tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/sagebrush-rebellion-23839/articlesSagebrush Rebellion – The Conversation2020-01-08T12:19:21Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1269902020-01-08T12:19:21Z2020-01-08T12:19:21ZMoving Bureau of Land Management headquarters to Colorado won’t be good for public lands<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/308699/original/file-20200106-123403-1739qkk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C2100%2C1405&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Sheep grazing on BLM land near Shoshone, Idaho.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://flic.kr/p/NQ6N1s">BLM/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Trump administration has pursued many controversial goals in managing U.S. public lands, including <a href="https://theconversation.com/president-trumps-national-monument-rollback-is-illegal-and-likely-to-be-reversed-in-court-88376">shrinking national monuments</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-trump-administration-is-scrapping-a-collaborative-sage-grouse-protection-plan-to-expand-oil-and-gas-drilling-108398">cutting back protection for threatened species</a>. Its latest disruptive move targets the government employees who oversee these resources.</p>
<p>The Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management oversees 245 million acres of public <a href="https://www.blm.gov/sites/blm.gov/files/BLM%20Administrative%20Units%202018%2036X40.pdf">lands</a>, mainly in the western U.S. The Trump administration is moving BLM’s headquarters from Washington, D.C. to an office building in Grand Junction, Colorado that also houses oil and gas companies. Along with increasing energy development, reducing regulations and increasing access to public lands, agency officials call this move one of their top <a href="https://www.gjsentinel.com/news/western_colorado/bernhardt-to-guvs-expect-decision-soon-on-blm-headquarters-move/article_e0fbbf80-8c07-11e9-bd94-20677ce06c14.html">priorities</a>.</p>
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<p>More than 95% of BLM employees <a href="https://publicland.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Dismantling-BLM.pdf">work in the West</a>. So why is it a top priority to move senior staff away from Washington, D.C., where policy decisions are made? And why are <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/08102019/blm-move-western-states-federal-land-control-mining-sagebrush-rebel-interior">conservation groups</a> and <a href="https://www.hcn.org/articles/bureau-of-land-management-dozens-of-former-blm-officials-denounce-moving-headquarters-out-of-dc">former BLM officials</a> strongly opposed? </p>
<p>As scholars who study <a href="https://kansaspress.ku.edu/978-0-7006-1895-8.html">BLM</a> and <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=XcJV-xEAAAAJ&hl=en">public land management</a>, we see this move as a radical transfer of control over national resources to Western states. Congress has tasked the agency with managing public lands “so that they are utilized in the combination that will best meet the <a href="https://www.blm.gov/or/regulations/files/FLPMA.pdf">present and future needs of the American people</a>.” In our view, the headquarters move runs counter to this goal.</p>
<h2>The interests of ‘private government’</h2>
<p>As the Trump administration likes to point out, BLM lands are <a href="https://www.blm.gov/office/national-office/hq-move-west">almost exclusively in the West</a>. The agency’s <a href="https://www.blm.gov/or/regulations/files/FLPMA.pdf">governing statute</a> directs it to manage those lands in ways that will protect their “scientific, scenic, historical, ecological, environmental, air and atmospheric, water resource, and archaeological values,” and will support land and wildlife conservation. They are also open for outdoor recreation and extractive uses, such as grazing, mining, oil and gas development and timber harvesting. </p>
<p>Up through the late 1960s, the federal government encouraged “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_rule">home rule</a>” of these resources, meaning that rural communities, natural resource industries and Western state governments controlled public land policy. Political scientist Philip Foss described this approach as “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Politics-Administration-Grazing-Public-Domain/dp/B0000CKNWQ">private government</a>” – a system in which interest groups effectively controlled agencies charged with overseeing and regulating public assets. And those groups overwhelmingly prioritized extractive land uses over conservation.</p>
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<span class="caption">Original BLM logo.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/">www.flickr.com</a></span>
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<span class="caption">Contemporary BLM emblem.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/f0e9209c7b4dd8938f252c1f206a87f1">www.flickr.com</a></span>
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<p>BLM’s first emblem, which it used from 1952 to 1964, <a href="https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/blm/history/chap2.htm">reflected this philosophy</a>. It depicted a miner, a rancher, an engineer, a logger and a surveyor standing on the American frontier with Conestoga wagons behind them and an industrial landscape ahead. </p>
