Well, it was finally accomplished! The dastardly deed was done. As a parting shot before retirement, Senator Harry Reid dropped one final dung bomb on the rural residents of the state that he so fondly calls “home.” And Reid’s favor-doer-in-chief, President Barack Obama, once again was all too happy to show that there is no act of political harlotry that he will not perform to pleasure his left-wing environmental string-pullers.
Last week the unholy union was consummated. Over the strongly-voiced objections of the common rural people who would be affected most, the Gold Butte National Monument became a reality. It was done, quick and dirty, in an eleventh hour, backroom transaction. The deed was dispatched with a sudden jerk of a pen by a single man, acting more than 2,000 miles away and against the will of the people. Face it, the president has likely never set foot on the ground anywhere in rural northeast Clark County and likely wouldn’t be able to find Gold Butte on a map with a magnifying glass and a flashlight. Never was there a better illustration of pure tyranny than this sordid tale. But given the filthy little cast of characters involved, this shameful violation came as no surprise to anyone.
What was a bit surprising, though, was the weak and conciliatory response from Nevada’s elected officials. Our Republican governor and our soon-to-be senior senator should have both been in the forefront of sheer outrage over this miscarriage of power against the state and its people. There should have been fire in their eyes and smoke from their nostrils. But it was not the case. In fact, with the exception of Rep. Cresent Hardy (R-Mesquite), who lost his re-election bid in November, the response from all of the Nevada Republican leaders was generally tame in the matter.
It is true: they all expressed deep disappointment at this unilateral action. They all wagged their fingers, clucked their tongues and said ‘Shame on you, Mr. President!’ But there was no fire. It was all resignation and acceptance from there. The tepid responses were as much as to say, “Move along you rural citizens, the excitement here is over. Go back to your lives now!”
Where is the Republican leadership in this state when we need it? Where is the fight for the state against federal abuses, one after another? Where is the representation for the rurals? Where is the fire?
Rural residents have long become used to the string of outright betrayals from our Washington-soaked Senator Reid. But it has also been a while since the Republican leadership in the state has really pulled through for us either — instead of just taking our political support for granted every couple of years at election time.
Contrast this with the cataclysmic response that came from the Utah Congressional delegation last week on behalf of rural residents there. After all, Utah folks suffered a similar fate last week. With the same stroke of the autocratic pen that created Gold Butte National Monument, the president also formed the Bears Ears National Monument as well. At a sprawling 1.3 million acres, Bears Ears is more than four times as big as Gold Butte, and every bit as unpopular among its neighboring rural residents. But the response of their elected representatives was much more ferocious in its tone, and resolute in its intent, than anything we have seen from Nevada in a long time.
Every member of the Utah Congressional delegation, the Governor and a long list of other state and county officials made clear and angry statements categorically condemning the president’s action. Not only that, but they all pledged to use every tool available to undo what had been done. They assured their rural constituents that this action by a pen-happy president would not stand; that they would work diligently with the incoming Trump administration to reverse it.
Rural residents of Nevada need more of this kind of fire and brimstone from their Republican elected officials. Rather than simply rolling over to the will of the ruthless Reid machine, they should actually take a stand for the rural Conservative base that has supported them for so long! They should already be banding together with their Utah colleagues to fight against this glaring overreach of federal power.
At the very least, Nevada and Utah leaders should be insisting upon a full Congressional review of each of these designations including the one made at Basin and Range last year. Such a process might provide legitimacy by providing the funding and commitment necessary to bring real conservation and protection on the ground to these areas; instead of the non-commital, namby-pamby lip service that has been spat out by these last minute declarations.
Absent a clear showing of that Congressional support for, and commitment behind, the intent of these designations, the incoming president ought to be taken at his word from the campaign trail. After all, Mr. Trump promised to put an end to these types of midnight regulations and mandates, once and for all. So now it is time for ‘The Donald’ to put his money where his mouth is and reverse these things.
Here is a perfect opportunity for Trump to come to the aid of the very same demographic of Conservative rural residents of middle America that he so championed during the election. And Nevada Republicans need to pluck up their courage and rally around him to the cause.
Isn’t it time to drain the swamp?
1 thought on “EDITORIAL: Where Are The Defenders Of Nevada’s Rurals?”
With any luck, ‘The Donald’ will read your nonsense and decide to ignore the Antiquities Act of 1906 and allow the area to be sold (one purpose of making Gold Butte a National Monument) like Utah planned for Bears Ears. Then the fracking companies can come in and start pumping their fracking chemicals and polluting the Cliven Bundy’s (and Mesquite’s) water supply with their proprietary blend of poisons and all of the angry, geriatric warboy-wannabes can suck all the flammable water up and die from cancer – preferably sooner rather than later.
Then I can stop having to listen to fools who think that paying fees (or now, not paying fees owed for the privilege of grazing) to the Federal government for grazing rights gives some sort of magical permanent ownership status of the Federal lands and Indian reservation lands Bundy’s anemic herd of cattle have been nibbling.