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<html>
<title> - NEVADA LANDS</title>
<body><pre>
[House Hearing, 105 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
NEVADA LANDS
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL PARKS AND PUBLIC LANDS
of the
COMMITTEE ON RESOURCES
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FIFTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
on
H.R. 449
A Bill To provide for an orderly disposal of certain Federal lands in
Clark County, Nevada, and to provide for the acquisition of
environmentally sensitive lands in the State of Nevada
__________
MARCH 13, 1997--WASHINGTON, DC
__________
Serial No. 105-5
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Resources
<snowflake>
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
40-299 CC WASHINGTON : 1997
COMMITTEE ON RESOURCES
DON YOUNG, Alaska, Chairman
W.J. (BILLY) TAUZIN, Louisiana GEORGE MILLER, California
JAMES V. HANSEN, Utah EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts
JIM SAXTON, New Jersey NICK J. RAHALL II, West Virginia
ELTON GALLEGLY, California BRUCE F. VENTO, Minnesota
JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee DALE E. KILDEE, Michigan
JOEL HEFLEY, Colorado PETER A. DeFAZIO, Oregon
JOHN T. DOOLITTLE, California ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American
WAYNE T. GILCHREST, Maryland Samoa
KEN CALVERT, California NEIL ABERCROMBIE, Hawaii
RICHARD W. POMBO, California SOLOMON P. ORTIZ, Texas
BARBARA CUBIN, Wyoming OWEN B. PICKETT, Virginia
HELEN CHENOWETH, Idaho FRANK PALLONE, Jr., New Jersey
LINDA SMITH, Washington CALVIN M. DOOLEY, California
GEORGE P. RADANOVICH, California CARLOS A. ROMERO-BARCELO, Puerto
WALTER B. JONES, Jr., North Rico
Carolina MAURICE D. HINCHEY, New York
WILLIAM M. (MAC) THORNBERRY, Texas ROBERT A. UNDERWOOD, Guam
JOHN SHADEGG, Arizona SAM FARR, California
JOHN E. ENSIGN, Nevada PATRICK J. KENNEDY, Rhode Island
ROBERT F. SMITH, Oregon ADAM SMITH, Washington
CHRIS CANNON, Utah WILLIAM D. DELAHUNT, Massachusetts
KEVIN BRADY, Texas CHRIS JOHN, Louisiana
JOHN PETERSON, Pennsylvania DONNA CHRISTIAN-GREEN, Virgin
RICK HILL, Montana Islands
BOB SCHAFFER, Colorado NICK LAMPSON, Texas
JIM GIBBONS, Nevada RON KIND, Wisconsin
MICHAEL D. CRAPO, Idaho
Lloyd A. Jones, Chief of Staff
Elizabeth Megginson, Chief Counsel
Christine Kennedy, Chief Clerk/Administrator
John Lawrence, Democratic Staff Director
------
Subcommittee on National Parks and Public Lands
JAMES V. HANSEN, Utah, Chairman
ELTON, GALLEGLY, California ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American
JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee Samoa
JOEL HEFLEY, Colorado EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts
WAYNE T. GILCHREST, Maryland NICK J. RAHALL II, West Virginia
RICHARD W. POMBO, California BRUCE F. VENTO, Minnesota
HELEN CHENOWETH, Idaho DALE E. KILDEE, Michigan
LINDA SMITH, Washington FRANK PALLONE, Jr., New Jersey
GEORGE P. RADANOVICH, California CARLOS A. ROMERO-BARCELO, Puerto
WALTER B. JONES, Jr., North Rico
Carolina MAURICE D. HINCHEY, New York
JOHN B. SHADEGG, Arizona ROBERT A. UNDERWOOD, Guam
JOHN E. ENSIGN, Nevada PATRICK J. KENNEDY, Rhode Island
ROBERT F. SMITH, Oregon WILLIAM D. DELAHUNT, Massachusetts
RICK HILL, Montana DONNA CHRISTIAN-GREEN, Virgin
JIM GIBBONS, Nevada Islands
RON KIND, Wisconsin
Allen Freemyer, Counsel
Steve Hodapp, Professional Staff
Liz Birnbaum, Democratic Counsel
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held March 13, 1997...................................... 1
Text of H.R. 449................................................. 42
Statements of Members:
Bryan, Hon. Richard, a U.S. Senator from Nevada.............. 4
Duncan, Hon. John, a U.S. Representative from Tennessee...... 6
Ensign, Hon. John, a U.S. Representative from Nevada......... 1
Faleomavaega, Hon. Eni, a U.S. Delegate from American Samoa.. 6
Hansen, Hon. James V., a U.S. Representative from Utah....... 2
Reid, Hon. Harry, a U.S. Senator from Nevada................. 3
.............................................................
Statements of witnesses:
Hobbs, Steve, Nevada State Director, The Nature Conservancy.. 29
Prepared statement....................................... 39
Malone, Lance, Clark County (Nevada) Commissioner............ 25
Prepared statement....................................... 34
Millenbach, Mat, Deputy Director, Bureau of Land Management.. 12
Prepared statement....................................... 32
Wimmer, Richard, Deputy General Manager, Southern Nevada
Water Authority............................................ 27
Prepared statement....................................... 38
.............................................................
DISPOSAL OF CERTAIN FEDERAL LANDS IN CLARK COUNTY, NEVADA, AND TO
PROVIDE FOR THE ACQUISITION OF ENVIRONMENTALLY SENSITIVE LANDS IN THE
STATE OF NEVADA
----------
THURSDAY, MARCH 13, 1997
House of Representatives, Subcommittee on National
Parks and Public Lands, Committee on Resources,
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:05 a.m., in
room 1324, Longworth House Office Building, Hon. John Ensign
presiding.
STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN ENSIGN, A U.S. REPRESENTATIVE FROM
NEVADA
Mr. Ensign. The Subcommittee will come to order. I would
like to welcome my colleagues from the State of Nevada and the
rest of the people who are going to be testifying today.
The Subcommittee on National Parks and Public Lands will
commence this meeting. Chairman Hansen has a conflict this
morning and has graciously asked me to chair the Subcommittee.
Although he isn't here, I would like to extend my gratitude to
him on behalf of the people of Nevada for his work in passing
this bill. We came extremely close last year to sending this
legislation to the President, and with his efforts I am very
optimistic that we will ultimately be successful this year. He
has submitted a statement and has asked that it be included as
part of the record. And without objection, it will be so
ordered.
Likewise, I understand that Nevada Governor Bob Miller has
submitted a statement for the record. And I appreciate his
continued support on this legislation. And it should be
included in the record without objection.
This morning we are going to hear testimony on my
legislation, H.R. 449, the Southern Nevada Public Land
Management Act of 1997. I would like to welcome all who are
going to testify today in taking time out of their busy
schedule, especially those who have come from our home State.
It is always a pleasure to see familiar faces from the State of
Nevada on the east coast. And, Mat, also, it is good to see and
have you here, now that you are a big television star.
We have come a long way since this bill's conception.
Senator Bryan and I have worked very closely with our
respective local Public Lands Task Forces to craft legislation
to address a variety of interests and concerns. After extensive
negotiation, we have the support of local environmentalists,
developers, recreationalists, the Clark County Commission,
Governor Miller, local utility provides, and the
Administration. I understand that there are some very minute
issues that still need some tinkering, which I am sure Mr.
Millenbach will explain, but I am extremely optimistic that we
can reach an agreement that accommodates everyone involved.
As some may know, or may not know, Las Vegas, Nevada, is
the fastest growing metropolitan city in the country. In
addition, 87 percent of the State of Nevada is federally owned.
This dueling combination puts enormous pressure on local
elected officials, BLM officials, and, most importantly, the
current residents who are forced to shoulder the price tag of
this development. H.R. 449 provides the essential mechanisms
to:
(1) allow this growth to occur in an orderly fashion by
allowing local officials a seat at the table;
(2) ensure this growth occurs without neglecting the
environment by funneling revenue for acquisition of
environmentally sensitive lands and to our existing Federal
facilities, such as Lake Tahoe, Red Rock and Lake Mead;
(3) provides money to offset a $1.7 billion water delivery
system for Las Vegas;
And finally, H.R. 449 helps future generations by providing
some revenue for education.
Although the BLM has made dramatic improvements to the way
they handle the land exchange process, as evidenced by the way
the recent and current exchanges appear to have been handled,
however, the process doesn't work to give the fairest value of
the land in a fast-growing area like Las Vegas. Therefore, an
open, fair market auction process will best serve the American
people by ensuring the most revenue to purchase and improve our
favorite environmental areas.
I believe very strongly that the Ensign/Bryan bill will be
model legislation for other cities as they experience increased
rates of growth. I am looking forward to hearing the comments
of our two panels of witnesses and other members of the
Subcommittee and look forward to working with my colleagues on
its expeditious passage.
[Statement of Hon. Jim Hansen follows:]
Statement of Hon. James V. Hansen, a U.S. Representative from Utah; and
Chairman, Subcommittee on National Parks and Public Lands
H.R. 449, the legislation before the Subcommittee today, is
a critical component in providing for the orderly disposal of
federal lands in Clark County, Nevada. It builds on the
existing Santini-Burton Act and enhances the best elements of
that Act.
As the witnesses and Mr. Ensign will testify, the Las Vegas
valley has experienced unprecedented growth over the past
decade. Driven by sustained employment growth, Clark County is
among the fastest growing area in the United States. It is my
understanding that in 1994 alone, local government issued
25,570 residential building permits.