<p>In 1964 the agency created a <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:US-DOI-BLM-logo.png">new emblem</a> that depicted mountains, meadows, a river and tree. BLM continued to encourage natural resource development, but it also gradually came to serve an increasingly broad constituency. Once derided by conservationists as the “Bureau of Livestock and Mines,” it became what former Arizona Governor and Interior Secretary Bruce <a href="https://www.eenews.net/stories/1060040203">Babbitt</a> would see as an agency also concerned with landscapes, monuments and conservation. </p>
<h2>Constituencies in a changing West</h2>
<p>This evolution has angered some conservatives in the West and fueled <a href="https://theconversation.com/malheur-occupation-in-oregon-whose-land-is-it-really-52741">armed confrontations</a> between public lands users, such as rancher <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/28/us/bundy-brothers-acquitted-in-takeover-of-oregon-wildlife-refuge.html">Cliven Bundy</a> and BLM staff. In what we view as an egregious example of catering to some Western interests, acting BLM Director William Perry Pendley stated in November 2019 that his agency’s law enforcement professionals would <a href="https://www.eenews.net/stories/1061644675">defer to their local counterparts</a>, apparently even on federal land. </p>
<p>But although Western land management often is cast as a standoff between competing federal and regional priorities, in reality the issue is much more complicated and nuanced. There also are tensions in the West between residents who value public lands as sites for resource extraction, others who see economic opportunity fueled by a growing recreation economy and still others who appreciate these areas for their ecological value and <a href="https://www.encyclopedia.com/environment/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/amenity-values">intrinsic beauty</a>.</p>
<h2>A self-inflicted brain drain</h2>
<p>The job of BLM leaders in Washington, D.C. is to make decisions that respond to directives from the president and Congress. Moving them west won’t change that dynamic – but it could impoverish agency decision making in several ways. </p>
<p>First, senior agency staff will have more difficulty communicating with Congress. Second, the White House and Congress will still make broad policy decisions about public lands, but they will do it with less input from knowledgeable and experienced career professionals. </p>
<p>And by forcing government employees to either move to the West or find other jobs, moving the BLM headquarters will effectively gut its staff without running afoul of civil service protections. White House Acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2019/08/05/usda-science-agencies-relocation-may-have-violated-law-inspector-general-report-says/">admitted as much</a> in an August 2019 speech:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“By simply saying to people, ‘You know what, we’re going to take you outside the bubble, outside the Beltway, outside this liberal haven of Washington, D.C., and move you out in the real part of the country,‘ and they quit — what a wonderful way to sort of streamline government.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Mulvaney was describing a decision earlier in 2019 to <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/09/10/759053717/critics-of-relocating-usda-research-agencies-point-to-brain-drain">relocate two U.S Department of Agriculture research agencies</a> – the Economic Research Service and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture – from Washington, D.C. to Kansas City. More than 60% of affected staffers <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/17/politics/usda-researchers-kansas-city-relocate/index.html">refused to relocate and quit</a>, leading to a loss of expertise for both organizations. </p>
<p>We expect BLM’s move and <a href="https://www.eenews.net/stories/1061714579">resulting staff losses</a> will similarly <a href="https://publicland.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Dismantling-BLM.pdf">diminish the agency’s capacity</a> to manage complex policy decisions. At the request of Democratic members of Congress, the Government Accountability Office is <a href="https://www.hcn.org/articles/bureau-of-land-management-decision-to-relocate-blms-headquarters-under-investigation">investigating</a> whether BLM has adequately justified moving its headquarters. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/308700/original/file-20200106-123403-1uyg2ul.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/308700/original/file-20200106-123403-1uyg2ul.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/308700/original/file-20200106-123403-1uyg2ul.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/308700/original/file-20200106-123403-1uyg2ul.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/308700/original/file-20200106-123403-1uyg2ul.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/308700/original/file-20200106-123403-1uyg2ul.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/308700/original/file-20200106-123403-1uyg2ul.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/308700/original/file-20200106-123403-1uyg2ul.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Buyers at the Outdoor Retailer & Snow Show Jan. 30, 2019, in Denver. The outdoor industry is a growing revenue source and pro-conservation voice in Western states.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Outdoor-Retailer-Show/fc7313feec5146218f1a32e3b549a482/18/0">AP Photo/David Zalubowski</a></span>
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<h2>Diluting federal oversight of public lands</h2>
