(FORTUNE Magazine) – AGRICULTURE Secretary Edward Madigan walked into a haymaker this April at a meeting with the National Cattlemen's Association. The cowmen were beefing about some damn fool nutrition pyramid they had read about, a new food-group diagram that showed what people should eat most and least. Bread, fruit, and vegetables were in great big boxes at the base, while meat and dairy products took up itty-bitty boxes near the top -- right below the layer cake and possum grease. Why would anyone want to chow down on legumes and merely snack on good old American red meat? What ever happened, they asked, to the old co-equal food groups? Madigan allowed that he too had been surprised to learn about the pyramid. Within days he withdrew it for further study. Big Beef may not be in the same lobbying league as the Big Banks, Big Oil, or even Big Steel. But in places like Idaho, the industry is the equivalent of Wall Street. Last fall the Senate rejected a measure approved by the House that would have raised the fees ranchers pay to graze cattle on federal rangeland. When the dust settled, Senators from at least four Western states stepped forward to claim credit for the kill. The cattlemen hope to flex even more muscle in Washington in the future. Six years ago the industry persuaded Congress to pass a law that created, er, a cash cow for financing its marketing campaigns. Every time cattle are sold, the buyer must deduct $1 from each beast's price. The industry's cut? A juicy $79 million last year. Nearly half this sum ends up with the Beef Industry Council, an arm of the National Live Stock and Meat Board in Chicago. Record beef prices are also making it easier for producers to support a special fund, started in February and dedicated to defeating future attempts to raise federal grazing fees. Grazing permits aren't like most agricultural subsidies, which are available to anyone who grows a particular crop. Instead, like New York City taxi medallions, they are basically fixed in number -- 28,700 at the latest count. They may be sold along with a ranch or passed down from generation to generation. These permits are held by only 2.5% of the nation's 1.14 million livestock producers. But they grant grazing rights to 260 million acres in 11 Western states, more than one-ninth of the entire U.S. landmass. The biggest 10% of holders -- a group that includes the Mormon church, the John Hancock Mutual Life insurance company, and David Packard of Hewlett-Packard -- control nearly half of the permits. WHAT'S AT ISSUE, however, isn't who has access to the rangeland but the price they pay. The Bureau of Land Management, an agency of the Interior Department, currently charges holders $1.97 a month for each cow and calf that forages on public land. Similar private leases cost up to four times as much. The Cattlemen's Association argues that public land isn't worth as much, since it is drier and more remote -- the territory no one wanted during the homesteading days. The group also claims private leases include services that public leaseholders must pay for themselves, such as building and maintaining fences and water supplies. But some cattlemen from states where most land is private disagree with their brethren. Bob Nunley, president of the Independent Cattlemen's Association of Texas, says the bovine homes on the range he leases from a private owner are plenty dry -- and he must maintain the property himself. His lease price: about $6.70 a month per head. Nor do public leaseholders pay for all improvements. The BLM -- dubbed the Bureau of Livestock and Mining by critics -- is spending $40 million this year to maintain federal rangeland. It collects only $18 million in fees. Environmental groups like the National Wildlife Federation and the National Resources Defense Council charge that low fees encourage overgrazing, which in turn destroys the delicate ribbons of green along waterways on which wildlife depend. The BLM's own reports acknowledge that 50% of its rangeland is in fair or poor condition (categories the agency has deemed unsatisfactory). Western ranchers complain that the move to raise fees, spearheaded by Representative Mike Synar of Oklahoma, is really a ruse to ban cattle from public lands. Says a Synar aide: ''He's been accused of being a vegetarian and an ecoterrorist.'' If Congress actually wanted to help the environment, argue the cowmen, it would start with other targets. Says Joe Etchart, head of the Public Lands Council, which represents private users of federal grazing land: ''The worst range condition in the country is in Yellowstone National Park and arises from indiscriminate use by elk and bison.'' Even if Etchart's claim is true, it completely sidesteps the real question: Why shouldn't private citizens who are profiting from the use of public land -- and possibly putting the resource in peril -- at least pay a market rent? The answer, of course, is that they should. Meanwhile, the cattle industry's well-fueled promotion machine grinds on, although it has hit a few ruts along the road. Early on, the Beef Industry Council enlisted movie stars to serve as spokesfolks. After James Garner underwent quadruple-bypass surgery and Cybill Shepherd's publicist let slip that she's not much of a meat-eater, the council replaced them with anonymous carnivores who live in small towns with funny names, like Utopia, Texas; Luck, Wisconsin; and Cool, California. IN A NEW PROGRAM launched this summer, the council is sponsoring seminars for doctors to show how beef can be part of a ''heart-healthy diet.'' Beef is plenty nutritious, loaded with protein, vitamins, and minerals. The problem is that a heart-healthy diet is easier to achieve without it. Current dietary guidelines recommend that no more than 30% of calories come from fat. Beef, on average, has 41% of its calories tied up in fat. Not every fork that passes ones lips needs to be lipidless. Still, the less beef in the diet, the easier it is to hit the 30% target -- a truism that explains the shocking, to beef people, rise of chicken consumption, up 42% since 1980. & So the last thing the industry wants is a new pictogram out of Washington that might reinforce such thinking. The nutrition pyramid was at the printer and scheduled for distribution in June when Madigan withdrew it. He says he decided to pull the pyramid, not because of the cattlemen's griping, but because it hadn't been tested on children and low-income adults, two big constituencies of Agriculture Department programs. In fact, the new food-group model already had the necessary approvals. The Department had been working on it and an accompanying nutrition guide since 1988. The pyramid passed muster during focus-group tests of people with high- school educations. And as mandated by the Nutrition Monitoring Act, a joint committee from Agriculture and the Department of Health and Human Services had signed off on it. Will the beef people be able to delay indefinitely the pyramid's publication as well as fend off paying higher fees for the use of public lands? The odds are long. But as any observer of that special breed that grazes inside the Beltway can attest, never underestimate how much a tiny group of well- connected individuals can accomplish in Washington.