coasts.

• IMPACT ON LANDOWERS: Negative. Though some private landowners could stand to profit from expanded offshore drilling, Obama has already said he intends to explore a comprehensive energy policy before deciding whether or where that kind of expansion should take place.

No related posts.

Some lawmakers want to roll back rules put in place by the Bush Administration. Others want Obama’s White House to put more money into land and less into tax breaks as a means to boost the economy.

Here’s a rundown on several key legislators and their committees — all of whom are worth watching as the year progresses. A complete review of the key players will be featured as the cover story of the Spring 2009 Land Report.

THE SENATE

COMMITTEE: Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources
RETURNING CHAIR: Jeff Bingaman, D-New Mexico
RANKING REPUBLICAN: Pete Domenici, R-New Mexico
BATTLE LINES: Though he’s an advocate of “green” policies, Bingaman has introduced a $10 billion legislative package that bundles 160 different bills into a single proposal. A single proposal that runs 1,300 pages long, that is. The Omnibus Lands Management Act seeks to capitalize on the new weakness of Senate Republicans, who have blocked some of the 160 measures it contains.

COMMITTEE: Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry
RETURNING CHAIR: Tom Harkin, D-Iowa. 
RANKING REPUBLICAN: Saxby Chambliss, R-Georgia
BATTLE LINES: We know this: There won’t be a fight over President-Elect Obama’s choice of agriculture secretary, Tom Vilsack. Harkin has already thrown his support behind Vilsack, a fellow Iowan, and Harkin’s committee will hold Vilsack’s confirmation hearings.

COMMITTEE: Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works
RETURNING CHAIR: Barbara Boxer, D-California.
RANKING REPUBLICAN: James Inhofe, R-Oklahoma
BATTLE LINES: Boxer, like Harkin, also will ask the Obama Administration to ramp up spending to boost the economy. In particular, she’ll seek more funds for waterway projects.

THE HOUSE

COMMITTEE: House Committee on Energy and Commerce
NEW CHAIR: Henry Waxman, D-California.
RANKING REPUBLICAN: Joe Barton, R-Texas
BATTLE LINES: Waxman toppled Dingell in part because he promised to push for stricter laws on greenhouse gas emission. That may mean a crackdown on coal producers, whom Waxman has targeted in previous legislation.

COMMITTEE: House Committee on Natural Resources
RETURNING CHAIR: Nick Rahall, West Virginia.
RANKING REPUBLICAN: Doc Hastings, R-Washington
BATTLE LINES: Though his party is now fully in charge of Congress and the White House, Rahall may still have a fight on his hands with Rep. Waxman on coal (see above) as well as with the outgoing Bush Administration.

COMMITTEE: House Committee on Agriculture
RETURNING CHAIR: Collin Peterson, D-Minnesota.
RANKING REPUBLICAN: Bob Goodlatte, R-Virginia.
BATTLE LINES: Just a year into his chairmanship, Peterson led the charge in the House to buck President Bush’s second veto of the Food, Conservation and Energy Act of 2008, aka, the Farm Bill. In the current Congress, Peterson will be called on to press for more regulation of commodity futures markets, which have been extremely volatile in the current recession.

No related posts.

When the U.S. Supreme Court convened in October, the men (and woman) in black did not discuss landowner water rights. And for a pair of longtime Idaho ranchers—and perhaps other landowners—no news might mean bad news.

For the moment, the court has made no decision on whether to take up the case of Joyce Livestock vs. the United States. Earlier this year, Joyce and LU Ranching won a ruling against the federal government in Idaho’s Supreme Court in a potentially precedent-setting case of grazing rights.

Ranchers have long been subject to the rules set by the Bureau of Land Management under the 1934 Taylor Grazing Act. That act allows federal officials to set the terms under which ranchers can use public lands, including whether and how much water can be used.