<p>President Trump’s public land policies align with coordinated challenges to federal authority, known as <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Federal-Land-Western-Anger-Environmental/dp/0700608044">sagebrush rebellions</a>, that have been part of the American West for more than a century. Trump campaigned in 2016 on a platform that called for transferring control over public lands to the states. He later pardoned Oregon ranchers Dwight and Steven Hammond, whose conviction for committing arson on federal lands <a href="https://www.eenews.net/stories/1061792435">helped spark the 2016 armed occupation</a> of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.</p>
<p>Undermining the BLM’s professional capacity and returning public lands management to “home rule” fits naturally into this list. But we believe it is ultimately counterproductive. It will damage careers, impede democratic deliberation and undermine experienced oversight of public lands that belong to all Americans. </p>
<p>[ <em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/126990/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Freemuth receives funding from USGS. He is affiliated with the Andrus Center for Public Policy at Boise State University, which receives funding from the BLM Office of Wildland Fire. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>James R. Skillen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Do public lands in the West belong to Westerners, or all Americans? Moving a federal agency’s headquarters from Washington, DC to Colorado is the latest skirmish in a longtime struggle.John Freemuth, Cecil D. Andrus Endowed Chair for Environment and Public Lands and University Distinguished Professor, Boise State UniversityJames R. Skillen, Associate Professor of Environmental Studies, Calvin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1004382018-10-25T10:47:47Z2018-10-25T10:47:47ZCollaboration, not fighting, is what the rural West is really about<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/241547/original/file-20181021-105767-1wnv6i4.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Harney County, Ore., sign.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/kenlund/2580127305/">Wikimedia/Ken Lund</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Dick Jenkins is a fourth-generation rancher living in Oregon’s most remote county. I wanted to know why he continues living in a rural community, even though life elsewhere might be easier.</p>
<p>“Taking care of [the land] is worth more than all the money in the world,” he told me. “Taking care of the animals, taking care of the environment, it all goes together and we’re very proud of it.”</p>
<p>While Dick’s answer was more evocative than I could’ve hoped for, I can’t say I was surprised by it. </p>
<p><a href="https://history.uoregon.edu/profile/sbeda/">I’m a historian who studies the rural Northwest</a>, and I’ve spent a fair amount of time talking with loggers, miners, fisherman and ranchers like Dick. </p>
<p>Each one of them, in their own way, articulates a similar sentiment: Whatever hardships contemporary rural life may pose – and <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/rural-america-is-the-new-inner-city-1495817008">there are many</a> – it’s their love of the land and desire to protect it that keeps them put.</p>
<p>This is not a description of rural life you typically hear.</p>
<p>Many stories about rural America, particularly during election cycles like we’re in now, portray rural communities as <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/18/magazine/fear-of-the-federal-government-in-the-ranchlands-of-oregon.html">political monoliths</a> made up of nothing more than <a href="https://www.vox.com/2016/1/5/10718128/federal-land-west-oregon-militia">angry ranchers</a> frustrated with the Bureau of Land Management, what’s commonly called “the BLM.” Or you see camouflage-clad <a href="https://www.hcn.org/articles/politics-anti-government-groups-in-the-west-right-now">militia members</a> hoping to overthrow the government.</p>
<p>These people do exist in rural communities. The <a href="https://www.politicalresearch.org/2016/10/03/oregon-three-percenters/">Three Percenters</a>, a heavily-armed militia whose members advocate the violent overthrow of the U.S. government, has a sizable presence in Harney County, the same county Dick lives in. </p>
<p>And the <a href="https://www.oregonlive.com/oregon-standoff/2016/08/sheriff_glenn_palmer_makes_his.html">sheriff of Grant County</a>, just to the north, is a self-described “constitutional sheriff” who believes his power supersedes the federal government’s.</p>
<p>But for every AR-15 wielding militia member or rancher angrily shaking his fist at the BLM, there’s likely a dozen like Dick who want to find peaceful ways to protect their interests and the environment. </p>
<h2>Rebellion vs. collaboration</h2>
<p>The tone in recent news coverage of rural issues was largely set in the late 1970s, when ranchers started protesting new BLM limits on grazing in what became known as the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1979/11/11/the-sagebrush-revolution/7ebf91e7-cbed-4bae-80c9-9a0cce5fe5d7/?utm_term=.c9c6ed3f7927">“Sagebrush Rebellion.”</a> These protests were sometimes <a href="https://s3.amazonaws.com/hcn-media/archive-pdf/1988_09_12_Wheeler.pdf">dramatic</a>, like when ranchers bulldozed road barriers that had been erected to limit access to wilderness areas. </p>
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<span class="caption">The Sagebrush Rebellion made the cover of Newsweek in 1979.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://uni.edu/carrchl/wp/cv/the-sagebrush-rebellion/">Newsweek</a></span>
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<p>While the origins of many present-day rural extremist movements can be traced back to frustrations with BLM policy in the 1970s, the Sagebrush Rebellion spawned another less talked-about movement: collaborative land management.</p>