As Clark County is surrounded be federal land, the
phenomenal growth in the Las Vegas area has triggered the
greatest demand for public land exchanges and other realty
transactions in the BLM's history. In the last decade, the BLM
has privatized approximately 17,380 acres of land in Clark
County. The privatization of these federal lands has an
enormous impact upon Clark County and the other units of local
government.
As someone who got his start in politics as a city
councilman, I understand the needs and concerns of local
government. It does not take much thought to understand the
many impacts caused by privatization of federal lands in such
large amounts. The primary impacts include the need for
installation of new infrastructure, alteration of natural
growth patterns, increased pressure on shrinking water
supplies, and additional demands placed upon all public service
providers.
Additionally, the need for local governments to plan for
growth is paramount. Without a mechanism to provide for the
orderly disposal of federal lands in this valley, we will
continue to face what amounts to a crisis. I applaud
Congressman Ensign and the many people involved with the
creation of this legislation. This bill will allow for the
disposal of excess federal lands in a planned and careful
manner.
At this time, I would also like to acknowledge the efforts
of the Bureau of Land Management. I am amazed at the many
compliments given to the local BLM in Las Vegas for their fine
work. I realize that Mr. Millenbach and the BLM in Washington
have concerns with portions of this bill, but I appreciate
their willingness to try and work them out in a spirit of
comity. We came very close to enacting this legislation last
Congress and I am hopeful we will succeed during the 105th
Congress.
I want to thank each of our distinguished witnesses today
for their testimony and look forward to hearing from each of
them.
Mr. Ensign. Again, I would like to welcome my two
colleagues from the State of Nevada, our senior senator,
Senator Harry Reid, and our junior senator, Dick Bryan. Let us
start. Go ahead and start with our senior senator, Senator
Reid.
STATEMENT OF HON. HARRY REID, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF
NEVADA
Senator Reid. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the
committee, Las Vegas is part of Clark County. And as has been
mentioned already, this county has seen phenomenal growth over
the past couple of decades, especially the last ten years. And
the last several years it has been the fastest growing county
in the nation. This influx of new residents has put great
pressure on the infrastructure of the entire region, and also
the recreational assets we have.
While no one thing can solve all the problems associated
with this burgeoning growth, we can take steps to control it.
This legislation makes important steps in this direction by
providing for the orderly disposal of public lands in Southern
Nevada, providing for the acquisition of environmentally
sensitive lands in the State and providing a mechanism for
local governments to offset the costs associated with
development of these disposed Federal lands.
The distribution of the proceeds from Federal land sales
will give the Federal Government 85 percent for the acquisition
of environmentally sensitive lands in Nevada. The State will
use their five percent share for general educational programs,
while the remaining ten percent will benefit the Las Vegas
Valley water treatment programs, water infrastructure
development, parks, and trails.
As we approach the 21st Century, we have to be cognizant of
our future generations and the legacy that we will leave. Any
growth that occurs in a community must have coordinated
planning. And this legislation, will greatly assist with this
process, providing for more local government involvement. It
allows State, county and city governments to manage costs
associated with the development of these lands by adding to the
State's education fund, as well as assisting with future
development of Southern Nevada water systems and even the
airport infrastructure. It will also assist us in determining
and preserving the wild and scenic places for future
generations, which are of value not just to the residents of
Clark County but all taxpayers in all parts of our country.
This bill has the bipartisan support of Nevada's
Congressional delegation. It enjoys broad-based support in
Clark County and support throughout the State of Nevada. This
bill has a long history and can trace its genesis back to
Congressman Jim Santini, the author of the Burton-Santini Act.
We have spent now about $100 million of money from the Burton-
Santini fund to buy, principally in the Lake Tahoe area,
environmentally sensitive land. Former Congressman Jim Bilbray
continued this legislative process when he established the
public land forum which was the basis for this legislation that
we have. After he left, we stepped in and developed this
legislation. So it is from these efforts and those of the four
members of the Congressional delegation here that this bill
before us has evolved in the fashion that it has.
I encourage this committee to move this legislation forward
as quickly as possible. We have recently received the assurance
from Chairman Frank Murkowski in the Senate that he will work
with us to move this legislation in the Senate in an
expeditious manner. We have also been in contact with the
Administration, and Senator Bryan and I feel we have their
support and assurance that this legislation will move through
the Senate quickly with their help. Thank you.
Mr. Ensign. Senator Bryan.
STATEMENT OF HON. RICHARD BRYAN, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE
OF NEVADA
Senator Bryan. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I look
forward to working with you and Senator Reid and Congressman
Gibbons and this committee in processing this legislation as we
did in the previous Congress. Both you, Mr. Chairman, and my
senior colleague, Senator Reid, have mentioned the growth. That
is the operative word in Southern Nevada.
For those on the panel who may not be familiar with
Southern Nevada, our growth has truly been extraordinary. It
has been the fastest growing community in the country. 20,000
new homes alone were built in Las Vegas Valley in the last
year. And in terms of school and educational needs, it is
estimated that we will require a new elementary school every 30
days, every 30 days for the next five years, to keep pace with
the 12,000 new students who are entering the Clark County
school system each year. That school system today is among the
top ten largest school systems in America.
Mr. Chairman and members of this committee, the legislation
before us today, in my judgment, is a critical component of
Southern Nevada's long-term plan to effectively manage the
growth in the Las Vegas valley. Each time the BLM transfers
land into private ownership, it has important consequences for
the local government entity that must provide infrastructure
and services to that land.
The Bureau of Land Management controls in excess of 20,000
acres of land throughout the Las Vegas Valley. Consequently,
unlike most communities, land use planning decisions are not
solely made at the local level. The BLM is an important player
in the local use planning process. This legislation would
strengthen the partnership between the BLM and local government
and improve upon the current land use planning process.
The BLM's primary method of disposing of land in the Las
Vegas Valley is through land exchanges, and has been the
subject of much attention over the past year. I happen to share
the belief that land exchanges serve a valuable public purpose.
The Federal Government disposes of land it no longer needs in
exchange for land that is worthy of public ownership. The
disagreements between the BLM and exchange proponents over
appraisal methodology and value determinations are often the
cause of protracted delays in the land exchange process. And
that process itself has become extremely complex.
Because of the dynamic nature of the real estate market in
the Las Vegas Valley, any delay in the exchange process itself
can cause the appraisals to become outdated before the
transaction is effectively closed. So as you know, Mr.
Chairman, the legislation that we have all crafted that is
before us today would make two significant improvements over
the current land exchange process. Number one, it would allow
local land managers to take a more proactive role in Federal
land disposal decisions. That is the partnership to which I
alluded earlier in my testimony. And secondly, it would
institute a competitive bidding process to ensure that the
disposal of BLM land yields the highest return or true fair
market value for the American taxpayers.
There are currently over 25 land exchange proposals pending
in the BLM's Las Vegas office. Some are clearly in the public
interest. Others may not be. The vast majority of these
proposals are intrastate exchanges, meaning the BLM has the
authority to process them without Congressional action. This
legislation would open the process to allow anyone who wishes
to bid on BLM land to do so in a competitive sale, and it would
eliminate the need to enter into the protracted appraisal
negotiations over selected BLM lands that so often bogs down
and becomes a cumbersome part of the exchange process.
This legislation stands for the same proposition as the
current land exchange process, namely that the sale of Federal
lands in the Las Vegas Valley should be used as a means of
protecting environmentally sensitive land throughout the State
of Nevada and enhancing the use of public land for recreational
purposes, as this legislation indicates, primarily in Southern
Nevada. The legislation also contains important provisions for
local government. Most importantly, as Senator Reid has pointed
out, it builds upon the successful framework adopted in 1980
with the Santini-Burton legislation, which has been very
important in acquiring environmentally sensitive land in the
Lake Tahoe Basin.
I would like to also highlight another important provision
of this bill which relates to affordable housing. This
legislation would make affordable housing an authorized use
under the Recreation and Public Purposes Act. There is a
tremendous need in both Las Vegas and in Reno for land to
develop affordable housing projects. I am aware that the BLM
has some concerns with how this provision is currently drafted,
but it is my hope that a compromise can be reached to meet this
need, because affordable housing increasingly has become a
critical concern for many of our fellow Nevadans.
Mr. Chairman, I believe this legislation will make great
strides toward improving public land management policy in
Southern Nevada, and I look forward to working with you and
your committee in any way that we can to facilitate its
passage. This is important legislation. And I thank you again
for giving us the opportunity to appear before you and testify
today.
Mr. Ensign. Before we open it up for questions, I would
like to recognize the members and the ranking member in the
order in which they appear and other members for opening
statements. Mr. Faleomavaega.
STATEMENT OF HON. ENI FALEOMAVAEGA, A U.S. DELEGATE FROM
AMERICAN SAMOA
Mr. Faleomavaega. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I certainly
would like to commend you for taking the leadership in
introducing H.R. 449 and in calling Mr. Gibbons.
I certainly would like to also offer my personal welcome to
our distinguished senators from the State of Nevada, Senator
Reid and Senator Bryan, for their fine testimonies before the
Subcommittee. I look forward to working with the members of the
Nevada delegation and hopefully that we can resolve some of the
concerns that have been raised by the Bureau of Land
Management.
