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A few years ago: A nine-month investigation published by the Mercury News in November found taxpayers lost $108 million last year on federal grazing programs.  Today this has increased to $112 billion dollars and growing.  Another example in 2004 far more costly to taxpayers, due to illegla activity, misinformation, and dishonesty from BLM: http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-05-869

The report found that large corporations and millionaires at that time, such as hotel mogul Barron Hilton, computer heiress Mary Hewlett Jaffee and many others, benefited the most from below-market grazing fees and other rules.  Nothing has changed today.

Now more than a few corporations have found the money quite good, and our legislators seem to do nothing to fix this situation, making it legitimate and stop giving welfare payments (i.e. Corporate welfare) to these new styled hobby ranchers i.e. Corporations, simply managed by the true Lease Holders.

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The Agriculture Department’s Inspector General speaking about Welfare Ranchers “. . . the program is very wasteful and is prone to abuse because most of the risk for financial losses is born by taxpayers rather than private companies.  So the corporations involved make profit no matter what they do, and still charge the taxpayers full premium prices for the beef on the market.”

This article will present both sides of the “Welfare Rancher” information to the public, which will allow the American public to decide.

The Positive Attributes of Welfare Ranchers

Let’s start with the positive accounting of Welfare Ranchers, what they as a group have accomplished for the taxpayers and the open market under a democratic situation.

Welfare Ranchers have done nothing for America’s taxpayers;

Welfare Ranchers have done nothing for America’s economy, except make it worse;

Welfare Ranchers have done nothing for the beef markets, as they produce such as small percent of marketable beef;

Welfare Ranchers have done nothing for anybody except themselves, constantly taking from taxpayer money, blaming wild horse herds for ruining our lands, when it is proven time and again it is their cattle ruining our environment.  Then taxpayers also cover the replenishment costs of cattle grazing on public lands — Double-Dipping of taxpayer money constantly!

Grazing Regulations included Doctored analysis:  http://www.ucsusa.org/scientific_integrity/abuses_of_science/cattle-grazing.html

Grazing on Public Lands good for Welfare Ranchers and at taxpayer expense, bad for the Ecosystem and more costly to the taxpaying Public:  http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2008076883_grazing28m.html

Welfare Ranching and cattle grazing on Public Lands damaging to Public Lands and the Ecosystems:  http://summitcountyvoice.com/2012/05/16/is-cattle-grazing-damaging-public-lands-in-the-west/

Other Cattle Ranchers Opinions on Welfare Ranchers

Let’s make it clear from the beginning in this discussion about Welfare Ranchers.  This explanation is taken from what this Journalist has observed, researched, and read, as well as comments made from the honest cattle ranchers, who do not accept charity in their day-to-day business of cattle ranching.  Honest ranchers care about their business, the lands and the ranges, the wildlife, horses, and our environment.  This Journalist discovered, ironically, that many ranchers actually cared about the environment and strived to enhance it instead of deplete and rape the land.

This is from a group of honest cattle ranchers, their comments:

Welfare Ranchers are:

“. . . They are a small group of what we call “Public Lands Ranchers” and quite honestly, they only care about themselves”;

“. . . I’ve found these welfare ranchers, let’s call them what they are, complain about our nations economy, those who receive welfare in the cities, or just plain and simple, complain about anyone that receives money from the government or spent on anyone else, and they are always first in line for their hand-out – that consists of tax supported public lands grazing.  It’s welfare, plain and simple!”;

“. . .I agree.  These welfare ranchers complain about welfare families, and yet spawn a whole lot of generations of, well, welfare recipients under the name of cattle ranching.  It’s embarrassing, is what it is, to the rest of us!”;

“. . . The fact is they are hobbyists, not true cattle ranchers.  My neighbors to each side of my land, I own, use public lands, and are only managers for large corporations.  They had to sell out to corporations, because they were very bad business people!”

“. . . The welfare ranchers preach law and order, so long as it benefits them, yet they assign some glamour to those among them who break the rules and break the laws that govern their relationship with the “evil” BLM.”

Welfare Ranchers

The mentality of a Welfare Rancher is simply convoluted logic, founded on the principle that their ancestor may have grazed the same land; therefore, enjoy that same entitlement by birthright.  It is the old “my government owes me something” mentality and that certain public property is theirs and theirs only – ironically, they become managers when selling their (i.e. lease only) supposed portion of “land owed to them by our government” to corporations.

