GRAZING RIGHTS ON FEDERAL LAND - IN SIMPLE

GRAZING RIGHTS ON FEDERAL LAND - IN SIMPLE

By Roni Bell 2026

When it comes to livestock grazing rights on federal land, it’s easy to get confused and tangled up in “government speak” versus “layperson speak.”

Example: The business of BLM and Forest Service agents includes paperwork administration, policy and goal making, keeping track of AUMs, permits, etc.

Government does not have the authority to “manage” a livestock grower’s private boots-on-the-ground business of “day-to-day livestock operations.”

Livestock grower knows when to rotate their grazing pastures and handle their stock so they can bring a premier animal to market.

In Simple: Livestock growers never abuse their livestock or land and water resources.

It appears the confusion began with the 1934 Taylor Grazing Act. So I’ll begin there.
Taylor Grazing Act of 1934 (TGA) did not extinguish any livestock grazing right established prior to 1934. 

In Simple: Never threaten or accuse government agent. If they demand you: “Sign permit, deduct AUM’s, turn out and bring in your livestock etc.”  respond with: My historic settlement date is _____.  My highest historic AUM numbers are _ _ _ _. Please provide your ask in writing, the statute you believe gives you the authority and your Just Compensation arrangements.”

Entities with said Pre-existing Range Grazing Units or Allotments are recognized by several names including Range Allotment Owner (RAO).

In Simple: Livestock grazing is NOT on “public” land. It is on “Federal” (Split Estate) and deeded land. 

RAO owns real “surface” property on Federal Lands. Surface property includes beneficial use of water, easements, rights-of-way, range improvements, forage and other property interests created under Federal Statutory Grants. Properties are protected by 18 federal statutes starting with the Act of 1866 and ending with the National Forest Management Act NFMA of October 22, 1976.

In Simple: Grazing applicants after 1934 may apply for a permit.  Pre-existing Range Allotment Owners are exempt.

Under the Acts of 1866 (Sections 8 & 9) the Livestock Reservoir Site Act (1897), Stock-Raising Homestead Act (1916), and FLPMA (1976), RAO’s have “vested, valid, senior, pre-existing, compensable” private property interest in their grazing allotments/units.

In Simple and Most Important: Pre-1934 Rights of Range Grazing Property/Rights have NEVER been extinguished!

Summary: Your "valid, pre-existing, vested, senior, compensable" Property Rights on Federal Land have never been extinguished. 

PRIMER ON PUBLIC VS. FEDERAL LANDS

 

 PRIMER ON PUBLIC VS. FEDERAL LANDS

By Dr. Angus McIntosh   2017

 After decades of involvement in Allotment Owner's issues, I'm used to attacks by the anti-ranching environmental-left, and usually just ignore their “Fake News”.  However, not addressing the real difference between “public lands” and “allotments” would hurt ranchers more than they already have been by the misinformation spewing out of the Washington DC “swamp”.  Exactly how have these globalist-controlled, career lobbyists and Washington insiders (partnered by MOUs with the BLM and USFS) helped the Western split-estate ranchers over the last 40 years?  They haven't.  By any measure (number of Allotments, number of Allotment Owners, number of head of livestock, or number of AUMs used for stockraising) Western Allotment Owners have been reduced by approximately 60% over the last 40 years.

 Never has RAO or myself stated that we represent “public land” ranchers.  It's precisely this one erroneous misrepresentation that is truly “dangerous” to ranchers and has caused many to be forced off their Allotments in the past 40 years.  The term “public land” has a well-established legal definition.  Only Congress and the US Supreme Court get to define that term (not I nor the PLC).  During the settlement period (up until 1920) “public lands” were “lands open to entry and disposal upon which there were no rights or claims” (see Words & Phrases and cases cited therein). “Most enduringly the public lands have been defined as those lands subject to sale and other disposal under the general land laws” (Utah Div. of State Lands v United States, 482 US 193 (1987)). 

By legal definition there are NO private rights on “public lands”.  However, once land was opened to settlement, occupancy, improvement and had a possessory right or claim established it was no longer “public land” because it was no longer “unoccupied”, but now had private rights attached to it that prevented anyone else from settling on the land (see Frisbie v Witney, 76 US 187 (1869), Atherton v Fowler, 96 US 513 (1877), Hosmer v Wallace, 97 US 575 (1878), Rector v Gibbon, 11 US 276 (1884), Cameron v United States, 148 US 301 (1893)). These lands were thereafter called “entered unpatented lands” or “entries” and the settlers were called “entrymen” or “bona-fide settlers”. Under a series of post-Civil-War statutes, Congress sanctioned and confirmed rights of possession, water rights, ditches, canals, roads, (1866, 14 Stat 253), reservoirs, pipelines, flumes, (1870, 16 Stat 218), improvements, (1874, 18 Stat 50), forage/grazing use (1875, 18 Stat 482), timber use, (1878, 20 Stat 88), State/Territorial range rights, fences, (1885, 23 Stat 321), 160 acre livestock reservoir sites, forage, and improvements (1897 29 Stat 484) of these bona-fide stockraising settlers (or “entryman”) on the Western ranges.  See Atherton v Fowler, supra, Griffith v Godey, 113 US 89 (1885), Brooks v Warren, 13 P. 175 (1886), Comm. Natnl. Bank of Ogden v Davidson, 22 P. 517 (1889), Wilson v Everett, 139 US 616 (1891), Cameron v United States, supra, Lonergan v Buford, 148 US 581 (1893), Swan Land & Cattle Co. v Frank, 148 US 603 (1893), Grayson v Lynch, 163 US 468 (1896), Ward v Sherman, 192 US 168 (1904), Bacon v Walker, 204 US 311 (1907), Bown v Walling, 204 US 320 (1907), Curtin v Benson, 222 US 78 (1911), Omaechevarria v Idaho, 246 US 343 (1918). 

