Boise, Idaho – Amid significant recent controversy over the national public lands grazing program, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the U.S. Forest Service announced today the 2016 fee for grazing livestock on public allotments. At a mere $2.11 per cow/calf pair (AUM), it is clear that the government plans to keep up the heavy subsidies for this extractive industry. Despite this ongoing giveaway, it appears this year that the agencies are trying to lay low about the fee increase and have declined to issue a press advisory announcing this year’s rates, unlike previous years when the announcement was made public in January.

“We have been hearing a lot about the problems of public lands management,” said Travis Bruner, Executive Director of Western Watersheds Project. “Really it’s the taxpayers who are the ones getting a raw deal regarding grazing. In addition to losing valuable ecological function, wildlife habitat, and scenery, Americans are effectively supporting a very narrow welfare program for the benefit of western livestock operations. The BLM and Forest Service charge far lower than fair rates and still seem embarrassed this year to bring them up.”

Two hundred and twenty million acres of public lands in the West are used for private livestock industry profits through the management of approximately 22,000 grazing permits. The low fee leaves the federal program at a deficit of at least $120 million dollars each year. This year, the fee was raised to $2.11 per AUM, the maximum allowed in an annual increase, but still far less than the average cost for private lands grazing leases. The fee is calculated using a decades-old formula that takes into account the price of fuel and the price of beef, and this year’s fee doesn’t even reach the level of $2.31 per AUM that was charged in 1980. Additionally, the fee doesn’t cover the cost to taxpayers of range infrastructure, erosion control, vegetation manipulation, and government predator killing – all indirect subsidies that expand the program’s total deficit.

“The deep pockets of the federal government have kept the livestock industry’s public lands grazing program running,” said Bruner, “which is an irony that anti-government ranching zealots seem to miss when they advocate ‘giving back the land.’ But maybe the public has now had enough of supporting this ungrateful industry and enough ranchers will tear up their permits to convince the government to end the program altogether.”