The irrationality of public property simply given to them remains absurd and nothing will change this situation.  What becomes more absurd is the corporations stepping in, onto this supposed government land (already leased) and taking over the ranching operation.

This is not accomplished in any legal nor ethical fashion what so ever, yet our government has allowed it to become “okay” to do so to shut the Welfare Ranchers up, plus corporate profits play a significant role as well.  And it is quite costly to taxpayers for them to ignore this situation, both in public lands destruction and court costs.  Many people and other government agencies (e.g. the Veterans Administration and healing war veterans) goes without essentials, so corporations and large land owners can reap profit – at the same time wave their American flag chanting how American they are!

Of course, it is not so farfetched to assume quite a bit of money exchanges hands, from corporate officials to government employees, to rationalize a corporation receiving tax based welfare funds – which is also termed corporate welfare, an entirely different subject but similar in many aspects in content – i.e. the strategized ripping off taxpayer dollars.

Not so odd, if you or I attempted a similar situation, we would be bounced off the land, or sent to jail.

Another cattle rancher voicing his opinion about Welfare Ranching was a little more adamant.  “These people don’t want to solve problems unless the solution involves more taxpayer-funded improvements going to them.

They play themselves off as the poor and down trodden, while most of them live off a system that the rest of us taxpayers fund every April 15th.  These ranchers give us 2% of our beef cattle while receiving grazing rights at a fraction of the costs that the other 98% of beef producers have to pay in order to operate in the real market.  This 2%, nicknamed “The Selfish Two” by some rangeland advocates, causes about 98% of the problems associated with public lands grazing – which includes the outright and unnecessary removal of our Wild Horse Herds!

Another problem associated with this extremely vocal and self-absorbed minority of ranchers, is the fact these people often generate distractions that impede the actual development of pragmatic solutions to long-term problems.  The reality, unless a solution directly benefits them, they are opposed to any and all for resolution. In their minds their personal interests should receive greater status than public interests.  Thereby, the Wild Horse Herds depleted, for no legitimate or scientific reasoning, other than these Welfare Ranchers want them off our public lands.

The wholesome fact becomes, and certainly expressed by more than a few cattle ranchers, “Perhaps if the Federally subsidized public lands ranching industry doesn’t appreciate what it has, then it is time to turn those public lands over to some more contemporary uses.”  Especially since the corporations have taken over a majority of the Welfare Ranchers lands, and yet remain obtaining taxpayer money under the guise of subsidies to these same ranchers that are currently managers, not Lessees.

A greater problem involves the public and Congress finally having its fill of obstructionists that cost tax dollars and contribute an insignificant portion of the nation’s food supply. People are starting to question whether welfare ranching has finally outlived its usefulness, including a few private lands ranchers who complain that they pay taxes that are used to subsidize their competitors.

Welfare Ranchers Defined and Redefined

Public lands grazing subsidies, like most agricultural subsidies, disproportionately benefit large landholders.  In a 1992 Government Accounting Office profile of Bureau of Land Management (BLM) permittees, the largest 500 permittees, out of nearly 20,000 total, controlled 36 percent of the public lands forage. Just 16 percent of all permittees controlled 76.2 percent of the AUMs (animal unit months-one AUM being the amount of forage required by a cow-calf pair for a month) available on BLM lands. Most of these permittees were big corporations or very wealthy individuals. The smallest 2,000 permittees controlled less than 0.13 percent of BLM forage.

This inequality is a result of the process for assigning public lands allotments. Access to permits requires ownership of private base operations, of course this was dependant on a narrow, some would say, duplicative toward particular ranches already in mind. Since wealthy ranchers own more land, and thus more base property, they wind up with more federal lands allotments.

This means winding up with far more direct profit from the welfare handouts from taxpayer money, as it does not go to anything else but the Lessees pockets, or to enhance their bank accounts – nothing more.

In addition, few ranchers depend entirely on their public lands allotments to meet all their forage needs, so one can assume the government welfare handout, again, is simply profit, money in their pockets so to speak, unnecessarily, other than for profit.

