“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.”
― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

American’s, the taxpaying public, needs to start looking at – and understanding what the problems are, existing right now on our Public Lands. Ignoring such a large segment of our lands, and the management conducted by the Bureau of Land Management (i.e. BLM), has led to nothing less than criminality and single-purpose destruction by industrial and corporate entities – who indeed remain untrustworthy and even irresponsible toward America’s needs, taxpayer dollars, America’s wild horses, and Public Lands.

Public Lands, or what is termed “The Smell of Money” – diversity, mainly Special Interest and Lobby Groups, who fulfill their needs of high-profit methodology only. The sacrifice of our Public Lands, and the ever present and extensive destruction, both to land and wildlife, quite costly, and with taxpayers having no idea they subsidize this destruction daily — in the $-billions of dollars yearly.

The GAO (i.e. Government Accountability Office) states in several reports it costs the American Taxpayer $450 million yearly just to administer Welfare Ranching and the BLM Grazing Permit program – this is a program for ranchers to graze their cattle on Public Lands. Subsidies for ranchers and corporations on Public Lands and on a yearly basis, are given directly — $-millions of dollars more.

Ironically, the demand by these Welfare Rancher’s to remove Wild Horses from Public Lands, which also cost millions of dollars more, and on a yearly basis to complete, certainly compound the Public Lands expenses tremendously; although, if the Wild Horses left alone, would cost American Taxpayer’s next to nothing.

The Bureau of Land Management, or what some term as a government agency that is in reality a Special Interest and Corporate Clone, ignores Federal Law and legislation. Instead this Public Lands Management oversight agency ignores its legislative purpose of managing for multi-purpose use, then simply segments into Special-Interest use only – while ignoring ethics and actual-reality and honest Stewardship.

By the way, and certainly not to be ignored, it is of paramount reasoning for taxpayers to subsidize within a budget approved process, these government agencies – the BLM and DOI, with the use of taxpayer money entirely. It is time to question this financing as well, and the implications as to why explained within the context below – a few reasons of many, many more that exist. . .

Wild Horses on Public Lands

The BLM ignores the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act (WFRHBA) which provides protections to wild horses and burros on lands where they existed in 1971; as well as FLPMA, Taylor Grazing Act, NEPA, and other laws that involve protections of our Public Lands that directly prohibit destruction or abuse by ranchers and industry. They permanently removed, and continue at a costly price, wild horses and/or burros from approximately 22.2 million acres, and blame the wild horses for the destruction. Ridiculous? Absolutely! Founded on Fact? Not at all, and none exists!

The BLM continues to justify these decisions to “zero-out” herds based on pure Non-Fact. This is accomplished, actually by lies, now obvious to all involved, and reasoning why there exists no transparency at all (as discussed further):

1. checkerboard (private/public) land ownership;

2. a lack of critical resources required to sustain wild horse and/or burro populations (i.e., water, food, space, cover);

3. land transfers;

4. substantial conflict with other resource values; legal decisions or for other reasons.

But the situations here compounded, and disastrous to America’s Wild Horse Herds . . . “The capture, handling, and transportation process inherent to wild horse removals has destroyed wild horse bands, disrupted social dynamics of wild populations, and led to injuries and deaths of captured animals. While some amount of injuries/mortalities are expected when handling wild animals, many of the incidents that have occurred are entirely preventable; the result of negligence, abusive capture techniques, or cruel handling practices employed by those contracted to conduct the roundups.

Thriving Natural Ecological Balance

This author, after thorough research has found no official definition of a “thriving natural ecological balance” (TNEB) given to the public by any government agency, especially the BLM or DOI. This becomes extremely significant, as this is what defines the measures used by the BLM to assess whether a TNEB exists. But not so ironic, without a formal definition TNEB criteria, or standards to assess TNEB, the BLM has an awkward discretion in determining if a TNEB exists or not. This provides the BLM the opportunity to make claims that a TNEB does not exist which are then difficult to challenge.

Further, it sets-up a definable illegal-aspect of fraud. Well defined within government procurement policy and law, (in author synoptic form here) that situations must develop within a well-defined parameter of management and actual operational aspects via pre-explained and well structured and objective plans; in another words, to actually explain in well-defined terms, the reasoning for not only an appropriate budget expense while using taxpayer dollars (often in the millions of dollars), but to summarize the necessity as well as the management principles to appeal to such an arrangement. Does it actually resolve a problem, or create new problems?

