And now:[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: [EMAIL PROTECTED] replies: October 13, 1999 All stories on the web at: http://www.envirolink.org/environews/ Ranchers, farmers win right to Supreme Court hearing on grazing rights By LAURIE ASSEO Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) -- Ranching and farming groups Tuesday won a Supreme Court hearing for their challenge to the Clinton administration's regulation of livestock grazing on millions of acres of federal land throughout the West. The court voted to study an appeal that says the administration's 1995 rules violate a 65-year-old law and threaten the livelihood of tens of thousands of ranchers. Arguments in the case will be held this winter, and a decision is expected by late June. More than 20,000 livestock producers have permits to graze their cattle and sheep on 170 million acres of federal rangeland in Western states, including large parts of Nevada, Utah, Oregon and Wyoming. Since 1934, such grazing has been regulated by the Department of Interior. Those with permits got preference for renewal when the permit expired, and permit-holders could own the fences they built on public land. In 1995, the Interior Department announced revised rules intended to improve management and protection of federally owned land. Among other changes, the new rules amended the permit process to conform with land-use plans, dropped the requirement that permit applicants be in the livestock business, and gave the government title to new fences or other permanent improvements built by permit-holders. After the Public Lands Council, the National Cattlemen's Beef Association and other groups went to court, a federal judge in Wyoming threw out those three provisions. The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated them, ruling that land-use plans have been considered in the permit process since 1978. The appeal acted on Tuesday said the new rules threw longstanding grazing privileges into uncertainty, and as a result banks will no longer consider government permits as security for loans. "Once established, the grazing privilege is to be regarded as an indefinitely continuing right," the appeal said, adding that the Interior Department exceeded its authority under the 1934 law. Justice Department lawyers said the rules were a "change in terminology" that should provide greater stability for livestock owners, not less. Longstanding grazing permits established "grazing privileges, not rights to graze," the government lawyers said. The case is Public Lands Council vs. Babbitt, 98-1991. Reprinted under the Fair Use http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html doctrine of international copyright law. &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&& Tsonkwadiyonrat (We are ONE Spirit) Unenh onhwa' Awayaton http://www.tdi.net/ishgooda/ &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
