Editorial: Bush again jabs Nevada

Thursday, Feb. 3, 2005 | 9:13 a.m.

When Nevada threw its support to President Bush in the 2000 election (handing him victory over Al Gore), he showed his appreciation two years later by giving us, officially, Yucca Mountain. After Nevada again supported Bush in 2004, he waited just a few weeks to deliver another body blow. In his new budget Bush wants to grab at least $700 million a year that rightfully belongs to Nevada and take it back to Washington, where he will use it to help reduce his record budget deficits.

In 1998 Congress passed the Southern Nevada Public Land Management Act, which stopped the years-old practice of practically giving away federal land to developers. The act also compensated Nevada for the fact that 87 percent of its land is federally owned, which deprives the state of tax-generating enterprises. It did this by requiring that all proceeds from federal land sales must be used for public purposes in Nevada. Since then 5 percent of all sales have gone to Nevada's schools, 10 percent to water and airport infrastructure and 85 percent to environmental, conservation and recreation projects. Nevada fought long and hard for this law, which introduced fairness and honesty into federal land sales.

Bush now proposes to hog 70 percent of the proceeds and use it to reduce the budget deficit that is soaring into the trillions under his watch. Since the 1998 law, $1.3 billion has been raised for Nevada through federal land sales. Projections for this year and beyond show the annual proceeds amounting to more than $1 billion. Even that amount of money will not nearly cover all of the environmental and conservation projects that this state needs. That is why Nevada's congressional delegation -- three Republicans and two Democrats -- are united in opposing Bush's proposal. We strongly support them in their effort.

Instead of robbing billions from Nevada over the coming years, Bush should let his tax cuts expire, as they are scheduled to do between this year and 2015. He is pushing to make them permanent, but the recession is now over and their purpose has been achieved. The Congressional Budget Office says allowing them to expire would save $1.3 trillion. That would make a genuine dent in Bush's deficit, while the relative pittance grabbed from Nevada wouldn't even scratch it.