A LITTLE HISTORY – 

When Bill Clinton took office as President in January 1993, he had strong support from environmental groups. Hillary was quick to move on an attempt to ban cattle grazing on Federal land to please the Peeta and several environmental groups. After a brief legal battle, she found out that it would take an act of Congress to ban cattle on public land. That was never going to happen considering how many U.S. Senators are from agriculture and cattle grazing states. For example, Wyoming has the smallest population of all the states, but it does have two U.S. senators, just like every other state.

 So, Hillary went to Plan “B” which was to raise the annual grazing fee on Federal lands to make it cost prohibitive. She recruited Interior Sec. Bruce Babbit to promote her “Cattle Free by 1993” which added bundles of red tape and more than doubled grazing fees for ranchers that care for U.S. public lands. Millions of acres went without cattle, sheep, or horses to eat the meager amount of vegetation that grows in the spring and dies in the summer, leaving kindling for raging fires. 

Ultimately, the goal of a completely “cattle-free” public rangeland was not achieved by 1993, but the campaign successfully brought the issue to national attention and influenced the direction of public land use discussions and subsequent reform efforts throughout the 1990s. 

Before “Cattle Free in 1993” the average number of acres burned each year was about 3 million. Clinton’s last year as President was 2000 which saw 7.4 million acres burned.  

Courtesy of WRIGHT ON THE MARKET