Hmac wrote:The guy's been to court over this already and was found to be grazing his cattle illegally on government land without paying the grazing fees that everyone else was paying. Very clear violation of the law. You can argue the fairness of the law, or you can argue the WTF? factor of the BLM owning 75% of the land in Nevada, but you can't really argue that Bundy was breaking the law.
I haven't been following this very carefully, but as I understand it there is more to it than this.
His family was granted grazing rights to the land way back when the BLM was first created in 1946. His families usage of the public land predated the formation of the BLM by nearly 100 years. Prior to that the land was truly public, and wasn't "managed" by anyone. Not that it was actually "managed" afterward either, other than on paper on some bureaucrats desk. There was no fee structure implemented in his grazing rights, he was expressly granted the right to use the land for grazing for free. It was much like an easement, and he had a legal right to use the public land for grazing. There were many ranchers that were granted the same rights.
Then came the environmentalists and their tortoises. The BLM decided that even though the ranchers had grazing rights to the area, that they could now charge a grazing fee as the land was now reclassified as a habitat for these (supposedly) endangered tortoises. They told the ranchers that they would either have to pay the new grazing fees because of the tortoises, or that the BLM would buy their grazing rights back from them, effectively buying them out of business. Bundy was the only one who didn't sell his grazing rights to the BLM, and also refused to pay the newly imposed fees.
Then the courts got involved and agreed that the BLM could in fact begin charging a grazing fee despite the Bundys grazing rights because of the tortoise habitat declaration. Many people see this story as being very similar to when a piece of land is declared a wetland to lower it's commercial value, so that a government body could purchase or seize the land at less than previous market value.
Bundy's argument that the land should belong to Nevada is interesting, if not slightly kooky, but not the main point of the story. Nor is the fact that he's a racist. The main point of the story
should be that his family has been grazing there for over 100 years, and was explicitly granted the right to do so free of charge nearly 70 years ago. The real story is that the BLM reclassified the land, giving them the legal ability to impose a fee despite the terms of the ranchers grazing rights, and then forced all but one rancher out of business. And when the one refused to pay these fees after nearly two decades of lawsuits and counter lawsuits, they sent in a militarized force to remove him, the cost of which was more than the monies owed in grazing fees.
Yes, he lost in court. Yes, he didn't pay his grazing fees. Yes, he's an inarticulate racist who himself seems to be making a crude and kooky argument as to why he's in the right. And yes, the BLM used a underhanded legal trick to effectively nullify the ranchers grazing rights in order to put them out of business.
The real question is
why is the BLM attempting to force anyone with a right to the land off it via the introduction of previously nonexistent fees?