Good day for Nevada rancher following Supreme Court decision

Tom Gardner

Wednesday, Oct. 13, 1999 | 9:40 a.m.

RENO, Nev. - Ranchers in Nevada and throughout the West have won a hearing before the U.S. Supreme Court for their challenge to the Clinton administration's regulation of livestock grazing on millions of acres of federal land.

"This is a good day. This is the greatest news we've had for a long time," Nevada Cattlemen's Association President John Falen said. "We've just got to go ahead and argue the right argument to the Supreme Court."

The court voted on Tuesday to study an appeal that says the administration's 1995 rule change that threaten the historic owner of grazing rights violate a 65-year-old law and threaten the livelihood of tens of thousands of ranchers.

Arguments in the case will be held this winter, and a decision is expected by late June.

"This is our shot as far as an industry is concerned to prove the preference right and that these permits have value. If we lose the tenure and the history that's involved in the preference right, it's a little bit like having a water right and no water," Falen said.

He runs 3,000 head of cattle on 300,000 acres of public land near Orovada, about 45 miles north of Winnemucca where he has been ranching for 23 years.

He doesn't run cattle year-round, but puts in about 25,000 animal unit months on public land at $1.35 per AUM - roughly the cost per cow per month - on a combination of his summer and winter ranges.

Ironically, his winter range is about 100,000 acres and he lost a third of it to one of the summer's many wildfires. "We go ahead and pay just the same," he said.

Nevada has 45.1 million acres of rangeland and 701 permittees on 805 allotments, according to JoLynn Worley, a spokeswoman for the Bureau of Land Management in Reno.

That includes the 1.5 million acres that went up in smoke during August.