Bush’s proposed BLM cuts could hurt Nevada

Benjamin Grove

Monday, Feb. 7, 2005 | 10:54 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- President Bush today proposed budget cuts for the Bureau of Land Management that would be felt in Nevada if ultimately approved by Congress.

As expected, as part of the $2.57 trillion fiscal year 2006 federal budget proposal Bush sent to Congress today, Bush proposed dramatically scaling back Southern Nevada's share of profit generated by federal land sales in Clark County.

Bush also advocates a smaller budget for the BLM, which owns 67 percent of Nevada and in recent years has struggled to meet increasing demands with fewer resources across the fast-growing West.

Bush proposes a $1.73 billion overall BLM budget, which is less than the $1.8 billion that the BLM received in fiscal year 2005 and also down from the $1.77 billion allocated to the BLM in 2004, according to Bush's budget summary.

Bush proposes to:

Despite the cuts, Bush's proposed budget for the BLM still allows the BLM to "support our multiple-use mission," BLM spokeswoman Celia Boddington said today.

Of chief interest to Nevada lawmakers in the BLM budget is Bush's plan to change the Nevada land sale program. The lawmakers have already been meeting with key congressional colleagues in an effort to kill the proposal.

Bush seems to be unfairly targeting Nevada in his BLM budget, said Tessa Hafen, spokeswoman for Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.

"Nevada doesn't have an ally in the White House," she said.

Bush is asking Congress to change a 1998 law that allows Nevada to keep land sale money generated by public land auctions. The law states that profit is to be used in Nevada: 5 percent for schools; 10 percent for water and highway projects; and 85 percent for various conservation programs, including buying up ecologically sensitive areas, managing a multi-species habitat plan, and developing parks and trails.

Bush proposes shrinking the 85-percent share to 15 percent and diverting the rest to the U.S. Treasury to offset the federal deficit.

The White House budget notes that land sales were expected to reap about $70 million a year for Nevada but could actually be more like $1 billion in the coming years. Bush's Office of Management and Budget looked at that figure and decided that's more than Nevada can spend.

"You actually start to outstrip your ability to do what the program was designed to do," OMB spokesman Chad Kolton said.

But Nevada lawmakers are designing new uses for the increased windfall and they aim to keep all the money in Nevada.

"If the president is serious about deficit reduction, then we have something to discuss," Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., said. "But I will not stand by and let him rob these funds as a token gesture of newfound fiscal responsibility."

Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., has proposed funneling a larger percentage of the money to education programs. But ultimately the money should stay in the state, he said.

Gibbons opposes any cuts to the wild horse and burro program and reductions in PILT money. Roughly $13.5 million in federal PILT money went to Nevada last year as part of the government's program that pays money to states where state property taxes cannot be collected on federal land.

"As a senior member of the House Resources Committee, I will work to ensure that the federal government better fulfills its public lands responsibilities to Nevada and neighboring Western states," Gibbons said.

Animal advocates say Bush's proposed horse and burro budget cuts come at a bad time. BLM officials in recent years have asked Congress for more money to pay the costs of caring for wild horses and burros, and for corralling them for adoption. Congress made the agency's job more urgent last year when it passed a law to accelerate sales of the animals -- more than 8,000 of about 37,000 in 10 Western states. More than half, nearly 19,000, are found in Nevada, according to the BLM. Cattle ranchers have said the horses and burros are infringing on their grazing areas.

Advocates for animals say the BLM could be forced to sell the horses for slaughter if adoptive arrangements cannot be made.

The bureau for years has struggled to keep up with a diverse and ever-increasing list of duties on its 261 million acres in 12 Western states. That's especially true in Clark County where urban sprawl is seeping into wild areas and populations surges are trampling the agency's ability to tend public land.

The bureau's traditional jobs include managing conservation and preservation areas; monitoring endangered species; maintaining recreation sites; rehabilitating fire-scarred land; and managing mining claim sites and grazing areas. In Nevada the BLM spends much of its resources managing the land sales program.

The agency in Southern Nevada also increasingly faces urban problems, everything from all-terrain vehicle drivers; trash dumpers; under-age drinkers; joy-riding car thieves; land squatters; vandals; and lost hikers.