Dwight and Steven Hammond, eastern Oregon cattle ranchers, set fires that escaped onto federal land in 1999, 2001, and 2006. They were convicted of arson and spent about 2½ years in prison until pardoned by President Trump. Read details here.
Randy Snodgrass is a U.S. Forest Service “burn boss” who supervised a crew conducting a controlled burn on federal land in eastern Oregon that escaped onto private land. The local sheriff arrested him on October 19, 2022, for reckless burning.
The similarities end there. Snodgrass was a federal employee doing his job, which if done properly would have protected the private land that was damaged. The Hammonds were rogue actors who cut fences and trespassed on federal land, didn’t have burn permits for their fires, and may have set one of them to destroy evidence of deer poaching (details in first link above).
Their sympathizers threatened federal workers and their families, even their children. Militants followed kids home from school. An armed gang seized, occupied, and trashed a federal wildlife refuge (details here). All of this was illegal and illegitimate.
Snodgrass’s arrest looks like many things: Retaliation for the Hammonds’ arrest and imprisonment; escalation of a long-simmering feud between locals and federal authorities; a challenge to federal authority, and test of what will happen if federal authority is challenged; and simply poking the bear.
The federal government owns much of the land west of the Mississippi River. It originally owned all of it, after wresting it from Native Americans. Some passed into private hands during the settlement of the West through land grants, homesteading, and sale. Today, many of those private landowners benefit from federal subsidies.
Billions were spent on reclamation projects that provide water to ranches and farms. Federal grazing lands are leased to ranchers at below-market rates. Highways, schools, libraries, fire departments, along with electric, telephone, and mail services in rural areas usually aren’t self-supporting because of low population density and small tax bases, and are at least partly paid for by city dwellers.
Despite all this, the federal government is deeply resented in many of those places. Federal land management often conflicts with local priorities. For example, a federal wildlife refuge may be important to the country as a whole, but seen by locals as incompatible with farming and ranching. In the 1970s and 1980s, a political movement called the “Sagebrush Rebellion” sought more state and local control of the federal lands, or transfer to private ownership (details here).
Snodgrass’s arrest is merely another chapter in that ongoing saga, as was the Hammonds’ prosecution and imprisonment, the Bundy Ranch standoff, and the armed occupation Malheur Wildlife Refuge. In a normal world the family whose land was burned would file a claim against the USFS and receive compensation for the damage. By arresting the crew boss, the sheriff and local prosecutor are pitting one government against another, turning a civil matter into a political and legal power struggle.
Federal authorities typically tread lightly in these situations, which seems to encourage more of them. The USFS chief issued a statement supporting Snodgrass and USFS employees, but will federal brass support him with more than words? Or will he end up taking one for the team? I have no idea how this will play out.