Overhaul of public lands grazing regulations seeks to cut public involvement
Overhaul of public lands grazing regulations seeks to cut public involvement
公共土地放牧法规改革旨在削减公众参与
The federal government is rewriting its rules governing ranching on public lands to increase the number of cattle, sheep, and other livestock grazing on 155 million acres in the West, an area twice the size of New Mexico. Public lands grazing is overseen by a nearly century-old system that heavily subsidizes some of the wealthiest Americans while doing little to address its harms to the environment, ProPublica and High Country News found last year. 联邦政府正在重写管理公共土地畜牧业的规则，旨在增加在美国西部 1.55 亿英亩土地（面积相当于新墨西哥州的两倍）上放牧的牛、羊和其他牲畜的数量。ProPublica 和《高地新闻》（High Country News）去年发现，公共土地放牧由一套近百年历史的系统监管，该系统在为一些最富有的美国人提供巨额补贴的同时，却几乎没有解决其对环境造成的危害。
Even though rangeland management experts say overgrazing has degraded public lands, the new rules being drafted by the US Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management—the first overhaul since 1995—would instead expand the practice. The proposed rules would also ratchet back public participation in the agency’s decisions to allow grazing on federal public lands. 尽管牧场管理专家表示过度放牧已经导致公共土地退化，但美国内政部土地管理局（BLM）正在起草的新规则——这是自 1995 年以来的首次全面修订——反而会扩大这种放牧行为。拟议的规则还将削弱公众对该机构批准在联邦公共土地上放牧决策的参与度。
The BLM’s proposed updates would strictly limit who has a say and when they can object, eliminating many steps where the public has been able to observe and comment on decisions to issue or renew permits. “They’re clearly trying to reduce involvement of anyone other than ranchers,” said one BLM employee who works on rangeland management. 土地管理局拟议的更新将严格限制谁有发言权以及何时可以提出异议，取消了许多公众此前能够观察并评论发放或续签许可证决策的环节。“他们显然是在试图减少牧场主以外任何人的参与，”一位从事牧场管理的土地管理局员工表示。
The BLM did not respond to questions about the proposed regulations, which were released publicly in May and, after a period for public comment, will go back to the agency in mid-July for further review. In a June news release announcing the action, the agency said it “reflects the Trump administration’s priority to reduce unnecessary regulatory burdens, promote productive working lands and strengthen local economies.” 土地管理局没有回应有关拟议法规的问题。这些法规于 5 月公开发布，在经过公众意见征询期后，将于 7 月中旬返回该机构进行进一步审查。在 6 月宣布该行动的新闻稿中，该机构表示，这“反映了特朗普政府减少不必要监管负担、促进生产性工作用地并加强地方经济的优先事项”。
ProPublica and High Country News spoke to multiple current and former BLM employees to gauge the impact of the proposed regulations. Some, like the BLM staffer who works on rangeland management, requested not to be named because they still are employed by the agency. The employees agreed that the updated regulations offer several concrete benefits, including a requirement that the agency study the ecological impacts of all uses of public lands—from timber harvesting and recreation to mining and oil drilling. ProPublica 和《高地新闻》采访了多位现任和前任土地管理局员工，以评估拟议法规的影响。一些人，比如那位从事牧场管理的员工，因仍在职而要求匿名。受访员工一致认为，更新后的法规提供了一些具体的益处，包括要求该机构研究公共土地所有用途的生态影响——从木材采伐和休闲活动到采矿和石油钻探。
The current rules limit such reviews to the livestock industry, where they have uncovered tens of millions of acres of damage due to overgrazing. The regulations would also allow the BLM to handle low-level violations of grazing regulations more informally, avoiding potentially unnecessary fights between ranchers and regulators; clean up sections of the code that may be at odds with recent court decisions and laws; and offer the agency and ranchers more flexibility in how they manage the range, allowing for quicker decision-making responding to a local ecosystem’s needs. 现行规则将此类审查仅限于畜牧业，审查已发现因过度放牧造成的数千万英亩土地破坏。新法规还将允许土地管理局以更非正式的方式处理轻微的放牧违规行为，避免牧场主与监管机构之间可能出现的不必要冲突；清理法规中可能与近期法院判决和法律相抵触的部分；并为该机构和牧场主在管理牧场方面提供更大的灵活性，从而能够更快地做出决策以响应当地生态系统的需求。