I believe there was a markup taking place in the last
Congress before the Subcommittee, but we never proceeded to go
forward because of some of the concerns raised by the
Administration. I do hope that we will be able to resolve
these, what I consider differences that can be resolved. And I
certainly look forward in working with you, Mr. Chairman, and
the members of this Subcommittee to see if we can get this
legislation going.
Mr. Ensign. Well, thank you. And for those of you who don't
know Mr. Faleomavaega, I experienced this morning he is quite
the accomplished ukulele player. And some of you should
experience that some day.
Mr. Duncan.
STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN DUNCAN, A U.S. REPRESENTATIVE FROM
TENNESSEE
Mr. Duncan. Well, Mr. Chairman, I would agree with you. I
heard that also. I thought that was great this morning.
Let me just say I am from Tennessee and I can tell you that
there are many people in other parts of the country that think
it is just crazy that the Federal Government owns 87 percent of
this State. I read recently that the Federal Government now
owns 30 percent of the land in this country and that State and
local and quasi-governmental units own another 20 percent. And
unfortunately, I guess, that has been growing by leaps and
bounds in recent years. I will tell you when you decrease the
supplies of private land, in this case, it increases the price.
And if we keep on--if we had kept on heading in the direction
that we were headed, I think home ownership would have gotten
out of reach for a lot of young families in this country.
So I hope that--frankly, I would like to see us sell a
great deal of the land in your State and these other federally
dominated States to private individuals so that lower income
and middle income people can have a chance to buy a home.
Senator Bryan mentioned that affordable housing is becoming a
real problem in and around Las Vegas. I think we should sell
some of these rural lands also, but I think and hope it
sounds--this bill sounds like it is a step in the right
direction. So thank you very much for coming here to show your
support today. Thank you very much.
Mr. Ensign. Mr. Gibbons, opening statement.
Mr. Gibbons. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Senators, welcome.
Again, thank you for your participation here today. There has
been expressed concern by some of our Federal agents, in
particular the Secretary of Interior, the BLM, over the role of
local governments in the decision about the disposal of some of
these lands. And I would just like to ask whether you feel
that----
Mr. Ensign. Mr. Gibbons, before we get into questions we
are just doing opening statements right now and then we will
do----
Mr. Gibbons. Sorry, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Ensign. That is OK.
Mr. Gibbons. I was leaping ahead of you.
Mr. Ensign. That is OK. Ms. Christian-Green, do you have an
opening statement?
Ms. Christian-Green. Good morning, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.
I don't have an opening statement. I would just like to say
welcome to Senator Reid and Senator Bryan.
Mr. Ensign. At this time we will open it up for questions.
Mr. Faleomavaega. I don't have any specific questions for
the two senators. Your statement is well taken that we should
proceed. I would like to hear the Administration's point of
view as to some of the problems that they think they might have
by moving this piece of legislation. I really would like to
again thank our two senators for being here this afternoon.
Senator Reid. Mr. Chairman, if I could just respond to
Congressman Duncan briefly. We really appreciate your attitude
and support for this legislation, but in Nevada we have over
the last couple of decades conveyed a lot of land from the
Federal Government into the private sector. The third largest
city in Nevada, Henderson, is now a city of about 150,000
people. And the reason is, because there were two large
transfers of Federal land to the city of Henderson and then to
the private sector. And they have been able to build many, many
homes. It is part of a bedroom community. We recently
transferred 200,000 acres to Boulder City?
Senator Bryan. Yes.
Senator Reid. Again, about 200,000 acres to the city of
Boulder City, Nevada. Also Carlin, Mesquite, and in other
places in Nevada, there have been transfers of public land into
the private sector. And so it is not as if we haven't been
doing anything. It is just that there is a lot more that needs
to be done. And we appreciate your observations of some of the
problems we have.
Mr. Duncan. Well, Senator Reid, I hope you didn't take what
I said as criticism, because----
Senator Reid. I certainly did not.
Mr. Duncan. I think that is great that you put those lands
into the private sector and put them on the tax rolls and so
forth. I think that is wonderful. What concerns me is there is
still actually far too much of your land that is owned by the
Federal Government for no good reason.
Senator Reid. Most people in Nevada agree with you.
Mr. Duncan. And also the same thing that you've just
mentioned is not happening nearly enough in other parts of the
country. So thank you very much.
Mr. Ensign. Mr. Gibbons.
Mr. Gibbons. Am I allowed to ask questions now, Mr.
Chairman?
Mr. Ensign. Yes. You are recognized to ask questions.
Mr. Gibbons. I appreciate that and apologize for
overstepping the bounds of decorum by asking a question in my
opening statement.
Senators, as I started out asking there has been some
concern expressed earlier about the involved local communities,
both county and city government, with regard to disposal of
certain lands around this proposal. Can you help this committee
understand better why that is necessary? You might want to
touch a little bit on the Santini-Burton process which has a
similar condition in it. Why in terms of infrastructure do
these----
Senator Reid. Senator Bryan.
Senator Bryan. Yes, if I may, Congressman Gibbons, you are
familiar with the Santini-Burton legislation. The Santini-
Burton legislation actually confers a veto power, as you know,
on local government. As we were processing this legislation in
the last Congress, a concern was raised by the Secretary of
Interior and others, and so the language that we crafted
represents a compromise that we thought was acceptable. And I
invite your attention to page 6, which defines the selection
process.
And just very briefly without reading it, the Secretary and
the unit of local government whose jurisdiction lands referred
to in this section are located shall jointly select lands to be
offered for sale or exchange under this section. It was our
hope, Congressman, that that would be acceptable in this
Congress. I know there have been some concerns raised. We do
want to empower local governments to be a part of this
decisionmaking process. This is an essential part of the long-
term planning.
In your Congressional district in the outskirts of the
metropolitan Las Vegas area, as you know, enormous growth has
occurred. And every decision that is made affects those local
entities, whether it is the city of Las Vegas or the County of
Clark, the city of Henderson, or the city of North Las Vegas.
Those have tremendous impacts, so we want that to be a process
in which the local government entity is fully involved. And
that is a very, very important part of this legislation. So I
hope that we can assuage any concerns that they have.
I might just add parenthetically, I am not aware--and the
legislation, I think, we enacted in 1980. I am not aware that
there has ever been a problem in terms of the local government
interface with the Federal Government on the Santini-Burton
legislation.
Senator Reid. Congressman Gibbons, I would just add to that
the problem is very evident, what has happened in the last ten
to 15 years. The Federal Government picks a piece of land that
they are going to put into the private sector and then local
government has to construct the infrastructure to that
property. And it has been very, very debilitating to especially
Clark County, even buying the rights-of-way to put in
utilities. And that is one of the key parts of this
legislation.
We hope that even legislation is not necessary. We have
been meeting with the Secretary and we believe that he has the
power to do that administratively, the Bureau has the power to
do that administratively and it is not necessary in this
legislation. But in case it is not done by the time we get this
legislation passed, it is in this legislation, which will
relieve a tremendous burden to the county and its subdivision,
the water district, et cetera. So that if there is a piece of
land put into the private sector, the local government is in
effect cut some slack.
Mr. Gibbons. Mr. Chairman, one final question, if I may, to
the Senators. Thank you very much for that light response.
What is the status currently on the Senate side of this
bill? Is it up for a hearing? Is it going to be marked up? If
you could just help us know the timeframe.
Senator Reid. We wrote a letter to Chairman Murkowski and
said we would very much like him to move this legislation as
quickly as possible. And he graciously responded in spite of
all the battles we are having with nuclear waste. He responded
by saying that he believed in the legislation. In the letter he
set forth reasons why. And he said that he would move upon this
just as quickly as possible. So we feel very good about this.
We also, in direct answer to your question that perhaps I
didn't answer as clearly as I should--and you will hear the
testimony from the Administration. We feel very good about the
Administration. We believe that they also think this is
necessary. As you know, there has been some land exchanges that
have gone forward that have created bad publicity. And as a
result of that, I think, the Secretary would also like to get
this resolved. There are a few exchanges, as you know, in the
pipeline now. And as Congressman Ensign indicated, it appears
that all the I's are being dotted and the t's crossed on those.
We need to move away from that and get a more deliberate
process. I am confident the Secretary believes that also.
Mr. Gibbons. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Ensign. Any other questions?
Mr. Faleomavaega. I do have a couple of questions to the
two senators. Is this land exchange a problem only in Las Vegas
in Clark County or is the State of Nevada encountering this
whole State----
Senator Reid. Congressman, the problem is that the most
valuable land is in the Las Vegas Valley, or Las Vegas
metropolitan area. So that is basically where the problem lies.
People want the land in Southern Nevada. They don't want it
other places. So that has created the problem.
Mr. Faleomavaega. What I am curious about is that--is there
also a potential for further settlement in other areas of the
State?
Senator Reid. Well, not to the degree as in the south. We
have, approximately, 90 percent of the people that live in the
metropolitan Reno and Las Vegas areas. People don't realize
that Nevada is the most urban State in the union, more urban
than New Jersey and New York and Texas. And we are very proud
of the industry we have in rural Nevada. We produce huge
amounts of gold, 7 million ounces last year. But even though it
creates a lot of jobs, in comparison to the heavily populated
areas of Reno and Las Vegas, there is not much in the way of
demand for land.
Mr. Faleomavaega. My sense of curiosity is raised in the
fact that Las Vegas was developed by--I think it was an
entrepreneur, if I am correct in my history. It was out in the
desert of nowhere.
