The federal government allows livestock grazing on an area of public land more than twice the size of California, making ranching the largest land use in the West. Billions of dollars in government subsidies support this system, which often harms the environment.
As President Donald Trump’s administration pushes a pro-ranching agenda, ProPublica and High Country News have studied the evolution of ranching on public lands. We filed more than 100 public records requests and sued the Bureau of Land Management for free documents and data; we interviewed everyone from ranchers to conservationists; and we visited livestock operations in Arizona, Colorado, Montana and Nevada.
The result three-part investigation dig into the integrated livestock subsidiesTHE environmental impacts of livestock and the political influence that protects this status quo. Here are the takeaways from this work.
The system evolved into a subsidy program for breeders.
The public land grazing system was modernized in the 1930s in response to the rampant use of natural resources that led to the Dust Bowl – the massive dust storms triggered by poor agricultural practices, including overgrazing. Today the system focuses on subsidizing the continued grazing of these lands.
The BLM and Forest Service, the two largest federal land management agencies, oversee most of the system. Combined, the agencies billed ranchers $21 million in grazing fees in 2024. Our analysis found that this is about a 93% reduction, on average, compared to the market rate for forage on private lands. We also found that in 2024 alone, the federal government has invested at least $2.5 billion in grant programs that public land ranchers can access. These grants include disaster relief after droughts and floods, as well as compensation for livestock lost to predators.
Ranching is consolidated in the hands of some of the wealthiest Americans.
A small number of wealthy individuals and companies manage most of the livestock on public lands. According to our analysis, approximately two-thirds of the pastures on BLM acreage are controlled by only 10% of ranchers. And on Forest Service lands, the richest 10 percent of permit holders control more than 50 percent of the grazing land. Among the biggest ranchers are billionaires like Stan Kroenke and Rupert Murdoch, as well as mining companies and utilities. The financial benefits of holding permits to graze livestock on public lands extend beyond the sale of livestock. Even hobby ranches can benefit from property tax breaks in many areas; ranch operating expenses can be deducted from federal taxes; and private ownership associated with grazing permits constitutes a stable long-term investment. (Representatives for Kroenke did not respond to requests for comment, and Murdoch’s representative declined to comment.)
The Trump administration is revitalizing the system, notably by further increasing subsidies.
The administration released a “plan to strengthen America’s beef industry” in October that calls for the BLM and Forest Service to change grazing regulations for the first time since the 1990s. The plan suggested taxpayers provide more support for ranching by increasing subsidies for drought and wildfire relief, predator-killed livestock, and government-backed insurance. The White House referred questions to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which said in a statement: “Livestock grazing is not only a federally and legally recognized appropriate land use, but also a proven land management tool that reduces invasive species and wildfire risk, improves ecosystem health, and supports rural stewardship.” » About 18,000 permit holders graze livestock on BLM or Forest Service lands, most of them small operations. These ranchers say they need government support and lower grazing fees to avoid insolvency.
The administration is relaxing already lax surveillance.
Ranchers must renew their public land use permits every 10 years, including submitting to an environmental review. But Congress passed a law in 2014 that allows for automatic renewal of licenses if federal agencies are unable to complete those reviews. In 2013, the BLM approved grazing on 47 percent of its lands open to livestock without an environmental review, our analysis of agency data showed. (The status of about another 10 percent of BLM lands was unclear that year.) A decade later, the BLM allowed grazing on about 75 percent of its acreage without review.
This is largely because the BLM’s rangeland management staff is shrinking. The number of such employees fell 39% between 2020 and 2024, according to Office of Personnel Management data, and about 1 in 10 grazing employees left the agency between Trump’s election victory and last June, according to BLM records.
The system enables widespread environmental damage in the West.
The BLM oversees 155 million acres of public lands open to grazing and conducts environmental health assessments. found that grazing had degraded at least 38 million acres, an area about half the size of New Mexico.. The agency has no record of land health assessments for another 35 million acres. ProPublica and High Country News have observed overgrazing in several states, including streambeds trampled by cattle, grasslands denuded by grazing and streams sullied by dead cows.
Ranchers say grazing on public lands has ecological benefits, including preventing the sale and paving of neighboring private lands. Bill Fales and his family, for example, have been raising cattle in western Colorado for more than a century. “The wildlife here depends on these ranches remaining open land,” he said. As development has destroyed nearby habitat, Fales said, his livestock’s grazing areas are increasingly shared by animals such as elk, bears and mountain lions.
Regulators say it is difficult to significantly change the system because of the industry’s political influence.
We interviewed 10 current and former BLM employees, from senior management to rank-and-file course managers, and they all talked about political pressure to be lenient with breeders. “If we do something about grazing, there’s at least a good chance that politicians will be involved,” one BLM employee told us. “We want to avoid that, so we don’t do anything that could cause that.” A BLM spokesperson said in a statement that “all policy decisions are made in accordance with federal law and are designed to balance economic opportunities and conservation responsibilities on the nation’s public lands.”
The industry has friends in high places. The Trump administration has appointed to a high-level position within the U.S. Department of the Interior a lawyer who has represented ranchers in cases against the government and who owns an interest in a Wyoming cattle operation. The administration also named a tech entrepreneur who owns an Idaho ranch to a Forest Service oversight role.
Additionally, politicians from both parties do not hesitate to take action if they believe that ranchers are subject to heavy surveillance. Since 2020, members of Congress from both sides of the aisle have written to the BLM and Forest Service more than 20 times about grazing issues, according to agency communications logs we obtained through public records requests.
Read our full investigation into the federal public lands grazing system.
