Today's post about "worker safety" is shared from the LA Times.
After spending a week whisking away nearly 400 cattle they said were illegally grazing on federal land in the Nevada desert, officials facing a battalion of protesters with horses and guns decided to free those cattle in a stunning reversal Saturday afternoon. A line of cattle calmly filtered out of a federal holding area at about 3 p.m. as protesters and law enforcement watched from alongside Interstate 15 near the Nevada-Arizona state line. "Due to escalating tensions, the cattle have been released from the enclosures in order to avoid violence and help restore order," the U.S. Bureau of Land Management said in a short statement. Federal officials have failed for 21 years to compel rancher Cliven Bundy to pay the fee required to let privately owned cattle use public land. The government has said the cattle roundup was a “last resort” to enforce court orders ruling that Bundy had failed to pay more than $1 million in fees since 1993. Forcing him either to pay or to give up his cattle is a matter of fairness to the 16,000 ranchers who do follow the rules, U.S. officials said. Two weeks ago, the BLM and the National Park Service began mobilizing helicopters, trucks, cowboys and rangers to seize Bundy’s 900 cattle. The agencies moved nearly 400 to the holding area before suddenly announcing Saturday morning that the operation would end because of "grave concerns" about worker safety. Bundy received nationwide support from people frustrated by... |
