The federal government allows livestock grazing across 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 taxpayer subsidies support this system, which often has negative environmental impacts.
As President Donald Trump’s administration pursues pro-ranch policies, ProPublica and High Country News investigated how public land ranching has evolved. We filed more than 100 public records requests and sued the Bureau of Land Management to make documents and data available to the public free of charge. We interviewed everyone from ranchers to conservationists. We then toured ranch operations in Arizona, Colorado, Montana, and Nevada.
The resulting three-part study delves into the subsidies embedded in ranching, the environmental impact of livestock, and the political influence that protects this status quo. Here are some lessons learned from that work.
This system evolved into a subsidy system for ranchers.
Grazing systems on public lands were modernized in the 1930s in response to the overuse of natural resources that led to the Dust Bowl, a massive sandstorm caused by poor agricultural practices, including overgrazing. Currently, the scheme focuses on subsidies for continued grazing on these lands.
The two largest federal land management agencies, the BLM and the Forest Service, oversee much of the system. The agency billed ranchers a total of $21 million in grazing fees in 2024. Our analysis found this to be an average discount of approximately 93% compared to market prices for feed on private land. It also found that in 2024 alone, the federal government poured at least $2.5 billion into subsidy programs available to ranchers on public lands. Such subsidies include disaster assistance following droughts and floods, and compensation for livestock lost to predators.
Ranching is concentrated in the hands of a few of the wealthiest Americans.
A small number of wealthy individuals and corporations control most livestock on public lands. Our analysis shows that approximately two-thirds of BLM acreage grazing is managed by just 10% of ranchers. And on Forest Service lands, the top 10 percent of permit holders control more than 50 percent of the grazing. Some of the biggest ranchers include billionaires like Stan Kroenke and Rupert Murdoch, as well as mining companies and utilities. The economic benefits of obtaining a permit to graze a herd of cattle on public land extend beyond cattle sales. Even hobby farms can receive property tax benefits in many areas. Ranching business expenses can be deducted from federal taxes. And the private property associated with grazing permits is a stable long-term investment. (A representative for Mr. Kroenke did not respond to a request for comment, and a representative for Mr. Murdoch declined to comment.)
The Trump administration is strengthening the system by increasing subsidies even further.
The administration announced its Plan to Strengthen the U.S. Beef Industry in October, directing the BLM and Forest Service to reform grazing regulations for the first time since the 1990s. The plan suggests taxpayers would further support ranching by increasing subsidies for drought and wildfire relief, livestock killed by predators, and government-backed insurance. The White House referred questions to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which said in a statement that “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, enhances ecosystem health, and supports local stewardship.” Approximately 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 cheaper grazing fees to avoid bankruptcy.
The administration is already loosening its lax oversight.
Ranchers must renew their public land permits every 10 years, including undergoing an environmental review. But Congress passed a law in 2014 that allows permits to be automatically renewed if federal agencies are unable to complete those reviews. In 2013, the BLM approved grazing on 47% of land open to livestock without environmental review, according to our analysis of agency data. (The status of about another 10% of the BLM’s land was unknown that year.) Ten years later, the BLM allowed grazing on about 75% of that acreage without review.
This is primarily due to a decline in BLM rangeland management staff. The number of such employees declined by 39% between 2020 and 2024, according to Office of Personnel Management data, and BLM records show that roughly one in 10 rangeland employees left the workforce between Trump’s election victory and last June.
This system has allowed widespread environmental destruction in Western countries.
The BLM oversees 155 million acres of public land open to grazing, and an environmental health assessment found that at least 38 million acres, about half the size of New Mexico, have been degraded by grazing. The agency has no records of land health assessments for an additional 35 million acres. ProPublica and High Country News observed overgrazing in several states, including riverbeds trampled by cattle, grasslands ravaged by grazing, and streams polluted with cattle carcasses.
Ranchers argue that grazing on public land has ecological benefits, such as preventing nearby private land from being sold off and paved over. For example, Bill Fales and his family raise cattle in western Colorado and have done so for more than a century. “The wildlife here depends on these ranches remaining as open ranches,” he said. Fares said that while development has destroyed nearby habitat, his cattle are increasingly sharing the grazing areas with animals such as elk, bears and mountain lions.
Regulators say the industry’s political influence makes it difficult to make major changes to the system.
We interviewed 10 current and former BLM employees, from upper management to rank-and-file ranch managers, and they all spoke of political pressure to cut back on ranchers. “If we do something anti-grazing, there is at least a good chance that politicians will get involved,” one BLM employee told us. “We want to avoid that and will do nothing to cause it,” a BLM spokesperson said in a statement. “All policy decisions are made in accordance with federal law and are designed to balance economic opportunity and conservation responsibilities across the nation’s public lands.”
I have friends in high places in the industry. The Trump administration has appointed a lawyer who represents ranchers in lawsuits against the government and has stakes in Wyoming cattle operations to a high-ranking post at the U.S. Department of the Interior. The administration also nominated a technology entrepreneur who owns a ranch in Idaho to a post overseeing the Forest Service.
Moreover, politicians of both parties are quick to act if they believe that ranchers are subject to onerous oversight. Since 2020, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have written to the BLM and Forest Service more than 20 times about grazing issues, according to agency correspondence records we obtained through a public records request.
Read our complete study of the federal public lands grazing system.