Although the percentage varies from operation to operation and state to state, most ranchers fulfill the majority of their annual forage needs from private lands.  Only the largest operations actually use public lands for a significant amount of their livestock’s forage.

If the public lands were to become unavailable to these large ranches, most of their operators could reasonably afford alternatives for grazing their stock.  But, their profit base from government handouts would be lost, or would they be lost at all?

Alternatively, smaller ranches today represent status or lifestyle choices for their owners, and the minority of ranchers who use public lands.  Most western ranches do not depend exclusively on livestock for their income, or for even an important fraction of their income.  Growing and selling livestock is usually a break-even enterprise at best.  Hobbyist ranchers are a better term here, and compatible with the IRS terms.

Jobs in town or other business ventures are what allow families to maintain their status and appearance as “ranchers” and not running cattle or sheep on the range.  If these ranchers chose to give up, or were forced to relinquish their public lands allotments, most would adjust through reducing their herd size to match their private holdings, or through leasing the private grazing lands of other landowners.  Family ranchers might also continue to diversify their income, as many are already doing-either with new enterprises on the ranch (for example, guest ranches, and guided fishing and hunting), or with other work off the ranch.

Conclusion

So there is simply no need to replenish or coordinate efforts with Welfare Ranchers.  There entire existence remains dependent on government handouts; welfare is a far simpler and correct term.  They remain a small and insignificant situation in the scheme of things, and mostly Lease-Owned by corporations; whereas, the actual Lease Holder simply manages the ranch, and not so ironic, the corporations pocket the government handouts pretty much under a false-premise, while pretending to actually care about the ranges and the biospheres.  No, they simply want to liquidate the public lands for future use, for a more diversified and not of agricultural situations – and yet keep obtaining the welfare handouts for their already large profit chain.

The fact is this; the Federal courts will, out of necessity, have to step in, to rid the United States of such leaches and those that commit this type of welfare fraud on a daily and yearly basis.  These are not stipends, rather handing out money to friends and corporations, getting it from the taxpayers who honestly believe it may go for something good, but in truth it is not.  Then these same rich ranchers and corporations snub the taxpayers, as being ignorant and misinformed.

The truth of Welfare Ranching has been around for decades — the Bureau of Land Management and the Department of the Interior, managed by previous ranchers, hid this from Public scrutiny and the taxpayers for those same decades.  There is no use for Welfare Ranching any longer, and never has been since the 1800s, as it does not assist the poor farmer or rancher to remain competitive, it is simply a 100% profit stream for the already wealthy ranchers and corporations.

Yet another Special Interest Lobby situation that rips-off taxpayer money — at the sacrifice of War Veterans not receiving proper care from wounds received in Combat, Jobs sacrificed due to taxpayer money placed into the already rich rancer pockets that could establish employement programs and training, and on and on.  Welfare Ranching is a billion dollar Rip-Off to taxpayers and at many levels.

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Briefing Report to Congressional Requestors, Rangeland Management: Grazing Lease Arrangements of Bureau of Land Management Permittees, May 1986. (General Accounting Office GAO/RCED-86-168BR).

Dobie, F.J., The Longhorns, (Boston, MA: Little Brown & Co.), 1941, pp. 21.

Freemuth, John, “Federal Land Management in the West:, in Zachary A. Smith, editor, Environmental Politics and Policy in the West, (Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company, Debuque, Iowa, 1993), p. 202.

Grazing Fee Review and Evaluation, The Secretary of Agriculture and Secretary of the Interior, 1986, p. 79. A 13.2:G79.

Hanneman, Michael D., Effects of Cattle, Elk and Mule Deer on a Narrowleaf Cottonwood Riparian Community Under a Short Duration Grazing System in Northern Arizona, Masters Thesis, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ 1991.

Norlagg, Neil, Personal Interview, rancher, Mormon Lake, Arizona, 8 March 1995.

Rangeland Reform ’94 Draft Environmental Impact Statement, The Department of the Interior Bureau of Land Management in cooperation with the Department of Agriculture Forest Service, I53.19:R16.

Smith, Zachary A., The Environmental Policy Paradox, (Englewood Cliffs, NJ Prentice Hall, 1995), p. 195.

Tersey, Darrell Personal Interview, Rangeland Management Specialist, Bureau of Land Management, Phoenix District Office, 19 April 1995.