But in 2005, Joyce and LU challenged that law as it applied to Idaho’s Snake River Basin. They argued that because they had operated in the area for more than 100 years—long before the Taylor Act—they had established water rights that the government could not remove.

By February of this year, their case reached the Idaho Supreme Court, which ruled in favor of the livestock firms. But the court did not allow the companies’ claim to have the U.S. government pay their $1.3 million court fees. Idaho’s Supreme Court said the government did not act frivolously. The ranchers argued that the Equal Access to Justice Act—a law intended to prevent the government from running roughshod over small businesses and individuals by prolonging expensive litigation—entitled them to court costs. But the Idaho court said it had no jurisdiction to rule on that claim, leaving the U.S. Supreme Court as the last resort.

With the court’s docket already set until next year, precedent-watchers will have to wait on a final outcome.

No related posts.

Under a federal law, the BLM, an arm of the Department of the Interior, has begun buying private properties that carve into federal wildlife refuges, national parks, national forests, and their ilk, making those lands difficult to access or manage. Though the law—the Federal Land Transaction Facilitation Act—was passed in 2000, federal agencies had not used it to make a land acquisition until this fall. In September, the BLM, working with the Forest Service, the National Park Service, and the Fish and Wildlife Service, offered $18 million to snap up 19 parcels of private land in seven states. Overall, some 9,000 acres of land were acquired in New Mexico, Idaho, Arizona, Colorado, Wyoming, Oregon, and California.

The last of those states provides a good example of the law’s intent. The BLM and other agencies spent $850,000 to buy 321 acres near the Coachella Valley Fringe-toed Lizard Preserve, a tongue-twisting federal wildlife refuge near Palm Springs. The preserve features both sand dunes and rocky hills and is home to the threatened fringe-toed lizard, which is found nowhere else in the world. The reason the BLM wanted the land was that it separated the preserve from the Joshua Tree National Park.

The equally tongue-twisting Federal Land Transaction Facilitation Act can also work the other way around. In cases where federal lands are isolated by surrounding private properties, making them of little value to the government, the BLM can offer those parcels for sale. It can also sell off lands that have clear residential or commercial worth. The BLM has made $95 million from such sales so far.

Most of that money is required to go to further land acquisitions, like the purchases the BLM made in September. “These purchases promote conservation while helping ensure efficient and effective public lands management,” said Lynn Scarlett, deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior, during the dedication ceremony for the Coachella Valley property.

And if you’re wondering: No, this is not eminent domain. The act stipulates that government agencies only buy property from willing sellers.

No related posts.

A program the U.S. Department of Agriculture calls “one of the largest systematic changes ever faced by the livestock industry” may be in trouble. The National Animal Identification System, which has been praised by some large livestock companies and panned by many individual landowners, was criticized in a government audit this summer. The Government Accountability Office concluded the NAIS might be “in danger of losing momentum.” At the same time, the U.S. House of Representatives didn’t include new, direct funding for the program in the version of the farm bill it passed. (At press time, the Senate’s version of the farm bill was unavailable.)

The NAIS has been plagued by controversy ever since the USDA announced it four years ago. Th e program was designed to track livestock by location. It asked landowners to register their properties—an address will usually do, but some instances require latitude and longitude coordinates—and register all animals kept on their property. Landowners would also have to log the animals’ whereabouts from birth until death and even implant radio frequency identification tags to help track the animals.

Despite how Orwellian that sounds, the intention behind the NAIS—improving food safety—is unassailable. The USDA insists the program will allow the government to track disease outbreaks among livestock bound for the food chain. Th at ability—to track and potentially limit animal-borne diseases—could make U.S. food products more desirable on the world market, especially since other countries have adopted similar programs. No surprise, then, that the NAIS has found considerable favor with large livestock producers in the United States.

