Farmers and ranchers lease federally managed land to raise their flocks and herds, and ultimately to feed millions of Americans. They pay large sums of money to lease those grazing lands. Some American Indian tribe members are claiming the right to hunt on the land the government leases to farmers and ranchers in the state of Wyoming, even though it’s a clear violation of their tribal treaty with the United States.
Federal agencies have been growing in size and influence for decades. This case represents a once-in-a-generation opportunity to turn back the tide. The case centers on a Vietnam War veteran, Mr. James L. Kisor, and his 37-year struggle to obtain veteranâs medical benefits. But what is at stake is much more than one manâs benefitsâit is about reining in the out-of-control power of unelected, big-government bureaucrats.
In 1988, the FWS listed as endangered the Bee Creek Cave Harvestman, a cave-dwelling spider found only in subterranean limestone caves in Travis and Williamson Counties, Texas. When the federal government bars use of private property to protect species that are found only in a local area and not throughout the country, it violates the Constitutionâs Commerce Clause.
A small, family-owned Colorado oil and gas exploration company holds oil and gas leases in the White River National Forest in Colorado. Despite more than twenty years of investment in this area, extremists are trying to drive this small company out of business, no matter what the law says
The city of Boulder imposed a sweeping ban of the most popular and widely-owned firearms and magazines in America. Residents of Boulder now face heavy fines and jail time for the mere possession of firearms that are legal throughout the United States. In a blatant act of discrimination against a political minority, the city council also unconstitutionally raised the minimum age for firearm possession in Boulder city limits to twenty-one.
Our client Mary A. Thoman, a Wyoming rancher whose family has raised sheep in western Wyoming for nearly seven decades, had to give up her family grazing land after her livestock losses to the grizzly bear became too great. One of her ranch hands was nearly killed in an attack. A judge put the bear back on the endangered species listâcontrary to the recommendation of 20 years of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service research and the pleas of ranchers and citizens of Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming. This makes it impossible for local and state officials to manage the growing grizzly population, and virtually guarantees more loss and death.
Federal bureaucrats, including the Secretary of the Interior, have no authority to cancel a lawfully issued oil and gas lease unless Congress has provided them that authority. Our client, Sidney Longwell, first purchased a federal oil and gas lease in Montanaâs Lewis and Clark National Forest in 1982. Despite passing decade-long environmental and archeological reviews, the Clinton administration suspended his lease in 1993, and continued to suspend the lease ultimately for over two decades.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, without obtaining a permit, and over the objections of a hydrological expert, diverted a stream that flowed through the land owned by a small church, headed by Pastor Victor Fuentes. The resulting flooding destroyed the property, and the bureaucrats who did this think no one will hold them accountable.
Michael Whited purchased a modest home in Colorado’s Fourmile Canyon. He and his wife live in this beautiful area of Boulder County. Unfortunately, Mr. Whitedâs next-door neighbor is the Federal Bureau of Land Management on whose property stood a dangerous, crumbling concrete mining shed. Despite numerous warnings, the Bureau did nothing to fix the problem, and the shed eventually collapsed, doing great damage to the Whited’s property. Â Wouldn’t you know it–the Bureau is trying to skirt responsibility for the damage.
Aggressive atheists groups, such as the American Humanist Association, are trying to tear down war memorials across the country–simply because those memorials were made in the shape of a cross. If the atheists succeed in this case, they will not stop until they have banned every public display of the cross in the country.