Young, James A., Sparks, Abbot B, Cattle in the Cold Desert, 1985. Utah University Press, Logan, UT 84332-9515, p. 68.

F.J. Dobie, The Longhorns, (Boston, MA: Little Brown & Co.), 1941, pp. 21.

Briefing Report to Congressional Requestors, Rangeland Management: Grazing Lease Arrangements of Bureau of Land Management Permittees, May 1986. GAO/RCED-86-168BR, pp. 1-14.

Grazing Fee Review and Evaluation, (The Secretary of Agriculture and Secretary of the Interior, 1986, A 13.2:G79), p. 79.

Personal Interview, Darrell Tersey, Rangeland Management Specialist, Bureau of Land Management, Phoenix District Office, 19 April 1995.

Zachary A. Smith, The Environmental Policy Paradox, (Englewood Cliffs, NJ Prentice Hall, 1995), p. 179

John Freemuth, “Federal Land Management in the West:, in Zachary A. Smith, editor, Environmental Politics and Policy in the West, (Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company, Debuque, Iowa, 1993), p. 202.

Personal Interview, Gary Hase Jr., Natural Resource Manager II, Range Section, Land Department, State Forestry Division, 20 April 1995.

Personal Interview, Neil Norlagg, rancher, Mormon Lake Arizona, 8 March 1995.

Rangeland Reform ’94 Draft Environmental Impact Statement, (The Department of the Interior Bureau of Land Management in cooperation with the Department of Agriculture Forest Service, I53.19:R16), p. 1-9

Michael D. Hanneman, Effects of Cattle, Elk and Mule Deer on a Narrowleaf Cottonwood Riparian Community Under a Short Duration Grazing System in Northern Arizona, (Masters Thesis, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ 1991), pp. 11-19.

Rangeland Reform ’94 Draft Environmental Impact Statement, p. 1-8.

Personal Interview, Darrell Tersey, Rangeland Management Specialist, Bureau of Land Management, Phoenix District Office, 19 April 1995.

The Secretary of Agriculture and the Secretary of The Interior, Grazing Fee Review and Evaluation Final Report 1979-1985, (Department of Agriculture Forest Service and the Department of The Interior Bureau of Land Management, A13.2.G79, 1986), p. 7.

Federal lands accounted for 10% of the rangeland forage and 2% of total food consumed in 1982.

The Environmental Assessments (EA and in accord with NEPA) is and always has been the criteria BLM and DOI must abide by, legally, when wanting to roundup horses.  When in violation of an EA, then the roundups cannot, and according to Federal Law -l should not happen — it is that simple.  This government agency ignores this situation, AND LAW, and performs the rounups anyway at heavy cost to not only the taxpayer, but when cattle involved on Public Lands, which ruins the entire Ecosystem!  BLM, DOI and Salazar essentially states, “. . . the taxpaying Public can go to hell.  We will do what we want!”

We are a nation governed by laws within the United States.  Government agencies are governed by these same laws, many statutes, and backed by well established legal-precedents.  Combined, these laws are well supported and certainly attest to the outright fact that excuses for breaking these laws are unacceptable.  So the question remains, how does the Department of the Interior and the Bureau of Land Management suppress and even usurp the laws of the United States continuously?  And why is it they are the most “Sued” government agency in American history, and seem to be proud of this situation, uselessly spending taxpayer money?

This article seriously questions why the laws within the United States have not been upheld, and in regard to several laws, and obviously continue to be ignored by the DOI and the BLM.  This defies logic!

Problematic is the situation that the Department of the Interior and the BLM, specifically, ignore these same laws that protect communities within the United States, as well as taxpayer money and the benefits that taxpayer money assimilates into benefits for the American Public. It is the American Public that is the victim here, both monetarily and going without particular benefits, and by the abuser, the Department of the Interior and their sub-agency, the BLM.

Despite legislation and accountability, both are ignored.  The DOI as well as the BLM simply ignore legislation and their prescribed public accessibility by American taxpayers, as outlined here, and on a letterhead directly from the White House: MEMORANDUM FOR THE HEADS OF EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENTS AND AGENCIES, or establishing a transparent government agency in regard to public information.

