563Grazing Rights and Free
Market Environmentalism
Grazing rights, environmental policy, and control of western
lands have been controversial for decades. The issue received
attention in the 2016 presidential campaign when Senator
Marco Rubio said that “the federal government controls far too
much land in the western parts of the United States,” indicating
that he favors transferring some federal lands to the states.a The
federal government owns more than 600 million acres, including
47 percent of the land in western states, and there are intense
disagreements between environmentalists and ranchers,
loggers, and miners about how those lands should be used.
There are three basic positions on this issue: the pro-
business and antiregulation stance (ranchers, loggers), the
pro-environment regulatory approach (conservationists
and recreational users), and a middle ground called free
market environmentalism that attempts to find free market
solutions to protect the environment.
The scenario that you have to consider here is an actual
case publicized in a New York Times op-ed piece.b The case
involves a fifth-generation rancher in southern Utah named
Dell LeFevre. He is no friend of environmentalism, saying,
“We’ve got easterners who don’t know the land telling us
what to do with it. I am a bitter old cowboy.” His bitterness
was deepened back in 1991 when he found two dozen of
his cows shot to death. He thinks the deed was done by an
environmentalist who was trying to get ranchers to leave
a scenic part of the Escalante River canyon. So LeFevre
seems to be an unlikely candidate to have sat down with an
environmentalist named Bill Hedden to accomplish that very
goal of ending ranching in the area. Hedden works for a group
called the Grand Canyon Trust (GCT) that, as the New York
Times article explained, “doesn’t use lobbyists or lawsuits (or
guns) to drive out ranchers. These environmentalists get land
the old-fashioned way. They buy it.” The GCT spent about
$100,000 to buy and retire the grazing rights from LeFevre
for this scenic canyon area. The environmentalists are happy
because the vegetation is coming back, and LeFevre is happy
because he doesn’t have to battle the environmentalists
anymore and was able to buy grazing rights in a different
area that is better for his cattle. Supporters of “free market
environmentalism” say this is a perfect example of allowing
the market to determine the best use of the land.The pro-business approach. If the story ended here, there
would be no controversy. But local groups, such as the Canyon
Country Rural Alliance, which opposed all limitations on ranchers’
grazing rights, lobbied Congress and the Interior DepartmentTAKE
A S TA N DRancher Dell LeFevre and two of his children.to disallow arrangements that remove grazing rights from
some public lands. Bowing to pressure, the Interior Department
decided that “only Congress may permanently exclude lands
from grazing use,” so the GCT had no guarantee that the Bureau
of Land Management would not change its mind and allow graz-
ing. The process of resolving this conflict bounced around the
Interior Department and the federal courts for nearly 10 years.The free market environmental compromise. GCT
members went to plan B: they decided to become ranchers. If
the Interior Department wouldn’t grant permanent conserva-
tion use permits on land designated for grazing, they would
buy some cattle. The GCT is now one of the largest ranchers
in the Colorado Plateau, with 1,000 acres of private land and
grazing permits that cover 860,000 acres of federal and state
lands, including a large part of the Kaibab National Forest
adjacent to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. It is managing
the land in an eco-friendly manner with only 800 head of cattle.
Though it may seem odd that an environmental group had
to take up ranching to get the policy outcome it wanted, this
compromise made all sides of the dispute relatively happy.
As one opponent of the GCT put it, “We turned them from
environmentalists into cowboys. I guess what they can do is
get their cows and start losing money like the rest of us.”ctake a stand
- Do you favor the regulatory approach of permanently
removing grazing rights from land that an environmental
group would buy, the business approach of not having
any permanent limits on grazing rights, or the free mar-
ket environmental approach of allowing the environmen-
tal groups to buy land and grazing rights and become
ranchers to protect the land? - Does the compromise position in which the GCT took up
ranching strike you as a reasonable middle ground? Why
or why not?
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