12 CapitalPress.com
January 22, 2016
‘Try to listen instead of forming a rebuttal’
DIVIDE from Page 1
disconnect between urban
and rural. It’s a division on
display as armed men occupy
the Malheur National Wildlife
Refuge headquarters in Har-
ney County and demand the
federal government release
area ranchers Dwight and Ste-
ven Hammond and turn over
all federally managed land to
the states, counties or private
ranchers.
Many people living in
Portland and other urban cen-
ters mock the occupiers as
“Y’all Qaeda” and ridicule
their beliefs. They rail about
“welfare cowboys” receiving
“subsidized” grazing fees on
federal land.
Meanwhile, rural resi-
dents, farming and ranching
groups and elected officials
have criticized the occupiers’
actions. But they say the un-
derlying anger about lost eco-
nomic opportunity in the rural
West is real.
U.S. Rep. Greg Walden,
who represents Eastern Or-
egon in Congress, said the
thread tying the Hammond
family’s case with the occu-
piers’ demands is “decades
of frustration, arrogance and
betrayal that has contributed
to the mistrust of the federal
government.”
In Portland and other ur-
ban centers, that connection
isn’t so clear.
“Because it’s not on their
radar,” said John Morgan, an
economic development, civic
and leadership planner and
consultant who works with
rural communities.
Harney County, where fed-
eral and state agencies manage
about 75 percent of the land,
has 1,200 fewer people and 10
percent fewer jobs than it did
in the late 1970s. The number
of logging and mill jobs in the
county went from 768 in 1978
to just 6 in 2014, according to
state figures.
Meanwhile, the state’s
urban areas, especially Port-
land and surrounding Mult-
nomah County, have grown
dramatically. With its 14,000
employees, OHSU alone has
nearly twice as many people
as Harney County. Intel, the
computer chip manufacturing
company based in Hillsboro,
employs about 18,000 peo-
ple.
Yet the wheat, timber,
wine, livestock and other agri-
cultural products pouring out
With attention focused on the group occupying the Malheur Na-
tional Wildlife Refuge, Oregon cattle rancher Keith Nantz wrote an
opinion piece for the Washington Post to explain ranching, grazing
and the struggle to make a living in the rural West.
Photos by Eric Mortenson/Capital Press
Streetcars, MAX trains, bicyclists and cars crowd Portland’s South Waterfront district. The contrast
with rural Oregon’s wide-open spaces make it difficult to explain the context of the militia occupation at
the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.
Online
• To see Rep. Greg Walden’s speech on the U.S. House floor, go to
www.capitalpress.com.
• To read rancher Keith Nantz’s opinion piece, go to https://www.
washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/01/08/im-an-oregon-
rancher-heres-what-you-dont-understand-about-the-bundy-stand-
off/
• To read rancher Paul Schwennesen’s opinion piece, go to http://
www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-schwennesen/the-stetson-rebel-
lion-and_b_8949070.html
of rural Oregon are crucial to
cities, Morgan said. City ship-
ping, trucking, processing,
professional service and retail
jobs depend on them.
“The resource economy is
intrinsically tied to the pros-
perity of the rest of the state,”
he said. “You couldn’t have
urban prosperity without the
fact that Oregon is still a re-
source economy. Intel can
only take us so far.”
Getting that point across to
city dwellers isn’t easy.
“They’re more than happy
to try and regulate what hap-
pens to the Columbia River
Gorge because they see it as
their playground, without
stopping to understand the
(economic) impact,” Morgan
said.
But the Hammond case
— they were ordered to serve
additional prison time for
burning BLM land — and the
wildlife refuge occupation
may have opened the conver-
sation. Walden made an im-
passioned speech in Congress
about “federal overreach in
the West” that was well-re-
ceived and widely shared on
social media.
Rancher Keith Nantz,
manager and partner of the
Dillon Land and Cattle Co.
south of The Dalles, Ore.,
wrote an opinion piece on the
issue for the Washington Post
that received more than 4,200
reader comments.
In his piece, Nantz said
management decisions are
being made by people “four
to five generations removed
from food production” and
who “don’t quite understand
our industry.”
“In every part of my busi-
ness, I try to find a balance
between economics, mother
nature and our culture,” Nantz
wrote. “I know that if we
don’t treat our land properly,
we will go out of business by
our own hands.
“But all too often, I’m not
given the autonomy to do so.
I’m given rules, not a conver-
sation about how ranchers and
government officials and en-
vironmentalists might be able
to work together. That’s an
approach that fails everyone.”
Nantz said online com-
ments ranged from “absolute
opposite ends of the spec-
trum.” The issue now has the
national stage, he said, and
producers should not let the
conversation die off. Farmers
and ranchers are getting better
at networking, he said, and
must continue to engage the
public and explain what they
do without being combative.