So in reality the TNEB becomes nothing more than Cart Blanc or a freestyle-spending of taxpayer money, because no objective is ever given on such false and undefined, lack of data procedure. Although, what we do discover is more problems, and not so surprising, cost taxpayers much more money; as well we cannot neglect the situation job-security for the managers of such cumbersome and non-factual circumstances – to simply spend taxpayer money even more freely, and with little to no transparency or explanation while doing so.

Facts and Data? Just immaterial to a BLM employee and their supervisory staff. No one is watching – because no on really knows what is the ongoing situation on Public Lands.

But if it was defined, then most often there would be the big question – Is this Legal and is it Needed? And most often the aspects and reasoning for a roundup would not be applicable, needed or required, or legal. But the aspect of the overabundance of cattle would become prevalent, would it not? Of course it would, because this is the only reality-fact of this entire circumstance, the cattle, the overall and factual reasoning toward the destruction of Public Lands.

The BLM claims that such removals are required to restore the “thriving natural ecological balance” and to permit “multiple-use” of the land. But the fact is the situation has always been questionable; especially when no legitimate facts or data is given for the extreme and costly roundups.

BLM DOI and Bad Science

The fact is the subject of cattle, or even the mention of cattle have been taken from any Range Management Research – or decision makers have been told to simply ignore the facts of the cattle and their destructive elements of grazing. Once again, these government agencies are responsible for spending large amounts of taxpayer money, in the $-millions, and for corrupt data, no data, bad science. Budgets are based on this information often within government procurement situations.

Bad Science + False information = Costly / Corrupt Decisions. There is a fact here though, the fact of no-resolution achieved. What follows is simply compounded – to cover-up a bad decision (incompetence actually) other programs such as PZP and breeding control started, costing taxpayers millions more in hidden agenda budgets, grants, and scholarships; which have become quite outstanding currently.

In one conversation we found a Contract Scientist, a PZP researcher, was asked to supply data from any long term studies he may have in regard to the use and safety, and future results to Wild Horses health, when administering PZP into their bodies. His response was simply, (in synoptic form here), “. . . sure we had the data in our heads, but no one wrote it down. But we know what it is we’re doing.”

This comment, he tried to make us believe, would resolve the “no data present” issue and cover over 30 years of no data – the PZP questionable today, and highly suspect in regard to unsafe or unwanted and extreme negative health situations – the data if accurate, would have pointed this out and prevention or No Sale to this government agency would have developed. Instead, it is based on false information as well as no information what so ever – so BLM incompetence strikes again, and again . . .

“. . . Though any effort to prevent pregnancy will result in an impact to individual animals, herd structure, and mare/stallion behavior, the vast majority of scientists have determined that those impacts are miniscule or inconsequential, and pale in comparison to the disruptive impacts of roundups and removals.” PZP research staff and principles

This statement brought to us by those who have no “long-term-data” on their research, and expect administering PZP via roundups to operate this way. Well, even this has been proven in error, and in accord with Agricultural Reports of horses going to slaughter in both Canada and Mexico (export data overwhelming) and directly related to the PZP added roundups situation and operations. We have found since the conception of this supposed “new” resolution to cover-up older cover-ups, more wild horses are going to slaughter than ever before – and those mares who received PZP injections, often do not make it back to Public Lands what so ever – rather many are simply sent to slaughter, as well as with stallions that are also rounded up during the PZP plan, simply loaded and taken directly to slaughter. (i.e. confirmed)

Currently, there is no way to check for the hazards of PZP, other than experiment on the Wild Horses, costing taxpayers $-millions of dollars more, even though the PZP program did fail in 1996 and for similar reasoning brought up here – bad data, no data, and incompetent handling of wild horses, and horses health and ecological systems placed into jeopardy.

One has got to suspect how costly the next situation will cost the taxpayers, to cover up the falsehoods of the PZP situation, that is covering up the falsehoods of the roundups situation, that is covering up the falsehoods of BLM personnel, who are in reality extremely incompetent and do not know much about wild horses or their band behaviors.

This is the way BLM operates. If the data not there, well, of course they know what they are doing, after all it is in their heads. The problem is the fact it is in their head, and the dollar signs for everyone involved are quite overwhelming at times – and while covering up this situation, they have also hidden the fact, due to no transparency, that none of those involved in the Wild Horse and Burro Program are really qualified to do so.

