Monthly Archives: February 2023

Research and Writing by John Cox, MFA

(Photo John’s Horse Babe)

The BLM, a subordinate agency in the United States Department of the Interior, manages more land than the Forest Service, National Park Service, and the Fish and Wildlife Service combined. In fact, BLM manages 270,441,663 acres of land – about 1/8 of the country’s entire land surface – mostly in the West. Despite its size, the BLM’s forestry receives very little attention.

The problem we have, as taxpayers, is the fact the common taxpayer receives little to no benefit whatsoever, despite the overwhelming taxpayer money used in managing multi-use Public Lands. Cattle ranching, oil and gas drilling, logging, and mining apparently receive many benefits from taxpayers, as well as reduction in price for leased Public Lands.

Here I have perused the BLM’s timber sale program which consistently operates at a significant financial loss to American taxpayers. This is just one of many other situations, for example cattle and ranching subsidies develop fiscal losses on yearly basis, reduction in leased land as well as in mining leases also drive the wagons of under responsible fiscal responsibility.

Back to the timber sales program, rather than being an economically self-sufficient program as required by federal law, the agencies public domain for street program fails to offset even the cost of administrating the program. Moreover, the more money budgeted to BLM for logging operations, the higher the fiscal losses.

Worse yet, the agency’s ineffective management is creating massive future indebtedness which dwarfs the programs annual losses as a result of contract liability to convert companies and massive reforestation expenses. There are 5 major timber – producing states that make up the 12-state area that encompasses public domain land. The 5 states are: Idaho, California, Montana, Washington, and Oregon.

The myth, factually, in timber sales, as well as in the Wild Horse and Burro Program, and Grazing Permit Programs on Public Lands, and that the Bureau of Land Management makes any money at all, remains a myth. It is estimated, while perusing financials as well as returns to the Treasury Department, myself and others estimate more than 80% of all National Forest Timber sales programs lose money – the same with the Grazing Permit Programs and the Wild Horse and Burro Program within the USDA Forestry and the Bureau of Land Management.

What this amounts to is that the Bureau of Land Management, and all its programs associated with the multipurpose Public Lands — industries on leased lands, or mining, the financial results are always the same – more money is “going out” of BLM coffers than is “coming in” to repay the government for timber sales or “other” expenses. The BLM’s poor performance proves the theory, that spending other people’s money is no way to run a business. The BLM’s management tools consistently centers around “cover up” and “distract” the public and Congress from this reality.

What becomes evident upon review is the fact BLM rarely bothers to compare, in this case example, timber receipts with true sales costs. One can only imagine how they manipulate and browbeat the public in the matters of the “actual costs” of not only the Wild Horse and Burro Program, but the subsidy-driven program within the Grazing Permit Program. This is because the agencies costs derived from tax dollars — not from its annual or actual receipts. The BLM, for example, reports sales prices as receipts – despite the fact that defaults and inflation mean that actual receipts are usually less than prices, and fiscal returns to the Federal Treasury are even lower.

I do not find Public Domain Programs ever having neither appropriate resources, nor management ideologies, and certainly not personnel skills, to fully reinforce its Public Lands Values. Interesting that I found there are tens of thousands of additional acres of forest land not identified officially, that was forested and timber sales conducted. The land simply forgotten – so I asked about this from several Retired DOI/BLM Lands Managers. All had the same story — they had lands in their region to manage, yet never seen by them; some, were only seen once or twice, in their average job-periods of 20 years or more.

Often, some of the corrupt-lands managers see this remote land unused, in particular in remote areas, and suddenly we see cattle-grazing on some of the overgrown grass on the land, even though it was supposedly Reforested, as BLM paperwork-only, attested. But in truth, no reforestation occurred what so ever – and the cattle further destroyed the land –

This is troubling because sustainability is then neutralized, or the land destroyed in total and unavailable for future timber harvest or grazing, or for anything. The public then sees more and more Public Lands used for grazing, when indeed grazing should not have been allowed, and the cycle continues, until the land useless, and BLM Lands Managers have to locate new or semi-destroyed Public Lands, for grazing. . . This chain-of-destruction never seems to end.

Up to this point I have not mentioned the extreme prejudice the BLM demonstrates on a consistent basis against, for example Wild Horses, Keystone Predators, and other mid-sized and smaller wildlife, that are not considered for Permit-Hunting on our Multi-Use Lands.

As well, I have seen firsthand the likes of Wild Life Service’s come into areas on our Multi Use Lands, and wipe out all of the small critters or mid-sized critters, in particular, around cattle grazing permit land. What this ultimately does, or the travesty of this situation of short-term thinking or bias thinking, is the fact if there are no small to midsize critters around, yet Keystone predators in the same areas, problems develop; thereby. it takes no imagination to acknowledge attacks to livestock, or the domestic animals around housing developments or on ranches, will occur. So once again we see the DOI/BLM mismanage our Wildlife and our Public Lands – which can no longer, in reality, be termed Multi-Use, whatsoever.

Conclusively, many of us see the Bureau of land management and its programs as an unnecessary element within our government. This is because of a level of incompetence as well as irresponsibility, and the amount of corruption that we find weekly, is simply extremely expensive for taxpayers. Just the fiscal responsibility alone, and their ineptitude, shouts loudly to all who look into this, that the BLM needs to be shut down.

Myself and others recommend that other government agencies, that can develop a fiscal responsible situation, and be responsible for taxpayer money spent appropriately, take over the programs that for some reason or another – conflicts with responsible conduct and an overwhelming number of conflict-of-interest situations – and rid at least within a small virtue of responsibility, our nation of a very corrupt government agency.

