Nevada delegation regroups on cargo airport bill

Thursday, Oct. 8, 1998 | 12:03 p.m.

Clark County's plans to build a cargo airport 30 miles southwest of Las Vegas suffered a setback Wednesday when the House defeated a massive parks bill.

The House voted 302-123 to defeat the Omnibus Parks and Public Lands Act. Southern Nevada's proposal for an airport on a dry lake bed in the Ivanpah Valley to relieve busy McCarran International Airport was one of 100 measures included in the failed bill.

The entire Nevada congressional delegation supported the airport, as did the Clinton administration.

Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., said he would try to get the airport legislation passed later this week as a free-standing bill under suspension of the rules.

"If that fails, we'll make it an early introduction in the 106th Congress," Gibbons said. "I'm very optimistic."

Gibbons, Rep. John Ensign, R-Nev., Sens. Harry Reid and Richard Bryan, both D-Nev., had worked with the Bureau of Land Management, which objected to a land transfer for the airport because it would restrict multiple uses of the 6,650-acre parcel between Jean and Primm.

The bill's defeat came when New York Republican Sherwood Boehlert objected to a road though the Chugach National Forest so that Indian-owned Chugach Alaska Corp. could log an 8,000-acre area in the Copper River Delta of Alaska.

Democrats and more than 100 Republicans opposed the bill because they said many good features were overshadowed by anti-environmental provisions, such as the Chugach road. The bill's defeat was a loss for House Resources Committee Chairman Republican Don Young of Alaska. His committee wrote the bill.

The Nevada delegation hoped to get the airport measure through so plans could begin, and the facility could be built within the next 10 years. As a second major airport in Southern Nevada, it is expected to attract major cargo flights from Pacific Rim countries.