It hasn’t been as popular, though, with some individual landowners. Though the NAIS is a voluntary program, its big-brother aspects have raised the ire of hundreds of landowners who either keep livestock as pets or for limited commercial use. Opposition groups like the Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance and the Liberty Ark Coalition have been formed to stifle the NAIS. One Liberty Ark member called the NAIS “one of the most all-encompassing attacks on our right to farm and keep pets as has ever been fomented.”

The government has clearly been listening to that opposition. State governments, that is. Legislation has been proposed in 12 statehouses that would ban or limit states’ participation in the NAIS or similar programs. Those proposals come even as the USDA is funding grants to state and local governments that develop their own registration programs. The USDA has already handed out $35 million in grants.

But that money didn’t help 16-year-old Brandi Calderwood. She was ejected from the Colorado State Fair’s junior livestock sale this summer because the fair’s board had voted to require entrants to be in compliance with some aspects of the NAIS. Though Calderwood did register her animals, the board believed she erred in correctly identifying their location. That’s the kind of bureaucratic mess opponents of the NAIS say will spread nationwide should the program be made mandatory. But the GAO says that if it remains a voluntary program, “that may affect [the USDA’s] ability to attract the necessary levels of participation” to make the program eff ective at limiting animal disease outbreaks. Initially the program was to be mandatory, but responding to opposition from some industry groups, the USDA made the program voluntary in 2006. NAIS has more than 400,000 registrants, and the USDA hopes all livestock owners will be registered by 2009.

One of the objections to making the NAIS mandatory was that the USDA had not yet said how much the program would cost individual livestock owners. The GAO also criticized the USDA for not conducting a cost-benefit analysis on the program to prove that “the potential benefits of the program outweigh the costs.”

The USDA just awarded a contract to several universities to do an independent cost-benefit analysis on the NAIS. And with the House apparently not in the mood to directly fund the program this year, that study, due back early next year, may prove to be both the figurative and literal bottom line on the future of the NAIS.

No related posts.

More than 5,000 acres of federal land in North Dakota’s Badlands could go up for sale. That’s up to Congress. The property is supposed to be offered as a unique offset to a purchase made by the U.S. Forest Service. Last spring, the Forest Service ended a years-long controversy by spending $5.3 million on a 5,200-acre ranch across the Little Missouri River from the Elkhorn Ranch, a property once owned by Theodore Roosevelt and considered by many as the nation’s “cradle of conservation.”

Roosevelt retreated to the ranch in the late 1880s and emerged three and a half years later as an avowed environmentalist who would, as president, go on to add millions of acres to the government’s holdings for use as national forests, parks, and wildlife refuges. But adding to the government’s holdings was just what the Forest Service didn’t want to do when it bought the neighboring Blacktail Creek Ranch. After all, the government already owns 1.2 million acres in North Dakota. Some local ranchers and officials vehemently opposed taking a working ranch out of production just so Roosevelt’s property could continue to enjoy an unspoiled view.

So, in a unique compromise, the Forest Service said it would buy the Blacktail Creek Ranch and sell an equivalent amount of land it already owns in North Dakota, but that it would sell that land only to about 40 ranchers who currently own property in Billings County, where Elkhorn Ranch is located. And that’s where Congress gets involved. Or not. Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-North Dakota and a proponent of the ranch purchase, says he doesn’t support legislation with such restrictions.

No related posts.

BY JOSEPH GUINTO
PUBLISHED SEPTEMBER 2007

Some will ask nicely: A bill in the Senate sponsored by Sen. Harry Reid, the Nevada Democrat who is that chamber’s majority leader, and by his Nevada Republican counterpart, Sen. John Ensign, would provide incentive payments for landowners to regularly clear the underbrush that helps fuel wildfires. Some will ask not so nicely: State and local lawmakers out West are considering boosting wildfire protection fees charged to landowners living in or near forested areas. In Washington state, legislators are addressing whether the current fee, $18 per every 50 acres, is high enough.

