This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
With the recent takeover of a remote federal wildlife preserve in Oregon in a protest led by sons of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, a recent story in Environment & Energy Daily seems worth passing along.
The protesters are miffed that a couple of ranchers charged with burning public land were sent back to prison to complete a federally mandated sentence.
The protesters say this is the latest example of federal government tyranny and usurping landowners' rights.
It's part of an ongoing battle between farmers and ranchers, mostly in the West, and the federal government charged with enforcing the law on public lands, and protecting wilderness and environmentally sensitive areas.
Cliven Bundy attracted national attention a while ago by staging an armed standoff with federal agents trying to confiscate his cattle over his refusal to pay his allotted grazing fees for many years.
To these ranchers, the federal government overreaches its authority, and to Cliven Bundy, specifically, the government has no right to charge him fees to graze his cattle, even though the land belongs to the public, not him.
The E&E news story, published online last month, focused on Nevada ranchers who denied the existence of a drought when they released cattle onto public lands in defiance of a federal order forbidding grazing because of dry conditions.
Those ranchers received $2.2 million in federal drought disaster relief, according to the story, citing records obtained by the Center for Investigative Reporting.
The Filippini family, who spearheaded protests against Bureau of Land Management grazing restrictions in the isolated community of Battle Mountain, Nev., received $1.1 million from the Department of Agriculture's Livestock Forage Disaster Program in 2014 while family lawyers claimed "no drought exists" on the Battle Mountain range, dismissing the U.S. Drought Monitor as unreliable because "moisture conditions" were normal.
The extended Tomera family, fellow Battle Mountain cattlemen who rode horses with other ranchers from Nevada to Washington, D.C., last year in a protest called the Grass March Cowboy Express, also was paid $1.1 million, according to the story.
The cross-country protest ride also featured denials of drought.
So does this all sound familiar?
I've written in the past about Rep. Mike Noel, R-Kanab, Utah's most fervent opponent of federal government regulations and land restrictions, taking $200,000 over a 10-year period in federal farm subsidies for a ranch he owns in southern Utah.
The Kane County Water Conservancy District, run by Noel, has taken millions in federal subsidies over the years.
Another interesting tidbit is a farming operation in San Juan County that has taken more than $1 million in federal farm subsidies.
The name of the operation is Lyman Farms and is owned by a family trust.
That piqued my interest because of all the news generated lately by San Juan County Commissioner Phil Lyman, who was convicted of misdemeanor conspiracy charges for leading an illegal ATV ride in a federally protected canyon.
The ride was to protest the federal government's policies that closed the canyon to motorized vehicles.
Phil Lyman told me he has nothing to do with Lyman Farms. There are a lot of Lymans in San Juan County.
Still, the commissioner has received a great deal of support from the locals in that county, many of whom pushed to have state taxpayers fund his defense.
So the sentiment down San Juan County way is clear.
They want the federal government to butt out of their affairs — except when there is a federal check to be cut.