Senator Reid. Well, the entrepreneur was Brigham Young.
Mr. Faleomavaega. Oh, I thought it was a Jewish fellow that
started the first casino and developed it. For whatever it was
historically in terms of Las Vegas in the earlier settlements,
I stand corrected, Senator. But what I am curious about is that
it seems to me that we take our western States in a piecemeal
fashion. And I am trying to develop a sense of why we didn't
just give half of what is federally owned by the Federal
Government to the State of Nevada and let them take care of it?
Senator Reid. Well, there are many who feel that way. There
are others who feel that we need a real orderly process to do
that. This legislation is a step in that direction. Just to put
all the land up to bid would not help us, as Congressman Duncan
thinks it would--it would not allow the land to go to the
moderate and low income people. It would go the highest bidder
and all the pretty places would be taken. This legislation is
really a step, I think, in the direction which you would like
to go and what I have heard from the committee. It would really
allow us to move forward, and auction land. And we would be
able to, with the proceeds from that money, buy environmentally
sensitive land in the Lake Tahoe area and other areas around
the State of Nevada which are vitally important to bring into
the public sector even though they are small in acreage.
Mr. Faleomavaega. So I suppose that 20 years from now we
won't have to go through this exercise again. This is what I am
concerned about.
Senator Reid. Well, hopefully this legislation 20 years
from now will still be in effect and we will be operating in
the same manner.
Senator Bryan. If I might just amplify the response, this
is an extension of the concept of the Santini-Burton
legislation that was enacted in 1980. And then, as now,
although to a lesser extent, the metropolitan Las Vegas area
was experiencing growth. And so there were parcels of BLM land
that were in the immediately impacted growth area that it was
decided that they ought to be disposed of. And those proceeds
were used to acquire environmentally sensitive lands up at Lake
Tahoe. So that is kind of the background of this in terms of
how this concept evolved.
Now, of course, in the intervening period of years, the
growth has been even more substantial. To put this in some
context, in 1980 the State of Nevada's total population was
800,000. Today the entire State's population is slightly twice
that, a million six. But of the 1,600,000, the metropolitan Las
Vegas area has more than a million people. So, I mean, that is
really, as Senator Reid pointed out, that is really where this
growth and where the demand is occurring and where the impacts
that were expressed earlier about being able to provide
affordable housing. It is in the urban areas where the real
growth is occurring and we are having the difficulty. So this
will facilitate that process, we hope.
Mr. Faleomavaega. I am pleading ignorance here. I am just
curious. We conducted several atmospheric tests of our nuclear
testing program in Nevada. How many surrounding towns in that
area where we conducted these tests--is it further south of Las
Vegas?
Senator Reid. Congressman, we conducted about almost a
thousand nuclear tests at the Nevada test site. Most of them
were underground. There were some that were atmospheric. And
there are some towns that are close by, but not real close. Las
Vegas is about 90 to 100 miles away from the nearest test that
took place. What would you say, Beatty is about 40 miles?
Senator Bryan. Yes, but these atmospheric tests also
impacted those communities along the eastern part of Nevada and
in western Utah. These are the regions which benefitted from
the down-winder legislation Congress enacted several years ago.
Senator Reid. With the above-ground tests.
Senator Bryan. With the above ground during the atmospheric
testing days. And that would probably be out in our part of the
country, probably, Mesquite, Moapa Valley, that area, that
would be----
Senator Reid. Lincoln County.
Senator Bryan. Lincoln County.
Senator Reid. St. George.
Senator Bryan. Pioche, Panaca, Alamo.
Mr. Faleomavaega. I am sorry. I didn't mean to detract from
the line of questions, Mr. Chairman, but I am very, very
concerned about this in terms of the 1000 tests that were
conducted underground in Nevada. There have been no geological
surveys in terms of the aquifers being affected, some water
streams or any of that. You see, Senator, we conducted about 66
nuclear tests in the Marshall Islands in the early '50's, and
despite world protests we continued testing until we found out
that there was strontium 90 found in the milk products coming
out of Minnesota and Wisconsin. And that was the only reason
why we stopped our atmospheric testing program, supposedly for
scientific purposes. But, of course, being controlled by the
military there is more coming out of this whole thing.
And I am just very curious how safe are the residents of
Nevada of this mess that we have created there as far as
nuclear testing is concerned.
Senator Reid. There has been extensive tests conducted. It
surprises most people, but a very small percentage of the 1350
square miles that is the test site--that is only about two
percent of it is contaminated. Again, a very small area of the
test site is contaminated. Once they stopped the above-ground
nuclear tests, they were extremely careful. And out of the
hundreds and hundreds of tests they had, I think they have only
had venting at two or three tests over those years. And there
have been ongoing and are presently studies as to what effect
the underground tests have had with the aquifers. At this
stage, they haven't determined any effect.
Mr. Faleomavaega. So to your best opinion, Senator, the
expansion and the land exchange with BLM in Clark County and
Las Vegas, that the good residents of Nevada are going to be
safe and healthy for the next 100 years as far as the nuclear
dump site that----
Senator Reid. As long as they keep nuclear waste out of
Nevada, we will be in great shape.
Mr. Faleomavaega. Thank you, Senator. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
Mr. Ensign. I would like to thank both my colleagues from
the Senate, and especially Senator Reid for your last comment.
I think that it was very well timed, and the rest of the House
and the Senate should pay very close attention to that comment.
I would like to call the next panel up, Mat Millenbach,
Deputy Director for the Bureau of Land Management. We welcome
your testimony, and proceed as you will.
STATEMENT OF MAT MILLENBACH, DEPUTY DIRECTOR, BUREAU OF LAND
MANAGEMENT
Mr. Millenbach. Good morning, Mr. Chairman. It was good
seeing you on TV last night, too.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify on H.R. 449, the
Southern Nevada Public Land Management Act of 1997, regarding
land disposal in the Las Vegas Valley. The Department of the
Interior supports the concept behind this bill. We believe that
through continuing discussions with the bill's authors in the
House and the Senate, a final bill can be produced that would
receive the Administration's full endorsement.
I would like to summarize my statement and enter my entire
statement for the record.
H.R. 449 and its companion Senate bill, S.94, specifically
effect several thousand acres of public land in the Las Vegas
Valley, which are managed by the BLM. In recent years, the Las
Vegas Valley has become the fastest growing metropolitan region
in the country, and development has been influenced by the
presence of public lands in this area and vice versa. This bill
seeks to resolve the future of these public lands by requiring
BLM to sell, exchange or transfer public lands in the Las Vegas
Valley.
The intent of H.R. 449 is to capture the best qualities of
the BLM's land exchange goals, the Santini-Burton Act, and the
partnerships that have been developed with local government.
This bill provides for the disposal by sale or exchange of
certain federally owned BLM-managed lands within a limited area
of the Las Vegas Valley. Fifteen percent of the proceeds of
these land disposals would be distributed to local entities.
The balance of the funds would be used for the benefit of
natural resource management within Nevada for Federal land
acquisition, capital improvements, development of a multi-
species habitat conservation plan in Clark County, and the
development of recreation in natural areas within Clark County.
The bill also provides for the transfer of lands to Clark
County at no cost within the airport management area for
McCarran International Airport. Should those lands be sold or
leased, the United States would be paid 85 percent of the fair
market value received. The bill also includes a provision
allowing local government entities to select other lands needed
under the Recreation and Public Purposes Act prior to their
conveyance. Local and regional governmental entities may also
apply for rights-of-way for flood control and water treatment
purposes, which can be granted in perpetuity and at no cost.
Additionally, the Secretary is authorized to transfer the
Recreation and Public Purposes Act reversionary clause from one
parcel of land to another upon request by the owner of those
lands.
Nearly a year ago, the BLM acting Director, Mike Dombeck,
testified in opposition to an earlier version of this bill. At
that time Mr. Dombeck stated, ``while we support the goal of
disposing of certain lands within Las Vegas to accommodate the
city's growth, the Department strongly opposes this bill.'' He
pointed out that the earlier bill would divert huge amounts of
Federal resources and funds to local interests, offering a
windfall to a few at the expense of many. Since that hearing a
year ago, the Nevada delegation staffs have worked to resolve
many of the problems we identified with this bill as originally
introduced in the 104th Congress.
Since H.R. 449 was introduced in the House, and its
companion bill S.94, a number of technical issues have been
discussed and resolved between BLM and Congressional staffs.
Those details are unnecessary to pursue here, however there
remain a few issues that are as yet unresolved that need to be
remedied before the Administration can fully endorse the bill.
Several of these areas are outlined in detail in my written
statement, and they include the issue of consultation regarding
selection of the lands to be sold rather than joint selection
as specified in the bill, the conveyance of nearly 5000 acres
near the airport at no cost to Clark County, the expansion of
the Recreation and Public Purposes Act to allow for affordable
housing anywhere within Nevada, the waiver of environmental
laws for the conveyance of the youth activity facilities, and
the need to discuss the location of the Red Rock National
Conservation Area boundary modifications. The bill does not
specify those areas.
Mr. Chairman, we all recognize that a population explosion
is occurring in many western communities. Las Vegas has seen an
increased migration of people from Southern California and
large metropolitan areas in the East. Public lands can be part
of the solution and an effective land disposal program can
assist in orderly growth.
