Putting People First / September 25, 1993
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Washington Report

FROM THE TRENCHES

by Kathleen Marquardt
Chairman, Putting People First

...A weekly opinion column about the struggle against "animal rights" and
   eco-extremists.

Copyright 1993 Putting People First
Permission to reproduce this column is freely granted on the condition that
credit is given to Putting People First.

Putting People First is a nonprofit organization of citizens who believe in
rights for humans and welfare for animals, and who oppose the goals and
tactics of "animal rights" and environmental extremism.

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BRUCE BABBITT, GURU OF GREEN

     The Clinton Administration is planning to more than double the fee
it charges for grazing rights on federal lands.  Interior Secretary
Bruce Babbitt has proposed hiking the fee from the current $1.86 to
$4.28 per Animal Unit Month,after which the fee could rise another 25
percent per year.  Congress will have no vote on the issue.

          Animal rights and Green groups are ecstatic because, they
claim, the current fee is so low that it amounts to a taxpayer subsidy
of ranchers, resulting in overgrazing, erosion, and desertification. 
But the Bureau of Land Management itself concedes that 90 percent of
federal rangeland is in excellent condition, thanks to improvements by
farmers and ranchers.  Furthermore, many grazing allotments are
currently vacant - irrefutable evidence that the fee is already above
the market rate for these marginal lands.

     Livestock Market Digest estimates that Babbitt's plan "will
eventually break 40 percent of permittees."  Randall Brewer, president
of the Public Lands Council, estimates that in Western states, the
figure could be closer to 60 percent.  Jim Magagna, a sheep rancher,
says this "tremendous increase in cost of production could mean we will
lose the range sheep production industry in this country."

     John Van Sweden, president of the New Mexico Farm and Livestock
Bureau, says New Mexico will be "severely damaged economically if these
fee increases and other radical rule changes are implemented. "They    
will cause substantial increases in the cost of meat, dairy products,
and even grain, as more feed is needed to replace range fodder.  The
result will be increased hunger among the poor and higher starvation
rates in the Third World which is largely dependent on the U. S.
surplus.  Texas rancher Bob Jones writes, "This type of tyrannical
oppression causes insurrection and bloodshed."

     The pinch is already being felt.  An August memo to Curtis Doyal of
the USDA's Farmers Home Administration indicates that because of "the
recent announcement on grazing fees by Secretary Babbitt," Western
Commerce Bank of Carlsbad, New Mexico, will no longer make "loans using
public grazing rights as collateral."

     To protest Babbitt's plan, several hundred New Mexico livestock
producers conducted a mock funeral in August, and more than 400
different property-rights and multiple use groups from across the
country flew into Washington, D.C. to protest at the Department of
Interior on September 21.

     If Babbitt were truly interested in conserving range lands and
eliminating subsidies, he would follow the advice of think-tanks like
the Heritage Foundation and Cato Institute, and privatize the commons,
or at least consider the proposal by the Political Economy Research
Center, to make grazing rights permanent and transferable, strengthening
incentives for conservation.  He would eliminate subsidies by auctioning
permits to the highest bidders, and would permit Green groups to bid for
the permits to shut them down, putting their money where their mouth is.


But Babbitt has bigger concerns than the environment:  he is out to
remake our souls.  His critics, he says, believe that "biodiversity and
the protection of species is a pantheistic plot that threatens their
concept of the human species as having the unmitigated right to destroy
anything in its way at whatever price of pain, suffering, cruelty, and
extinction."

     "The problem is a spiritual issue," says Babbitt.  "Ultimately
there isn't a chance of persuading people, civilizations, and countries
to take biodiversity seriously unless they first understand, from the
depths of the human spirit, the need to relate to Creation, to be
sensitive to the realities of suffering and mistreatment, and to have a
larger, holistic, spiritual view of what Creation is about."

     Babbitt may not be involved in a pantheistic plot, but clearly he
is exploiting the public's concern for conservation and animal welfare,
in the service of thinly veiled religious yearnings.  As a lawyer, he
should be aware that the First Amendment prohibits the United States
from making law "respecting an establishment of religion."

     Former Interior Secretary James Watt was hounded from office for
his frank admission that his vision of environmental stewardship as
grounded in his Christian faith.  Babbitt should be subjected to the
same treatment for basing policy on "holistic" superstitions.  Maybe
then he could run for Pope.