Rancher +Militia vs BLM,trouble on the range.(OT)

Something to do with an agreement that was made back in the the early 1900's with the state & federal govt and the "The Stock-Raising Homestead Act of 1916". The original family consisted of over 46 families in the Bundy clan that settled the area in the late 1880's when it was all "open range".

The Stock-Raising Homestead Act of 1916 provided settlers 640 acres (260 ha) of public land—a full section or its equivalent—for ranching purposes. Unlike the Homestead Act of 1862 or the Enlarged Homestead Act of 1909, land homesteaded under the 1916 act separated surface rights from subsurface rights, resulting in what later became known as split estates.[1] The subsurface rights, also known as mineral rights, are the foundation of recent oil and gas law in the United States.[1]
Under the act no cultivation of lands was required, but some range improvements were mandated as necessary.[citation needed]

Both incidents were declared total failures by the ensuing investigations on the part of the Federal agencies involved that handled them the way they did.

McVeigh, an American militia movement sympathizer who was a Gulf War veteran, had detonated an explosive-filled Ryder rental truck parked in front of the building. McVeigh's co-conspirator, Terry Nichols, had assisted in the bomb preparation. Motivated by his hatred of the federal government and angered by what he perceived as its mishandling of the 1993 Waco siege and the Ruby Ridge incident in 1992, McVeigh timed his attack to coincide with the second anniversary of the deadly fire that ended the siege at Waco.

It was the tortoise that kicked off the saga in 1993, when the BLM modified the terms of Bundy’s Bunkerville grazing allotment to protect the animal after it was listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.

Bundy refused to comply with the new terms, so the BLM cancelled his permit to no effect.

In 1997, Clark County purchased all active grazing permits in the area in accordance with the new federal Desert Tortoise Recovery Plan and the county’s own Desert Conservation Program, offering Bundy compensation for water rights and range improvements on his former allotment.

Bundy rejected the offer.

In 1999, the Nevada District Court permanently banned Bundy from grazing cattle in the area, ordering him to remove them or face a $200 penalty per cow per day. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the injunction.

Between 2008 and 2011, the BLM cancelled Bundy’s remaining range improvement authorizations.

In 2011 Bundy ignored several court orders, including a notice of impoundment. Over the next two years, the BLM aerially counted first 903, then 729, then 600, then 750 head of cattle, nearly all suspected to belong to Bundy, on land closed to grazing.

Bundy rejected the offer.