The BLM is similar in its obvious ignoring of public transparency as well, and violates their policy directly.  Problems, constantly, in downloading BLM transparency policies are continuous, which is not so ironic. This is an out-of-control agency with no responsible conduct what so ever being a standard of their employee daily work ethics.

It is significant here to also state the Bureau of Land Management is a sub-agency of the DOI. The BLM is the most costly of any other agency within our government, loosing lawsuit after lawsuit for actions and decisions committed by uncontrolled government employees at the BLM.  These same employees are never fired, never asked to assume responsibility for their actions, or reprimanded — if at all.

Who Watches the Federal Government?

In the United States the people in charge of investigative situations within a government agency, specifically within the DOI and the BLM, and within the overall scope of illegal activity, is the Federal Bureau of Investigation.  Up to this point in time, a thorough investigation is not in the mix of things to come, which frankly many people, Americans, believe is certainly over due.

The BLM has a law enforcement agency as well, but their law enforcement do nothing but side-step and often contributes and takes part in illegal activity against American citizens.  And just as often has ignored several Federal Court laws, rather than administer them appropriately. In this discussion the 9^th Federal Circuit Laws in regard to Press Access and transparency of helicopter roundups.  NPPA’s Ninth Circuit: Photojournalist’s Access is a “Fundamental Constitutional Right”.

Then we go to the 9^th Federal Circuit Court and their decision:  United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit. — LEIGH v. SALAZAR — Laura LEIGH, Plaintiff–Appellant, v. Ken SALAZAR, Secretary, U.S. Department of the Interior; Bob Abbey, Director, Bureau of Land Management; Ronald Wenker, Nevada State Director of Bureau of Land Management, Defendants–Appellees. No. 11–16088. Argued and Submitted Jan. 9, 2012. — April 16, 2012

“. . .  We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1292(a)(1), and we reverse. Because the preliminary injunction motion seeks unrestricted access to future horse roundups, and not just the one that took place in 2010, this case is not moot. As to the merits of Leigh’s First Amendment claim, the district court erred by failing to apply the well-established qualified right of access balancing test set forth in Press Enterprise Co. v. Superior Court Press Enterprise II, 478 U.S. 1, 8 #9 (1986). Courts have an unyielding duty to thoroughly analyze whether the government has violated this fundamental constitutional right, which serves to ensure that the individual citizen can effectively participate in and contribute to our republican system of self-government; Globe Newspaper Co. v. Superior Court, 457U.S.596, 604 (1982). Accordingly, we remand this case for the district court to consider in the first instance whether the public has a First Amendment right of access to horse gathers, and, if so, whether the viewing restrictions are narrowly tailored to serve the government’s overriding interests. . .“

The public also remains confused, as not only the violation of law exists, but ethics violations exist as well.  Telephone messages were left at the Ethics Office of the DOI/ BLM, from this Journalist, as well as assistants and other Journalists’, but not returned, rather obviously ignored.  This is unacceptable behavior to ignore the public, but common within the BLM, as this government Agency is “not” nor has been accessible to the public within the past three decades – but almost acts as a Lobby-Group for Welfare farmers and energy groups, yes, but not the public as a whole, who they are self-proclaimed at “War” with the public currently.  Bias and vented interests exist here, consistently, and for quite sometime now.

Helicopter Roundups and the FAA Laws

Also ignored are their actions that consistently ignore FAA Laws. The law is FAA PART 91—GENERAL OPERATING AND FLIGHT RULES § 91.13 – Careless or reckless operation. The law is quite clear, yet ignored. This Journalist says “ignored” because there exists video taped evidence, in abundance and privately held, and on the Internet, which is not edited what so ever. This FAA Law is a felony, and as outlined in FAA Part91–#91.13, as well as within many state and federal jurisdictions on Vehicular Assault upon people or animals.  Those responsible for Private Contractor conduct are BLM employees, as well as the private contractors themselves.

“Officials for Sun J Livestock in Vernal, Utah, the contractor for the Triple B Roundup between Elko and Ely, did not return messages seeking comment,” as the reporter at the Las Vegas Review Journal states in the article when asking them about the obvious abuse of horses, with eyewitnesses as well as a questionable resolution to a BLM investigation and ultimate BLM report.  The report, from BLM staff, also appeared to assume there continues to be such a conduct as acceptable animal abuse, “attrition” in government speaks.  There “IS NO” such thing as acceptable animal abuse, and roundups exhibit standards of unacceptable animal treatment, calling it attrition, as if it is a war zone and acceptable because of the term, and the term only.