 With the Reclamation Act of 1902 (32 Stat 388) Congress began disposing of land under the “Unit Policy” which granted “an amount of land sufficient for the support of a family” rather than arbitrary 160, 320, or 640 acre amounts (Irwin v Wright, 258 US 219 (1922)). By 1909, it was difficult to grant homestead or mining patents that did not infringe on some rancher's valid existing rights.  The West was covered with rancher's water rights, easements, improvements, entries, and land use rights which Congress had already statutorily recognized and granted.  At the same time the political demand for coal and oil to fuel the Navy was running high against land disposal (United States v Midwest Oil, 236 US 459 (1915)). There was constant turmoil between Western ranchers, mineral companies, and federal bureaucrats in the newly formed US Forest Service. 

In a speech to Congress in 1909, President Roosevelt proposed the only logical solution, which was to create a split estate: “Rights to the surface of the public land....be separated from rights to the forests upon it and to minerals beneath it, and these should be subject to separate disposal.” Special Message to Congress, Jan. 22, 1909, 15 Messages and Papers of the Presidents 7266.  The United States would retain the mineral estate and the commercial timber while granting a surface fee title to the stockraisers for all agricultural and ranching purposes (Kinney Coastal Oil Co. v Kieffer, 277 US 488 (1928), Watt v Western Nuclear, 462 US 36 (1983). 

By 1910 corruption and usurpation by career bureaucrats resulted in legislation providing for a joint Congressional Investigation of the Department of Interior, and the Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Forestry (36 Stat 871).  The investigation resulted in enactment of key split-estate policy statutes: Pickett Act of 1910/1912 (36 Stat 847, 37 Stat 497), Act for the Relief of Settlers (incorporating the Enlarged Homestead Acts) (37 Stat 267), Agricultural Entry of Mineral Lands Act (38 Stat 509), Reclamation Land District Act (39 Stat 506), and the StockRaising Homestead Act (39 Stat 862).

By an Act passed in 1912 (37 Stat 287) Congress “directed and required” the Secretary of Agriculture to classify all land within National Forests open to entry and settlement. These Acts in para materia resulted in the perfection of ranchers surface titles to their “entered” range allotments. The split estate policy was fully implemented by the passage of the Mineral Leasing Act of 1920 (41 Stat 437) (Kinney Coastal Oil v Kieffer, supra.).  Western National Forests were explicitly included into the language of the Pickett Act, the Mineral Leasing Act and the 1923 Act for the Relief of Settlers (42 Stat 1445).  

Adoption of the split-estate land disposal policy necessitated redefining “public land” which Congress did in the Federal Power Act of 1920 (41 Stat 1063).  “'Public lands' means such lands and interests in lands owned by the United States as are subject to private appropriation and disposal under the public land laws”. Since the allotment owner was referred to as the “surface owner” (Agricultural Entry Act 1914, StockRaising Homestead Act 1916, Mineral leasing Act 1920) then the mineral estate and commercial timber is what constituted “public lands” (i.e. “interest in land”). 

The only requirement to “prove up” on their allotments was that ranchers construct improvements worth $1.25 per acre, occupy the land for 5 years and have an approved “plan or plat map” (Irwin v Wright, supra).  Similar to the Reclamation Fund established for Irrigation Districts Congress established the Cooperative Improvement Fund Act in 1914 (38 Stat 43) to provide a cooperative program for constructing the requisite range improvements under the Agricultural Entry Act and the StockRaising Homestead Act.  A cursory reading of the “permit” provisions of the Forest Service Organic Act (30 Stat 32), the Mineral Leasing Act Section 20 (41 Stat 437), Taylor Grazing Act (48 Stat 1269) and the Granger Thye Act (64 Stat 82) reveals the intent of Congress was to protect the rights of the stockraisers while regulating grazing only to the extent of protecting the “young growth of trees” and to prevent “soil erosion” (i.e. the government's reserved mineral and timber interests). See United States v Grimaud, 220 US 506 (1911), Curtin v Benson, 222 US 78 (1911), and Hatahley v United States, 351 US 173 (1956).