<p>Many people recognized that fighting over wilderness, grazing rights, timber harvests and endangered species protections was getting them nowhere. </p>
<p>So in the 1990s, rural workers sat down with environmentalists, government agents and tribal representatives, and together they worked out agreements that would protect the land, preserve tribal resource rights and allow for continued grazing, mining and logging. </p>
<p>Rarely were these conversations easy. </p>
<p>One early collaborative effort, Northern California’s <a href="http://www.qlg.org/">Quincy Library Group</a>, was so named because members met in a setting that would force them to keep their voices – and tempers – in check.</p>
<p>But these difficult conversations bore results. </p>
<p>To name just two examples, <a href="https://www.blm.gov/get-involved/partnerships/featured-partners/idaho">ranchers and environmentalists in Idaho</a> have collectively used conservation funds to preserve agriculture and critical habitat along the Snake River. And in Dick Jenkins’ Harney County, ranchers, BLM agents, environmentalists and members of the Burns Paiute Tribe work together through the <a href="http://highdesertpartnership.org/">High Desert Partnership</a> to collectively manage the land.</p>
<p>As several scholars have <a href="http://osupress.oregonstate.edu/book/sagebrush-collaboration">documented</a>, these collaborative partnerships are a source of local pride in many rural communities.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/241549/original/file-20181021-105773-11b7h52.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/241549/original/file-20181021-105773-11b7h52.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/241549/original/file-20181021-105773-11b7h52.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241549/original/file-20181021-105773-11b7h52.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241549/original/file-20181021-105773-11b7h52.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241549/original/file-20181021-105773-11b7h52.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=578&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241549/original/file-20181021-105773-11b7h52.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=578&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241549/original/file-20181021-105773-11b7h52.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=578&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Forester Ed Murphy, a member of the Quincy Library Group, tells a House subcommittee about the group’s plan for balancing logging and environmental interests in Northern California forests.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Associated-Press-Domestic-News-California-Unite-/1ea3a6e587e6da11af9f0014c2589dfb/2/0">AP/Rich Pedroncelli</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Competing images</h2>
<p>So if many rural people are proud of their ability to collaborate, why are we seeing more anger and more high-profile protests directed at environmentalists and the federal government throughout the rural West, what some have called a <a href="https://www.hcn.org/articles/a-new-and-more-dangerous-sagebrush-rebellion">“second Sagebrush Rebellion”</a>? </p>
<p>The answer is that in recent years it’s mostly been newcomers or outsiders who’ve attempted to mobilize imagined rural anger in order to advance their own narrow political goals. </p>
<p>This was certainly the case during the highly publicized <a href="https://www.opb.org/news/series/burns-oregon-standoff-bundy-militia-news-updates/">takeover of the Malheur Wildlife Refuge</a> in 2016. </p>
<p>Led by a group calling itself the Citizens for Constitutional Freedom, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2016/01/04/us/oregon-wildlife-refuge-what-bundy-wants/index.html">the occupiers argued that</a> the Constitution did not give the federal government the right to own land. They hoped to turn BLM land over to local control and turn <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqL9NGRTGss">Harney County into the first “Constitutional county.”</a> </p>
<p>Of the roughly dozen occupiers who said they were fighting for the rights of Oregon ranchers, only one, <a href="https://www.oregonlive.com/oregon-standoff/2016/01/robert_lavoy_finicum_killed_in.html">Robert “LaVoy” Finicum</a>, was actually a rancher – from Arizona. The group’s leader, <a href="https://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/index.ssf/2016/01/oregon_militant_profiles_list.html">Ammon Bundy</a>, is the son of an <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/24/us/politics/rancher-proudly-breaks-the-law-becoming-a-hero-in-the-west.html">infamous Nevada rancher</a>, but he worked as a car fleet manager prior to leading the standoff. And only one, Walter “Butch” Eaton, was from Oregon, and he stayed with the occupiers for just a half hour before deciding to <a href="https://www.oregonlive.com/oregon-standoff/2016/09/burns_man_who_rode_in_first_ca.html">walk home</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/241858/original/file-20181023-169825-qxcjsb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/241858/original/file-20181023-169825-qxcjsb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/241858/original/file-20181023-169825-qxcjsb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241858/original/file-20181023-169825-qxcjsb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241858/original/file-20181023-169825-qxcjsb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241858/original/file-20181023-169825-qxcjsb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241858/original/file-20181023-169825-qxcjsb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241858/original/file-20181023-169825-qxcjsb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Harney County billboard erected during the occupation of a local wildlife refuge by militia members.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Peter Walker</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Their ‘own voice’</h2>
