“Spitting Mad”

The War for the West started during the George H. W. Bush administration and exploded into a more narrowly partisan conflict when President Clinton took office. Tensions were driven by the rise of a new management paradigm, ecosystem management, which led to new emphases on riparian health in range management. They were also driven by ongoing disagreements over county road rights-of-way and economic development of federal resources. Skirmishes in the War for the West varied considerably. Individual ranchers battled the federal government to maintain their accustomed grazing practices; Catron County, New Mexico, launched the County Supremacy Movement by demanding that the federal government protect its established “customs and culture”; Nye County, Nevada, returned to battles from the Sagebrush Rebellion; and several counties in southeastern Utah reignited debates over their authority to manage ambiguous road claims in the wilderness. The net result was a rise in threats against federal employees during the 1990s.