Here’s a New York Times story on the BLM and FS response to a 2005 petition from some environmental groups on raising grazing fees.
This is from the FS letter:
Joel Holtrop, deputy chief of the National Forest System, said the agency is pursuing separate rulemakings to revise its forest planning rule and respond to Colorado’s roadless proposal, each of which have drained agency resources.
Moreover, roughly 4,000 grazing allotments on Forest Service property are in need of environmental analyses that will help determine the best management of rangeland resources, Holtrop said in the FS letter . The original petition and the BLM letter can be found on links through the NY Times article.
“This major effort will require focused agency range management technical expertise and funding and is not expected to be completed for several years,” he said.
A recent order from a U.S. District Court in Montana also requires the Forest Service to prepare an environmental impact statement in order to continue applying aerial chemical fire retardants to fight wildfires, Holtrop said.
“Given these and other significant agency priorities, I am reluctant to burden the agency’s limited resources by initiating an additional major rulemaking endeavor at the present time,” he said.