Nevada may not lose federal land sale money

Benjamin Grove

Thursday, March 10, 2005 | 11:13 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- A proposal by President Bush to funnel federal land sale money away from Nevada has suffered a significant setback, the state's lawmakers said.

Budget committees in both the House and Senate meeting Wednesday did not include language in support of Bush's proposal as part of the panels' federal budget resolutions for the 2006 fiscal year.

Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., said he privately convinced Senate Budget Committee Chairman Judd Gregg, R-N.H., not to embrace the proposal.

Gregg's allegiance on the issue means that the proposal is far less likely to win support later this year in the budget process, congressional sources said.

The Budget Committee's resolution is a non-binding but respected guideline for lawmakers as they approve the spending bills this year that make up next year's federal budget. The committee's lack of support for the Bush proposal sends an important message to appropriators, Ensign said.

Ensign added that it was much better to stifle the proposal at the committee level than to face it later on the Senate floor, he said.

"It is much easier to win if you do not have to vote," Ensign said.

House Budget Committee spokesman Sean Spicer said the panel typically does not take action on specific budget proposals, but instead sets bottom line guidelines for lawmakers to follow.

The Bush proposal is not likely to be in the House budget resolution either, Spicer said, but it would be up to the House Resources Committee on what to do next.

A spokesman for House Resources Committee Chairman Richard Pombo, R-Calif., said the lawmaker has not yet decided where he stands on the matter.

At issue is a proposal included in the federal budget request Bush sent to Congress last month. He proposed siphoning 70 percent of federal land sale proceeds in Clark County away from state coffers to the federal treasury.

Under the 1998 Southern Nevada Public Land Management Act, the profit of public land sold at auction would remain in Nevada for land use and conservation projects, as well as education and water programs. The land sales are netting far more than expected -- an estimated $1.2 billion this year alone. So Nevada lawmakers in Congress have been lobbying heavily to crush the proposal.

The proposal is not dead. Lawmakers on the House and Senate natural resource committees that deal with land issues could still pursue the legislation if they agree with Bush that it is a good way to help slash the deficit. Committee spokespeople on Wednesday said the chairmen of the two panels have not yet decided whether to push for the Bush proposal.

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said he lined up 44 Democrats, plus Vermont Independent James Jeffords, who are "ready to fight" the Bush proposal. Reid said Bush's proposal unfairly targets Nevada.

"With so much of our land under federal control we need the money," Reid said in a statement. "It helps conservation efforts so we can protect Nevada's natural treasures. Bush has pushed this country trillions of dollars into the hole, and taking a billion from Nevada wouldn't even be a drop in the bucket towards the massive deficit."

It's not clear how many Republicans in addition to Gregg that Ensign has in his corner, but they include "powerful allies" from Western states, he said. Ensign spokesman Jack Finn said they include "several key appropriators."

Ensign said that he told Gregg and other senators that he would do everything he could to disrupt the budget process if Bush's proposal won Senate support.

"I did not have a single person walk away from a meeting with me on this that I did not have a commitment from," Ensign said.

Ensign said he "felt a great deal of responsibility" to defend the 1998 legislation because he wrote it as a House member. He worked with former Sen. Richard Bryan, D-Nev., to push it through Congress.