“Public lands” continued to be “lands and interest in land open to sale and disposal” after Allotments were adjudicated and the only kind of entry or disposal that could be made thereafter was a mining claim, mineral lease or timber sale.  This remained the law until October 23, 1976.  By FLPMA (90 Stat 2743) and NFMA (90 Stat 2949), Congress changed “public land” to the current definition found on page 3 of the Federal Land Policy Management Act (90 Stat 2746): “The term 'public lands' means any land and interest in land owned by the United States within any of the several States and administered by the Secretary of Interior through the Bureau of land Management,...”.  The definition still embraces the split estate nature of the lands.  Missing, however, is language expressing that those retained federal interests are open for sale or disposal.  Significantly, after passage of FLPMA and NFMA the US Supreme Court ruled that ranchers still owned their property rights within National Forests and these prior existing rights were not affected by either FLPMA or the Multiple Use Sustained Yield Act (74 Stat 215).  See United States v New Mexico, 438 US 696 (1978). 

DEMAND TO REMOVE PROPERTY REFERENCES

 

Demand to Remove Property References  I, the undersigned, am a Private Property Owner (Hereafter referred as Owner) whose properties may include deeded land, grazing allotments, certain permits, trademarks and agreements, animals, water shares, rights of way, easements, cattle trailways, gas oil and mineral rights, water/forage and other beneficial uses deemed legal, titled structures, airspace and business (Hereafter referred as Properties) located in the county(s) of _________________ in the state of ______________________. It has been brought to my attention that through voiced intentions, ballot measures, public media, videos, maps, photos, State and or Federal legislations, prospectus, FOIA and other certain papers (Hereafter referred as Reports) ______________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________ potentially in conjunction with non-profit and for-profit affiliate organizations, and/or representatives (Hereafter referred collectively as Entity), has allegedly assumed and or is speculating use(s) for Properties, and other properties not owned by Owner but are near-by and or conjoining Properties to the extent use of could jeopardize Owner’s Properties. Because Entity did not seek written consent or permission from Owner for admittance on and or any use what-so-ever of Properties, Owner considers Entity may have arbitrarily engaged in what constitutes as unlawful trespass. Entity’s alleged Reports have already harmed Owner by creating a nuisance that is needlessly- possibly intentionally - disturbing, violating, and encumbering rightful usage, creating a financial burden, devaluating, and placing a cloud on Properties. As Owner whose Properties, income and business are now negatively impacted by Entity’s alleged trespass Reports, I am providing this Demand to Remove Property References to serve as my formal demand: Entity must remove, erase, and delete any and all references of Properties from any and all materials generated by, or utilized by Entity, potential affiliates, or representatives (contracted or volunteered), within thirty (30) business days of receipt of this certified letter. In keeping with my State and Federal Constitutional rights to acquire, possess and protect my Properties, I, the undersigned as Owner, hereby demand Entity file a certified letter with the clerk and assessor in each before-mentioned County(s), clearly affirming that Entity has removed any and all references of Properties from any and all Reports Entity and his or her allied organizations have, within forty (40) business days. Should Entity choose not to comply with Owner’s Demand to Remove Property References, Owner will exercise the right to remedy (includes notifying the sheriff, liens and seizures), as may be appropriate and provided by law.                                                                        Page 1     Should Entity’s non-compliance result in Owner having to take action, including accrued costs due to Owner having to attend meetings (*downtime) in effort to remove Properties and Owner referencing from Entity’s Reports - starting at the expiration of a twelve (12) business day period from Entity’s receipt of Demand to Remove Property References, Owner will file a lawful request that Entity be charged an hourly fee for labor costs and all associated costs accrued including administrative and legal fees, fuel, repair and maintenance expenses, equity loss and restoration of property to its original condition. Owner is not associated in any manner whatsoever with Entity or representatives, affiliates, and or family members of Entity.  Owner has no knowledge of Entity’s specific plans or intentions. Therefore, Owner is to be held harmless and totally exempt from any liabilities whatsoever that may result or have resulted from any representation whatsoever Entity (representatives, affiliates and or family members of Entity) may have made to any persons as pertains to Owner or Properties. Owner demands Entity request written permission from Owner before making any future attempt to reference Properties or Owner or set foot on Owner’s Properties. Owner reserves the right to decline said request.   Signed ______________________________________________________________ Date __________________________ Cc: Governor, County Commissioners, County Sheriff, Interested Parties   Notary Seal _________________________________________________________________

 

 

 *Downtime – hotels, fuel, meals, meetings, testifying at capitol, hired help to finish chores while property owner has to attend meetings and so forth 

                                        

Page 2   Demand to Remove Property References

South Platte River WATER RIGHTS

South Platte River water rights should be reexamined

by Roni Bell                       November 2025

In semi-arid desert land near the Colorado/Nebraska border, there’s been a dramatic increase in crops under pivot. Question: “Where are these junior water rights getting the water?” Historic flow charts show that near Kersey the South Platte generally loses its stream by August. Today’s flow charts show a trickle at Henderson then a sudden ballooning, daily and year-round, at Kersey.