“We need to utilize the mo-
mentum we have right now,”
Nantz said. “We need to capi-
talize on this movement.”
Nantz said one of the tips
in the book, “The 7 Habits of
Highly Effective People” is to
“first understand before being
understood.”
“We all have to live here in
this great state and this great
country,” he said. “We need
some balance. Try to listen
instead of forming a rebuttal.
We can actually find answers
to conflicting views.”
Portland attorney Tim Ber-
nasek, who heads an agricul-
tural practice group for the
Dunn Carney Allen Higgins
& Tongue law firm, said he’s
seeing increased urban curios-
ity about rural life.
He said city dwellers
should understand farmers
and ranchers are intelligent
people who are drawn to agri-
culture because it’s a calling,
often a family legacy and a
lifestyle preference.
He said their career choice
is analogous to that of teach-
ers, who are likewise drawn to
their jobs.
“They could make more
money doing something else,”
he said.
Paul Schwennesen, a Har-
vard-educated Air Force vet-
eran who raises grass-fed beef
in Arizona, wrote a piece for
the Huffington Post in which
he described Western reaction
to the Harney County situa-
tion as “deeply American.”
He said “urban elites”
at both ends of the political
spectrum have dismissed the
standoff as ridiculous, and
miss the point of it.
“Like good Tories haugh-
tily renouncing tea dumping
in Boston ‘Harbour,’ we may
be shocked to find that the
ragamuffins are not only say-
ing something important, but
that their message is striking
a chord, Schwennesen wrote.
“What they are saying is
that the federal government is
too bloated, too heavy-hand-
ed, and too corrupt, and that it
is most spectacularly evident
on the rugged rangelands of
the West.”
In a phone interview,
Schwennesen said reaction to
his piece “split along the ur-
ban-rural divide.”
He said the ground level is-
sue is federal management of
the overwhelming majority of
the resource base in the West.
Bureaucratic paralysis is the
inevitable result when “one
decision maker gets to make
the decisions over a gigantic
public resource,” he said.
“I think a lot of what’s
going on here is that the free
market and capitalism real-
ly aren’t thriving out West,”
Schwennesen said.
“While not all rural blight
is the result of federal over-
sight, it’s a big piece of the
puzzle that goes unquestioned
today,” he said.
If Cargill or Monsanto
owned the majority of the
land and people were denied
opportunity to make a living,
all hell would break loose, he
said.
“I am an optimist at the
end of the day,” Schwennesen
said. “I do think logic prevails.
The best I can hope to do is
put out facts, and put them out
in such a way that it’s not just
ideological posturing.
“There’s more to the issue
than meets the preconceived
eye.”
Federal agencies may come after ranchers to collect payments for unpaid grazing fees
FEES from Page 1
ranchers in grazing lawsuits.
While the penalties would
not be criminal, serious
breaches of grazing contracts
may effectively end a ranch-
er’s ability to release livestock
onto public lands. It’s similar
to a contractor who has previ-
ously defaulted on an agree-
ment and is excluded from
bidding on government proj-
ects, Horngren said.
“The real risk is they’ll
be unable to graze on the al-
lotment for which they’re not
paying and it’s possible they
could be disqualified from ac-
quiring any allotments in the
future,” he said.
Federal agencies may also
come after ranchers to collect
payments for unpaid grazing
fees, he said.
Stock photo
While the penalties would not be criminal, serious breaches of
grazing contracts may effectively end a rancher’s ability to release
livestock onto public lands.
Ranchers and federal
agencies usually resolve mi-
nor contract disputes without
actually voiding such deals,
Horngren said. “Breaches
happen on both sides.”
Federal officials may not
treat one missed payment as
a serious issue, but tearing
up a contract and refusing to
pay at all would probably be
considered a material breach,
he said.
Members of the armed pro-
test group have cited examples
of ranchers refusing to pay
grazing fees without conse-
quence, such as Cliven Bun-
dy of Nevada, who continues
to graze on public land even
though the government claims
he owes more than $1 million
to the U.S. Bureau of Land
Management.
Federal officials backed off
from seizing Bundy’s cattle in
2014 after an armed standoff,
and his son, Ammon, is cur-
rently leading the occupation
in Oregon.
Horngren said he’d ad-
vise ranchers against relying
on that case in their deci-
sion-making and instead work
through administrative and le-
gal processes if they disagree
with restrictions on grazing
permits.
“Withholding payment is a
risky strategy for a rancher to
try to make the point the BLM
is not managing the range ap-
propriately,” he said.
Rancher Travis Williams
said he’s considering the pro-
testers’ proposal primarily be-
cause the money raised by the
federal government from graz-
ing fees doesn’t benefit Harney
County tax revenues.
