446 CHAPTER 14|ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL POLICY
You Decide
Imagine you are a Republican U.S. House member who repre-
sents a western state. You are a fi rm believer in the free market,
capitalism, and limited government. In other words, whenever
possible you would like people to make choices in the free mar-
ket without government interference or regulation. By the way,
this conveniently is a view that is held by a large majority of
your constituents. You also are a strong supporter of grazing
rights for ranchers in your state. You have often done battle with
environmentalists who want to reserve more public lands for
recreational uses and conservation than for grazing cattle. On
this issue, your constituents are more divided: there is strong
support for ranchers, but an increasing proportion of the resi-
dents in your district are dependent on tourism.
The scenario that you have to consider here is an actual case
that was fi rst publicized in a New York Times op-ed piece.a The
case involves a fi fth-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 try-
ing to get ranchers to leave a scenic part of the Escalante River
canyon. So he seems to be a very 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 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.” Hedden 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. If an
environmentalist is willing to buy a rancher’s grazing rights, this
means that the market has determined that hiking and conserva-
tion have a greater value than grazing for that piece of land.
If the story ended here, there would be no controversy for
you to consider. But as you probably guessed, the story does not
end here. Local groups, such as the Canyon Country Rural Alli-
ance, which opposed all limitations on ranchers’ grazing rights,
lobbied Congress and the Interior Department to disallow such
arrangements that remove grazing rights from some public
lands. Bowing to pressure, the Interior Department decided
that “only Congress may permanently exclude lands from graz-
ing use,” so GCT had no guarantee that the Bureau of Land
Management wouldn’t change its mind and allow grazing. The
process of resolving this confl ict bounced around the Interior
Department and the federal courts for nearly 10 years.
In the meantime, GCT went to Plan B from the “if you can’t
lick ’em, join ’em” school of thought: they decided to become
ranchers. If the Interior Department wouldn’t grant permanent
conservation use permits on land designated for grazing, they
would buy some cattle. 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. They are man-
aging 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 they wanted,
it was a compromise that made all sides of the dispute rela-
tively happy. As one opponent of 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.”b
If you were the member of Congress representing this district,
what would you decide to do?GRAZING RIGHTS AND FREE MARKET ENVIRONMENTALISM
Using free-market forces is an increasingly common way to
address a variety of environmental issues, from grazing and
water rights to air pollution and global warming.Critical Thinking Questions
- Would you support the limitations on perma-
nently removing grazing rights because they are
consistent with the desires of many of your con-
stituents? If so, how would you reconcile this with
your free market views, and how would you justify
the decision to your constituents who support free
market environmentalism? - Does the compromise position of GCT taking
up ranching strike you as a reasonable middle
ground? Why or why not?