In this Journalist’s opinion there is guilt written all over this situation, and why? Because those abusive situations did happen, and will happen again because these people get away with the abuse, supported by the BLM administrators! And, I might add, get paid with tax payer dollars quite well, for abusing the horses. Ignoring this situation, outright felonies, simply escalates the problem.

When approaching the FAA with past conduct of abuse, toward animals and people, the FAA Inspector General’s Office choose the low-road of ethical conduct.  They stated repeatedly the complaint paperwork was lost, so they do not know of any complaints on horse abuse or people involved.  Yet, this Journalist submitted paperwork to the FAA Inspector Generals office on 5 (five) separate occasions, in regard to Reckless Operation of an Aircraft and seriously and obviously endangered a civilian woman  by use of helicopter.

Not so surprisingly, separate paperwork was lost on all five occasions, and the final decision of the FAA Inspector General’s Office was that no improper use of aircraft existed, and unprovable, and the complaint paperword left incomplete.  Not so ironic, received right after receiving the letter that they needed a copy of material already submitted five other times!  Disgusting, a government agency would do this, so blatant and obvious!

Here is a brief list of payments to this same Sun J Livestock company, as reported on the Government’s BLM “Contracts for Wild horse/Burro Control Services (FY 2000-2009)” i.e. 2010, 2011, and 2012 not included, but their behavior far worse as witnessed and logged abuses accumulated ten-fold, and for your information and knowing where you tax money goes:

February 23, 2011 – Sun J Livestock received $82,648.20 for not even an entire weeks worth of roundup;

September 13, 2010 — Sun J Livestock received $82,966.00 for a little short of a weeks worth of roundup;

December 6, 2010 — Sun J Livestock received $649,850.20 for a little over a weeks worth of roundup;

January 10, 2011 — Sun J Livestock received $1,221,767.90 for about two weeks of roundup; etc. . . .

Exploring further we find even more appalling situations, and payment by tax payers, in the amount of $116,744,281 million dollars between the same period of i.e. 2000-2009, per their “Contracts for Wild  Horse/Burro Control Services.”  Called Acceptable Animal Abuse.

Not so surprising is the fact that the abuse has indeed escalated due to lack of qualifications, inexperience of the roundup personnel, the cover-up of bad conduct by BLM employees, and the all around bad attitude and the Tribal Mentality of the BLM. It has indeed become a situation of employees and the private contractors versus the presence of the general public and witnesses at each of the roundups.

This Journalist also listened while a BLM employee, a Supervisor, stated unceremoniously, that if there were any Advocates to show up at his BLM Horse Auction in Grants Pass, Oregon, then employees and others would, …”beat them up out back.”  The situation of childish behavior and trivializing taxpayers’ here in America apparently is the norm for BLM employees. This coming from their leadership.

Further Violations of these Government Agencies

Now we can take directly from a letter dated June 18, 1993 (when the ignoring and breaking of the law first developed, and nothing was done, and still on-going to this day. The letter is on a United States Department of the Interior letterhead, Subhead Bureau of Land Management, To: Deputy Assistant Inspector General-Investigations, From: Chief, Law Enforcement and Resource Protection:

The letter sites what this Journalist had already written in a previous article. But what this letter does is actually outline the specific laws broken, Criminal Felonies each, with an abundant explanation, as follows and predicated with . . . it appears that criminal violations of the following laws have occurred:

1. 18 USC 641; Pu8blic money, property or records; whoever receives, cancels, or retains the same with intent to convert to use or gain . . .
2. 18 USC 1512 (b); tampering with a witness, victim, or informant (Obstruction)
3. 18 USC 371; Conspiracy to commit offense or to defraud United States; conspiracy to obstruct a      criminal investigation . . .
4. 16 USC 1338 (a) (1); wild horses and burros: protection, management, and control; any person who sells, directly or indirectly, a wild free-roaming horse, or burro maintained on private or leased land. . .

A BLM Investigation

Here are remnants of a BLM Investigation, mysteriously discontinued the evening before turning the paperwork over to the Federal Grand Jury. This continues today, at many different levels, and perhaps why the laws are still ignored by BLM employees.

