Nevada lands bill wins Senate approval

Friday, Oct. 2, 1998 | 3:24 a.m.

Under the bill, 10 percent of proceeds from federal land transactions in the valley would pay for pipelines and water treatment plants in Southern Nevada.

Five percent would go to education programs in Nevada, and the other 85 percent would go to the Bureau of Land Management to buy environmentally sensitive land within the state.

Approval of the bill, which had died in the waning days of Congress two years ago, resulted in dueling press releases from Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and the man who's trying to oust him this year, Rep. John Ensign, R-Nev.

Ensign sponsored the bill in the House, which passed it by voice vote in April 1997. Reid is a cosponsor of the Senate version, along with Sen. Richard Bryan, D-Nev.

Ensign said he was determined to get the bill passed this year "because its delay has already cost Nevada almost $38 million that can never be recovered."

When the bill died in 1996, Reid was accused of having it killed to hurt Ensign's re-election chances. Reid has denied the accusation.

Reid, never mentioning Ensign's name, said Bryan wrote the latest bill after he and Reid convened a task force of environmental activists, developers and local officials to debate growth and public land issues.

Reid added that one of the problems in getting the bill passed was that "federal bureaucrats and some congressional leaders have targeted Nevada lands as a potential revenue source for their federal spending projects."

The Nevada bill appeared to be on the verge of passage late last week but was sidetracked when a senator put a hold on it.

Bryan became so incensed by the hold that he retaliated by placing his own holds on all other bills from the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.