The BLM agrees that we need to move to dispose of much of
the urban lands in the Las Vegas area when appropriate. These
public lands should be disposed of in harmony with the needs of
the local jurisdiction. We also believe that all land disposal
must benefit both the American people and the local community
as well. This legislation provides a good framework to allow
for a fair approach to dealing with the situation in Las Vegas
area. The bill deals with disposal of public land using a
nearly identical boundary as developed in the BLM draft
resource management plan. With some additional fine tuning,
this bill will assist the BLM, local governments and the
citizens of Nevada and the United States. We would be happy to
work with the Nevada delegation to provide such a solution.
Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the opportunity to appear before
the Subcommittee today and discuss this bill, and I would be
glad to answer any questions you might have.
[Statement of Mat Millenbach may be found at end of
hearing.]
Mr. Ensign. Thank you, Mat. I have a few questions for you
before I open it up to other members. First I want to address
the youth activities, the little league--the 38.5 acres that
you have raised questions about, Sections 202 and 203 of FLPMA.
First of all, this Administration has supported waivers where
it suits their purposes. And in fact, the President last year
signed in the omnibus parks bill several waivers, all of which
were more serious than this and involved hundreds of thousands
of acres. The transfer of lands for youth activity, the Little
League Baseball, involves only 38.5 acres and has already been
identified for disposal under the BLM's own RMP and are subject
to the Recreation and Public Purposes Act.
I guess the question--does the Administration really object
to 38.5 acres going to Little League?
Mr. Millenbach. No, sir. It is a standard objection of the
Administration to exempt the lands from the provisions of, say,
the Endangered Species Act and so forth----
Mr. Ensign. What does the BLM think?
Mr. Millenbach. We support the transfer of the lands. We
would like to be able to do the required clearances and so
forth before that is done.
Mr. Ensign. I also want to address the question of joint
selection. First of all, we originally had veto power by the
local government. And we have compromised to joint selection.
And we know that BLM's position has been basically that the
county has zoning ordinances. And just as the county has
sometimes trouble saying no to zoning changes, the BLM has also
had trouble saying no to developers. And don't you think that
we need to be jointly working together here with the BLM and
the local government to work out the problems here, especially
dealing with some of these areas around the airport? It seems
that just the Federal Government doing it by itself is not
working. That is one of the reasons for the bill. It is one of
the fundamental reasons for the bill. It is not working the way
it is supposed to work, and that is the reason that we selected
this joint selection.
Mr. Millenbach. We believe that a consultation requirement
is entirely appropriate. My understanding is of this, and I
think you can probably ask the people from Las Vegas who are
going to testify in the next panel about this, but my
understanding is that our relationship between the local
governments in the Las Vegas Valley and our people in the Las
Vegas district office is actually very good. The difficulty
with the joint selection provision is that under our normal
land sale and other land disposal authorities under Federal
Land Policy and Management Act, what is envisioned there is a
consultation requirement. And if this bill were modified to
require that, we would be very comfortable with that.
Mr. Ensign. OK. Mr. Faleomavaega.
Mr. Faleomavaega. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Millenbach,
if I am correct, in your statement you are saying that the
Burton-Santini version is your baseline. Do you--is the BLM
still fully supportive of the Burton-Santini version?
Mr. Millenbach. The Burton-Santini? Yes, sir. The Burton-
Santini Act has worked out very well for us. We have been able
to sell lands in the Las Vegas area and buy environmentally
sensitive lands in the Lake Tahoe area using the 85/15 income
distribution. I think everybody has been very satisfied with
that and feel like it has worked out both in the Federal aspect
and the local aspect.
Mr. Faleomavaega. And it is your position that the Burton-
Santini version can still be workable in working out the
differences that you are----
Mr. Millenbach. Yes, sir.
Mr. Faleomavaega. [continuing]--the problem that you are
having now with the officials of Nevada? Is this your position?
My point here is that is there a different standard now that we
are applying in doing the land exchange or are you using the
Burton-Santini version as the basis of doing the land exchange?
Mr. Millenbach. We are using the Burton-Santini as the
basis for the 85/15 split. I know there is a difference between
the joint selection requirement of Burton-Santini and the
consultation requirement of the Federal Land Policy and
Management Act, which is our general land sale exchange.
Mr. Faleomavaega. So the proposed bill does not attempt to
change any of the basic principles underlined in the Burton-
Santini version?
Mr. Millenbach. It doesn't attempt to change the way that
the money is raised. It is raised through the sale of the
Federal lands through competitive sale. Those are both
consistent. The money is put into a fund for specific purposes
and then we are allowed to spend that money out of that fund
for those purposes. This does the same and we concur with that.
Mr. Faleomavaega. So you are saying that the BLM is more
than happy to work together with the Nevada delegation using
the Burton-Santini version as the basis and then see what
other----
Mr. Millenbach. Yes, sir.
Mr. Faleomavaega. [continuing]--sense of flexibility can be
fleshed out on the other provisions of the proposed bill?
Mr. Millenbach. Yes, sir, absolutely.
Mr. Faleomavaega. I noticed that you have got about five
areas of concern in your statement.
Mr. Millenbach. Yes, sir.
Mr. Faleomavaega. Can you point with any sense of priority
or do you consider every one of the five points or concerns of
equal weight? Are there some areas that perhaps it can be
worked out quickly, or is it going to take us another 200 years
to work these differences out?
Mr. Millenbach. Well, I hope not. The map of the Red Rock
National Conservation Area boundary, I think, is just a matter
of us sitting down and agreeing on the map. I saw your staff
was showing you a copy. And we are pretty comfortable with
that. We are much less comfortable with the use of the
Recreation and Public Purposes Act for affordable housing. We
think that is going to give us very substantial problems in the
future in terms of administering those lands if the uses are
changed after title is transferred. And we end up in a position
where we might have to revert title. Then what do we do with
these houses that are on the lands?
Mr. Faleomavaega. What would be your best estimate in terms
of a timeframe that perhaps we could get together and kind of
iron these things out by way of moving this legislation
forward?
Mr. Millenbach. We could start any time.
Mr. Faleomavaega. Fantastic. No, but my question is what
kind of a timeframe are we looking at, maybe another five
months or less or more or another two years till we--can this--
in other words, the five areas that you have expressed concern,
can it be workable, can it be solvable? Are there some areas
here that it is totally impossible, or is it--each of these
five areas of concern, can they be worked out?
Mr. Millenbach. I believe they can, yes, sir.
Mr Faleomavaega. All right, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank
you, Mr. Millenbach.
Mr. Ensign. Thank you. Just real quickly, how does the
joint selection in this bill differ from the joint selection
that is mentioned in Burton-Santini?
Mr. Millenbach. They are the same provision.
Mr. Ensign. They are the same provision, and because it was
fine before, why isn't it fine now?
Mr. Millenbach. It is inconsistent with the normal way we
sell lands and exchange lands. There is a consultation
requirement in the Federal Land Policy and Management Act that
requires us to coordinate our plans with local government.
Mr. Ensign. Right, but we have recognized that the normal
way we do things is not working, and that is one of the reasons
for this bill. And that is one of the reasons for joint
selection under Burton-Santini and one of the reasons for joint
selection under this current legislation. So it just puzzles me
why the Administration would have objections--it worked under
Burton-Santini, wouldn't you agree?
Mr. Millenbach. Yes, sir.
Mr. Ensign. OK, why wouldn't it work under this bill?
Mr. Millenbach. Well, it is a matter of consistency with
the normal way we do business. If we had consultation but not
joint selection, what that would require us to do is to work
with the local governments just the same as we do now to try to
come to some agreement on what that might be, but in the case
of a substantial disagreement or where we needed a tie breaker,
we still believe that it is the Federal Government's
responsibility to make decisions about Federal lands.
Mr. Ensign. Even though it worked under Burton-Santini,
with joint selection?
Mr. Millenbach. Yes, sir.
Mr. Ensign. You don't see any inconsistency in that?
Mr. Millenbach. I understand there is an inconsistency. I
just think that we believe that it would be more in keeping
with our Federal land disposal programs nationwide.
Mr. Ensign. In other words--let me change the way I asked
the question. If it is a certain procedure, consistent with a
certain procedure, but unless you can tell me why it didn't
work under Burton-Santini, then why shouldn't we do it the same
way under Burton-Santini, it doesn't seem to justify. Just
because that is the way it is normally done, if it works,
shouldn't we be about common sense government?
Mr. Millenbach. Yes, sir.
Mr. Ensign. This seems like common sense.
Mr. Millenbach. It has--well, let me try to----
Mr. Ensign. Let me ask you something first before you go--
just to get your mind set. Have you ever lived in an area like
what we are talking about? Have you ever dealt with local
government, lived in an area that is growing like Las Vegas
that has so much Federal land, that has these kinds of
problems, so you could understand what local governments are
telling you? I am not a local government person. I have never
been involved in local government, but I know what my local
government people are telling me and why they need this joint
selection, why they think it is so important to have this joint
selection and why Burton-Santini included it in their bill.
Mr. Millenbach. The first--no, I haven't lived in an area
like Las Vegas. I have lived in mostly smaller towns, except
for here. You know, the rationale is that the Federal
Government has responsibility to dispose of the public lands.
And I think for us to allow--give somebody else that
responsibility would be inconsistent with what our overall
legislation provides for. I will admit to you it has worked
very well, Santini-Burton. There have not been glitches, and I
attribute that to the efforts of the local government people in
the Las Vegas area, Clark County people, city of Las Vegas and
so forth, and our people in the district have been able to work
very well with each other over the years. That is my
understanding. And because of that, there has been no problems
with this provision of the bill.
