WASHINGTON -- The Federal grazing fee for western public lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service will be $1.35 per animal unit month (AUM) in 2008 -- the same level as it was in 2007.

The fee, determined by a congressional formula and effective March 1, applies to nearly 18,000 grazing permits and leases administered by the BLM and more than 8,000 permits administered by the Forest Service.

The formula used for calculating the grazing fee, established by Congress in the 1978 Public Rangelands Improvement Act, has continued under a presidential executive order issued in 1986.

Under that order, the grazing fee cannot fall below $1.35 per AUM, and any increase or decrease cannot exceed 25 percent of the previous year's level. An AUM is the amount of forage needed to sustain one cow and her calf, one horse, or five sheep or goats for a month.

The annually adjusted grazing fee is computed by using a 1966 base value of $1.23 per AUM for livestock grazing on public lands in Western states.

The figure is then adjusted according to three factors -- current private grazing land lease rates, beef cattle prices and the cost of livestock production.

In effect, the fee rises, falls or stays the same based on market conditions, with livestock operators paying more when conditions are better and less when conditions have declined.

Without the requirement that the grazing fee cannot fall below $1.35 per AUM, this year's fee would have dropped below one dollar per AUM because of declining beef cattle prices and increased production costs from the previous year.

The $1.35 per AUM grazing fee applies to 16 Western states including Arizona, California and Nevada.