42 p.This Article examines the traditional permit qualifications analysis,
explains the role played by the regulations that created it, and argues
that the BLM’s new approach to the qualifications issue has finally
opened the door for nontraditional permittees to a degree not seen
before in over seventy years of federal government regulation of
livestock grazing on public lands. In Part I, this Article introduces the
concept of federal lands ranches and discusses the exclusive club of
federal lands ranchers, who, until recently, controlled the vast
majority of grazing permits. Part II examines the history of livestock
grazing on public domain lands prior to Congress’s passage of the
Taylor Grazing Act in 19345 and the origins of the terminology
contained in the past and present qualifications rules. Part III
discusses the provisions of the Taylor Grazing Act under which the
Secretary of the Interior asserts the authority to create qualifications
regulations. Part IV traces the historical evolution of the
qualifications regulations and discusses the BLM’s current
requirements and approach. Part V analyzes one example of a
modern, nontraditional permittee that became qualified and obtained
grazing permits on environmentally sensitive allotments in Utah and
Arizona under the new model and concludes that this model will
allow the BLM to more easily implement its statutory obligations and
will greatly benefit the federal range
