A livestock group and states’ rights activists long at odds with federal land managers are going after the Bureau of Land Management with a billboard condemning “Federal Tyranny.”

The Nevada Livestock Association and Nevada Committee for Full Statehood are taking aim at a BLM proposal to expand its law enforcement powers.

Their new billboard, along Interstate 80 some 200 miles northeast of Reno, shows a photograph of a BLM agent holding a protester at gunpoint.

It refers passers-by to a Web site, www.byebyeblm.org.

“We’re trying to get the word out to the public to just say ‘no’ to federal BLM law enforcement,” said Jean Voigts of Genoa, a member of the livestock association.

Voigts took the 2001 photograph on the billboard that shows a BLM agent holding a gun on Fallon resident Kenny Greenwell.

“It was not a set up or staged or anything,” she said.

The incident occurred at a wild horse holding facility north of Reno, where the BLM had transported 62 cattle confiscated from a Nevada rancher for trespassing on federal land and failing to pay grazing fees.

The two groups had organized a protest there and the BLM agent had ordered Greenwell to drop to the ground after the agent took Greenwell’s pistol and Greenwell grabbed it back, citing his permit to legally carry the gun, Voigts said.

BLM investigated and found no wrongdoing by the law officer, but critics point to the photo as a symbol of what they say are the agency’s strong-armed tactics in dealing with Nevada ranchers.

The billboard was erected last week on Interstate 80 about 15 miles east of Battle Mountain in opposition to a rule change BLM proposed in Nevada last spring, but since abandoned.

BLM proposed allowing its law officers to cite visitors to public lands for being minors in possession of alcohol in vehicles, possession of drug paraphernalia and driving under the influence.

The agency asked for the expanded authority because of increased visitation and law enforcement problems at such areas as Sand Mountain outside Fallon and Red Rock Canyon near Las Vegas.

BLM rangers are federal officers and generally are empowered only to enforce federal laws. But similar rules granting increased authority are in effect in other Western states where federal agents often are the only ones patrolling large expanses of U.S. public land, BLM spokeswoman Jo Simpson said.

After receiving comments and meeting with a committee formed by Nevada sheriffs and police chiefs, BLM State Director Bob Abbey said he decided instead to pursue cooperative agreements with individual counties to step up enforcement on federal lands.

Jackie Holmgren, a Mineral County rancher and officer of the livestock association, said there is a fear BLM will try to impose the statewide rules again.

“Bob Abbey had to withdraw those rules because there was an outcry from the local sheriffs. But we don’t think BLM is ever going to give up on this,” she said.

Abbey said the critics are largely extremists who represent less than 1 percent of Nevada’s ranchers.

“I am not going to waste a lot of time worrying about the few people whose only purpose is to create controversy and conflict. Our time is better spent working with the 99.5 percent of the public with whom we work in partnership to appropriately manage their public lands,” he said.

About 87 percent of Nevada is made up of federal land, mostly managed by the BLM. But the two Nevada groups maintain the federal government has no real jurisdiction over the lands.

Abbey said federal courts have ruled the lands are U.S. property, and there’s no reason to continue arguing the point.

O.Q. Johnson of Elko, chairman of the Nevada Committee for Full Statehood, said the groups leased the land for the billboard for $1,400 for a year. The sign cost $2,500, raised through donations.