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| Ammon Bundy, one of the sons of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, speaks during an interview at Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, Tuesday, Jan. 5, 2016, near Burns, Ore. Law enforcement had yet to take any action Tuesday against a group numbering close to two dozen, led by Bundy and his brother, who are upset over federal land policy. |
BURNS, Ore.
(AP) -- A leader of the small, armed group that is occupying a
remote national wildlife preserve in Oregon said Tuesday they will go
home when a plan is in place to turn over management of federal lands to
locals.
Ammon Bundy told reporters at the
Malheur National Wildlife Refuge that ranchers, loggers and farmers
should have control of federal land - a common refrain in a decades-long
fight over public lands in the West.
"It is
our goal to get the logger back to logging, the rancher back to
ranching," said the son of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, who was involved
in a high-profile 2014 standoff with the government over grazing
rights.
The younger Bundy's anti-government
group is critical of federal land stewardship, but environmentalists and
others say U.S. officials should keep control for the broadest possible
benefit to business, recreation and the environment.
The
armed activists seized the refuge's headquarters Saturday night.
Roughly 20 people bundled in camouflage, earmuffs and cowboy hats seem
to be centered around a complex of buildings on the 300-square-mile high
desert preserve.
As the takeover entered its
third day, authorities had not moved in and had not shut off power to
the refuge, Arizona rancher LaVoy Finicum said, adding that he was eager
to go home and tend to his cattle.
"If they cut it off, that would be such a crying shame. All the pipes would freeze," he said.
A
pickup truck blocked the entrance to the preserve earlier Tuesday, and a
man looked out over the snowy grounds from a watchtower.
Ammon
Bundy offered few specifics about the group's plan to get the land
turned over to local control, but Finicum said the activists would
examine the underlying land ownership transactions to begin to "unwind
it."
The federal government controls about
half of all land in the West, which would make the wholesale transfer of
ownership extremely difficult and expensive.
For
example, it owns 53 percent of Oregon, 85 percent of Nevada and 66
percent of Utah, according to the Congressional Research Service. Taking
over federal public lands in Idaho could cost the state $111 million a
year, according to a University of Idaho study.
Randy Eardley, a Bureau of Land Management spokesman, said the group's call for land ownership transfer didn't make sense.
"It
is frustrating when I hear the demand that we return the land to the
people, because it is in the people's hand - the people own it," Eardley
said. "Everybody in the United States owns that land. ... We manage it
the best we can for its owners, the people, and whether it's for
recreating, for grazing, for energy and mineral development."
Bundy
said the group felt it had the support of the local community. But the
county sheriff has told the activists to go home, and many locals don't
want the group around, fearing they may bring trouble. A community
meeting was scheduled for Wednesday.
So far,
law enforcement has not taken action against the activists whose
rallying cry is the imprisonment of father-and-son ranchers who set fire
to federal land.
"These guys are out in the
middle of nowhere, and they haven't threatened anybody that I know of,"
said Jim Glennon, a longtime police commander who now owns the
Illinois-based law enforcement training organization Calibre Press.
"There's no hurry."
Some observers have
complained, suggesting the government's response would have been swifter
and more severe had the occupants been Muslim or other minorities.
The
group calling itself Citizens for Constitutional Freedom said it wants
an inquiry into whether the government is forcing ranchers off their
land after Dwight Hammond and his son, Steven, reported back to prison
Monday.
The Hammonds, who have distanced
themselves from the group, were convicted of arson three years ago and
served no more than a year. A judge later ruled the terms fell short of
minimum sentences that require them to serve about four more years.
The takeover comes amid a dispute that dates back decades in the West.
In
the 1970s, Nevada and other states pushed for local control in what was
known as the Sagebrush Rebellion. Supporters wanted more land for
cattle grazing, mining and timber harvesting.
