WASHINGTON — In a bid to reform the management of public lands, the Clinton Administration Monday proposed more than doubling the fees that ranchers pay to graze their herds on federal property and announced new steps to protect the nation's grasslands from further environmental destruction.
Under a draft policy announced by Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, the increase in fees on 272 million acres of land would raise an additional $98.5 million over the next four years. Where ranchers now pay $1.86 per month to graze an "animal unit"--five sheep or a cow and her calf--the new proposal would raise the rate to $4.28 per month over three years.
The new policy marks the second time in six months that the Administration has sought to raise grazing fees and end what many have called a government-sponsored giveaway that has outlived its original purpose of encouraging settlement in the Western states.
In February, the Administration unveiled a plan that would have raised fees much higher. But after lawmakers from Western states protested, the Administration scuttled the proposal. Babbitt said that the plan he announced Monday represented an effort to treat grazing not just as a federal revenue issue but as an environmental issue as well.
"This proposal delivers on President Clinton's promise that taxpayers will be treated fairly when it comes to the use of their natural resources," Babbitt told reporters Monday. "It is our belief that the ranching community is getting a good deal and they know it. And the public is getting a fair deal."
Environmentalists largely welcomed Babbitt's proposal. James W. Norton, southwest regional director of the Wilderness Society, called it "a step in the right direction" that will help protect and heal federal lands from the effects of overgrazing and poor maintenance.
But many ranchers argued that an increase in fees will have an environmental impact quite different from that intended, driving ranchers off the land and opening the way for shopping malls and housing developments to replace many of the sheep and cattle herds that roam the West.
Babbitt's remarks begin a period of at least several months during which the public will be invited to comment on the proposal. The announced policy would not begin to take effect until next year at the earliest and Babbitt said that in principle the federal government can implement such changes simply by issuing new regulations. But lawmakers and ranchers can fight it in Congress and the courts and are widely expected to do so.
