Bill: Land sale money should pay for Lake Mead project

Benjamin Grove

Thursday, Aug. 4, 2005 | 9:55 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Congress did not approve $9.3 million for a Lake Mead water and sewer line project requested by the Interior Department as part of a spending bill approved last week.

Lawmakers instead directed the department to dip into the profit generated by public land sales in Clark County under the 1998 Southern Nevada Public Land Management Act, sparking protests from Nevada officials. Under the act federal public land is sold at auction, with the profit to benefit Nevada water, education and land programs.

Projects such as the Lake Mead project "should" be funded from the land sale money, not through regular congressional appropriations, the bill says.

The language is essentially a recommendation and nonbinding, but the Interior Department has discretion over whether to pursue the land sale profit as a way to pay for the Lake Mead project.

Nevada lawmakers plan to formally object.

"We're going to continue to lobby to make sure the federal government doesn't shirk its responsibilities for funding the operation of federal lands, projects and buildings in the state of Nevada," said Amy Maier, spokeswoman for Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev.

It was not the intent of the 1998 law, written largely by Nevada lawmakers, to use profit from the land sales for projects such as the Lake Mead water and sewer repairs, Nevada lawmakers said.

They also question whether it would even be legal to use land sale money for a project like the one at Lake Mead.

"It doesn't fall under the intent of SNPLMA," Hafen said. "They (Interior Department) have a responsibility to places like Lake Mead."

National Park Service spokesman David Barna today said department officials believe that they should be able to pay for Lake Mead "restoration and preservation" projects with land sale money.

But he said agency lawyers were currently reviewing whether it could legally use land sale money for the Lake Mead project.

Money for the Lake Mead project should be taken from federal coffers just as it is for similar Interior Department projects in other states, said Jack Finn, spokesman for Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev. Ensign plans to talk to Interior Secretary Gale Norton about the issue. However, Norton, too, has said some of the money should be used to pay down the deficit.

Lawmakers are envious of the land sale fund because the public land auctions have generated more cash than anyone expected. But that doesn't make the fund "a free pot of money," Finn said.

The law has created tension as Bush administration officials and lawmakers in Congress have watched the land sale profits swell. Bush recommended that 70 percent of the money be funneled to the U.S. Treasury, arguing that federal land sales should benefit federal taxpayers. Nevada officials have vigorously defended the state's right under the current law to keep all the money in Nevada.