There were four Investigations ongoing at this time; Case #RP-05-93-021-01; Case #NM-960-03-93-021-023SA; Case #NM-960-03-021-020; and Case #NM-960-08-92-021-805 respectively.

The highlights of the Investigations follow;

1. BLM Management personnel have authorized the transportation of wild horses to group adopters at the expense of the government;
2. BLM management personnel have authorized the fee waiver and/or fee reduction of wild horses without delegated authority;
3. BLM management failed to inspect and prepare written reports for group adopter facilities and property prior to receiving adopted wild horses;
4. BLM personnel publicly and openly promoted the commercial us of wild horses, i.e., bucking stock and slaughter house;
5. BLM personnel in concurrence with BLM management, entered false information regarding the wild horse documents into BLM DPS-8000 data base;
6. BLM personnel through their government positions, arranged for special privileges and allowances pertaining to wild horse adoptions;
7. BLM personnel and management knowingly converted to the use of another, wild horses belonging to the United States;
8. BLM personnel and management did knowingly attempt to interfere with an ongoing investigation by discussing privileged information regarding the Investigation with other BLM personnel, some of whom were subjects of the Investigation;
9. Many, many more “lack of document” charges, especially in regard to the Wild Horse Herd Counts and the financial income and expenditures mandatory at each BLM facility, were not completed, lost, or unavailable for confirmation – in order to appropriate funding for each facility;
10. Several more listings expressed concern toward illegal activity, and lack of following directorial and mandated training and compliance of Inspectors, Wranglers, and Field Level Administrators of the Wild Horse and Burro Program.

So how did this become a situation where the Grand Jury was virtually taken out of the entire equation here, despite the fact there were approximately 872 Felony Counts; and 1,279 combined Felony and Misdemeanor Counts, to include fraudulent paperwork, fraudulent data input into the BLM computer systems, erroneous paperwork, Employee Misconduct, money laundering, misplaced funds and much more.

Well, it gets even more interesting here, as the list will show, given by one Deputy Field Solicitor, Department of Justice:

1. Attempts by BLM managers to learn about sealed Grand Jury information;
2. Participation by BLM managers in destruction of evidence;
3. Alerting suspects concerning impending search warrants;
4. Release of confidential informant and undercover investigator identities, actions he noted, threatened the lives of both the informant and the investigating agents;
5. Threats of abuse and sexual innuendos, reduction-in-work-force, and other discriminatory situations happened as well, but too numerous to list here.

After all of that an Attorney, Charles Brooks in the Department of Justice, chimed in and recommended against undertaking any prosecution, because, he concluded, “the Wild Horse and Burro Program was so tainted that it would be unfair to single anyone out for prosecution.”  No Sir, that is simply Untrue, and could not be filled with more Bullshit — These people disrespect all Americans’ by doing this!

CONCLUSION

If, indeed, we are the America that defines and redefines our established freedoms, and indeed ruled by laws, then government agencies must not be exempt from these laws, nor ignored further.  It is time for the citizens of the United States to stand up to government employees doing illegal activities.  Report them!  It is time for people to stand up and be counted, to say “Stop this illegal activity and spending our taxpayer dollars frivolously with no accountability”.  We must demand that our investigating bodies take charge, not just to cover up for an out-of-hand and irresponsible government agency, but to make arrests for illegal activities that remain ongoing by BLM and DOI employees’ and managers.

For References and further information go to:

For the entire informative packet and interview see Horses Led To Slaughter, Anatomy of a Cover Up in the Wild Horse and Burro Program, PEER White Paper, Number 14, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, Washington D.C. 20009-1125, http://www.peer.org/pubs/whitepapers/1997_horses_to_slaughter.pdf , 1997.

An Interview with Former Sen. Conrad Burns, http://www.animallawcoalition.com/wild-horses-and-burros/article/1052, Posted Sep 17, 2009.

Former BLM Employee Pleads Guilty to Public Corruption Charges Sophisticated Contract Manipulation Scheme Defrauds BLM of Over $400,000, http://www.fbi.gov/portland/press-releases/2010/pd041610.htm

For addresses, FAX numbers, and listings go to:

Senators of the 112^th Congress:

http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

Contacting the Congress:

http://www.contactingthecongress.org/