(To be shared in its entirety, no copy-n-past unless permissions granted from the author of this article)

Written by John Cox, MFA

Corrupt people are most often caught, because corrupt people, to say it nicely, are not the sharpest knives in the drawer. We can say the same about government agencies and the Bureau of Land Management. So let’s take a look at why I say this – and this is not just my opinion, but rather, the opinion of many Americans’ and taxpayers, that are saying “enough is enough’.

Here I will discuss examples about their “overpopulation of wild horses on public lands”. I will talk about some of the more flamboyant cases that I see on the DOI/BLM XL sheets, AND OVER THREE DECADES WORTH. The DOI/BLM. Corruption, in these agencies, obviously a severe understatement.

So, let’s start at clear Lodge Canyon HMA, in NV, and in 2008 onward called Eagle HMA. Right away we see flaws within BLM math as well as outright lies.

Let’s go to 2009 (keep in mind these are all population statistics from the BLM) and I see the available Wild Horse statistics of 505 Wild Horses in this HMA – an increase from the year before of 470 Wild Wild Horses, for a 1,343% increase. So we’re led to believe at this HMA, at the end of 2009, there were 975 Wild Horses’ on that range; Although, eyewitnesses at those HMA’s never did see 975 horses; nor, did they ever see 505 Wild Horses’ roaming the same HMA.

But more confusion arises when we go to 2010, and we see only 606 Wild Horses’ roaming this range. These are all BLM numbers folks – which we refer to as Phantom-Numbers, similar to the DOI/BLM Phantom-Forests that do not exist (wrote about this a couple field-notes back, but still “not-there” today LOL) upon paper-only!

At the same HMA let’s go to 2012, 522 Wild Horses’ roaming the HMA; which, BLM says a 322 Wild Horse increase happened, which is 161% increase in Wild Horses on that range. So, they’re telling us that there are, in 2012, 844 Wild Horses on this HMA at year end, yet the following year, 2013, they say there were 626, at the beginning of 2013 . . . Interesting, how that cannot happen on this Universe, and yet, they’re saying it does.

Now let’s go to the Calico Mountains HMA in Nevada. In 2008 there were supposedly 549 Wild Horses roaming this HMA — there was an increase of 285 Wild Horses, which is according to BLM statistics, a 108% increase. Simple addition shows us this is 834 Wild Horses by the end of 2008, that were roaming the Calico HMA – Yet the BLM in their 2009 statistics, shows only 660 (beginning of the year 2009) Wild Horses roaming the HMA and a 111 Wild Horse increase by the end of 2009, which shows in their math, a 20% increase.

According to DOI/BLM, amazingly, Wild Horses disappear, or were not there to begin with, suddenly appear, then disappear, then appear again on some other range — and need I point out, that not just Wild Horse Mares have foal, but according to these numbers, blatantly — all horses, stallions and foals and yearlings, all have foals, and the trees and the rocks in the area seem to have foals, as well. This is quite a government agency — I would suggest this should go down in biological history as a phenomena — but, sadly, it is simply a corrupt government agency that lies a lot . . .

Now let’s go to the Black Rock Range West HMA, in Nevada. The first thing that comes to my mind is the ridiculous and obvious nature of the corruption the BLM poses upon the American taxpayers, yet, there seems to be no checks & balance system here, of justice, whatsoever. And here’s why:

Right off the top in 2008 we see 399 Wild Horses’, according to BLM, roaming the range at Black rock Range West – Somewhere (Phantom-Horses again – they just come and go as they please, I guess), 323 Wild Horses showed-up — an increase of 425% in one year.

There is no doubt in my mind that perhaps the BLM does not understand that only mares carry foal, and a hard-fact that anywhere from 35% to 55% of those foals die at birth, and another 12% die within the first year too a year and a half old, on the range. We have to ask the obvious question, as taxpayers as well as on this planet Earth, where did these horses come from, and are these simply Phantom Numbers, that we know have existed over decades now with DOI/BLM.

I see just within these statistics, “Phantom-Wild Horses” that exist in DOI/BLM minds only – and consider this – We depend on this agency for proper management of highly toxic birth controls and their Darting Programs, as well as with our hard-earned taxpayer money, to be responsible, and transparent – apparently, we have a ways to go presently, also, as this is just straight-up corruption, and to obtain larger budgets for themselves; which is, a Legal “Federal Fraud” situation, ongoing today.

On the same range let’s go to 2011. . . There were only 143 Wild Horses roaming the Black Rock Range West HMA (the fact is the figures from year-to-year make no sense whatsoever when you’re looking at these charts from the BLM) so the BLM tells us there is an increase of 83 horses, which is 138% increase –They went from 2008 of 722 Wild Horses; to 2009, with only 507; then to 2010, there were only 60 Wild Horses; then to 2011, there were 226 Wild Horses the BLM tells us; then in 2012 they tell us there were 74 Wild Horses’ roaming the range, and decreased by the 69 that were rounded up, which is -48%; and then, in 2013, 114 Wild Horses on that range again, and according to their figures a 27% increase. THEY JUST COME OUT OF NOWHERE! is about the only explanation I see . . .

We can honestly label the DOI/BLM Wild Horse Herd Counts as “Phantom Wild Horse Herds”, as they simply do not exist within the numbers DOI/BLM give us. Classifieds as “Paper-Only” Statistics, as there is no “Real-World” situation that this could exist, what so ever.

The fact is I could go on and on with a lot of this information that is from the BLM, and approved by their Over-Site Government Agency the DOI . . . Yet these Phantom-Numbers exist. Statistically, as well as observation tells us, clearly, there is no evidence, credible, to show these numbers even exist. This is all at taxpayer expense – From the Grazing Permit Program.

Never the less, all one has to do is look at their statistical data, which consistently shows us – no doubt whatsoever – that the DOI/BLM are two very corrupted government agencies. Where are Taxpayer’s Representatives, we voted into office, to look after Our America?