Plan to divert land money to horses criticized

Suzanne Struglinski

Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2004 | 10:57 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Members of Nevada's congressional delegation said they will block the Bureau of Land Management's proposal to use $2.3 million of public land auction money for its wild horse and burro program in Nevada.

Inside the Bush administration's $1.7 billion budget request for the BLM for the next fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1, $12.8 million was redirected to the wild horse and burro management program from other programs. That included $2.3 million out of the Clark County public land sale money collected through the Southern Nevada Public Lands Management Act, according to the bureau's Acting Budget Officer Craig Leff.

Sens. John Ensign, R-Nev., and Harry Reid, D-Nev., said they would not allow the idea to move any further.

Ensign spoke with Office of Management and Budget Director Josh Bolton about his opposition to the idea last week, but Ensign was told the budgets were already printed and the item could not be changed, spokesman Jack Finn said.

"This is not going to happen," Finn said. "Bolton knows he will oppose it."

Ensign authored the public lands law when he represented Nevada in the House.

Reid called the proposal "dead on arrival."

"The White House proposes to rob the Southern Nevada conservation trust fund to grow one of the most wasteful bureaucracies in the federal government," Reid said in a statement. "This bad idea should never have made it off the drawing board."

Nevada would get a "significant" part of the $10.5 million in the base money allocated to manage the wild horses and burros in the state, Leff said, although a specific number was not available.

Should the land auction money proposal not go through, Leff said it would take some time to refigure the numbers to see how much the state would get to manage the wild horses and burros.

Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev. also objected to the proposal, pointing to improvements required at the Lake Mead National Recreation Area, Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area and the Desert National Wildlife Refuge.

Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., also said she would oppose the item.

Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., will "examine the proposal with an open mind," said spokeswoman Amy Spanbauer.

"His first priority will be that the funding helps Nevadans first," Spanbauer said.

Gibbons still anticipates offering a proposal this year that would change percentages from the public lands law so more money would go toward education. Spanbauer said it was a "completely separate issue."