Americans may be paying nearly $ 1 billion annually in taxes to subsidize cattle grazing on federal public lands across the West, a new study shows.

In "Assessing the Full Cost of the Federal Grazing Program," Rockefeller Fellow Karyn Moskowitz and Bureau of Land Management economist Chuck Romaniello document the vast subsidies that support livestock grazing on public lands by 23,600 federal permittees in the western United States.

"Taking into account the many direct and indirect federal expenditures that benefit or compensate for impacts of livestock grazing on federal lands, the full cost of the federal grazing program to the U.S. Treasury is likely to approximate $500 million annually," Moskowitz and Romaniello note in their report. "Considering the many other indirect costs . . . due to resource damage and impaired opportunities for recreation and other non-commercial land uses, the full cost to the U.S. public could approach $ 1 billion annually."

The study was commissioned by the Center for Biological Diversity in conjunction with Western Watersheds Project and other conservation groups representing the National Public Lands Grazing Campaign.

Romaniello, an agricultural economist for the BLM in Colorado, said range management programs administered by the BLM and U.S. Forest Service are "just the tip of the iceberg."

"Numerous programs both in and outside the two agencies also bear costs related to the grazing program," he said.

Among these costs are compensation or mitigation for damages to public resources, wildlife, watersheds and human health by livestock on public lands.

The NPLGC groups commissioned the study to get an objective, updated summary of the costs to the public -- and harm to the environment -- of the federal livestock grazing program.

The NPLGC seeks to end the federal subsidy system through a federal buyout program that would compensate ranchers who voluntarily relinquish their public lands grazing permits. The plan is endorsed by more than 120 groups nationwide and supported by many ranchers.

The NPLGC proposal would compensate federal grazing permittees at $ 175 per animal unit month, or AUM, a rate four times market value. Public lands ranching west of the Mississippi River produces less than 3 percent of America's beef.