Wouldn a federal grazing permit/lease buyout program be expensive for taxpayers?
On the contrary, while a permit buyout program would cost a few billion dollars (over several years), it would save many more billions of dollars. If every federal grazing permittee/lessee availed themselves of the buyout option, the taxpayers would have an immediate liability of $3.1 billion. But even this amount is far less than the long-term cost of continuing the public lands grazing program. Here’s why. The annual cost of the federal grazing program is $500 million ($0.5 billion), or $28.38 for each of the 17,617,986 AUMs provided. While federal permittees pay only $1.43 per AUM, the average grazing fees on western state and private lands are $12.30 and $11.10, respectively. Even worse for taxpayers, most of the $1.43/AUM fee isn’t even deposited to the general treasury, but is diverted to the “Range Betterment Fund” to support continued grazing. Given the on-going costs of the federal grazing program, the simple payback of buying out every federal grazing permit/lease today would
