High Court to Hear Grazing Case

October 15, 1999

The Supreme Court will hear a case that livestock producers say seeks relief from "onerous Interior Department regulations that have rocked the stability of western family ranches."

"This is truly momentous," says Keith Winter, president of the Public Lands Council (PLC), and a cattle rancher from Cartwright, ND. "The Supreme Court hears only a tiny fraction of the cases filed with it. Western ranchers have been waiting over four years for a resolution to this, and a ruling form the Supreme Court will provide that."

The case pits the PLC against Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt and the rangeland reform regulations announced by Babbitt. The regulations "would strip away long standing protections for ranchers by removing their statutory grazing rights and by taking title to improvements they paid for on federal lands," says American Farm Bureau President Dean Kleckner.

U.S. District Judge Clarence Brimmer ruled in 1996 for the ranchers and set aside four areas of the regulations. The 10^th Circuit Court of Appeals, however, in a split decision in 1998, reversed three of the four areas Judge Brimmer had set aside.

The Supreme Court could hear the cast as early as February.