that most westerners have not joined up. The only westwide poll I've seen 

 showed_ a majority of people in all the western States except Nevada in 

 opposition. To the extent that the Sagebrush Rebellion draws attention 

 away -^om the central issues in land management, it is a costly waste of 

 energy, in my opinion. 



My response has been, and continues to be, to seel< new working 

 relationships with officials of elected general purpose governments 

 throughout the West and to try to help improve the base of information 

 and analysis needed to make cooperative decisions a reality: 



we are funding a project with the National Governors Association 

 to resolve long-standing western range management issues; 



we have reached agreement with the National Association of Counties 

 on a process for making our plans consistent with State and local 

 policies and programs and--where they exist--approved plans; 



we are working with the Western Conference of the Council of State 

 Governments to help them assess how States are organized to affect 

 public land policies and plans; 



and we have developed a wide array of open and cooperative working 

 relationships with State and local government and private interests 

 in 



--coal leasing 



--livestock management 



--wilderness review 



--energy facility siting 



--land sales 



--and many other programs. 



If the purpose of the "Sagebrush Rebellion" is to raise public con- 

 sciousness about the need for better, more sensitive, more genuinely 

 cooperative public land decisionmaking, then I would suggest that it has 

 succeeded. If its purpose it to secure permanent special advantage for a 

 wide array of narrow advocacy interests, I trust it will fail. We need to 

 move away from public posturing on short-term, limited vision needs and 

 manage the public's resources on the basis of broad public interest 

 concepts. That observation, I should note, applies as forcefully to 

 particular segments of the environmental movement as it does to those 

 whose primary interest is in the economic production functions of the 

 public lands. And I intend to use the Sagebrush Rebellion consciously to 

 achieve that objective. 



GENE DECKER : Elmer Hanson is a rancher from White Sulphur 

 Springs, president of the Montana Stockgrowers Association and director of 



the National Cattlemen's Association. His cow-calf ranch is in the the 



White Sulphur country along the Smith River and Sheep Creek. Part of 



his ranch was homesteaded by his grandfather in 1881. He has grazing 



leases on both BLM and the Forest Service and is currently on the Grazing 

 Advisory Board of the Lewis and Clark National Forest. 