Tim Canterbury, president of the Public Lands Council, a ranching trade group, in a news release called the update “a massive step forward.” He said the existing regulations grew from the “cattle free by ’93” movement of the early 1990s that was hostile to ranching and aimed to rid public lands of livestock. “The resulting regulations all but ensured ranchers did not have the flexibility to take full advantage of the scientific and management advances that the industry has made over the last 35 years,” Canterbury said. 牧场贸易组织“公共土地委员会”（Public Lands Council）主席蒂姆·坎特伯雷（Tim Canterbury）在一份新闻稿中称此次更新是“向前迈出的巨大一步”。他表示，现行法规源于 20 世纪 90 年代初的“93 年前实现无牛化”（cattle free by ’93）运动，该运动对畜牧业怀有敌意，旨在清除公共土地上的牲畜。“由此产生的法规几乎确保了牧场主无法灵活地充分利用该行业在过去 35 年中所取得的科学和管理进步，”坎特伯雷说。
Other groups working on rangeland management say the regulations go too far in the opposite direction, tipping the scales toward ranchers. They point to proposals allowing ranchers to continue business as usual if they appeal agency decisions limiting grazing, threatening Native American tribes’ ability to graze bison and enshrining highly subsidized grazing fees. (ProPublica and High Country News found that in 2024 the federal government charged ranchers $284 million below market rate for the use of public lands.) 其他从事牧场管理的团体则表示，这些法规在相反的方向上走得太远，使天平向牧场主倾斜。他们指出，拟议方案允许牧场主在对限制放牧的机构决策提出上诉时继续照常经营，这威胁到了美洲原住民部落放牧野牛的能力，并固化了高额补贴的放牧费。（ProPublica 和《高地新闻》发现，2024 年联邦政府向牧场主收取的公共土地使用费比市场价格低了 2.84 亿美元。）
“We can expect considerably more places where cows and sheep are going to be and more damage,” said Josh Osher, public policy director of the Western Watersheds Project, a conservation group. “I think we see big impacts on wildlife.” “我们可以预见，牛羊出现的地点会大幅增加，造成的破坏也会更多，”保护组织“西部流域项目”（Western Watersheds Project）的公共政策主任乔什·奥舍（Josh Osher）说。“我认为我们看到了对野生动物的巨大影响。”
“Back to the Ronald Reagan years” “回到罗纳德·里根时代”
The livestock industry influenced the regulatory rewrite from both outside and inside the Interior Department. The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association and Public Lands Council, two main trade groups, publicly celebrated their meetings with the secretaries of the Interior and Agriculture departments in the spring. Among their agenda items was a memorandum of understanding allowing the trade groups to give guidance to the departments, including on a “Grazing Action Plan” that involved updating regulations. The groups did not respond to requests for comment. (The Western Landowners Alliance, which represents conservation-minded ranchers and landowners, said it’s still evaluating the regulations.) 畜牧业从内政部内外部影响了此次法规的重写。两大主要贸易组织——全国养牛者牛肉协会（National Cattlemen’s Beef Association）和公共土地委员会——公开庆祝了他们在春季与内政部长和农业部长的会晤。他们的议程项目包括一份谅解备忘录，允许这些贸易组织为相关部门提供指导，其中包括涉及更新法规的“放牧行动计划”。这些组织没有回应置评请求。（代表具有环保意识的牧场主和土地所有者的“西部土地所有者联盟”表示，仍在评估这些法规。）
Representatives of Native American tribes and conservation groups, meanwhile, told ProPublica and High Country News that the administration offered them no opportunity to provide input on the draft regulations before they were published. They also take issue with the process due to the involvement of Karen Budd-Falen, a high-ranking official in the Interior Department and a long-time grazing advocate whose family is in the ranching business. She served in the first Trump administration and was barred from discussing grazing policy due to potential conflicts of interest. But after rejoining the department, she received an ethics waiver allowing her to work on grazing policy. 与此同时，美洲原住民部落和保护组织的代表告诉 ProPublica 和《高地新闻》，政府在法规草案发布前没有给他们提供任何发表意见的机会。他们还对这一过程提出了质疑，因为凯伦·巴德-法伦（Karen Budd-Falen）参与其中。她是内政部的一名高级官员，也是长期的放牧倡导者，其家族从事畜牧业。她在第一届特朗普政府任职期间，曾因潜在的利益冲突被禁止讨论放牧政策。但在重新加入该部门后，她获得了一项道德豁免，允许她从事放牧政策工作。
In December, Budd-Falen participated in a discussion about public lands management with Republican Sen. Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming. During that event, Budd-Falen called grazing regulations the issue that “probably was the closest to my heart” and gave a rare view into the effort to update them. “You want to know what put the public ranchland out of business — it was Bruce Babbitt’s regulations,” she told Lummis, referring to President Bill Clinton’s Interior secretary. 去年 12 月，巴德-法伦与怀俄明州共和党参议员辛西娅·卢米斯（Cynthia Lummis）参加了一场关于公共土地管理的讨论。在那次活动中，巴德-法伦称放牧法规是“最贴近我心”的问题，并罕见地透露了更新这些法规的努力。“你想知道是什么让公共牧场倒闭的吗——是布鲁斯·巴比特（Bruce Babbitt）的法规，”她对卢米斯说，她指的是比尔·克林顿总统时期的内政部长。