Mr. Ensign. And I think that we have outstanding people in
the BLM currently. We are going to have them in the future. We
are going to have outstanding people locally, and I would
submit to you and I would implore the Administration to
reconsider its position on this joint selection, that this will
work just like it worked under Burton-Santini. So, you know,
when we are negotiating over the next couple of weeks I would
implore the Administration to rethink its position on this.
Mr. Gibbons.
Mr. Gibbons. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to delve
just a little deeper into these issues of joint consultation
versus--urban consultation versus joint selection. Under
consultation, is the county or local government planning ever
taken into consideration before the government, the Federal
Government, decides on which property they are going to
release?
Mr. Millenbach. Yes, it is.
Mr. Gibbons. Before you do that, or is it your decision to
release this property and then you will talk to them?
Mr. Millenbach. It is kind of a two-step process. The local
governments, they have their land use plans. And when we do our
general resource management planning, which identifies the
broader area that would be disposed of, the requirement of law
is that we consult with the local jurisdictions to make sure
that our resource management plans are consistent with their
plans.
Mr. Gibbons. Now if county or local government disagreed
under your consultation plan to release Federal lands, for
example, because of their infrastructure needs, would they have
the ability to say no to your process and your plans, change
it?
Mr. Millenbach. No, sir. The resource management planning
is delegated down to the Secretary of the Interior, and he
retains the authority to make the final decision.
Mr. Gibbons. So only veto power under joint selection would
allow county and local government participation in the decision
for their planning purposes versus consultation?
Mr. Millenbach. They would still have the ability to
consult and be consulted.
Mr. Gibbons. Would they still have the veto power under
consultation?
Mr. Millenbach. No, sir.
Mr. Gibbons. Thank you.
Mr. Ensign. Ms. Christian-Green.
Ms. Christian-Green. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have a
question primarily for my information. There is an issue over
the noise, airport noise abatement area.
Mr. Millenbach. Yes, ma'am.
Ms. Christian-Green. And in your testimony you refer to a
memorandum of agreement. In that memorandum of agreement, was
the 4600 acres agreed to as what was needed by the State of
Nevada for airport noise abatement?
Mr. Millenbach. Yes, ma'am. That is my understanding. There
is an existing memorandum of agreement whereby we have agreed
not to dispose of public lands that are within this defined
area on the map. What this bill would do would transfer the
lands within that boundary to the airport authority.
Ms. Christian-Green. And I just want to reecho the
sentiments of our Chairman and other colleagues on the issue of
joint selection. As a delegate from one of the territories,
that is an issue that we understand. And I want to support the
Chairman's remarks on that.
Mr. Ensign. Any other members wish to inquire? Mr. Vento.
Mr. Vento. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The normal course of
events for Burton-Santini has a dedicated purpose for the fund
to buy forest land. So this obviously opens it up, the 85
percent at least, to multiple purposes. Now those purposes are
all in the State of Nevada. And the issue here, of course, is
that the sale of State lands is usually going back to the
treasury, is that correct?
Mr. Millenbach. Yes, sir. All but four percent.
Mr. Vento. All but four percent, which is kept for----
Mr. Millenbach. Well, I believe it goes back to local
government.
Mr. Vento. I didn't quite hear your answer.
Mr. Millenbach. It goes back to local government.
Mr. Vento. It goes back to local government, so there is a
small distribution here for administrative or other procedures.
But in a land State like Nevada, because of the unusual public
ownership with the deeds, you are actually taking the funds
here on a non-appropriated basis and putting them back into a
special fund for Nevada. Do you have any funds like that in
other States that are similar to this other than the Burton-
Santini example, which we know is for a designated purpose?
Mr. Millenbach. Not that I can think of right now. I would
have to follow up on that. I don't believe we do.
Mr. Vento. Well, I think it is useful. I think it is an
interesting concept and one that has worked for this particular
purpose. I think that as you look at public land States, though
this may be an answer in terms of trying to deal with and
enhance some of the public lands, like it is your intention by
repairing areas of Nevada. Many of the BLM lands do not have,
as an example, the wetlands associated pieces of the ecosystem,
is that right, Mr. Millenbach?
Mr. Millenbach. Yes, sir. We think that there is a big
advantage to this idea of establishment of a fund. What it does
is allows us to buy these environmentally sensitive lands near
the recreational areas such as the Spring Hill Recreation Area
near Las Vegas, repair areas near Clark--in Clark County and
other areas throughout the State. It simplifies our process.
And I think it will really make it a lot more efficient. The
objectives of the bill that the Chairman stated this morning
are very well taken, and we agree with them within the
Department. Our difficulty has more to do with some of the
details of the bill. And of course in the past it has been--we
have not been able to get OMB agreement to set up a special
fund, so we have been working very hard with the Office of
Management and Budget to get an exception to the Budget
Enforcement Act that would allow us to set up this fund and
then----
Mr. Vento. Which we have with Burton-Santini?
Mr. Millenbach. That is correct.
Mr. Vento. Well, I expect that that is going to be a
problem, at least with the appropriation issue.
Mr. Millenbach. Well, we are making pretty good progress
with OMB.
Mr. Vento. Well, I would be very interested to follow on.
And obviously the purpose--I guess we would all like to review
those purposes. This sort of represents the particular
interests of Nevada. I don't think it is too bad. I think that
it is within reason.
The joint selection issue is an interesting process. But I
think that in cases where there is disagreement, one ought to
have an opportunity, in my view, just for the benefit of the
members, to go to resolve this in terms of being able to come
up with a decision. You need to work with the local governments
and the Clark County government in terms of where they are
going to put in a water service, where they are going to have
development. And so I understand that it is appropriate.
This gets back to this other question I had. And that is
when I visited the area some years ago, as you recall--I don't
know if you were along on that visit or not or who it was from
BLM, but as I recall, there was, of course, a lot of this very
desirable land. But there were also some small tracts of land.
How does this deal with that particular problem? You have the
mixed ownership of this land that is isolated. I just might
comment to my colleagues that never have visited the site very
often, these sites have things dumped on them. They are public.
They are not surveyed. There are all sorts of problems with
them.
Mr. Ensign, we haven't talked about it, Mr. Chairman at
some point I would like to, because these small tracts are our
responsibility. These small tracts of land that don't have
water. They are generally surrounded by private land. I don't
know what the actual situation would be. From a practical
standpoint, it represents a problem.
Mr. Millenbach. Well, I think to the extent that this bill
allows us to sell these smaller tracts of property, I think, is
very advantageous.
Mr. Vento. Are you barred from doing that? You are not
barred from selling it right now, are you?
Mr. Millenbach. That is correct. We could sell any of it
under our existing authority. We could exchange it under our
existing authority. I think one of the problems with exchanging
these smaller tracts, though, it is much more difficult for us
to put together an exchange package that would be of interest
to a subdivision developer or something like that with those
small properties.
Mr. Vento. Well I have a simple mind and I would like to
see certain blocks of land cleared and clear up responsibility.
I am sure you would, as well, because having responsibility for
land and then having it turn into a sort of temporary dump--
someone throws trash on it or whatever happens to it. It
represents a serious problem with regards to where we are
going. So I would try to look and see if there is some solution
here that would facilitate the consolidation of these lands in
that area and then deal with that. I know the survey costs
greater than the value of some of this land because it doesn't
have water and so forth associated. I am correct in that, am I
not, Mr. Millenbach?
Mr. Millenbach. Yes, sir, it is--they are not very
convenient for us to have to administer. And again, I think
this bill would be very helpful in dealing with that, because
it would allow us to sell off a small piece of property, put
the proceeds into----
Mr. Vento. Well, there is an incentive here. That is true,
it seems to me that the easier things to sell are those that
have immediate economic value. The value of some of these
tracts might not be as significant.
Mr. Ensign. Mr. Vento, if I----
Mr. Vento. I would be happy to yield.
Mr. Ensign. Just to address that problem, actually, almost
every piece of land in Las Vegas Valley right now has value. If
you are in the Las Vegas Valley, you understand. I don't care
if it is a two-acre piece of property or a one-acre piece of
property or whatever, if it is in the Las Vegas Valley right
now, there is access or there will be access and within the
boundaries on the map that is over there. What we have tried to
do with this is to--if somebody could display----
Mr. Vento. No, I know. I have already seen it.
Mr. Ensign. OK. If somebody could move the map into
position over there. One of the things that we have tried to
do, we are concerned about growing outside of a boundary. We
wanted to establish kind of a boundary that this is what the
Las Vegas Valley is going to be and it is not going to be
outside this boundary. And so everything within that is
developable, but outside it is not. So we are not going to be
going out into these various areas. So even those small tracts
of land within that, small developers, people that maybe want
to build a home on it, you know, they like that piece of land.
The biggest problem now--the reason it is dumped on, that land,
is because it is publicly owned. And private people have a
tendency to look out for their land a little more than public
ones.
Mr. Vento. Try to understand that there is some of the
public land that is very desirable that has construction
material and so forth dumped on it. Unfortunately it persists
there. What I am talking about are small tracts and homesteads
that are to the, if I remember, the west and south, Mr.
Millenbach.
