New development near Sloan Canyon National Recreation Area. (Photo: Kyle Roerink)
Across the West, debates about federal land sales and ownership are coming into the foreground as the new administration prepares to come into office.
While some folks would want you to believe that there are stark differences in the political parties’ attitudes toward federal land ownership, Nevada politicians betray the common sentiments that conservatives want public lands sold and liberals don’t.
Republican officials from Utah are waging marketing and legal campaigns to challenge the federal government’s ability to manage public land, calling open spaces “unappropriated” and pushing for fast-tracked privatization.
Ironically, Silver State Democrats are actually getting it done — pushing bills in Congress to expand long-standing, Nevada-centric policies that have legitimized the sale of federal lands that Utah politicians can merely dream of undertaking.
This week, look no further than Nevada Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, whose legislation to sell off federal lands in Clark and Washoe counties passed in a U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources’ work session. While the bills still have to clear a full Senate vote, pass the House and get the President’s signature to actually become law, the result in Tuesday’s hearing is an indication that the bills may have legs in the next few months — and definitely in the future.
The bill for Clark County amends the Southern Nevada Public Lands Management Act to allow for more federal lands to go up for auction on the outskirts of Las Vegas — where future concerns about the Colorado River raise questions about the water necessary to invite another 800,000 people to Clark County on lands that are currently inhabited by the desert tortoise.
The purported financial benefits give Nevada politicians at all levels a reason to support. The proceeds from land sales fill the coffers of the State of Nevada, counties, and other local government entities like the Southern Nevada Water Authority.
Ask any blue-collared Nevadan living in Las Vegas if inviting hundreds of thousands of more people to Clark County is a good idea — especially as Lake Mead hovers below 40 percent of its storage capacity, as utility bills rise, as air quality deteriorates, as the traffic increases, as the private equity firms buy up the middle-class housing.
Nevada is the only state in the nation with enacted federal legislation that allows for large swaths of public land to be disposed and auctioned for private interests in Southern Nevada. Simultaneously, Rep. Mark Amodei is working on creating a bill that would allow for similar public land sale programs to be implemented in Northern Nevada. Senator Jacky Rosen has the companion bill in her chamber that Cortez-Masto co-sponsors.
The move to push forward the Southern Nevada Economic Development and Conservation Act and the Northern Nevada Economic Development and Conservation Act will be viewed as a model for public land sales across the West.
Indeed, Nevada Democrats are showing Utah Republicans how it is done.
Drive around Salt Lake City right now and find billboards advancing the notion that federal lands actually belong to the state. This tactful marketing campaign is really a part of a strategy to warm the public up to land sell-offs that dovetail with legal challenges that imply federal land management undermines state sovereignty.
In Nevada, at the least, the longstanding quid-pro-quo of public land sales comes with the promise of conservation designations that protect landscapes that are high in scenery but not always as high in biodiversity, and usually are under no particular threat at all. Politicians aren’t so quick to lock up threatened landscapes, as the threats are usually backed by moneyed interests.
In Utah, offsetting land sales with conservation wouldn’t be the case. The promise in the Beehive State is all about making money, and fast.
The public land sale proposals coming from Nevada raise a specter of dealmaking. The bills in play this week may or may not advance through Congress before the Trump inauguration.
If they don’t, Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee, who could take control of the Senate committee overseeing western public lands in the next Congress, might want to ask the Nevada delegation how badly it wants SNEDCA and NNEDCA.
Would Nevada lawmakers trade votes with Mike Lee on bills that would allow Utah to sell off its lands?
What other states would be willing to engage? Alaska, Arizona, Idaho, and Wyoming have opinions too.
The point here is that Nevada sets a dangerous tone. The state is limited in the availability of private lands. And it’s also limited in its availability of water. But that’s not a problem for Cortez Masto and her staff — all of whom believe that there is plenty of water available. And maybe today there is. But the best scientists in the nation are telling us that we are headed into a drier future that could have a cascading effect on southwestern water supplies.
Cortez Masto has experience in long-term planning in water issues in Nevada. She was the Attorney General of Nevada when the state was actively supporting efforts — ultimately deemed illegal — to pump and pipe billions of gallons of groundwater from rural communities for sprawl in Vegas. It was her deputy AGs, alongside attorneys for the SNWA, that were saying plenty of water exists. Her staff was wrong.
Nevada and Utah politicians seemingly take an oath to unending and unchecked growth if they want to assume their powerful seats in Washington, D.C. Of course, Sens. Lee and Cortez Masto are serving dutifully. And, of course, they have more in common than they want us to think.