Senate urged to expedite lands bill for county

Benjamin Grove

Wednesday, July 31, 2002 | 10:36 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- A sweeping Clark County lands bill that both creates new wilderness areas and paves the way for new development could pass as early as this year, Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Tuesday.

During the bill's first hearing in Congress, Reid and Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., urged a Senate subcommittee to promtly pass the legislation.

"This is a very important bill to us," Reid said in testimony to the Senate Energy and Natural Resources subcommittee on forests and public lands management. The panel is likely to vote on the bill soon, chairman Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said.

The bill designates 440,000 acres land now managed by the federal government as wilderness, a federal protection status. It also designates 183,000 acres for public and private development, and lays out details for the planned Ivanpah Valley airport to be constructed 30 miles south of Las Vegas.

The legislation is a blueprint for federal land management in the county that attempts to strike a balance between conservation and development.

Reid and Ensign unveiled the bill in June after more than a year of meetings with environmentalists, local government officials and outdoor enthusiasts.

The plan represents a compromise that left all the players a little unhappy by negotiation's end, but represents a responsible, comprehensive plan, Ensign told the panel.

"It really was a model in how to put legislation together," Ensign said. "We think we've come up with a very good balance."

The bill faces a few hurdles. A House version introduced by Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., contains a few notable differences from the Senate bill, which would have to be worked out by House and Senate negotiators.

The House bill would deny federal water rights for wilderness areas, leaving water issues to be handled by the state, a provision some environmentalists oppose. Gibbons' bill also sets aside 3,200 acres near the Ivanpah airport site for a residential housing. The Senate bill does not.

Several Nevadans also testified Tuesday. While the bill protects some public land as wilderness, it also "releases" other federal land from its wilderness designation, said John Wallin, director of the Nevada Wilderness Project. That includes protected land in the Gold Butte region, between Mesquite and Lake Mead, Wallin said in written testimony. Wallin's group supports the bill, despite some criticisms.

The Nevada Land Users Coalition, a sportsmen and off-road vehicles group, also supports the bill, said group founder Clint Bentley.

"The consensus of the coalition was that Sen. John Ensign and Sen. Harry Reid had crafted a compromise that was a very responsible bill," Bentley said in written comments.