And these sites don't have the water. They have wells but
they don't have water rights. They don't have access. I think
we have some maps that we had available a few years ago when I
was there. And I would like to get into the small tracts issue
and see what we can do. It is just that I would like to see it
consolidated. I don't think they have quite the desirability
because they are small tracts. Developers can't build the
developments on them. And there are some practical problems
with them, as I said. And, you know, it certainly may be that
one of our goals--my time has expired.
I wanted to ask a little bit about the Recreation and
Public Purposes Act. I agree with you on the policy issue. One
of the problems with the policy is the fact that it is
innovative use. And I work with policy issues in Congress a
lot. I like to see something, but it is the oversight problem.
And the oversight problem deals generally with the Recreation
and Public Purposes Act. And I am aware that there are some
controversies over the nature of some of the public purposes,
even in BLM lands in the Las Vegas Valley. Isn't that correct,
Mr. Millenbach?
Mr. Millenbach. Yes, sir.
Mr. Vento. And so I think the issue is rather than take on
these tasks, this is one that if you don't have now it's very
difficult to dodge the requirement. So there may be a different
way that this could be accomplished in terms of if this water
policy was going to be in public ownership or other means, is
that correct?
Mr. Millenbach. Yes, the difficulty comes with the
reversionary clause that is a part of those patents, and then
the requirement that if the title changes or there is a change
in use of the property, then the title reverts back to the
Federal Government. So then we end up being stuck with, you
know, somebody's house on a piece of property that has reverted
back to us. Then what do we do from there? So----
Mr. Vento. It is an impossible situation. Monitoring it and
then the legal process that you have to go through to deal with
enforcement, so that for all practical purposes this is not--I
mean, I can understand the social goal that is desirable, but I
think that how this is structured, I think, is--you may correct
me.
I was paying attention to the discussion with the Chairman
with regards to the Little League Baseball. We are all in favor
of Little League Baseball. I think the issue--the incidence of
the environmental waivers that existed in the omnibus park
bill, I would say was probably boilerplate language that dealt
simply with the transfer of it, not necessarily with the
ultimate use. And what you are dealing with here, I am sure
that this bill will have in it NEPA waivers, other waivers that
will facilitate the transfer. But I think what you are asking
for here is an exception to the absolute end use of what you
are going to do with it. I don't know if that is reasonable or
not. We may have done some of that in the omnibus bill.
Mr. Ensign. It is still subject to the Recreation and
Public Purposes Act, the use.
Mr. Vento. Oh, no, I understand the use issue, but I think
that what you are seeking is waiver from the Endangered Species
Act or a waiver from NEPA or a waiver of other things. If it is
incident to the transfer, I don't know that there is an
objection to that. Is that correct, Mr. Millenbach?
Mr. Millenbach. The----
Mr. Vento. In other words, it shouldn't have to go through
NEPA if you are--in terms of this legislation for you to
transfer some of this land under this law.
Mr. Millenbach. The way the act is worded now is that it
would exempt us from NEPA and the Endangered Species Act, and
so forth.
Mr. Vento. Well, this was a standard waiver. You know, that
is a standard boilerplate waiver language--you are objecting to
that. But, I think that this goes beyond that in terms of
waivers for specific purpose.
Mr. Millenbach. Yes, except that this is already designated
by the BLM for disposal. This land is designated already for
disposal.
Mr. Vento. Yes, but, you would not, if you were going to
put a factory on it, you wouldn't necessarily exempt that
factory from every environmental requirement----
Mr. Ensign. Right, but----
Mr. Vento. [continuing]--that exists with regard to the
Endangered Species Act.
Mr. Ensign. If it is already designated for disposal and it
is subject to the Recreation and Public Purposes Act, I think
that you have addressed those problems.
Mr. Vento. Well, the Recreation and Public Purposes Act I
don't know that the----
Mr. Ensign. You can't put a factory on that.
Mr. Vento. No, you put the little league baseball on, but I
don't know what their spikes might do to the desert tortoise. I
mean, they well might be there. I know they are definitely
where my brother is. But I think there is a difference. I don't
know that, in this case that this is--I don't know what the
owner's requirement would be--you have to obviously have a
demonstration. If there is not a big problem, then they don't
need the waiver from the Endangered Species Act and some of the
other environmental laws. What you're saying is that you feel
that under the Recreation and Public Purposes Act you have
already gone through the environmental waiver process? They
have satisfied those concerns, is that what you are saying?
Mr. Ensign. What we are saying is we are trying to save
some of the bureaucratic process, so we can get the fields
built. You know, you can take four years to do the
environmental----
Mr. Vento. I think you have to demonstrate that. Maybe the
additional witnesses today can fill us in on some of the
details. Unfortunately we all have to leave, but I appreciate
the Administration's work on this issue. And we will be paying
close attention to this bill as it moves through. I tried to do
so last time at the end of the session; I do have an interest
in the area and it sounds like you are a long way down the road
with regard to it. We look forward to working with you,
especially on the small tracts issue that are quite essential.
Thank you.
Mr. Ensign. Thank you. Just before I dismiss you, Mat, let
me just address one last thing. And that has to do with the
objection to the money being used like at Lake Mead. You know,
we have a backlog for the repairs and maintenance of Lake Mead
this year of $203 million. Five wastewater treatment facilities
violate county codes out there. And what is wrong with using
some of this money to do that when the Administration really
hasn't made it a top priority in the appropriations bills to do
that? You know, we are just trying to come up with, here is a
source of funds, maybe we can use it for this.
Mr. Millenbach. The rationale is two items. One is that we
believe that the money from the sale of public lands should be
put back into the purchase of public lands, and that using them
for the construction and maintenance of administrative
facilities and that kind of thing is really not appropriate. In
fact, we have just put out a policy within the Bureau to stop
doing land exchanges for the very same thing. You might
remember in the IG report of 1996 we were criticized for
buying--exchanging for a bowling alley up in Elko or Tonopah, I
guess. And so we don't believe as a general matter that we
should be selling out public lands to do those kind of things.
The other difficulty is that it gets to be hard to know
when to stop doing that. At what point do you stop selling off
public lands to buy capital improvements and do maintenance of
existing facilities? So that is the rationale behind that.
Mr. Ensign. I guess let me address that. And this has to do
with the affordable housing thing, as well. And that is at what
point--some of this is common sense. Some of this is case by
case. In other words, if you can justify it, if it is for the
overall public good--I think this gets back into when you
addressed the affordable housing and Mr. Vento talked about
that it is an admirable goal and all of that. Well, maybe it
doesn't fit into our pretty box that we think the regulations
should be and all of that, but government--and we are all in
the government. We are to be working for the people. And we
should be able to figure these things out. If we all agree on
the goal, and we all do.
If there is anybody who disagrees with the goal, maybe they
need to reevaluate their thinking, but when you have these
similar goals and it just happens to be that is not the normal
way of doing things, we should be better stewards of our jobs
and our responsibilities to the public to say yes, that may not
be the normal way to do it, but let us figure out a way that we
can guard against this being abused in the future and
unintended consequences, but let us figure out a way to do it
so that the public good is served by the government.
That is what I would implore, in the next couple weeks when
we negotiate on some of these issues is if you object to the
ways that we have it written or maybe you see some unintended
consequences down the road, let us try to come up with the same
arguments--the same goals, maybe a little different way of
getting around some of these things. Because the bottom line is
that we are trying to make a system that is not working as well
as it should, we are trying to make it work a little better
than it is working currently.
Mr. Millenbach. I agree. I think between our staffs over
the last six months or a year we have made a lot of progress on
this, and we are quite happy and willing to try to work these
things out and get this bill moved forward. We would like to
see this get enacted.
Mr. Ensign. Thank you, Mr. Millenbach. Enjoyed having you
with us in front of the committee.
I would like to call the next panel of witnesses.
Mr. Shadegg. Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Ensign. Oh, I am sorry. Mr. Shadegg.
Mr. Shadegg. I will be brief. Mr. Millenbach, first of all
let me compliment the Chairman on the bill. I think it is
appropriate and worth, perhaps, consideration for other
locations. What I want to do is get a sense of timing. Maybe
this has been brought up in testimony already. Perhaps you can
already indicate--maybe you can answer the question for me, Mr.
Millenbach, easily. What is your anticipation of when this
legislation will be--assuming we can get it through fairly
quickly, what point would you imagine implementing this process
and to what portions--and we discussed when you were here last
the ongoing transactions. Is it your anticipation that this
would apply to any of those ongoing transactions or to those
that have not been completed by the time this passes, or what
do we do with the ongoing exchange?
Mr. Millenbach. You are talking about the ones that we
already have agreements on? Yes, we have got, I believe, five
of those underway. We are proceeding to move forward with
those. We would have to go back and take a look at the
agreements themselves, but my understanding is that they--the
agreements do envision a land exchange with those existing
people that we have the agreements with. I will have to get
back with you after I take a look at each one of those
agreements to see exactly what they say. Are you concerned
about the idea that all of a sudden we would stop doing the
existing exchanges?
Mr. Shadegg. As you recall, last time you were here we had
an extended discussion about when you change the rules if you
have a process that is bad that you think needs to be corrected
but people have been following. At what point is it fair to
change the rules of the game?
And this may be a significant improvement in the process
and it may be a beneficial way for assuring that the taxpayers
are compensated and at the same time assuring that we have a
process that gets land out of government ownership into other
ownership and by the way, also doing some environmentally
important goals.
The question is at what point do you decide, OK, you have a
new set of rules, I will apply the new set of rules. Can you do
that to people that have already begun the game? Can you do
that at half time, or do you play that game out and then start?
