Nevada
rancher and former Shoshone chief's range war with BLM predates Bundy standoff
In 2002, the federal government seized
Raymond Yowell’s 132 cattle and later sold them at auction before the U.S.
Bureau of Labor Management sent him a bill for $180,000 in back grazing fees
and penalties. Twelve years later, Yowell, seen here in 2011, told FoxNews.com
he's still looking for the 'equality and justice' he heard about as a
schoolboy. (AP)
Long
before Cliven Bundy faced down federal agents in his dispute with the Bureau of
Land Management over grazing rights, fellow Nevada rancher Raymond Yowell, an
84-year-old former Shoshone chief, watched as the BLM seize his herd — and
since 2008, as it's taken a piece of his Social Security checks.
Yowell's
132 head of cattle had grazed for decades on the South Fork Western Shoshone
Indian Reservation in northeastern Nevada until 2002, when the Bureau of Land
Management (BLM) -- the same agency at odds with Bundy -- seized them. The
federal agency sold the cattle at auction and used the proceeds to pay off the
portion of back grazing fees it claimed Yowell owed. Once the cattle was sold,
the agency sent Yowell a bill for the outstanding balance, some $180,000.
They've been garnishing his monthly Social Security checks since 2008 to
satisfy the debt Yowell says he does not owe.
"There’s
a definite pattern in the West, beginning in the 1990s, maybe in the late '80s,
of what I feel are illegal cattle seizures," Yowell said. "[Bundy's
case] is the latest example of that pattern.”
While
Bundy is defying the federal agency over fees for grazing cattle on
government-owned land, Yowell's cattle had roamed reservation land. But a 1979
Supreme Court decision held that even land designated for Indian reservations
is held in trust for them, and thus subject to BLM regulation. Yowell says
treaties that led to creation of the reservation granted him and other herdsmen
the right to graze cattle on the land, which they did successfully for decades.
The Western Shoshone say they have never relinquished their right to the
territory.
Yowell
represented himself in a successful effort to win a federal injunction to stop
the BLM from impounding his cattle, as well as a subsequent 9th Circuit Court
of Appeals ruling that reversed the lower court. He's again representing
himself in a petition to have the U.S. Supreme Court hear his case, in which he
argues his cattle were taken without due process and in violation of multiple
treaties.
“Certainly,
due process of law has not been followed in my case,” Yowell told FoxNews.com.
“When we were kids going to school, learning the white way, we said the Pledge
of Allegiance every morning and one of the things I remember saying is
‘equality and justice for all.’ Well that’s certainly not the case.”
"But there’s a definite pattern in the West right now,
beginning in the 1990s, maybe in the late 80's, of what I feel are illegal
cattle seizures. [Bundy] is the latest example of that pattern."
Celia
Boddington, a BLM spokeswoman, said she had no comment on the pending case. But
the BLM has previously said the tribe’s Te-Moak Livestock Association held a
federal permit to graze cattle on the public land from 1940 to 1984, but had
stopped paying required fees in 1984, when it asserted the tribe rightfully
owned the land.
Last
week, the U.S. Solicitor General's Office, which represents the federal
government in disputes before the Supreme Court, was granted an extension in Yowell's
case even as the Bundy situation was making national headlines. Federal
attorneys are due to file a response to Yowell's petition for a writ of
certiorari on June 4.
While
the Bundy case is not exactly the same as Yowell's, the parallels are obvious
in the The Silver State and beyond. Bundy’s dispute, like Yowell’s, dates back
decades to when the government designated the scenic Gold Butte region, where
Bundy's cattle graze, as protected habitat for endangered desert tortoise and
slashed his allotment of cows. He then quit paying grazing fees to BLM, which
canceled his grazing permit and ordered him to remove his 380 cattle.
Yowell
said he sees some “commonality” between his fight and Bundy’s, but stressed his
claim to the land is further strengthened by the Treaty of Ruby Valley of 1863,
which formally recognized Western Shoshone rights to some 60 million acres in
Nevada, Idaho, Utah and California. In 1979, however, the Supreme Court ruled
that the treaty gave the government trusteeship over tribal lands and could
eventually claim them as “public” or federal land.
“His
feeling is that he’s acquired certain rights and now his rights are being
violated by the Bureau of Land Management,” Yowell said. “But I have Indian
rights, treaty rights that he doesn’t have.”
Yowell,
who has separately sued the BLM and the Treasury Department for $30 million,
said the U.S Treasury Department began garnishing his Social Security in 2008
check at BLM’s behest.
“They’re
entitled to take up to 15 percent of what I get,” said Yowell, who receives
$962 of what should be an $1,150 check per month. “And that’s what they’re
doing.”
Yowell,
who retired in 2006 and turned what remained of his ranching business over to
his 50-year-old son, said his legal fight is his "legacy," even
though it has already left him with a jaded view of the white man's government.
“It’s
diminished my feeling, my view of the government,” Yowell told FoxNews.com.
“They don’t practice what they say.”
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