Whoever implemented Judge Roger Klein’s 2006 Water Augmentation System decision defied his instructions “No harm to Senior.” Instead, they shut down senior water rights owners’ wells, thereon denying them use of their water. This has resulted in overhydrating the upper end of the South Platte River. Overhydration has raised the water table from its historic approximate 20 feet below surface to surfacing. This has destroyed all kinds of property, including basements, wastewater management treatment plants, crops and more. One example: Potato grower Harry Strohauer (senior water rights) was not allowed to use his water. So, he couldn’t water his vines. Then the increasingly high water rotted his tubers.

The upper end of the South Platte now sits on a mammoth underground reservoir that ensures a perennial in-stream flow that moves enough water to cross the Nebraska/Colorado border.

Nebraska claims “Colorado isn’t delivering water per: 1923 compact.” This is prompting Nebraska’s push to build the Perkins County Canal in Colorado.

Why not terminate Gov. Bill Owens’ 2006 South Platte River Implementation Program, (PRRIP) and redirect that water and dollar commitment to the 1923 compact?

The five-page PRRIP between Wyoming, Colorado and Nebraska (signed by governors Heineman, Friedenthal and Owens, and Secretary of Interior Kempthorne) has a withdrawal clause. Why not exercise that right? The water doesn’t necessarily need to be “redirected” but — it would free up the acre feet and financial commitments.

A) What is the exact acre feet and dollar commitment PRRIP provides each year?

B) Who’s benefiting from the senior water the South Platte River carriage vessel carries from the upper end to the lower end in this new perennial instream?

C) Who makes up PRRIP board of directors? How do they obtain that position and where do they get their funding? Transparency please.

D) New well popping and compliance with the unattainable augmentation is costly. After only a few years of being shut down, the senior wells that were underhandedly shut down were too rusted out to use. Plus, they were reluctant to keep pumping their wells because rumor had it that someone tried and was fined $50,000. Where are the new — junior water rights owners getting the water and money to pop new wells?

E) Have senior water rights owners ever been “justly compensated” for these obvious “takings?”

F) Where is South Platte river water being diverted? Pivots? Rueter-Hess Reservoir?

G) When water rights share owners sell their Consumptive Use (CU) they have the right to use the margin between CU and (AQ) Allotment Quantity. Most sellers don’t know they can do this by crossing out the unacceptable “dry up covenant” clause in the Consumptive Use agreements.

H) Are any water districts threatening water rights share owners by telling them “Either give us your water shares or we’ll just change the law and get them.”

I) Is any entity (private, Metropolitan Utilities District or government) threatening property owners with estoppel/condemnation/adverse possession or eminent domain should water rights owners refuse to give up their property?

J) Shouldn’t PRRIP, Department of Natural Resources and maybe a few MUDs and Water Districts be audited?

Engaging in gross federal overreach (outside federal’s enumerated powers) federal agents have significantly decapitalized private parties.

The South Platte River Water is only one example out of thousands where federal overreach has cost America’s food and fuel providers to the point of shutting them down.

Federal running outside of its enumerated powers, resulting in the shutdown of our resource providers, must be ended.

Roni Bell is a farmer, rancher, agricultural and energy production advocate, professional writer, photographer, wife and mother ...Published in the Greeley Tribune 

THE COST OF DOING BUSINESS WITH GOVERNMENT

 

By Roni Bell

As published in RCALF magazine "True Grit." 

The purpose of this write is to give a quick look at people who have been attacked by Government, the guessed costs accrued by these victims and some solutions - that if aggressively implemented - would end the attacks.

R-CALF represents Cow-Calf Producers.  Many Cow-Calf Producers have Property Rights on Federal Lands. They’re known as Range *Allotment Owners (RAO) with *privilege to own property on Federal Lands.

Because they are “price receivers,” a Cow-Calf Producer’s livelihood relies on “price setters.” Though their profit margins are thin, their love of “bringing a good animal to market” is thick.

Challenges include Mother Nature and Federal Government (Feds). America’s RAO’s have been adjusting to Mother Nature since about 1525.  They’ve never been able to adjust to Government.

Department of Interior (DOI) oversees Bureau of Land Management (BLM). United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) oversees Forest Service et al. They partner with environmental and foreign parties (Partnership) to march forward using illegal tactics to decapitalize whosoever’s Land and Water they want.
The Decapitalization Formula

Fed Partnership (FP) stakes a claim, “Seen a gummer snail on your property. Stop grazing there so we can take a ‘look see.’” The “look see” denies use of property and begins the ‘decapitalization.’  RAO is forced into hiring an attorney.

Before the RAO knows it, they’re racking up thousands of dollars in downtime, hiring help to finish calving, haying, travel costs and attorney fees etc. Meanwhile, FP’s getting paid for denying RAO use of their property.

