RENO, Nev. — The boss of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management in Nevada says he backs efforts to shrink federal ownership of land in the state but criticizes some state's rights activists he says are only trying to further their own political agenda.
Caught in a growing dispute over enforcement of federal livestock grazing regulations in Nevada, BLM State Director Bob Abbey leveled the fresh criticism at leaders of the Nevada Committee for Full Statehood, several of whom are running for office this year under the banner of the Independent American Party.
He said those activists — including gubernatorial candidate David Holmgren and his wife, Jackie, who is running for the state Legislature — are not representative of most Nevada ranchers.
"Unfortunately, there are a couple of people who travel the state trying to create an atmosphere of mistrust, conflict and even confrontation to promote their own political agenda, as narrow as that agenda might be," Abbey told The Associated Press.
Abbey said he's been working for years with Nevada's congressional delegation and Gov. Kenny Guinn to identify "appropriate public lands to make available to the private sector.
"Like many other Nevadans, I, too, believe the federal government manages too much land in this state," he said about the 87 percent of Nevada owned by the feds, a bigger percentage than any other state.
"Certainly we're not talking about millions of acres, but I do believe we are talking about hundreds of thousands of acres" that could be moved out of federal ownership through land exchanges, he said.
But Abbey said those efforts are being undermined by the Holmgrens and others.
"The fact is, we do face significant challenges and issues, and we really need to be working together to address these things rather than spending time dealing with a few people who are illegally grazing on public lands," he said.
Abbey's comments come as the BLM prepares on Friday to auction off 157 cattle the agency seized last week from a Western Shoshone tribe in northeast Nevada. It was the first time since last summer the agency had confiscated livestock from ranchers accused of trespassing on federal land in Nevada without a grazing permit.
The BLM also notified the Mineral County sheriff's office last week that the Holmgrens' cattle could be next.
Jackie Holmgren, who helped lead protests against last summer's BLM round-ups, said she "took umbrage" with Abbey's criticism.
"Bob Abbey doesn't want any conflict because Bob Abbey wants to be able to rustle cattle without anybody watching. He's singling us out for one reason — because we won't put up and shut up," she said Tuesday.
"We're the ones who are fighting. Everybody else is scared to death. We just decided we are not going to be scared. They can put us in jail if they want to," she said.
The BLM warned the Holmgrens in April they were breaking the law by grazing too many cattle on their federal allotment on the 520,000-acre Rawhide Ranch in Mineral County.
Abbey said the Holmgrens wrongly stated in a news release last week that the BLM was gathering wild horses and transporting them to certain targeted ranches for the purposes of overgrazing the land so as to ultimately evict the cattle.
"I've never seen a more ludicrous statement in my life. That would certainly lead me to believe that while David and Jackie Holmgren are pursuing political office, honesty and integrity won't be part of their platform," Abbey said.
Both the statehood committee and the American Independent Party — the third largest political party in Nevada with 14,863 registered members — place a premium on private property rights. The committee specifically does not recognize federal jurisdiction over land in Nevada, claiming that state law supersedes.
"We're fighting for Nevada as a state," Jackie Holmgren said. "Otherwise, we might as well just turn the whole thing over to the feds and have no state law at all."
BLM spokeswoman Jo Simpson said the Holmgrens have a permit to graze 900 cattle on the federal allotment in central Nevada in winter months but are continuing to graze about 500 there at a time now when only 150 are allowed.
Jackie Holmgren said grazing 500 cattle across 520,000 acres works out to about 1,000 acres per cow.
"How can they say there's resource damage with 1,000 acres per cow?" she said. She said the statehood committee has scheduled a news conference at the BLM's Palomino Valley facility on Thursday to protest the auction planned on Friday.