PLM W5 A
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Week5A.docxWeek 5 (A) Narrative - Pluralism
Pluralism
Overview:
While the United States is often thought of as purely capitalistic, it also embraces pluralism, or a society that tries to balance power between business, government, and the public so that no one group overpowers another. The idea of a pluralistic government is that many groups compete to have their views heard and policies adopted.
A key identifier of a pluralistic society is that it contains numerous special interest groups, which are government, non-profit or profit based organizations that are created to represent the group's best interest. These special interest groups can be created based on economic, ethic, or cultural factors. Most special interest groups in the U.S. are formed in order to influence government legislators. Special interest groups are also key stakeholders for businesses and can pressure businesses to act on their objectives.
Pluralism and Iron Triangles:
What is there a relationship between pluralism and iron triangles that were discussed last week?
One of the purposes of iron triangles is to minimize conflict; maintain the status quo. Increased conflict can give rise to new subsystems, many times in the form of special interest and advocacy groups. These new players compete for influence within a subsystem. One example of this in public land management is livestock grazing management. From the passage of the Taylor Grazing Act in 1934 until today, little has changed in BLM’s rangeland related policies. An attempt was made in the 1990s to make sweeping changes to range administration in the federal government. Progressive Secretary of the Interior, Bruce Babbitt, was at the forefront of this issue, but in the end, most reforms fell apart ( see the following article for more information) (Links to an external site.) .
In spite of this, many advocacy coalition groups have emerged to try to compete for a seat at the table to break the iron triangle and diminish livestock grazing's role on public land. Special interest/environmental groups like Western Watersheds Project ( http://www.westernwatersheds.org/ (Links to an external site.) ) and the Center for Biological Diversity ( http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/ (Links to an external site.) ), among others, seek to eventually eliminate livestock grazing from public lands. The effectiveness of their work is difficult to measure. Livestock grazing on public lands has been diminishing for years probably more of a result of cultural and economic shifts than the effectiveness of non-profits.
Case Study
This week’s case study will focus on another heated issue on public lands: the Wild Horse and Burro program, managed by the Bureau of Land Management. The case study demonstrates the pluralistic nature of environmental politics and administration as several groups are competing with each other with different end results in mind.
Background
The BLM’s Wild Horse and Burro Program (the Program) faces acute challenges in controlling population growth of wild horses and burros. There are an estimated 58,000 (March 2015) of these animals on rangelands that the BLM has determined can sustain 26,700 animals. The on-range population has increased by 18 percent since 2014. Unmanaged populations double every four to five years. With the decline in adoption rates, removals of wild horses and burros from the range have led to an expensive off-range holding program filled to capacity. For every 1,000 animals removed from the range, it costs about $46 million to care for them over their lifetime, unless they go into private care. Research has shown that the available Porcine Zona Pellucida (PZP) contraceptive vaccines are effective for only one year (the PZP contraceptive has been tried as an alternative to controversial wild horse gathers with helicopters). It is not feasible to administer PZP annually to tens of thousands of unapproachable mares in Herd Management Areas (HMAs) covering 32 million acres. To address the challenges, the BLM is funding new research to develop more effective methods for limiting population growth; working to move more animals into private care; and attempting to secure additional lower cost private pasture space for animals that have been removed from public rangelands.
Removals were restricted to 1,857 in 2014, were about 2,500 in 2015 and were planned around 1,000 to 2,000 in 2016 due to limited holding space and rising costs to care for unadopted animals. Ground darting programs are applying PZP vaccines to ~500 mares per year. Due to these limited control population control measures, the on-range population has grown to more than two times target management levels and was expected to increase by another 9,000 in 2016 totaling ~69,000 in March 2016. Overpopulations are affecting land health and are of high concern in greater sage-grouse habitat areas. Other than removal, there is currently no available method that can be immediately implemented to contain the growing population.
To more accurately estimate population size, the BLM implemented USGS population survey methods in FY 2014, and will continue to survey one third of all HMAs annually, on a rolling basis. Use of these methods was recommended by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS).
Private Care and Holding Space
While the BLM has placed more than 230,000 wild horses and burros into private care through its adoption program since 1971, adoptions have steadily declined over the last 10 years to around 2,000 animals per year. As of May 2015, almost 47,000 animals were in BLM care in corrals and pastures off the range. The cost of “off-range holding” totaled $43 million in FY 2014, or 56 percent of enacted appropriations. Most off-range pasture contracts were renewed in 2015 and unit costs increased from $1.38 per animal per day in 2014 to $1.85, constituting a $5M annual cost increase for the ~31,000 animals currently located in off-range pastures.
The Program is seeking to secure more pasture space as it is lower cost than corral space ($4.60/animal/day in 2014) and provides a more natural environment for the animals. However, significant additional space probably won’t be acquired. In the Program’s last solicitation, 1,200 additional capacity was procured but the Program is now at risk of losing 3,700 in capacity due to contractors selling their land or wanting to convert operations to cattle grazing. A new solicitation for contracted pasture space occurred in 2015.
To address high off-range holding costs that have overwhelmed the Program, the BLM has reduced removals to a level commensurate with adoptions and is working to move more animals into private care through adoptions and sales. Since trained horses and burros are more likely to be adopted or bought, the BLM is seeking to increase the number of wild horse training programs through partnerships with nonprofits and state and federal prisons. While adoptions may be able to be increased somewhat, the increase will not make a significant difference in reducing holding costs.
BLM is struggling to come up with a viable solution to a unsustainable problem (i.e. double the number of wild horse than the designated allocation of forage). Wild horse advocacy groups have been effective at courting public opinion in their favor and creating a political environment that is difficult to make any radical changes to the program. Meanwhile, local ranchers argue that because there are too many wild horses, they are not receiving their full allocation of forage on their livestock grazing permits.
