Subsidizing Billionaires to Help Ruin the Environment

Thursday, December 04, 2025

The Government Is Subsidizing Billionaire Ranchers to Help Ruin the Environment A new report from ProPublica sheds light on the use of public land for private profit.

Posted by A_Friend at 08:30 PM | 17 COMMENTS | permalink | Comment on This Entry |

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The U.S. government's grazing program was established a century ago to prevent abuse of public lands. It's grown into a massive subsidy program that benefits wealthy ranchers and corporations.

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-- ProPublica (@propublica.org) Dec 4, 2025 at 12:12 PM

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snip ...

...ProPublica found that rancher Stan Kroenke has a permit to graze his cattle on public land. For this, he pays about 15% of the grazing fees he would have to pay a private landowner in the area. He can also get cheap crop insurance, disaster insurance, funding for fences, and compensation for livestock lost to predators, and other benefits that actual private ranchers don't get. He doesn't really need this help since he is worth $20 billion and owns parts of multiple sports teams. This is not an isolated case. About 10% of the ranchers with federal grazing permits control over half of all federal grazing land. The 10% own two-thirds of the livestock eating for free on public lands. Before Kroenke bought the ranch, it was owned by a series of hobby ranchers who used it for multimillion-dollar tax deductions.

#1 | Posted by A_Friend at 2025-12-03 04:17 PM | Reply

snip ...

In June, J.D. Vance flew to Butte, MT, and then was taken by an SUV motorcade to a sprawling cattle operation outside of Yellowstone National Park. There he met the owner of the Beaverhead Ranch, a man you may have heard of: Rupert Murdoch. Murdoch bought the ranch from Billionaire Koch Brother Charles Koch for $200 million. There, Murdoch grazes cattle on 340,000 acres of land, two-thirds of which is public. Murdoch paid the government $25,000 last year to graze his cattle on the public land. That is 95% below market rates. There are more examples.

So a handful of wealthy ranchers are raising a lot of beef on Uncle Sam's dime. At least that increases the nation's meat supply, right? Yes, although there is plenty of private land they could use as well for grazing, only then they would have to pay market rates. However, because grazing fees are so low, they have too many head of cattle on the land, which is leading to erosion and degradation of the land. Overgrazing is part of what caused the great dust bowls of the 1930s, when large pieces of land in the Great Plains became useless and ranchers there were forced to move.

#2 | Posted by A_Friend at 2025-12-03 04:18 PM | Reply

-Overgrazing is part of what caused the great dust bowls of the 1930s, when large pieces of land in the Great Plains became useless and ranchers there were forced to move.

I didn't think overgrazing contributed to the dustbowl. Too much livestock in an area where, due to the lack of crops, they couldn't have been able to feed in the first place?

They overfarmed for sure. plowed up too much land and then it started blowing like hell.

You have a link for that? I'm not calling you out.......but what I've learned about how agriculture contributed to the dust bowl was the act of plowing up too much land....not overgrazing.

#3 | Posted by eberly at 2025-12-03 04:31 PM | Reply

But I agree this is not who should be getting this great deal on grazing fees......unfortunately congressional representatives from those States carry a big stick and low grazing fees are always a cheap give away to them in exchange for a vote on something else.

#4 | Posted by eberly at 2025-12-03 04:34 PM | Reply

"Yes, overgrazing contributed to the Dust Bowl by destroying the native prairie grasses that held the soil in place. Combined with over-plowing and a severe drought, this left the land exposed, allowing strong winds to easily whip topsoil into massive dust storms."

www.google.com

#5 | Posted by Corky at 2025-12-03 04:38 PM | Reply | Newsworthy 1

Thanks.

#6 | Posted by eberly at 2025-12-03 04:45 PM | Reply

"You are velcome."

www.youtube.com

#7 | Posted by Corky at 2025-12-03 04:52 PM | Reply

but what I've learned about how agriculture contributed to the dust bowl was the act of plowing up too much land....not overgrazing.
#3 | Posted by eberly

You live in a reality that has been whitewashed by white people.

We all do.

What separates us is you don't think there's anything wrong with that.

The Dust Bowl was the chickens coming home to roost after the ethnic cleansing of the West; the wanton slaughter of the buffalo, the deliberate starving out of the Indians, the destruction of their sustainable way of life which we hilariously claimed was their misuse of the land.

The Dust Bowl was a manmade event.

You should have known that when you were 25, not opening your eyes to it for the first time when you're 50.

#8 | Posted by snoofy at 2025-12-03 05:03 PM | Reply

#8 Parts of Kansas, Oklahoma and the panhandle of Texas can be found on the seabed of the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Virginia/Maryland.

That's how powerful the Dust Bowl was.

#9 | Posted by A_Friend at 2025-12-03 05:10 PM | Reply

The question no one is asking is.. do we really need an environment?

Nature is so yesterday. And full of bugs.

#10 | Posted by donnerboy at 2025-12-03 05:17 PM | Reply

do we really need an environment?

Nah, we'll just cover it all up with data centers.

#11 | Posted by horstngraben at 2025-12-03 05:51 PM | Reply

Re 11

Or a parking lot.

#12 | Posted by donnerboy at 2025-12-03 06:15 PM | Reply

"The Dust Bowl was the chickens coming home to roost after the ethnic cleansing of the West; the wanton slaughter of the buffalo, the deliberate starving out of the Indians, the destruction of their sustainable way of life which we hilariously claimed was their misuse of the land.
The Dust Bowl was a manmade event.
You should have known that when you were 25, not opening your eyes to it for the first time when you're 50."

This poster is outright insane and so unbelievably desperate for my attention.

I understand all of that. My history wasn't whitewashed on the dust bowl. Clarifying the overgrazing has zero to do with that.

#13 | Posted by eberly at 2025-12-04 10:14 AM | Reply

Overgrazing was caused by fencing the open plains.

Bison moved in a nomadic pattern following the Grass.

Antelope same pattern.

Cattle and sheep eat everything until it's Barren.
Fencing makes it inevitable.

#14 | Posted by Effeteposer at 2025-12-04 10:19 AM | Reply

-However, because grazing fees are so low, they have too many head of cattle on the land, which is leading to erosion and degradation of the land.

Is the argument that if we increased the grazing fees then they'd put fewer cattle on the land?

If they are overgrazing then they're overgrazing but how is that correlated to the grazing fees? Especially these guys who are billionaires anyway.....

#15 | Posted by eberly at 2025-12-04 10:38 AM | Reply

They get to Rape the land at a Deep, Deep,
Discount.

Not Market Value by a long shot.

It's the same destruction of the soil and forage but Billionaires are getting it really cheap.

Lumber companies get the same Sweetheart deals on the National Forests, the Government even pays for the roads there.

Our tax money Subsidizing the Filthy rich to Degrade Public Lands for private Profit.

The TRUMP doctrine at work although he's not the first administration to pull this crap.

It's the Old West,Updated for the Billionaire Age.

#16 | Posted by Effeteposer at 2025-12-04 04:41 PM | Reply

... Subsidizing Billionaires to Help Ruin the Environment ...

Also, reducing the taxes billionaires have to pay, via the Large Lousy Legislation.

And to reduce the deficit caused by that, pile costs (tariff taxes and health-care) upon the workers of the Country to pay for those tax cuts.

#17 | Posted by LampLighter at 2025-12-04 08:55 PM | Reply