RAO realizes revenue losses as bills pile up. When RAO is physically, mentally and financially exhausted, FP waltzes in and seizes control of property.

Most attorneys aren’t taught statutes that protect Property owned on Federal Lands.
Nine “explicit acts of Congress” include the key words “pre-existing, valid, vested, prior” grazing rights established before the 1934 Taylor Grazing Act.
Regardless the glut of new rules and regulations, if your grazing documents pre-date 1934 and include any of those words, your Property Rights on Federal Land have never been extinguished.

Some ways Feds decapitalize Cow-Calf Producers

Federal keeps pushing Cow-Calf Producers to shoulder the cost of Animal I.D., aka Geographical Indicators, to help entities who enjoy profits exporting safe, succulent born and raised in the U.S.A. beef.

Agencies, like the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), threaten and file unlawful complaints on feedlots, grazers etc.

The Endangered Species Act plant wolves that “stress or kill and eat livestock.” Hard cost reimbursement is so shoddy, many who lose their lambs, calves whatever, don’t bother to report. Fed’s fail to include stress related restitution for man or beast.

 1) If you find a wolve on your property and have “good faith” belief it might bring harm (harm includes such as the Mytidad worm), the  ESA includes language that gives you the right to exterminate it.    

2) Contraire to popular belief, it’s best to demand wolves (Polar bears and so forth.)  be listed “Endangered.” Why?  Because the Fifth Amendment demands “Just Compensation” be paid. As it stands, Feds and partners deny you your earnings while their earnings flourish.
AUM cuts: Feds demand AUM cuts, even though they do not have the authority; nor do they have the authority to dictate turn out or in times.
AUMs are included in a ranch evaluations. Example: AUM cuts on an open allotment cost Chuck Sylvester a conservative amount of near $800,000. Imagine what it cost all the open allotment owners collectively.

Here are a few examples of criminal overreach by government:

My interest in Property Rights on Federal Land began in 1996 when President Bill Clinton dramatically exceeded the Antiquities Act - “smallest area compatible with the proper care and management of the objects to be protected” - by declaring near 1.8 million acres (when 500 acres was likely sufficient) The Grand Staircase–Escalante National Monument. 

Initially, Clinton promised “no interruption in grazing.” He lied. In 2000 he, via BLM, ordered RAOs off their allotments.

Quinn Griffin, of Escalante, UT, described it as a “trial of fire with the BLM/Monument” people.
Though I’ve known the Griffin family since 1988, and witnessed the BLM orders, “Get your cows off the Kaiparowits NOW,” I recently asked Quinn for a summation for this article.

Griffin explained, “I do believe the financial chaos caused by uneducated government employees is grandiose, to say the least, especially when all hardships could have been avoided if they had only listened to my thirty years of experience.” The most critical experience was the fact that the cattle had 50 + years of knowing when to go up and come down off the Fifty. Trying to bring them down at the BLM’s premature time caused the cattle to keep scattering on that treacherous 1600 foot vertical trail.
The 74 year old Griffin said that in dealing with the BLM 25 years ago they accrued an approximate hard outlay of $84,000 that bankrupt him.

In addition to losing its grazing revenue, the town of Escalante incurred another economic hit because its Andalux Mine produced coal similar to Clinton’s Indonesian campaign contributors coal. The Andalux was shut down before it went into production.

_____________________________________

Wayne Hage -Clark County, NV 1978 to present:

Conversations with Ramona Morrison, daughter of Wayne Hage included how the Hage case has gone on for 47 years at a cost to date of over $10 million.
She explained how two generations and 3 separate appeals all won. Plus, they received recognition from BLM for excellent ranches.

“State water adjudication proved we had vested water rights on land managed by Forest Service.  Yet Forest Service filed criminal charges against us for alleged destruction of property & Federal trespassing for clearing pinion, juniper etc. out of ditch right away we owned.”
The Hage Case has filled books. Read them. What the Feds did to the Hage family transcends cruel.

____________________________________________

Donna Hildreth – Dillon, MT.  After reading the suffocatingly micromanaged overreach of her BLM permit, I highlighted out about 95% and reminded her of Dr. Angus McIntosh’s advisement, “Don’t sign it.”

BLM doesn’t have authority to “co-manage” your private business.
My recommendation?  “Make your response short and to the point.”

On July 25, 2025, Hildreth wrote to her BLM,

I will be back in touch with you after meeting with Secretary Doug Burgum. The language in the BLM permits exceeds Federal's Enumerated powers. Not only for this Range Allotment Owner, but for all RAO's on Federal lands, this demands correction.

_________________________________________________

Maude family, Pennington County, S. Dakota

In a 7/28/25 conversation I asked Charles Maude if he could provide a guesstimate as to hard costs thus far dealing with Feds alleged “trespass” charges filed against Charles and his wife Heather, each in the amount of $250 thousand.

Here are some numbers he shared: “Raised $130 – 140 thousand to fight but need $300 to 400 thousand more.

