For immediate release: October 24, 2025
Media contacts:
Josh Osher, Western Watersheds Project (406) 220-2883; josh@westernwatersheds.org
Chandra Rosenthal, PEER (303) 898-0798; crosenthal@peer.org
Lizzy Pennock, WildEarth Guardians, (406) 830-8924; lpennock@wildearthguardians.org
Katie Bilodeau, Wilderness Watch, (406) 542-2048; kbilodeau@wildernesswatch.org
Chris Bugbee, Center for Biological Diversity, (305) 498-9112 cbugbee@biologicaldiversity.org
Liz Carr, Kettle Range Conservation Group, (509) 775 2667 lcarr@kettlerange.org
Washington, DC – The USDA’s recently announced plan to “Fortify the American Beef Industry” ignores the real issues facing the livestock sector and the profound ecological cost to U.S. public lands. By weakening environmental oversight, expanding grazing in sensitive habitats and reducing protections for imperiled species, the administration is advancing a broad-scale giveaway to a handful of politically-connected public lands commercial livestock operators – a sweetheart deal for public land profiteers at the expense of everyone else.
“Despite the growing recognition that beef is bad for the planet, this administration is doubling down and making sure that America’s precious western public lands operate as a below-cost feedlot for special interest groups,” said Josh Osher, public policy director for Western Watersheds Project. “The livestock industry has had a stranglehold over the western landscapes for over 150 years, but the new proposals would reduce even the minimal oversight and regulations that limit its widespread ecological damage: dirty water, dust pollution, more invasive and flammable weeds, compromised waterways, and decreased wildlife habitat values. This proposal is a huge problem for millions of Americans who value public lands for reasons besides beef production.”
According to the 13-page USDA Beef Industry Plan, the administration intends to launch a USDA-DOI Grazing Action Plan that would “streamline and expand grazing on federal lands” across 240 million acres administered by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the Forest Service (USFS). The plan guarantees “no net loss of Animal Unit Months (AUMs) nationwide,” instructs agencies to reopen vacant grazing allotments, and establish categorical exclusions to speed permit renewals, bypassing environmental review and public participation requirements.
“The Trump Administration is ignoring range science and the reality of climate change and instead is implementing a regressive grazing policy. The new policy puts profit for commercial ranchers first and our public lands dead last.” said Chandra Rosenthal. PEER’s Public Land Advocate. “This policy brings Trump one step closer to his free Big Mac, but our public lands, water, and wildlife will be paying the price.”
The plan also proposes sweeping Endangered Species Act “reforms” and new predator compensation standards, directing USDA and the Department of Interior to expand payouts for wolf, bear, and coyote predations while easing evidentiary requirements. It raises the Livestock Indemnity Program coverage to 100 percent of market value, and, for the first time, compensates ranchers for unborn livestock—an unprecedented level of subsidy that removes incentives for prevention and coexistence strategies.
“Where livestock go, death follows. The last thing native wildlife in the United States need is more public land opened to livestock grazing,” said Lizzy Pennock, carnivore coexistence attorney at WildEarth Guardians. “This plan not only means there will be more places where native carnivores are slaughtered to make room for livestock, it also provides financial incentives for reckless livestock management in their habitat.”
A major aspect of the plan expands the area of public land grazed by livestock by restocking of currently vacant allotments. However, the agencies own data suggest that they are unable to manage the active allotments already in use. The BLM and USFS currently rely on a loophole in federal regulations to renew the vast majority of grazing permits without any public participation or environmental analysis. Approximately 95% of USFS allotments and over 60% of BLM allotments covering almost 209 million acres of public lands have not had any environmental analysis in at least 10 years.
“There are approximately 2.8 million acres of vacant grazing allotments in Wilderness areas. Grazing in Wilderness often leads to the continued existence of structures, motorized use, and killing native predators to support this ecologically destructive activity on our wildest landscapes,” said Katie Bilodeau, legislative director and policy analyst with Wilderness Watch. “Vacant allotments, on the other hand, have become wilder without cows. There is no multi-use land-management mandate for our National Wilderness Preservation System—Wilderness is managed first and foremost for wilderness character, which makes the USDA and DOI proposals anti-Wilderness in addition to anti-public lands.”
“The Trump administration’s move to expand cattle grazing will set the stage for massive new damage to America’s public lands,” said Chris Bugbee, Southwest conservation advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity. “For years, we’ve seen cattle trash protected landscapes and push endangered species towards extinction while federal agencies look the other way. Those agencies need to be held accountable for breaking the law, but instead Trump officials are handing the livestock industry a blank check.”
Western public lands are already grossly overstocked, creating widespread ecological damage. Both the USFS and the BLM rely on decades old forage production calculations and rarely take into account other multiple use resources beside grazing. Instead of expanding public lands grazing, the program should be drastically reduced, saving taxpayers millions and charting a path to restore Western public lands from the damage inflicted by unsustainable commercial beef production.
“The USFS’s Colville National Forest plan lists a mere 25% of the forest as suitable for cattle grazing, yet cattle allotments occupy nearly 70 percent of the 1.1 million acre forest,” said Liz Carr, program director for the Kettle Range Conservation Group. “Data shows that the ecological condition of the cattle allotments are in decline. Cattle grazing spreads noxious weeds and diseases that harm forest plants and kill trees. Grazing competes with elk and deer for forage, damage soils, wetlands, and contribute significantly to increasing water pollution and temperatures that are lethal to fish and other aquatic species.”
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