<p>These outsiders have been challenged by people in rural communities. </p>
<p>At least in Oregon, the <a href="http://www.rop.org/">Rural Organizing Project</a> has been at the forefront of efforts to help rural communities fight outside extremist groups.</p>
<p>Founded in the early 1990s to help people in rural communities organize against local anti-gay ordinances, the project has since grown into a <a href="http://www.rop.org/about-the-rural-organizing-project/our-history/">network of rural activists</a> who, according to the group’s website, “facilitate local organizing, communication and political analysis.” </p>
<p>When the paramilitary group <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/group/oath-keepers">the Oath Keepers</a> occupied the <a href="https://www.hcn.org/issues/48.2/showdown-at-sugar-pine-mine">Sugar Pine Mine</a> in Oregon’s Josephine County in April 2015, project activists and local community members quickly mobilized to communicate to both politicians and the media that the militia members did not have the support of the community. </p>
<p>According to a <a href="http://www.rop.org/up-in-arms/up-in-arms-section-iii/stories-from-the-field/">statement</a> released by the coalition, the Oath Keepers were “individuals from outside our community” there to “advance their own agenda.”</p>
<p>A year later, during the Malheur occupation, the project organized a day of action, coordinating rallies, meetings and press conferences in rural communities across Oregon to again clearly communicate to the media and decision-makers that a handful of armed protesters did not speak for most rural people.</p>
<p>A <a href="http://btimesherald.com/2016/02/10/new-harney-county-billboards-donated/">billboard</a> that Harney County residents put up during the 2016 occupation speaks volumes about the way many rural people feel about these outsiders. It read: “We Are HARNEY COUNTY. We Have OUR OWN VOICE.”</p>
<h2>A less divisive future</h2>
<p>To be perfectly clear, many ranchers, loggers and miners have problems with federal bureaucracies and environmental organizations. </p>
<p>Underfunded and overburdened by arcane rules, the BLM has a massive <a href="https://www.opb.org/news/article/backlog-grows-for-rangelands/">backlog of grazing permit applications</a>. Federal timber sales are <a href="http://www.capitalpress.com/Timber/20180523/environmental-groups-challenge-oregon-timber-sale-over-voles">routinely tied up in litigation</a>. </p>
<p>Many rural people are likewise troubled by the federal government’s <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/titles/11239.html">waning investment in rural economies</a> and rapidly <a href="https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2017/01/18/how-education-is-failing-rural-america.html">declining funding for rural education and social services</a>.</p>
<p>The journalists who report on the radical fringes of rural America are doing important work. Their stories shine light on dangerous political trends that, if allowed to grow in the shadows, might become something even more dangerous than they already are.</p>
<p>But ranchers like Dick Jenkins, groups like the Rural Organizing Project and other rural people committed to collaboration need to have their stories heard, too. </p>
<p>Paying as much attention to them as so-called Sagebrush Rebels just might show that while there are indeed many problems in rural America, most rural people are committed to bringing about a more amicable future.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/100438/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Steven C. Beda does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Rural Westerners have been stereotyped as angry ranchers who hate government. But for every gun-wielding militia member, there are many others who work collaboratively to protect what they value.Steven C. Beda, Assistant Professor, University of OregonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/527402016-01-08T16:03:55Z2016-01-08T16:03:55ZThe twisted roots of U.S. land policy in the West<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/107613/original/image-20160108-13994-1zsnpv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) was often referred to as the Bureau of Livestock and Mining in the 19th century.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/blmoregon/6685359611/in/album-72157628841757125/">U.S. Bureau of Land Management</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The seizure of a Malheur National Wildlife Refuge building in southeastern Oregon by armed and self-styled “constitutionalists” was disturbing. To many it is viewed as a dangerous escalation in a long, admittedly heated and passionate but rarely violent, discussion of federal or public land management in the western United States. </p>
<p>It has also brought to the fore many questions from those not familiar with western land issues, the history of federal land or public land management policies. The event has some asking who the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is and why they manage so much land. </p>
