Overview

Cattle producers are America’s original conservationists. Today, cattle farmers and ranchers steward millions of acres of land. Cattle have a unique ability to graze land that is too steep, dry, or rocky for other forms of agriculture production. By grazing the grasses on the land, cattle upcycle plants that would be inedible to humans and turn it into a valuable form of protein. Cattle farms and ranches serve as valuable green space for wildlife habitat, cattle hoof action stimulates the soil and improves soil health, their waste products provide natural fertilizer, and the landscape they utilize serves as natural water filtration.

Endangered Species Act

Enacted in 1973, the Endangered Species Act (ESA) was intended to prevent the extinction of certain species by identifying the species at risk, creating and implementing a recovery plan, recovering the species, and removing them from the threatened and endangered species list. Since the ESA was last reauthorized more than two decades ago, fewer than 2% of species have met those criteria. Recovered species that should be celebrated as success stories languish on the list, while other species are listed but never are evaluated as part of a recovery plan.

Livestock grazing is one of the best tools to preserve habitats for species – whether the populations are endangered, threatened, or robust, but ranchers and rural communities bear the burden of severe land and resource restrictions and countless lawsuits, which are brought by environmentalists funded by taxpayer dollars. While the intent of the ESA was noble, implementation has deteriorated such that many ESA decisions are made by the judicial branch. These groups abuse the law by constantly petitioning to add new species to the ESA list. Their barrage of petitions causes missed deadlines, which enables them to sue the government and reap taxpayer dollars as compensation, costing the federal government and ranchers millions of dollars and draining resources away from real recovery efforts.

Large Carnivore Depredation

Large carnivores are often the most controversial endangered and threatened species. Activists have long advocated perpetually for ESA protections for species like wolves and bears as a means to cause the most damage to ranchers and rural communities. Conflicting court decisions have been leveraged to keep ranchers guessing about whether they will be able to defend their livestock and their families from these predators.

Land Designations

When we think of the best of America, we think of the West. Wide, open spaces, frost on the sagebrush, and even the image of a cowboy riding across the range are iconic images that many Americans envision when they think about the land of promise and opportunity.

The desire to freeze those spaces in time has led Presidents and members of Congress to designate these places as special, but why are these areas so beautiful and bountiful? Hundreds of years of management by ranchers and landowners has carefully cultivated these landscapes into healthy, productive ecosystems. Ranchers have a front-row seat to these ecosystems and often possess an abundance of generational based institutional knowledge. They can recognize changes and accurately respond to the landscape's needs much faster than federal agencies after the lands are designated.

Unfortunately, these special designations inevitably result in the curtailing of land use. Grazing, road maintenance, logging, water improvements, firefighting ability, and even visitation from the public can all be curtailed.

Waters of the United States

Since the passage of the Clean Water Act (CWA) in 1972, EPA, the Supreme Court, and regulated stakeholders have struggled to find a definition of “navigable waters” that follows the intent of the CWA while simultaneously respecting property rights and state authority. In the CWA, “navigable waters” are defined as “waters of the United States.” In 2006, the Supreme Court charged EPA with crafting a definition for “Waters of the United States.” Over the course of the last ten years, the EPA and Army Corps of Engineers have gone through a series of ill-fated “WOTUS” rules, ultimately culminating in the 2022 Supreme Court decision in Sackett v. EPA.

The SCOTUS decision rejected the “significant nexus” test included in the Biden Administration’s revision of the rule and required EPA to revisit many portions of the rule. The EPA issued a final amendment in 2023 that provided much-needed clarity to agencies’ implementation of the CWA across the country. Ponds on puddles on cattle operations should not be regulated the same as rivers and oceans, and cattle producers were very pleased to see a Supreme Court ruling that reduced government overreach on private property.

Wildfire Reduction

Year after year, catastrophic wildfires threaten the lives, livelihoods, and ecosystems of Western states. Both forest and rangeland ecosystems are now at risk from fires that burn too hot and too fast. The resulting damage kills native species, reducing biodiversity and putting wildlife and other uses of the landscape at risk. Grazing is a crucial tool to control the fine fuels that feed these wildfires. Cattle and sheep are able to be used at scale across the West to reduce fire risk, improve post-fire rangeland conditions, and create fuels breaks, all of which reduces the risk of catastrophic wildfire.

Public Lands Ranching

Public land ranching is essential to independent, family businesses that contribute to the economic and social sustainability of America’s rural communities.

Today, approximately 22,000 ranchers own nearly 120 million acres of private land and hold grazing permits on more than 250 million acres managed by the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) and Bureau of Land Management (BLM). Nearly 40% of western cattle herd and about 50% of the nation’s sheep herd spends time on public lands.

The USFS asserts that 6,000 acres of open space are lost in the U.S. each day. A healthy ranching industry is a sure safeguard against the loss of open space that threatens the character of the American West.

Public land ranchers invest their time, their own money and their energy maintaining the federal lands they graze upon. Ranchers and their families not only live and work on the range, but they also act as stewards of the land through efforts including preserving clean water sources, controlling invasive plants and non-native grasses, protecting the habitat for endangered species, maintaining firebreaks to actively prevent forest & range fires and act as first response when a fire occurs. This unique system of public lands ranching is both valuable to conservation and important to family farmers and ranchers who contribute to these rural communities.

Sustainability

U.S. beef production is the most sustainable in the world thanks to decades of improvement and innovation by American farmers and ranchers. Today, the U.S. produces 18 percent of the world’s beef with just 6 percent of the world’s cattle due to scientific advancements in animal nutrition, genetics, and production practices.

Here are the facts: 

•  The U.S. has had the lowest beef greenhouse gas emissions in the world since 1996. 
•  Direct emissions from cattle account for only two percent of the United States’ overall greenhouse gas emissions.
• Between 1961 and 2018, the U.S. beef industry, through continued sustainability efforts and improved resource use, has reduced emissions by more than 40%. 
• Today, greenhouse gas emissions from beef production in the United States are 10-50 times lower than other regions around the world. 
• Cattle production on private and public land provides $24.5 billion of societal value in the United States, including job creation and land preservation. 

As climate issues become a greater focus among consumers, cattle producers continue to share the message that cattle are part of the climate solution.

Contact

Public Lands Ranching, Wildlife, Land Designations

Kaitlynn Glover
202-347-0228

Garrett Edmonds
202-347-0228

Sustainability, Conservation, Water, Environmental Litigation

Mary-Thomas Hart
202-347-0228