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The solicitor's office of the U.S. Interior Department mishandled
a 2003 grazing deal between a Thermopolis rancher and the
Bureau of Land Management, according to the department's inspector
general.
The agreement between the BLM and rancher Frank Robbins,
accused of violating a host of grazing laws, is a target of
litigation by environmental groups and has raised questions
about one of President Bush's nominees for a federal judgeship.
In a letter dated Feb. 10, Earl Devaney, the Interior Department's
inspector general, said the solicitor's office "circumvented"
normal negotiation processes, kept the BLM out of the negotiations,
ignored concerns about the settlement raised by the Justice
Department and engaged "in an inappropriate level of
programmatic involvement" in the settlement talks.
Devaney called the deal with Robbins "a failure of process"
and wrote that his office expects "corrective action
to be taken by the (Interior Department)."
The solicitor general at the
time of the agreement was William G. Myers III, one of a dozen
Bush court nominations blocked in the last session of Congress
by a Senate filibuster. Some 180 environmental, civil rights
and American Indian groups have charged that he could not
be impartial as a judge.
His supporters retorted that Myers was a fine candidate and
that he was the victim of obstructionist tactics by Democrats
and liberal interest groups.
Myers is a former lobbyist for the mining, grazing and cattle
industries and has been nominated by Bush for a seat on the
San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Myers
is among seven people the president just renominated to the
federal bench this week.
The controversy stems from a long-standing clash between
Robbins and the Worland field office of the BLM. Scion of
a wealthy Alabama industrialist who has donated generously
to Republican political campaigns, Robbins received a unique
deal with the BLM in 2003 that the Office of the Solicitor
put together when Myers headed that post.
In the late 1990s, complaints about Robbins' operation in
BLM files included: cattle trespassing on the private property
of neighbors and on the neighbors' BLM grazing allotments;
grazing too early, too late and putting too many cattle on
his allotments; blocking a neighbor's use of a cattle-drive
trail; claiming his cattle were on private pasture when they
were on BLM pastures; refusing to obtain recreation permits
for his dude ranch trail drives over BLM lands; and refusing
to modify his grazing practices during drought.
Robbins' lawyer, Karen Budd-Falen of Cheyenne, countered
by asking federal inspectors to investigate the BLM office
in Worland for misuse of public funds, trespassing, blackmail,
perjury and other allegations.
The 2003 "settlement agreement" gave Robbins:
* Forgiveness for an alleged string of 16 grazing violations.
* A new grazing allotment with extensive management control
over those federal lands.
* Rights of way across federal lands without reciprocal easements
for the BLM.
* A special recreation permit to run his dude ranch.
* Unique status whereby only the director of the BLM could
cite Robbins for future violations, not the local or state
offices.
* The right to pursue a lawsuit seeking to have the BLM and
several BLM employees prosecuted under the federal Racketeer
Influence and Corrupt Organization Act for harassment.
The agreement was reached after Robbins met with ranking
officials of the BLM in Washington, D.C. He said in an interview
last year that he had sought the meeting because he was being
treated unfairly by BLM employees in Wyoming.
The BLM voided the settlement in January 2004, after Robbins
was cited for nonwillful trespass of cattle on BLM-administered
lands, and negotiations between Robbins and the BLM broke
down. In turn, Robbins sued the agency, and the case is still
pending in federal court in Cheyenne. So is the lawsuit alleging
violation of the federal racketeering law by BLM employees.
Earlier this month, Budd-Falen brought another lawsuit against
the Interior Department on Robbins' behalf, contending that
environmental groups suing over the agreement in Washington,
D.C., have illegally been given access to documents to which
Robbins was denied access.
Myers' involvement
The settlement negotiated by Myers' office was opposed by
the U.S. Attorney's office and BLM officials in Wyoming, who
said it was inappropriate to accord such special treatment
to an individual who has been cited repeatedly for grazing
violations and it would undermine the agency's ability to
enforce range management regulations.
In addition, Thomas D. Roberts, the assistant U.S. attorney
in Cheyenne who was representing the BLM employees at the
time, said he advised attorneys from Myers' staff that any
settlement with Robbins should require him to drop his racketeering
suit. Roberts, who is now an attorney for the Wyoming Board
of Equalization, said in an interview that his advice was
rejected. He refused to sign the settlement.
Because the agreement was voided by the BLM, Devaney wrote,
his office's concerns about the terms of the deal "are
no longer at issue.
"We remain concerned, however, about the manner in which
the settlement agreement was conceived, negotiated and crafted."
Devaney's letter was to Jeff Ruch, executive director of
Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, which had
filed a complaint over the deal with Robbins.
Devaney said his office's investigation found "a large
measure of inattention and acquiescence by senior BLM officials,
an inappropriate level of programmatic involvement by the
(solicitor's office), and a profound lack of transparency
in the overall negotiation and agreement process."
Myers, now in private practice with the firm of Holland and
Hart in Boise, Idaho, had no comment this week. Nor did Robbins'
attorney.
In a 2003 preliminary report on the investigation, the Interior
inspector general said Myers was personally briefed on the
status of the Robbins deal.
The issue came up again during Senate hearings last year
on Myers' judicial nomination. In response to a question from
Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., Myers said, "I was not involved
in the negotiations or discussions of that settlement, other
than to tell a subordinate attorney that he had authority
to try to settle that case."
In that Senate hearing, Myers emphasized that he did not
see the settlement agreement until six months later, when
news reports from Wyoming indicated that the settlement might
have been illegal. Although Myers said he conducted his own
investigation of the matter, he did not tell the senators
what his conclusions were.
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