<p>The history of U.S. federal land policy helps explain why so much of the West is public land – that is, land managed by the federal government and its various bureaus. History also shows why conflicts over land rights are flaring up now and why they’re difficult to resolve. </p>
<h2>The utility of land</h2>
<p>U.S. land policy predates the country itself, as both the British and the colonists regulated the cutting of forests to preserve a supply of timber for building naval vessels. After the Revolutionary War, the new country quickly sought both to acquire more land (in what is called the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Federal-Lands-Revisited-Press/dp/0801830982">Acquisition phase</a>) and to ensure private sector ownership (the Disposal phase). </p>
<p>Acquisition was accomplished by war or purchase; disposal was done to raise cash and promote new settlement. The <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/06/us/native-tribe-blasts-oregon-takeover">native inhabitants of these lands were removed</a>, usually by force.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/107595/original/image-20160107-14020-wmpfnq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/107595/original/image-20160107-14020-wmpfnq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/107595/original/image-20160107-14020-wmpfnq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/107595/original/image-20160107-14020-wmpfnq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/107595/original/image-20160107-14020-wmpfnq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/107595/original/image-20160107-14020-wmpfnq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=513&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/107595/original/image-20160107-14020-wmpfnq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=513&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/107595/original/image-20160107-14020-wmpfnq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=513&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Federal and Indian land.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://nationalmap.gov/small_scale/printable/images/pdf/fedlands/fedlands3.pdf">U.S. Department of Interior</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the 1860s a new policy focused on federal land in the West developed – Retention – that is best understood through the creation of Yellowstone National Park, the first national park in the U.S. and world. <a href="http://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/runte1/">Other parks</a> would follow, though in an ad hoc and piecemeal fashion. The National Park Service was created in 1916 to manage and conserve these parks and provide “enjoyment for future generations.” </p>
<p>By the 1880s, there were growing concerns over deforestation. This led Congress to give the President the power to create <a href="http://www.amazon.com/U-S-Forest-Service-Centennial-History/dp/0295984023/ref=mt_hardcover?_encoding=UTF8&me=">forest reserves</a>. Later renamed national forests, they were placed under the administration of the US Forest Service (USFS), which was created in 1905. Congress later took away that power but did create eastern national forests though land purchases <a href="http://www.fs.fed.us/land/staff/weeks-act.html">under the Weeks Act</a>. </p>
<p>The charismatic <a href="http://www.foresthistory.org/ASPNET/People/Pinchot/Pinchot.aspx">Gifford Pinchot</a>, first Chief of USFS, helped make the bureau a professional land management agency. Pinchot and others made it clear that the forests were to be managed for the production of resources to be used by citizens. Thus the Retention policy evolved into an era of federal land management. A <a href="http://www.foresthistory.org/ASPNET/People/Pinchot/Pinchot.aspx">utilitarian philosophy</a> took hold: forests would be managed for the “greatest good for the greatest number” in the long run. </p>
<p>President Theodore Roosevelt used his power to create <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Wilderness-Warrior-Theodore-Roosevelt/dp/0060565314">early national wildlife refuges</a>, including Malheur, which were separate from national forests; other presidents would follow his lead, as would Congress. Early reserves and those established later would be managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, created in 1940 after many earlier configurations. These lands were set aside specifically for preservation of land for wildlife and habitat.</p>
<h2>Creation of the BLM</h2>
<p>The Bureau of Land Management was created in 1946 out of the merger of the General Land Office and the Grazing Service, which was created to manage grazing. Its origins were in the 1930s, when the Taylor Grazing Act was passed to bring stability to western grazing and to help reduce overgrazing. One key phrase of that <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/title/taylor-grazing-act-public-law-73-482-73rd-congress-2nd-session-59-stat-1269/oclc/20714417">act</a> stated: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>That in order to promote the highest use of the public lands pending its final disposal, the Secretary of the Interior is authorized, in his discretion, by order to establish grazing districts.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Before the Taylor Grazing Act was created, federal officials, including Secretary of Interior Ray Lyman Wilbur and President Hoover, offered to transfer the pre-BLM public lands (the public domain lands) to the states to manage, minus the sub-surface mineral estate. The states declined citing the poor condition of the surface estate. </p>
<p>But the word “disposal” led some to conclude that eventually these lands would be transferred to the states to manage or perhaps sold. </p>
