FROM THE EDITOR’S DESK: It really shouldn’t take an act of Congress

By VERNON ROBISON

The Southern Nevada Economic Development Act, otherwise known as the “Clark County lands bill,” ground to a halt last week. That is the one that was on a track to swap public land in outlying areas of the county for private development in the Las Vegas Valley, This huge bill, which had spent years in the making through the efforts of Nevada Senator Catherine Cortez Masto, came off the tracks last week when negotiations between the various parties went sour.

The original proposal for the bill, engineered by the Clark County Commission, sought a total of 41,000 acres of land transfers for development. But to build bipartisan support in the equally-divided Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Cortez Masto offered a compromise which carved that number down to only 25,000 acres.

Clark County didn’t like that at all. The county opposed the compromise and withdrew support, insisting that the additional land is needed for economic growth and diversification in the region.

This impasse caused Cortez Masto, who serves as the chair of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources subcommittee, to cast the bill aside indefinitely. With the legislative clock winding down, it is considered unlikely that the bill will receive passage this year.

Many in the Moapa Valley may celebrate the stalling out of this bill. After all, only a few weeks ago members of the MV Chamber of Commerce and other leaders in the community staged a last minute protest against provisions that had appeared in the bill; particularly the one setting aside 8,430 acres, located on the east bench of the lower Moapa Valley, as the Mesa Milkvetch Special Management Area.

Once again, the outlying rural areas were being required to pay the price for urban development in Las Vegas, they said.

Actually, we are told that these protests and several other behind-the-scenes efforts had actually been successful in quietly removing the Mesa Milkvetch language from the bill several weeks ago. Even so, the demise of this version of the lands bill will be a welcome sight to many in Moapa Valley.

Unfortunately, it is not all happy news. There was a sharp double edge to the bill’s demise. Much that was in the bill would have been good for the Moapa Valley.

The Moapa Valley Water District (MVWD), with the help of Commissioner Marilyn Kirkpatrick, had lobbied long and hard for some vital rights-of-way and land dedications in the area. These would have been key to water infrastructure development for the future of the community. This included a right-of-way to access significant water resources in the Meadow Valley Wash area to the north of Moapa. The provisions also included a grant of several small parcels of land for new water tanks and for the expansion of existing tanks which would beef up water supply and reliability in the community.

MVWD staff had spent more than a decade trying to get these things through regular channels by applying to the BLM. But they had gotten nowhere with those applications. The BLM sat on them and wouldn’t move them forward. Passage of this bill would have granted it all to them in one legislative action.

The bill also would have provided some important benefits to the Moapa Band of Paiutes. It would have expanded the boundaries of the reservation. This would have allowed for new housing development to be built for tribal members. Also a number of economic development opportunities were being considered for the tribe on those lands.

All of these local benefits were dependent upon this bill to move forward in Congress. But all of it is put on ice for now without a clear path forward at this point. That is unfortunate!
There are at least two major takeaways that we might learn from this unfortunate mess.

First of all, the Harry Reid doctrine, originally set by the Southern Nevada Public Lands Management Act (SNPLMA) of 1998 and used as a model ever since, is simply not sustainable. We can’t continue to require the conservation (i.e. restriction) of vast tracts of public lands as a conditional tit-for-tat to justify releasing needed lands for development.

At this point there is little doubt that more developable land is needed for the southern Nevada economy to grow and diversify. Studies have shown that the region is on the verge of experiencing a serious land shortage. Without the takedown of additional federal lands for development, the consequences could be dire for the entire region. But if we have to lock up 70 acres for every 1 being released for development (as this bill nearly required), there will soon be nothing left for either purpose.

A different model must be developed to simplify this process. It doesn’t always have to be a complex mega-bill presented to get little things done. There doesn’t always have to be the endless horse trading between development and environmental interests.

If there is a valid conservation concern somewhere, let’s address it. If some important feature or resource needs to be conserved, let’s pass a focused bill that will preserve that resource or feature. There is no need to get greedy and lock up 300,000 acres of empty desert all around it. There was absolutely no justification, nor purpose, to the Mesa Milkvetch Special Management Area…other than uninformed greed by the environmental lobby. That provision was an atrocity!

On the other hand, if development is needed, as it certainly is, let’s pass a moderate bill to open some land for that purpose. Why should it take a huge, complex omnibus bill to add a little bit to the tribal boundaries so that the Moapa Paiutes can build some additional housing and create a few new jobs for their people? The same thing goes for development in the Las Vegas valley. A tract of 41,000 acres is fairly small in comparison to the millions of acres of open, empty desert managed by the BLM in the region.

That leads to my second takeaway from this unfortunate debacle. It should really not take an act of Congress for a small rural utility like MVWD to secure a strip of right-of-way through public land in order to service its community with water. That is what the public land is for in the first place! It is the BLM’s job to facilitate those types of requests, not shut them down.

This business of federal agencies stonewalling legitimate applications has got to stop! The huge expense required for MVWD to go through a decades-long application process is not bourne by millions of fat-cat wealthy stockholders, but by about 3,000 rural households – just regular families who are struggling in the current economic environment. These are the people who are closest to the land. They are the ones who can benefit most from the land. As citizens of the United States they are the ones who own the land.

It really shouldn’t be that hard, or that expensive, to get a simple permit on public land for municipal use.

That a small rural entity like MVWD should, after a decade of banging its head against a bureaucratic wall, abandon what should have been a simple administrative process, and seek to carve out federal legislation for a few small land grants and a routine right-of-way is inexcusable!

I know, I know! Given the current political environment in Washington, both of these points are pretty tall orders. But without these two changes, we will continue to see legislative failures just like Ms. Cortez Masto’s ill-fated Southern Nevada Economic Development Act. Instead of economic growth and progress, we will see stagnation and paralysis.

Hopefully Senator Cortez Masto and the rest of the Nevada delegation will not give up on us now. Hopefully they will work with the administration to bring about some reform to federal land agencies.

Hopefully thy will work with our communities to bring simple focused legislation that will break the stalement experienced by MVWD, the Moapa Band, and the economic development efforts of urban Clark County.