Need Machinery but bank says no to loan due to this unjust fight.

$10,000 travel to D.C.

Three crop loss approx. $175,000

$60,000 in Atty fees.

Wife Heather, who juggles homeschooling with it all, spent approximately 4 out of 7 days a week from May to September working on case. That’s about 80 days X’s a conservative $200 per day equals $16,000.

This brings a guesstimate of over $400 thousand spent thus far.

With input from USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins, President Donald J. Trump had the charges dropped. It’s unsettling that this case still lingers.

_____________________________________

Dwight and Stephen Hammond, Harney County, Oregon Conversation with 86 year old Dwight Hammond, 7/29/2025
It all began with the Fish and Wildlife Service in 1963.
As Dwight said, “Water got me sideways with government in 1963.”  It peaked in 2012 when government charged them with burning their own forage on their own allotment. Both dad Dwight and son Stephen served time in prison. July of 2018, President Trump pardoned them.
It’s too complex to get into here, so in short I’ll share Dwight’s comments about the “wrongs we’ve endured” due to Federal’s “abuse of power.” “Susie (Dwight’s wife) is all used up and is in assisted living.”
They were “fined $400,000, insurance took care of $200,000.” Dwight figures all of the costs so far “would be so great – over a million.”

 Cliven Bundy – Clark County, Nevada

Conversation with 79-year-old Cliven 7/30/2025, was rich with his advisements and questions:
Cliven began with “I fired the BLM in 1992.”
“It’s ranchers fault if they sign the permit. That’s a contract! Once you sign a contract, it’s over for you!” Dr. Angus McIntosh would agree.
“It’s been 11 years since the standoff…with no conclusion. Why? Because a conclusion would prove (that we have) rights.”
“How can Federal purchase land from a state, if Federal claims it already owns it?” How can Federal claim to give state owned land back to state?
“Feds have been trying to entrap me for decades.
To sum up, Cliven shared that “Government spent $300 million of YOUR money, just for attorneys, judges, military, brand inspectors, porta potties; $3,000 to count my cows and $6 million to gather 386 head.”
“I’m running the only cattle left in Clark County, Nevada.                                 I asked, “Do you think the Feds goal is to seize control of our land and water?”
He answered, “Remember. The paychecks, benefits etc. stimulate the Bureaucrats cause.”

Cliven’s right! Feds get revenue making sure Property Owners lose revenue.
What struck me the most in listening to each, was their shared love of Country, Constitution, family and God, topped with a sweet sense of humor.

Each apologized when broaching the mental and physical stress Federal’s overreach brought them. One will never be able to estimate the physical and mental tole Federal’s illegal overreach cost.  

Here’s the Ask!

1)    President Donald J. Trump declare Moratorium on DOI and USDA actions on Federal Lands. We believe that when Trump learns of the facts and truth about these “Takings without Just Compensation, he’ll be very agreeable to a Moratorium.

2) DOI Secretary Doug Burgum & USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins deploy a comprehensive Regulatory Review of statutes and policies which define Federal Lands use with a focus on Range Allotment Owners.
3) Property Owners who’ve been harmed by Federal actions “outside of statutes and Federal’s Enumerated Powers” to come forth with estimates as to how much Federal cost them. Though Federal will never be able to reimburse them for the undue stress, at the least Federal should be ordered to pay “Just Compensation,” for denied use of property, and reimbursement for hard costs.

4) Hereon, Congress should draft and pass an Equal Standing Law, wherein Private Parties can hold Federal Employees accountable for their wrongful actions! Example: They should be stripped of D.A., A.G. and DOJ protections and personally pay for counsel.

5) County Commissioners should be educated about their       authority to refuse any Federal request that’s outside of Federal’s Enumerated Powers and pass the Tenth Amendment Sanctuary County resolution.  If every County in America did so, that would dramatically rein in Federal.

 

*Allotment – A grant of land

*Privilege – An exclusive right

MONTANA WATER COURT'S DEPRIVATION

Montana Water Court’s astounding deprivation of due process | 

by Lawrence A. Kogan Esq.

