The Wild Free Roaming Horse and Burro Act has 

 been used to justify massive and sometimes destruc- 

 tive herds of feral horses on our rangelands The 

 rancher paid for range rights when he bought his 

 ranch as a part of the ranch price His range bound- 

 aries have been set by agreement, adjudication, legis- 

 lation, priority use and commensurability with land 

 owned in fee simple The rancher owns the water 

 rights without which the range would be worthless for 

 livestock. The rancher sustains a cost of from $9 to 

 $10 a cow per month to maintain his animal and 

 range The rancher pays the federal government 

 approximately $2 per cow per month in grazing fees. 

 Yet the rancher in many parts of the West finds his 

 range being severely overutilized by herds of feral hor- 

 ses and burros, the control of which has been pre- 

 vented by inaction by federal agencies and protests 

 by groups of wild horse enthusiasts who have nothing 

 at economic risk in the issue and pay nothing for the 

 use of the range by the excessive horse numbers thoir 

 actions have created. 



The FLPMA has been viewed by the federal and 

 management agencies as legal justification for chal- 

 lenging state and private rights on the public domain 

 lands. The agencies have viewed FLPMA as a vehicle 

 to override state control of water rights and to gain 

 absolute control over the lands Attempts to use the 

 federal reserve water doctrine to supersede state con- 

 trol of water was stopped by court ruling in 1981. 

 There are, at present, attempts by the Forest Service 

 to invoke a federal nonreserved water doctrine of 

 doubtful validity to override state and private control 

 of water. All of these actions lead to increased cost 

 of production on the part of the rancher Non-cost 

 effective management plans created by the f^ultiple 

 Use Act to accommodate non-market uses of the 

 lands have often reduced or eliminated livestock 

 grazing 



Likewise, the Wild Free Roaming Horse and Burro 

 Act has taken vast amounts of forage from our range- 

 lands for which there is no marketable return to the 

 public, and, oftentimes, at the expense of severely 

 damaging the rangelands themselves. Ranchers who 

 have for generations worked and invested to protect 

 and enhance their rangelands have in some cases 

 found their ranges under threat of devegetation of key 

 forage species One rancher in south central Nevada 

 incurs a yearly uncompensated cost of $45,000 to 

 pump water for the feral horses that have encroached 

 his range 



The use of FLPMA to challenge state control of 

 water rights has forced many ranchers to take legal 



action to protect their interests. The cost of litigation 

 to protect rights on the public domain is a cost 

 against the animal unit month of forage on that range. 

 Federal action against state and private nghts on the 

 range can easily double or triple the cost of grazing 

 on the public lands. 



At the same time the federal agencies have been 

 struggling for total control of the ranges, they have 

 effectively stopped any significant investment by the 

 federal government in range improvements. The 

 uncertainty of the situation created by the continual 

 challenge of the ranchers' rights on the public lands 

 has effectively stopped any private investment on the 

 rangelands. 



Documents supplied by the federal land manage- 

 ment agencies in the early 1970's relating to range 

 conditions suggest that government control of the 

 rangelands has led to a deterioration of those lands. 

 The agencies have supplied data in the development 

 of the Resources Planning Act demonstrating that fed- 

 eral administration of the range is not cost effective. 



We can therefore reference a third point. The 

 efforts by the federal government to supersede or 

 eliminate various state and private rights on the public 

 domain lands threatens the long-term cost effective 

 productivity of those lands. 



SUMMARY 



What are some of the possible solutions to this 

 apparent dilemma? Maintenance of the status quo 

 would appear to result in a continual erosion of the 

 economic viability of the public lands livestock 

 industry. 



Another possible solution would be socialization of 

 the public lands. The elimination of state and private 

 rights on the public domain lands would allow the fed- 

 eral agencies full discretion as to how the lands would 

 be used. Although this alternative would bode well for 

 the longevity of the federal and management agencies 

 themselves, federal agencies do not have a good 

 record of operation on a cost effective basis. 



State control of the ranges has been suggested as 

 an alternative to federal control. State control could 

 provide a viable alternative to federal control as long 

 as the tenure issue was recognized and the states did 

 not allow the development of a non-cost effective 

 bureaucracy to administer the lands. The tenure issue 

 could be dealt with m a manner similar to water rights. 

 Continual beneficial use of the range would guarantee 

 the property right interest in the range This would 

 stabilize the livestock industry and stimulate private 



47 



