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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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The White House accelerated funding for its Healthy Lands Initiative this year, allocating some $3 million to the Bureau of Land Management. The money must be spent on restoring or maintaining natural habitats on federal lands, and more will be made available in 2008.

But the sum isn’t nearly what one lobbying group is seeking for refuges. The Cooperative Alliance for Refuge Enhancement (CARE), which unites an array of environmental, hunting, and scientific organizations, wants the budget for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s National Wildlife Refuge System doubled by 2013. CARE has long pushed for more monies to go toward the nation’s wildlife refuges. Yet even with bipartisan support, they’ve won only modest increases. The Fish and Wildlife Service says funding for the refuge system has increased from about $300 million a year in 2001 to $383 million today, but the agency says that’s not enough to keep up with federally mandated raises for employees and deteriorating conditions at many refuges.

CARE agrees. Last spring, the organization released a lengthy report that offered a breakdown of what CARE sees as funding shortfalls for and shabby upkeep at wildlife refuges. The report concludes that the nation’s refuges are at a crisis point. The group wants funding for the National Wildlife Refuge System increased by $55 million next year with continued increases each subsequent year.

Many members of Congress have endorsed CARE’s efforts, including Rep. Jim Saxton (R-New Jersey). Still, at the moment, there is no legislation working its way through the Capitol that would give the refuge system the funding CARE is seeking.

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BY JOSEPH GUINTO
PUBLISHED JULY 2007

The “Open Fields” legislation has been winding its way through the Capitol since 2003, but it has yet to see a floor vote. That may be about to change. Backers hope to attach Open Fields to the annual farm bill, and that bill is expected to emerge from committees in the House and Senate this month, headed for floor votes.

If Open Fields goes to the floor as well, lawmakers will have to evaluate whether its cost is worth its promise. The cost: $100 million total from 2008 to 2012. The promise: As many as 4 million new acres will open each year to both hunting and fishing enthusiasts. Under Open Fields, the USDA would award grants to state programs that pay landowners to open their properties and make improvements on them that attract more wildlife.

The bill has strong backing from sportsmen’s groups and some conservationists. And backers in Congress are making an economic argument that may connect with their colleagues.

“Anyone who has driven through a rural community in the fall has seen the ‘Welcome Hunters’ signs in front of Main Street restaurants and local motels,” says Rep. Jerry Moran, D-Kansas, and one of Open Fields’ co-sponsors in the House. “This legislation will help ‘ boost rural economies and provide additional income to our farmers and ranchers.”

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BY JOSEPH GUINTO
PUBLISHED JUNE 2007

Currently the act gives the federal government regulatory authority over “navigable” interstate waterways. It’s intended to limit pollution discharges into major U.S. rivers and lakes.

But the Clean Water Act’s scope could get a lot broader. A bill backed by Rep. James Oberstar (D-Minnesota) would slice the word “navigable” out of the act. The bill’s backers say the change is crucial. For one thing, they argue that the Clean Water Act’s powers have been diminished in recent years by court rulings and other acts of Congress. They also say the word “navigable” unfairly limits the government’s powers to keep major waterways clean because non-navigable waters-think ponds and streams too small for boating traffic-may feed into navigable waters. 

That’s certainly true. Non-navigable waterways come into some form of contact with navigable waters all over the country. But how the final, rewritten Clean Water Act would read could make the difference between the feds regulating major non-navigable waters and, well, that troubling mud puddle.

Rob Robertson, vice president of governmental relations for the Nebraska Farm Bureau, is one of those worried about the puddles. “This would move the Clean Water Act beyond protecting wetlands and waterways by creating legislation that would regulate nearly every wet area in the nation, from ditches to gutters and possibly groundwater.”

Oberstar says his Clean Water Authority Restoration Act is simply intended to restore the Clean Water Act’s original intent-to give regulatory agencies the power to keep interstate waterways clean.

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BY JOSEPH GUINTO
PUBLISHED MAY 2007

To date, the best hope for the turtle and others were protections granted them under the Endangered Species Act, a 1973 law that promises to safeguard nearly 1,300 birds, amphibians, mammals, fish, and plants.

For all its good intentions, the ESA has been surrounded by controversy for the restrictions that were imposed on landowners whose properties are home to the endangered. “Private property owners … have been victims of the restrictions mandated by the original law,” says Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska).

Still, there is little political will in Washington for rewriting the act itself. Now lawmakers are hoping tax incentives will help make it obsolete. This year, bipartisan groups in the House and Senate have proposed legislation that would give tax credits to landowners if they spend their own money to protect and recover endangered and threatened species that live on or migrate through their property. The bills would also give landowners a tax break if they agree not to sell or develop land where endangered species live.

As of press time, no floor action was scheduled on either the House or Senate bills. But with Congress in a “green” mood, Capitol Hill watchers consider the chances good for action on the tax breaks. Sen. Max Baucus (D-Montana) may be the key. He’s chair of the Senate Finance Committee, which oversees tax-break legislation. “It’s pretty hard to jam something down somebody’s throat,” Baucus says of the ESA. “The more we move toward encouraging people to take actions on their own, the more we’re going to achieve the results we’re looking for.”

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Act now or forever lose your easement. A tax break for conservation-related land donations-known as conservation easements-is about to expire. That is unless Congress does something about it.

The tax break, signed into law by President Bush in August 2006, vastly expanded the deductions landowners could get in exchange for donating their lands to trusts and surrendering the right to develop those lands. But unless the tax break is extended, it will only apply to lands donated in 2006 or 2007

Some landowner lobby groups are pushing hard for an extension, as are members of Congress, who note that the temporary tax deductions passed in 2006 added to the increasing popularity of conservation easements. The Land Trust Alliance, a Washington, D.C.-based interest group, reports that even before the new tax breaks went into effect, the total acreage of conservation easements under control of land trusts had skyrocketed. Acreage under easement increased 148 percent from 2000 to 2005, reaching 6.2 million acres at last count.

For landowners of moderate income, whom the 2006 bill was intended to help, a lot is at stake if the tax break is not extended. The government offers this example: Under the current law, if a rancher earning $50,000 a year on a ranch appraised at $2 million donated half his property to a conservation easement, he would be able to receive $800,000 in tax deductions over a maximum of 16 years. Once the law expires, the maximum tax break on the same donation would fall to $90,000 over a maximum of six years.

Numbers like that have inspired influential Democrats and Republicans in Congress to sponsor bills that would permanently extend the 2006 tax break.

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