PLC VP and Idaho Rancher Testified in Appropriations Subcommittee

Public Lands Council Vice President and fifth generation Idaho rancher Brenda Richards testified before congressional appropriators earlier this week. Richards presented the public lands livestock grazing industry’s funding priorities to the U.S. House of Representatives Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior, Environment and Related Agencies. She urged them to improve business stability for ranchers through well-placed appropriation of funding to the federal agencies.

Richards: “We went ahead and got to put some of our issues forward. Some of the concerns about the over regulations -- ESA, NEPA, the proposed increase of a tax on grazing which we can not support and some of those things.”

She also thanked the Subcommittee for providing language--in every appropriations measure for over a decade--allowing ranchers to continue using their grazing allotments while the agencies work through the backlog of environmental review on permits.
She also shared the priorities of the PLC on behalf of Western ranchers.

Richards: “ One of the top priorities we have right now is to get out of the litigation cycle caused by over regulation and get back to actually being able to use the resource and produce the food and fiber for the country and the world. To get rid of a lot of these hang-ups that we have and we have some anti-grazing radical environmental groups that seem to make the litigation cycle not work for agencies and it certainly doesn’t work for the health of resource nor for the health of the western communities and the western ranchers.”