Reid, Ensign praise compromise public lands bill

Stephen Curran

Friday, Aug. 9, 2002 | 9:54 a.m.

Federal and local elected leaders joined conservationists and developers Thursday to champion a land-use bill that promises to open up federal land for new uses while protecting thousands of acres as designated wilderness.

Sens. Harry Reid, Democratic majority whip, and John Ensign, his Republican colleague, spoke about their public lands bill, which they said would strike a balance between growth and preservation, allowing urban development while protecting the local quality of life.

The duo spoke at a vacant, federally owned lot that the bill would open for development as part of a larger land swap. The swap also would protect parts of Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area and turn nearby hills into Clark County parkland.

The senators emphasized the bipartisan character of the legislation, a product of nearly two years of staff work.

"The fact is that legislation is the art of compromise and there's no better example of that than today," Reid said.

The compromise includes 444,000 new acres in Clark County added to the national wilderness preservation system, 224,000 acres of which are designated as wilderness by the Bureau of Land Management. The wilderness designation affords the most environmental protection for an area.

About 186,000 acres of federal land now classified as wilderness study areas would return to federal agencies for other purposes, which could include development.

Reid and Ensign were joined by environmentalists, who have mostly supported the bill.

But environmentalists this week also warned that a companion bill in the House introduced by Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Las Vegas, is not acceptable to them.

While Gibbons' bill largely mirrors the Reid/Ensign legislation, at least two provisions are "poison pills" that if passed would lead to a national grass-roots and lobbying effort to kill the bill, Sierra Club organizer Carrie Sandstedt said Thursday.

Sandstedt and other activists said their first goal is to change the offending provisions of Gibbons' bill, but if they survive the committee process and, eventually, a conference committee with the Senate, the environmentalists will work to defeat the measure.

Those provisions include giving the state control of water rights inside the wilderness areas and a provision stating that once BLM land is moved out of a wilderness study area, it can never be considered again for wilderness status.

Environmental activists already are buttonholing congressmen to try to subtract the provisions, Sandstedt said.

Amy Spanbauer, a Gibbons spokeswoman, said the bill is a good one with the House changes in it.

"This bill is going to go through the committee process, and obviously environmentalists are free to express their concerns, but the congressman stands behind his bill," she said.

Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Las Vegas, said her staff will soon do a side-by-side comparison of the Reid/Ensign and Gibbons bills to identify potential problems. If necessary, Berkley said her staff will coordinate strategy with Reid's staff to ensure bad provisions do not become law.

Reid said he is confident that the Senate version will pass.

By making concessions for growth, the bill should allow Southern Nevada to avoid mistakes made by other growing communities, Ensign said.

"There needs to be growth that people will look at 30 years from now and say, 'that's a good area,' " Ensign said.

Lending support to the bill was Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, who said the bill gives the city the opportunity to grow in a controlled pattern.

Assemblyman Tom Collins, D-North Las Vegas, said he is pleased with the progress the senators made on the bill, saying the compromise is "a lot better than it could have been."

"It's going to allow us to enjoy the rural openness of Southern Nevada and still develop it," Collins said.

Collins, president of the Horse Council of Nevada, has worked with to preserve Paiute petroglyphs near Henderson. The bill, he said, helps protect those petroglyphs.