The United States (“USG”) lacks standing under Article III of the U.S. Constitution to affirmatively represent the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes interests at the Montana Water Court’s still current CSKT Tribal Water Right adjudication proceedings (Case No. WC-0001-C-2021). The United States, along with the State of Montana and the Tribes, had initially petitioned the Water Court to commence such proceedings on March 15, 2022. The USG lacks such standing because there is no special common law fiduciary (i.e., private trust) Federal-Indian trust relationship evidenced in the Hellgate Treaty of 1855 explicitly requiring the USG to take affirmative steps to secure, quantify, prioritize and protect the Tribal Water Right recognized in the CSKT Water Compact. And since the USG lacks such standing, the Montana Water Court lacks the requisite subject matter jurisdiction to continue its CSKT Tribal Water Right adjudication proceedings. However, the Montana Water Court, on Thursday, during the first of the two-day oral hearings it is now convening following its Order of Oct. 18, refused to let non-lawyer Objectors to the CSKT Water Compact who had previously filed requests for Oral Argument on Oct. 4, raise these critically important issues on the judicial record, even though they arise from three recent U.S. Supreme Court landmark decisions. These Objectors had initially filed their Request for a Hearing along with the Statement of Objections to the CSKT Water Compact it filed on February 9, 2023 (attached), based on the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 29, 2022, decision in Oklahoma v. Castro Huerta (Dkt. No. 21-429), and the U.S. Supreme Court’s likely rulings in two then pending cases – Haaland v. Brackeen (Dkt Nos. 21-380, 21-376, 21-377, 21-378) and Arizona v. Navajo Nation (Dkt. Nos. 21-1484, 22-51). The U.S. Supreme Court, thereafter, issued its decisions in Brackeen and Navajo Nation, respectively, on June 15, 2023, and June 22, 2023. Together, these three landmark Supreme Court decisions substantially changed federal Indian law, resulting in the USG’s current lack of Article III standing to maintain their petition before the Water Court on behalf of the CSKT in these Tribal Water adjudication proceedings. In Castro Huerta, the Supreme Court majority rejected the Court’s prior view, expressed in its 1832 opinion in Worcester v. Georgia, that the United States owes a special common law fiduciary trust obligation of protection to Indian tribes and their members, because Indians are dependent wards of the Nation and are a separate and distinct political community requiring protection from States and their nontribal citizens. Since the CSKT are neither dependent wards of the Nation nor a separate and distinct political community requiring special protection from the State of Montana and its citizens, the USG does not owe to the CSKT a special common law fiduciary trust obligation of protection. In Castro Huerta, the Supreme Court majority also held that “Indian country” (18 U.S.C. § 1151), including Indian reservations, are not separate from States, but rather, are part of the States in which they are located. Since the Flathead Reservation lands and the waters that flow through it and along its exterior boundaries which the CSKT Water Compact refers to as Tribal “reserved” water rights are now considered part of the State of Montana, they are now subject to concurrent state and federal jurisdiction. This means that the CSKT’s right to occupy Flathead Reservation lands and the CSKT’s rights to the use of such waters are each considered a stick in the bundle of state- and federal-recognized property rights that makes up the Flathead Reservation, and ultimately subject to the U.S. Constitution. Significantly, this also means that CSKT tribal members are both Montana state and U.S. federal citizens entitled to all the rights, privileges and immunities to which other American and state citizens are entitled, including due process of law and equal protection under the law. In Brackeen, the Supreme Court majority held that Congress’s plenary powers over Indian affairs, no matter whether they derive from the U.S. Constitution’s Commerce Clause (Art. I, § 8, cl. 3), Treaty Clause (Art. II, § 2, cl. 2), Property/Territory Clause (Art. IV, § 3, cl. 2), or the Federal-Indian trust relationship, are nevertheless subject to foundational constitutional constraints — a conclusion which even dissenting Justice Alito agreed with! This means that the CSKT Water Compact (SB262, 2015) that Congress and former President Donald Trump enacted into federal law as Division DD (“Montana Water Protection Act”) of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021 (P.L. 116-260, Dec. 27, 2020) (134 Stat. 3008), is subject to foundational constitutional limitations. Therefore, to the extent the federalized CSKT Water Compact converts private irrigator state-appropriated water use rights into federal “reserved” water rights without providing Objectors with an adequate opportunity to be heard (due process of law) and equal protection under the law, it is manifestly unconstitutional. In Navajo Nation, the Supreme Court majority rejected the claims of the Navajo Nation that the express language of the U.S.-Navajo Nation treaty imposed upon the USG a special common law fiduciary trust obligation to affirmatively take steps to make a “reserved” water rights claim and to secure water on behalf of the tribe from the Colorado River. The Court had apparently relied, in part, on the USG brief filed in that action which argued that the USG owed no enforceable trust obligation to the Navajo Nation to make a “reserved” water rights claim and to secure water for the tribe from the Colorado River. According to the Court, there is only a general trust relationship between the USG and Indian tribes. It is my observation that the Navajo Nation treaty language the Supreme Court considered in Navajo Nation relating to the tribe’s land and water rights is substantially similar to the Hellgate Treaty language concerning the CSKT’s land and water rights. Consequently, the express language of the Hellgate Treaty, like the express language of the Navajo Nation treaty, does not impose a special common law fiduciary trust obligation on the USG to take the affirmative steps recognized in the CSKT Water Compact to secure, quantify, prioritize and protect the CSKT’s claimed Tribal Water Right against claims made by Montana or its nontribal citizens. In sum, based on the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark decisions in Castro Huerta, Brackeen and Navajo Nation, the USG is compelled to establish that it now possesses the requisite Article III standing to maintain its previously filed petition with the Water Court, on behalf of the CSKT, seeking the adjudication of the Tribal Water Right. Because the USG will be unable to establish that it possesses such standing, the Water Court has no choice but to dismiss these CSKT Tribal Water Right adjudication proceedings at once. That the Water Court went out of its way to unlawfully deny only the non-lawyer Objectors to the CSKT Water Compact the opportunity to raise these critically important threshold issues at Thursday’s oral hearing is truly astounding, if not profoundly offensive to the notion of due process of law. It also is especially disappointing, since a party had recently raised the very same threshold issue before the New Mexico federal district court on Oct. 4, during its adjudication of the Jemez River in the case of United States v. Abousleman, No. 6:83-cv-01041, and the district court responded on Nov. 12 with an order providing all interested parties with the opportunity to file responsive briefs. 

