Republicans’ Probe Could Threaten Historic Deal to End Point Reyes Ranching

Congress has launched an investigation into the controversial settlement deal that is set to end most dairy and cattle ranching along the Point Reyes National Seashore, according to a letter this week from Republican members, including many on the House Committee on Natural Resources.

Rep. Jared Huffman, the committee’s ranking Democrat, said the move could “blow up” the historic land deal, which had seemed poised to end years of environmental strife over the area.

The settlement was announced in January, when the National Park Service said that a dozen ranchers had agreed to cede their leases in exchange for a buyout from the Nature Conservancy. The park service also said it would revise its general management plan to rezone about 16,000 acres of the seashore to disallow most agricultural operations and add protections for the tule elk population there.

According to the letter sent Thursday to the Nature Conservancy and other environmental organizations who were party to the deal, Congress members are concerned about the “lack of transparency” and potential “environmental and legal consequences” of the deal, as well as the environmental nonprofit’s part in it.

The terms of the deal have been kept mostly private, and ranchers had to sign non-disclosure agreements related to the settlement and their compensation, according to the letter.

Congress members are now alleging that the NDAs have “muzzled” lessies who agreed to the deal and that many aren’t happy with its terms.

“The committee understands that not only are some parties uncomfortable with the settlement agreement, but also that [Nature Conservancy] donors and environmental advocates have expressed displeasure with the settlement,” the letter reads.

The Nature Conservancy said in a statement that it “was not part of the Point Reyes litigation, but was asked by all of the litigating parties, including the ranchers, to join their mediation as an honest broker and help find a compromise to end the long-standing conflict.”

“As an organization, we have a long history of partnering with ranchers, farmers and communities who work closest to the land to help conserve the lands and waters that sustain us all,” the statement reads. “We have long considered farmers and ranchers some of our greatest conservation allies.”

The settlement came after three environmental groups — Resource Renewal Institute, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Western Watersheds Project — sued the park service in 2022, faulting it for part of the ecological damage done by ranchers.

But the deal spurred anger and anxiety within the West Marin community, where ranching had been an economic backbone for generations. One rancher who agreed to the buyout told KQED at the time that even though he ultimately took the settlement, he and other ranchers “felt so much in a corner that [they] didn’t know what else to do.”

Nicolette Hahn Niman and her husband, William, who own Niman Ranch, refused the deal and filed a lawsuit against the park service in March, saying that the move to bar ranching would cause environmental damage and failed to account for Congress’ goal to preserve the “ranching and agricultural heritage” of the seashore.

A second lawsuit filed against the park service, Nature Conservancy and Department of Interior alleges that they conspired to pay off the ranchers. West Marin attorney Andrew Giacomini filed the suit on behalf of local workers who live in housing on the ranches — one of few affordable options in the area — and are now poised to be evicted in the coming year.

The members of Congress are requesting wide-ranging communication records between the Nature Conservancy, the environmental groups that brought the 2022 suit, the National Park Service, and the ranchers who are party to the settlement.

They also seem to be reviewing the Nature Conservancy’s new role helping manage the seashore under the park service’s revision to the General Management Plan this year, which they believe could be a conflict of interest because of the nonprofit’s part in the land deal.

Huffman, whose district includes West Marin, said he didn’t have any advance knowledge that the probe was being launched and that the representatives investigating never asked for information regarding the settlement before now.

“There’s nothing to hide here,” he said. “I would have gladly brought them to Point Reyes, had them sit down and talk to the ranchers. There’s nothing controversial or scandalous in any of this, it’s just a painful and difficult business decision that these ranching families have made.”

He said that the probe has the possibility to reverse the historic deal unless the ranchers who agreed to it back it up.

Ranching families who “have largely been silent for the last few months … [are] going to need to explain that they want this deal and that people should knock it off and stop politicizing it,” Huffman said. “If they do that, then we can probably still move forward, but if they’ve changed their minds, then we’re probably in a new place.”