<p>BLM was closely watched through the 1960s and supervised in a sense by western congressmen, leading contemporary scholars such as Phillip O. Foss to <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Politics-Grass-Administration-Grazing-Public/dp/0837121361">refer</a> to this as a “private government,” or that the agency as “captured” by the interests it was supposed to regulate. To put this differently, the agency basically conformed to the desires of the congressmen and their rancher and mining constituencies.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/107614/original/image-20160108-14027-s9gkqs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/107614/original/image-20160108-14027-s9gkqs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/107614/original/image-20160108-14027-s9gkqs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=784&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/107614/original/image-20160108-14027-s9gkqs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=784&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/107614/original/image-20160108-14027-s9gkqs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=784&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/107614/original/image-20160108-14027-s9gkqs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=985&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/107614/original/image-20160108-14027-s9gkqs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=985&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/107614/original/image-20160108-14027-s9gkqs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=985&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Gifford Pinchot, the first Chief of the Forest Service in 1905. In the 1890s, he wrote, western forests were considered ‘inexhaustible.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gifford_Pinchot_3c03915u.jpg">Library of Congress</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The BLM was often referred to as the “Bureau of Livestock and Mining,” as those were the primary uses and users of these lands. Often BLM employees came, and still come, from smaller western towns and ranch backgrounds and were primarily trained at <a href="http://ext.wsu.edu/documents/landgrant.pdf">western land grant universities</a>, reinforcing the tradition of placing a priority on using federal lands for their natural resources.</p>
<p>BLM lands are only in the West and BLM manages the most federal land, because this was the land not placed into the national forests and not set aside as national parks and monuments. Some in the West still believed that the BLM lands would be “disposed” of in some manner – that is, transferred from federal to state ownership or perhaps sold. </p>
<p>All of this changed with the passage of the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1977 (FLPMA). This act superseded the Taylor Grazing Act and made it national policy that the BLM lands would be retained in federal ownership, thus making this an example of Retention policy. </p>
<p>This retention, and new environmental laws and public interest in the BLM lands for recreation, wildlife, wilderness and so on, helped set off the <a href="https://kuecprd.ku.edu/%7Eupress/cgi-bin/978-0-7006-1895-8.html">Sagebrush Rebellion</a> of the<a href="https://kuecprd.ku.edu/%7Eupress/cgi-bin/series/development-of-western-resources/978-0-7006-0613-9.html"> late 1970s</a>. There had been previous protests dating back to <a href="https://theconversation.com/malheur-occupation-in-oregon-whose-land-is-it-really-52741">creation of the forest reserves</a>, but this rebellion is well remembered. The election of Ronald Reagan helped defuse the movement, as his Secretary James Watt pushed for the restoration of natural resource use and the weakening of environmental regulations.</p>
<h2>Conflicting views</h2>
<p>The BLM manages much of its land for the use of resources, as does the USFS. But these bureaus are considered multiple-use in that preservation is part of their activities. The National Park Service and US Fish and Wildlife Service have preservation as their sole mission. </p>
<p>Many residents in small rural western towns believe traditional uses and users of BLM lands have been diminished and over-regulated. They would like to see more of a balance between use of natural resources and protection of these lands. As noted above, Native Americans <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/01/06/462179325/native-american-tribe-says-oregon-armed-occupiers-are-desecrating-sacred-land">take issue</a> with the notion that ranchers and others were here “first.” </p>
<p>There has been an off-again on-again movement to transfer much of the federal lands apart from the national parks and so-called <a href="http://www.wilderness.net/nwps/legisact">wilderness</a> (a land designation made by Congress) to states to manage. </p>
<p>But the cost of managing lands, including the huge ones caused by wildfire, and uncertainties over how the land could be used, continue to render this <a href="http://www.sltrib.com/home/2575779-155/snake-oil-salesman-rep-ken-ivory">politically unpalatable</a> to many.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/52740/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Freemuth receives funding from USGS and the Bureau of Land Management. He is affiliated with the Cecil Andrus Center for Public Policy at Boise State University</span></em></p>What explains the anger behind the Malheur occupation in Oregon, and why does the BLM own so much land in the West?John Freemuth, Professor of Public Policy and Senior Fellow Cecil Andrus Center for Public Policy, Boise State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.