Key chairman backing Black Rock Desert effort

Scott Sonner

Wednesday, March 29, 2000 | 1:40 a.m.

RENO, Nev. - Sen. Richard Bryan, D-Nev., says he's moving ahead with his plan to protect the Black Rock Desert and has received new assurances the bill will get a fair committee hearing in the Senate.

Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said last week there wasn't enough time to get Bryan's measure through the House and Senate this year.

But Bryan said he already has put in a formal request for a hearing before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

And Sen. Frank Murkowski, R-Alaska, chairman of the committee, said in a handwritten note to Reid this week that the Nevadans can count on his support.

"On Western land issues that you and Senator Bryan agree on - you can count on our support," Murkowski wrote to Reid.

"Just as Ted (Stevens, R-Alaska) and I would expect your support on land issues affecting Alaska. We will give Black Rock a fair shake," Murkowski said.

Bryan is retiring at the end of this year and hopes to get the bill passed before he leaves.

"We're definitely moving ahead with the bill," Bryan's spokesman Dave Lemmon said Wednesday.

Murkowski's support would be critical to getting the measure through committee this year. He has clashed with the Nevada senators over a proposal he supports to ship nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain near Las Vegas.

Bryan introduced his Black Rock bill in the Senate earlier this month to protect 600,000 acres of the desert and neighboring High Rock Canyon, and consider protecting up to an additional 1 million acres of wilderness study areas.

Home to golden eagles, wild horses, bighorn sheep and pronghorn antelope, the vast desert and neighboring High Rock Canyon remain much the way they did when pioneers made their way across the Applegate-Lassen Emigrant Trail to the California Gold Rush 150 years ago.