Waco pt2? Standoff in Nevada over cattle on BLM land

The whole mess goes back to 1993 when the BLM began to modify grazing permits that limited how much cattle a rancher could run on public lands in Clark County, namely the 600,000-acre Gold Butte area. The restriction was done in order to protect the habitat of the desert tortoise which had been declared an endangered species. Cliven Bundy refused to comply with the new restrictions and stopped paying the grazing fees. He also refused to acknowledge the federal authority of the BLM, believing any money he paid to the agency was, in a sense, going to he used to put him out of business.

As well, the Bundys hold their rights to graze cattle across the Gold Butte range were established by their ancestors that settled the land in 1877. The Bundy's inherited those rights, and argue they should be honored.

Cliven Bundy did attempt to pay his fees to Clark County, the entity he saw as the right administrator of the Gold Butte area. The county ultimately refused to accept his payments, and money that would have been used for fees went to improvement projects on the contested range, said Ryan Bundy, one of Cliven Bundy's sons.

Now, 20 years and two court orders later, the BLM closed Gold Butte to public access and attempted to round up and impound the "trespass cattle."

"This is a matter of fairness and equity, and we remain disappointed that Cliven Bundy continues to not comply with the same laws that 16,000 public lands ranchers do every year," BLM director Neil Kornze said in a statement. He also states Cliven Bundy owes the BLM over $1 million.

Cliven Bundy refused to comply while other ranchers in Clark County did, he said. Now he's the last rancher standing. The compliant ones were regulated to death by the BLM, the Bundys claim. While on the surface it looks like this was done in the name of the tortoise, the Bundys say the real heart of the issue is the federal government's thirst for ever-expanding power.

Bushman said ranchers in Paiute County may be facing a similar situation that the Bundys did in 1993. He said a large part of the county is federally-managed public land - land which could be declared closed to grazing if the sage grouse is declared an endangered species.

All my ranchers are supporters of Bundy
"All my ranchers are supporters of Bundy," Bushman said, so he's paying attention to see what happens between the Bundys and the federal government. He doesn't want to see what happened in Clark County repeated in Paiute County, he said.

If the BLM or other federal agencies ever did roll into Paiute County and conducted themselves as they did in Clark County, Bushman said such actions would not be tolerated by the County Commission or the county sheriff.