Lawrence A. Kogan, Esq, is managing principal of the New York City-based Kogan Law

From: https://missoulian.com/opinion/column/montana-water-court-s-astounding-deprivation-of-due-process-lawrence-a-kogan/article_ea2ec4f6-a30a-11ef-bf75-f719863ac2b4.html#tncms-source=login   11/17/2024

FOR YOUR COUNTY IN AMERICA

 

EVERY COUNTY IN AMERICA HAS THE RIGHT

TO BE A

 "TENTH AMENDMENT SANCTUARY COUNTY! "

__________ COUNTY TO BE A “TENTH AMENDMENT SANCTUARY COUNTY”

_________Tenth Amendment Sanctuary County reconfirms County Commissioners authority to deny any action by Federal that is outside of Federal’s Enumerated Powers.

Actions by Federal outside of its Enumerated Powers include:  Education, Wolves, ESA (except migratory fowl), EPA, FEMA, historical/most precious jewel land/water designations, WOTUS, Water and Feral Horses.

WHEREAS, the Board of the County Commissioners of _______County, _________, is vested with the authority of administering the affairs of ______ County, including Planning and Zoning and the Economic Development,

WHEREAS, Federal jeopardizes the Economic Development of ___________ County through its repeated trespass and overreach attempts to enforce unconstitutional demands on Water Rights in ________ County, this Resolution addresses Water in particular, 

WHEREAS Board has a duty to use its Constitutional Authority to not enforce any Federal action as pertains to Water.

WHEREAS, the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution a part of the Bill of Rights, ratified on December 15, 1791, protects the inalienable states’ rights, by stating that the federal government has only those powers delegated to it by the Constitution, and that all other powers not forbidden to the states by the Constitution are reserved to each state, or to the people.

WHEREAS, the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people

WHEREAS, example:  United States v. Lopez (1995), was also a part of a series of Rehnquist Court cases that limited Congress's powers under the Commerce Clause the Court again ruled that a regulation enacted under the Commerce Clause was unconstitutional.

WHEREAS the Commerce Clause confers a unique position upon the federal government in connection with navigable waters: "The power to regulate commerce comprehends the control for that purpose, and to the extent necessary, of all the navigable waters of the United States...

WHEREAS the state of ___________(states west of the 100th Meridian) does not have ‘Navigable’ Waters as defined in Artlll.S2.C1.12 Admiralty and Maritime Jurisdiction, no Federal Agency has authority over Water in the state of _________, and

 WHEREAS ________County in the State of ________ does not have ‘Navigable’ Waters as defined in ArtIII.S2.C1.12, it is the desire of the Board to declare its support of the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution and its provisions of that protect the inalienable and individual rights of ________County Citizens to deny any Federal Agency action that is outside of Federal’s Enumerated Powers, and

WHEREAS, no waters in _________ County meets the definition of WOTUS, therefore let it be known that no ditch company or individual Water Rights owner need apply for a federal water permit to exercise their right to “beneficial use of water.” This includes the maintenance of old or building of new projects and utilization of Allotment Quantities as historically dated and appropriated,

WHEREAS all Water of every natural stream in the State of ________ and the County of _________ has been appropriated, and

WHEREAS, Colorado Bill of Rights Article II Section 3. “All persons have certain natural, essential and inalienable rights, among which may be reckoned the right of enjoying and defending their lives and liberties; of acquiring, possessing and protecting property;” which includes the beneficial use of Water,

WHEREAS, the Commissioners each took an oath to support and defend the United States Constitution and the laws of the State of __________ which are not deemed unconstitutional by a court of competent jurisdiction.

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the board reconfirms its authority to not enforce any Federal law not delegated to the United States by the Constitution.  

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED by the Board of County Commissioners of __________ County be, and hereby is, declared to be a “Tenth Amendment Sanctuary County.”  

The above and foregoing Resolution was, on motion duly made and seconded, adopted by the following vote on ________________________________________

                                                                              

BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS

________________COUNTY, __________

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

* Colorado...This resolution is structured for states west of the 100th Meridian under the Spanish - First in Time, First in Right law. Since Federal doesn't own water, and has to acquire it just like all other entities, this can be readapted for states east of the 100th Meridian that are under the English/Riparian Water Law.