If he does withhold grazing
fees, Williams said he doesn’t
want to “freeload” and instead
would make payments into an
escrow account, with the mon-
ey intended for the county.
Though he doesn’t want to
jeopardize his ranch, Williams
doesn’t believe that ranchers
“collaborating” with federal
agencies has produced needed
changes in land management.
Refusing to pay grazing
fees would likely be more ef-
fective, he said. “That’s the
only way we’re going to get
anything done.”
Shawn Mace, president
of the Harney County Stock-
growers Association, said his
organization does not endorse
illegal activity against the
federal government, which re-
flects the view of the Oregon
Cattlemen’s Association.
Some ranchers may feel a
need to stand against the fed-
eral government to protect
their way of life, but Mace
said it’s unclear what purpose
refusing to pay grazing fees
would achieve.
Mace said he prefers to
concentrate on his job of
ranching.
“Public grazing is vital to
the survival of Harney Coun-
ty ranchers,” he said. “I don’t
see this as a real issue. Why
would we bite the hand that
feeds us?”
Judge issued injunction barring government from interfering with Hage’s access to water rights
HAGE from Page 1
spanned more than two de-
cades.
In the Nevada case re-
cently reviewed by the 9th
Circuit, U.S. District Judge
Robert Jones said govern-
ment officials entered into a
“literal, intentional conspira-
cy” against Hage that “shocks
the conscience” and justifies
an injunction prohibiting the
agencies from continuing the
behavior.
That ruling sprang from a
lawsuit that the federal govern-
ment brought against Hage’s
estate, accusing his ranch of
trespassing by allowing its cat-
tle to graze on public land.
The case backfired against
the government when the
judge agreed with Hage’s
counterclaims, which alleged
that the agencies unlawfully
refused to renew his grazing
permits.
While there’s no right to
graze on federal land, the judge
held that the government vio-
lated administrative law when
it refused to renew his grazing
permits for reasons unrelated to
proper rangeland usage.
Jones found that the govern-
ment “vindictively” withheld
the permits because Hage made
a note on a grazing contract
refusing to waive his rights,
which would not have affected
the substance of the agreement.
Because of the note, the
government took the “nonsen-
sical position” that the permit
application hadn’t been prop-
erly completed, and stopped al-
lowing Hage to graze his cattle
beginning in 1993, the judge
said.
The government also tried
to transfer water rights owned
by Hage and encouraged anoth-
er rancher to apply for grazing
permits on allotments tradition-
ally used by Hage, Jones said.
The agencies retaliated
against people who sold cattle
to Hage to pressure them to
cease doing business with him
or to prevent them from testify-
ing in the lawsuit, he said.
Jones ruled that Hage held
water rights in streams on pub-
lic land, which offered a valid
defense against most of the
government’s accusations of
trespassing.
It’s reasonable for cows
to incidentally graze within
a half-mile of Hage’s water
rights as they cross federal
land, the judge said.
“It is not fair to say that
cattle must be taken to the
shore of a stream, kept there
and watched constantly until
they drink, and then taken off
of the land,” Jones said. “The
testimony at trial was uncon-
troverted that cattle cannot be
made to drink on command in
this way.”
The judge issued an in-
junction that barred the gov-
ernment from interfering with
Hage’s access to water rights
and ordered the agencies to
renew his grazing permits,
among other provisions.
That ruling has now been
reversed by the 9th Circuit,
which held that Jones ignored
longstanding legal precedent
in his opinion.
Ownership of water rights
does not give a rancher the right
to graze livestock on federal
property, though he can divert
water from a stream on such
land, the appeals court held.
As for the due process
rights related to Hage’s graz-
ing permits, the 9th Circuit
held that the statute of limita-
tions on such claims had run
out.
The appellate court reject-
ed the judge’s finding that the
statute of limitations hadn’t ex-
pired because the government’s
refusal to permit grazing was
a continuing violation of his
rights.
The 9th Circuit sent the case
back for reconsideration by a
different federal judge due to
Jones’ “bias,” “prejudgment”
and “animus toward the federal
agencies.”
Mark Pollot, the attorney
for Hage’s estate, said he
plans to challenge the 9th Cir-
cuit’s ruling, either by asking
for reconsideration by a larger
panel of appellate judges or
by requesting a review from
the U.S. Supreme Court.
The possibility of the Su-
preme Court weighing in on
the case is likely because the
9th Circuit’s ruling is contrary
to other legal precedents that
prohibit interference with wa-
ter rights, he said. “It really
does undermine the basis of
Western water law.”
The three-judge panel that
ruled against Hage also mis-
interpreted a legal precedent
related to grazing and water
rights, he said.
Water rights don’t allow
for unlimited grazing on gov-
ernment land, but they do al-
low incidental usage of range-
land by livestock as it travels
to a water source, Pollot said.
“That’s not a generalized
grazing right.”