I think it legitimate to state, unequivocally, it is time for change – To actually get the BLM out of the wild horse management business – The taxpayer money extended to this government agency is simply a waste of money and waste of time – Many of us would like to see these situations investigated, as taxpayers also pay a substantial amount of money to be protected from criminal behavior within government agencies. . .
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References:

http://www.blm.gov/wo/st/en/prog/whbprogram/history_and_facts/quick_facts.html

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/bad-science-when-breakthrough-research-turns-out-to-be-fraudulent-9629517.html

http://www.livescience.com/27255-bad-science-retracted-papers.html

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/absolutely-maybe/2013/09/08/bad-research-rising-the-7th-olympiad-of-research-on-biomedical-publication/

U.S. Congress, House Committee on Natural Resources, Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests, and Public Lands, The Border: Are Environmental Laws and Regulation Impeding Security and Harming the Environment? testimony of U.S. Customs and Border Protection Deputy Chief Ronald Vitiello, 112t/Cong., 1stsess., April 15, 2011

P.L. 91-190; 42 U.S.C. §§ 4321-4347.

For more information on U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) compliance with NEPA and the environmental impact of its border security programs, see CBP, “SBI Environmental Documents,” http://www.cbp.gov/xp/cgov/ border_security/otia/sbi_news/sbi_enviro_docs/.

http://naturalresources.house.gov/Info/BorderOverview.htm.

A related issue is the authority, and litigation challenging the authority, to construct and maintain border barriers (the “fence”), including waivers from environmental protection statutes. However, this issue is not discussed in this report, because it is not limited to the federal lands. For information on issues related to the border barrier, see CRS Report
R42138, Border Security: Immigration Enforcement Between Ports of Entry, by Marc R. Rosenblum.

GAO-11-177, Border Security: Additional Actions Needed, p. 4.

See http://robbishop.house.gov/UploadedFiles/DHS.pdf..

GAO-11-177, Border Security: Additional Actions Needed, p. 15.

GAO-11-177, Border Security: Additional Actions Needed, p. 15.

U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, Forest Service, Fiscal Year 2012 President’s Budget: Budget Justification, p. 16-45.

This estimate of the deferred maintenance for roads reflects passenger-car roads. Including high-clearance roads, the total estimate of deferred maintenance for roads is $4.4 billion. Using this total roads estimate would yield approximately a $6.56 billion overall estimate of FS deferred maintenance.

This information was provided to CRS by the DOI Budget Office on May 10, 2011.

S.T. Dana and S.K. Fairfax, Forest and Range Policy: Its Development in the United States, 2nd ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1980), pp. 158-164. 38

See, e.g., http://rangenet.org/directory/shumant/endgrazing.html.

See Assessing Forest Ecosystem Health in the Inland West, ed. R.N. Sampson, D.L. Adams, and M. Enzer (New York: Food Products Press, 1994); see also CRS Report RS20822, Forest Ecosystem Health: An Overview, by Ross W. Gorte.

See http://www.forestsandrangelands.gov/resources/overview/.

See CRS Report R41691, Forest Management for Resilience and Adaptation, by Ross W. Gorte.

For USFS: U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, Forest Service, Land Areas Report—As of Sept 30, 2010, Tables 1 and 4, http://www.fs.fed.us/land/staff/lar/LAR2010/lar2010index.html. Data reflect land within the National Forest System, including national forests, national grasslands, purchase units, land utilization projects, experimental
areas, and other areas.

For NPS: U.S. Dept. of the Interior, National Park Service, Land Resources Division, National Park Service, Listing of Acreage by State, as of 12/31/2010, unpublished document. Data reflect federally owned lands managed by the NPS. For information on acreage by unit, see the NPS website, http://www.nature.nps.gov/stats/ acreagemenu.cfm.

For FWS: U.S. Dept. of the Interior, Fish and Wildlife Service, Annual Report of Lands Under Control of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, as of September 30, 2010, Table 2, http://www.fws.gov/refuges/realty/archives/pdf/2010_Annual_Report_of_Lands.pdf. Data reflect all federally owned land over which the FWS has sole or primary jurisdiction.

For BLM: U.S. Dept. of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management, Public Land Statistics, 2010, Table1-http://www.blm.gov/public_land_statistics/pls10/pls10_combined.pdf.

For DOD: U.S. Department of Defense, Office of the Deputy Under Secretary for Installations & Environment, Base Structure Report, Fiscal Year 2010 Baseline (A Summary of DoD’s Real Property Inventory), VIII. Total DoD Inventory, pp. DoD-36 to DoD-78, http://www.acq.osd.mil/ie/download/bsr/bsr2010baseline.pdf.