Two bills earmark money for Nevada

Benjamin Grove

Friday, Oct. 19, 2001 | 10 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Congress this week passed the final version of two of the 13 spending bills that set budgets for the federal government. Both bills contain money for Nevada.

Nevada's four-member delegation voted in favor of both bills, and President Bush is expected to sign them into law.

A $10.5 billion military construction bill contains $46 million for Nevada military bases, including $19 million to buy 220 acres of privately owned land near a runway at Nellis Air Force Base northeast of Las Vegas. It includes $12.6 million to construct a "red flag" war games control center at Nellis.

A $19.1 billion bill that funds the Interior Department, the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management sets annual budgets for those agencies and also contains money for special Nevada projects, including about $18 million for continued Lake Tahoe restoration and $750,000 for Lake Mead watershed research.

The Interior bill also includes money, called payments in lieu of taxes, for counties that contain federally owned land.

The money helps counties that have little privately owned land pay for roads, schools, firefighting and law enforcement, because county taxes typically pay much of those expenses. It's not clear how much PILT money Nevada will get next year. The state got $7.6 million last year; Clark County got about $1 million.