Feds vs. the West

Feds vs. the West

America’s Founders intended for the federal government to transfer the Western lands to the states. Failure to do so has led to more than a century of conflict. ...
William F. Jasper

The Nevada cattle rancher in the white cowboy hat and his supporters had massed in defiance of federal policies and agencies that threatened to drive them into extinction. To the cheers of locals, the rancher climbed aboard a Caterpillar bulldozer and plowed open a county road that had been closed by the U.S. Forest Service (USFS). Are we talking about Cliven Bundy in 2014? No, the white-hat rancher to whom we are referring was Richard “Dick” Carver, a longtime county commissioner in Nevada’s sprawling and sparsely populated Nye County, and the date was July 4, 1994 —  Independence Day, 20 years ago.

Carver’s act of defiance earned him a cover on Time magazine, which showed Carver and some of his supporters, with a super-imposed headline “Don’t Tread on Me,” followed by the subtitle, “An inside look at the West’s growing rebellion.”

While the federal government claims 84.5 percent of Nevada — the highest of any state — in Nye County the federal footprint covers over 93 percent, and federal bureaucrats in Washington, D.C., dominate virtually every aspect of Nye County inhabitants’ lives. Nye County, the nation’s third largest county, was also home to the late Wayne Hage, the feisty rancher/scholar who, for decades, courageously fought the federal government in court — and won landmark decisions for property rights. Hage was also author of the 1989 book Storm Over Rangelands: Private Rights in Federal Lands, a ground-breaking work on the history of the Western states, particularly as it relates to politics, governance, land use, and property rights. It is not surprising then that Nye County became the face of what is known as the “Sagebrush Rebellion II,” an effort by citizens in Western states to wrest control away from oppressive federal bureaucrats. The efforts by Carver, Hage, and others in the late 1980s-1990s were a continuation and resurgence of earlier efforts in the 1970s-1980s, often referred to as Sagebrush Rebellion I. Carver challenged the federal road closures in court.

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