Federal Judge Rules that Ranchers' Finances are Private


A recent ruling from a federal judge protects ranchers' personal financial information regarding U.S. Forest Service grazing permits used as collateral for loans.

That information is not covered by the Freedom of Information Act, U.S. District Court Judge Edwin Mechem said earlier this month. An environmental group, the Forest Guardians, had previously sued the Forest Service for the information.

The Forest Service gave Forest Guardians some details about "escrow waivers," but excluded the bank names and loan amounts. After the Forest Guardians sued for the information, the Forest Service sought advice from Mechem.

Mechem said the public interest in disclosing the information "fails to outweigh the harm and unwarranted intrusion...to individuals and individual privacy interests." Some pelrmit holders also have filed suit against the Forest Service for violating their privacy.

John Horning, of Forest Guardians, was disappointed with the ruling. "The public should know how much of its public land is being held as collateral," he said. Horning will continue to work with the Forest Service to get a list of banks and loan amounts, without obtaining information about specific ranchers.

Most lands administered by the federal government are located in the western United States. For example, less than 1 percent of the land in Connecticut and Kansas is owned by the federal government. In states like Alaska, Idaho, and Utah, at least 60 percent of the land is federally owned. The four agencies of the federal government that administer the largest number of acres are the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) , U.S. Forest Service (USFS), Park Service, and Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS).

The following table shows the percentage of land managed by each agency in 1997.

Agency Percentage
BLM 41.41
USFS 29.28
FWS 13.75
Park Service 11.58
Defense 2.15
Bureau of Reclamation 0.93
Bureau of Indian Affairs 0.42
Other 0.48
Source: "Charging Fair Market Value for Using Federal Lands: Some Implications of an Ignored Policy," by E. Bruce Godfrey

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