The proposed legislation is partly in response to political pressure on the U.S. Forest Service. That agency is responsible for fighting major forest fires, whether in a lead role or by providing aid to local firefighters. And that responsibility is getting more costly. In 2006, nearly 13,600 square miles of  land burned in the United States, a record amount. Fighting large wildfires, like the one that broke out near the Hollywood Hills atop Los Angeles in May, can cost as much as $1 million a day. And in this decade alone, the Forest Service’s annual firefighting budget has almost tripled. It’s expected to hit $3 billion this year.

The Government Accountability Office says that growth is too much, too fast. In a report to Congress earlier this year, the GAO suggested that the Forest Service was spending too much on fire suppression and not enough on prevention.

But officials with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees the Forest Service, say their job has been complicated by development. In particular, they say landowners whose properties are near or within forests have made fighting wildfires harder, in part because their properties can provide fuel for the fires, and have forced them to fight fires differently—focusing on protecting private properties rather than heading off fires as they creep deeper into forested areas.

In Congressional testimony this past June, Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Ray made this point clear, saying, “Every new subdivision presents … an inherently more expensive fire-suppression cost, if we’re going to defend that subdivision.”

No one is suggesting neighborhoods be abandoned, but they are suggesting that properties located deep within forests could be at risk. One budget-saving measure the Forest Service is already adopting is to let some fires in remote areas burn themselves out. This natural way of letting forests thin themselves can help prevent larger fires, but for landowners deep within forests, that’s bad news. Forest Service officials have said they will act to save lives deep in the woods, but the agency’s director of fire and aviation management told the Los Angeles Times recently that they may not act to save property there.

Regardless of Forest Service reforms, lawmakers seem intent on tasking landowners to do more. But if Reid’s legislation passes, they’ll get something in return. At the local level, there could be an extra benefit for landowners in forested areas near urban centers, and some local governments may relax anti-sprawl regulations to allow homes near forests to be built farther apart, allowing for wider roads that firefighting vehicles can more easily navigate. And there remains the possibility that local governments could fine landowners who don’t regularly clear certain types of brush.

The bottom line: The summer’s fires may be out, but the political smoke is far from clearing.

No related posts.

BY JOSEPH GUINTO
PUBLISHED AUGUST 2007

This summer, the group, which consists of former National Park Service rangers and former officials from the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management, asked Congress to investigate the financial impact on public lands of damages caused by off-road vehicles. The group also suggested that off-roaders who divert from designated trails be subject to having their hunting and fishing licenses suspended and their vehicles confiscated.
 
Although their concerns are not new, the influence they wield may be. Off-road vehicles have been causing concerns for years, as suburban and ex-urban neighborhoods push into formerly open lands, forcing off-roaders to increasingly turn to the wide-open spaces of public lands and rural, private properties. But many public lands are not equipped to handle the vehicles-trails are poorly marked, if marked at all, and not enough rangers are on hand to guide riders to proper riding places.

That’s where PEER and Rangers for Responsible Recreation want Congress to come in. Calling “reckless” off-roading the “single greatest threat to American landscapes,” they’re hoping to convince lawmakers to account for the damage being done by off-road vehicles to sensitive ecosystems in hopes that it will push Congress to boost funding for protecting public properties.

Off-road riding advocacy groups bemoan PEER’s condemnation of off-roaders but support better trail development and efforts at rider education.  

Congress may already be listening to both sides. The House and Senate have passed funding increases for the U.S. Forest Service’s Trails and Recreation budgets for fiscal year 2008. That’s a key line item. Trails and Recreation are where the Forest Service is getting the money to pay for development of a comprehensive trail system for off-roaders to use. That project, launched in 2005, is to be completed by 2009. It would not only pave proper trails but more clearly mark them as well. This past summer, the House upped the Trails budget by $4.6 million from fiscal 2006. The Senate approved a lesser increase of $2 million. The sides are expected to come together on a compromise increase this fall.

In the meantime, PEER and its group of concerned rangers will keep pushing for more out of Capitol Hill.

No related posts.