Mr. Millenbach. That is a very good question. I--what we
are going to have to do is take a look at those agreements,
compare them with what we have got in bill and get back with
you on that.
Mr. Shadegg. When you say take a look at those agreements,
do you mean as to whether or not they contemplate that they are
completed agreements or whether or not they contemplate that
these procedures might apply?
Mr. Millenbach. Yes, how would the provisions of this act
affect those agreements. I wouldn't want to--I can't give you a
complete answer on that today, because----
Mr. Shadegg. Could you look at that and get back to me?
Mr. Millenbach. I sure can. Yes, sir.
Mr. Shadegg. I appreciate it. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Ensign. Thank you. I would like to thank you again,
Mat. And I would like to call the next panel of witnesses,
Lance Malone, newly elected Clark County Commissioner; Richard
Wimmer, Deputy General Manager, Southern Nevada Water
Authority; and Steve Hobbs, Nevada State Director, Nature
Conservancy. Commissioner Malone.
STATEMENT OF LANCE MALONE, CLARK COUNTY COMMISSIONER
Mr. Malone. Mr. Chairman, thank you. Committee members,
thank you for inviting me to testify in support of H.R. 449,
the Southern Nevada Public Lands Management Act. I offer
testimony today on behalf of the entire seven-member Board of
County Commissioners from Clark County. In August of 1995, the
Board of County Commissioners adopted a resolution calling upon
Congress to introduce and enact the Southern Nevada Public
Lands Management Act.
This bill is a product of extensive community discussion
among local government, Federal agencies and all affected
stakeholders through numerous public lands task force meetings
organized and conducted by the members of the Nevada
Congressional delegation. On behalf of the Board of County
Commissioners, I would like to thank the leadership of our
entire delegation for their efforts to achieve a consensus
solution to an issue that has been controversial and
troublesome, the disposal of Federal lands in the Las Vegas
Valley.
There is a significant burden placed on local government of
providing public services such as water, sewer, fire and police
protection for the new neighborhoods, which have been built on
vast tracts of Federal land opened up through BLM land
exchanges. Dick Wimmer, from the Southern Nevada Water
Authority, will discuss this further in his testimony.
Right now the BLM has pending applications for over 20 land
exchanges that could privatize approximately 53,000 acres of
land in Las Vegas Valley. Six of these proposed exchanges
remain a priority with the BLM and total over 10,000 acres of
land.
The County Commission believes that Federal land disposal
policy should privatize land in accordance with local
government's planning policies and zoning guidelines. This
would ensure that growth would occur in areas of the valley
where services are place and/or planned. We must avoid the
leapfrog development which drives up the cost of local
services.
Clark County supports H.R. 449 for several reasons. We see
three major benefits. We get to be more involved. Like the
Santini-Burton Act, under this bill local government will have
a say in the process of Federal land disposal. We get some of
the financial benefit for water development and for our parks,
recreation and open space. And third, the national treasures
that are located here in Southern Nevada, such as Lake Mead,
Red Rock and Mount Charleston, also get new facilities and
financial help.
Mr. Chairman, I want to respond to several of the suggested
changes being proposed to the bill by the Department of the
Interior. First let me point out that most of the provisions
which BLM wants to fix are already law in the Santini-Burton
Act and are currently applied within the geographic boundaries
of the Santini-Burton disposable area. H.R. 449 essentially
extends these provisions to apply to a larger disposal area
covering most of the developable land within the Las Vegas
Valley.
Specifically the Interior Department testimony recommends
eliminating requirement in H.R. 449 that BLM and local
governments ``jointly select lands to be offered'' for
disposal. The BLM apparently thinks it is just like a
corporation or private homeowner and should be free to dispose
of its property as it chooses only after consultation with
local government. H.R. 449, however, requires that BLM land
disposal activities be consistent with local land use planning
and zoning requirements. These provisions were copied from the
existing Santini-Burton law, which already apply in part of the
valley. Why not make them apply throughout the entire valley?
Our experience under the current land exchange process is
that without joint selection it is the BLM which in effect
determines how, when and where local land use planning
decisions are made. No corporation or private owner is the
single largest landowner in Las Vegas Valley and has the power
to drive growth the way that BLM does.
Mr. Chairman, the joint selection section is the heart of
this legislation. It creates true Federal/local government
partnerships by requiring both governments to work
cooperatively to coordinate the needs, impact, size, scope and
timing of BLM land sales and exchanges. When the Administration
raised the same concerns last year, Clark County accepted a
compromise which deleted a sentence copied from the Santini-
Burton Act which gives local government an explicit veto over
any sale or exchange of BLM land. If BLM desires to get the
joint selection of H.R. 449, I would respectfully disagree and
request that you keep it as originally passed in the Santini-
Burton Act, including the local government veto language.
The bill being considered today reflects an agreement
reached last year between the airport and local BLM with
respect to lands in the clear zone at the western end of
McCarran Airport runways. These lands are part of an existing
cooperative management agreement, or otherwise known as CMA,
between the BLM and the airport, which gives the airport a veto
over the disposable lands which aircraft noise exceeds 60 LDN.
This bill moves a step further and transfers these lands to the
airport for protection. Under the bill, the airport will manage
the lands in conformity with the CMA agreement and the FAA
regulations on land use capability--excuse me, compatibility.
Because most of the land is located within the original
boundaries of the Santini-Burton Act, the county agrees that if
any development is allowed to occur on these lands, that it is
compatible with airport noise, 85 percent of the proceeds will
be given to the Federal Government for this acquisition of
environmentally sensitive land in the Tahoe Basin pursuant to
the original terms of the Santini-Burton Act.
Finally, the Board of County Commissioners believes
strongly that the 60 LDN level of noise protection upon the CMA
boundary is based on the minimum level necessary to protect
public health and safety. The 60 LDN protection level is based
upon recommendations from the EPA, the Federal Interagency
Committee on Noise, the National Resource Defense Council. Even
the FAA's new policy guidance to local governments recommends
we impose local land use planning protections at the 60 LDN
level.
The Nevada Public Lands Management Act is a growth
management tool that makes sense for Clark County and the State
of Nevada. It creates a true partnership between the Federal,
State and local government and helps lessen the cost of the
infrastructure impacts associated with land exchanges.
Management of local parks and national resources like the Lake
Mead National Recreation Area, the Red Rock Canyon National
Conservation Area and the Toiyabe National Forest will also
benefit. Whether you think about economics, conservation,
growth management or just plain and simple fairness, the
Southern Nevada Public Lands Management Act makes sense.
[Statement of Lance Malone may be found at end of hearing.]
Mr. Ensign. Thank you. Richard Wimmer.
STATEMENT OF RICHARD WIMMER, DEPUTY GENERAL MANAGER, SOUTHERN
NEVADA WATER AUTHORITY
Mr. Wimmer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the
committee. My name is Dick Wimmer. I am the Deputy General
Manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority. The Southern
Nevada Water Authority is that regional entity that represents
all of the water purveyors in Southern Nevada.
As many of you probably have heard many times by now, we do
have significant water challenges in Southern Nevada. Our
challenges aren't so much, though, the amount of water we have,
at least in the short run, but they are how we go about
building and, probably more importantly, paying for the
facilities to be able to deliver that water to the growing
parts of the valley. This bill, H.R. 449, will provide us with
important tools that will help us to be able to deal with some
of these issues, some of the issues which have been created by
the release of 17,000 acres to developers in remote areas of
the valley that are outside the reaches of our existing
infrastructure.
The Southern Nevada Water System, which is the system that
treats and delivers water to the Las Vegas Valley from the
Colorado River, was constructed in the '60's and '70's. It is
presently operating at absolute peak capacity during the summer
and does not have additional capacity to serve our future
needs. A very aggressive capital improvement program is
presently underway, the first phase of which needs to be on
line this summer to prevent shortages. And the total cost of
this phased capital improvement program is over $1.7 billion.
That is a fairly significant commitment for a community of just
over a million people.
One of the reasons that this cost is so high is because BLM
land exchanges have opened land that leapfrogged existing
development and created the need for infrastructure way outside
the reaches of our system. This has caused us to have to build
significantly more facilities than otherwise would have to have
been built.
To try to illustrate this, we had the Las Vegas Valley
Water District do an analysis of four rapidly growing areas in
land exchange areas on the outer reaches of the city and do a
comparison assuming the same rate of growth as to what our
infrastructure costs would have been had that growth occurred
within the growing area of the community instead of
leapfrogging out to the outer reaches. That analysis showed
that the added costs of providing water service to these land
exchanges, which was about 9700 acres, was $136 million. That
is an average added cost of about $14,000 per acre for these
exchanged lands.
This clearly illustrates that the Southern Nevada water
purveyors are victims of third party impacts associated with
the BLM land exchange policies within the Las Vegas Valley. We
have looked at whether to follow the examples of the Central
Utah Project, the Central Arizona Project, or the California
Central Valley Project and come to Congress and ask for 65
percent Federal cost sharing, but we realize that there just
isn't money available in Washington to do that today. We are
therefore resolved to build the facilities without Federal
assistance.
We do believe, however, that we are justified in asking for
some Federal assistance, because the Federal Government is the
single largest landowner who will benefit from the increased
land values resulting from the provision of water to these
desert areas. We are seeking a partnership with BLM in future
sales and exchanges.
It has already been mentioned H.R. 449 borrows from both
the Burton-Santini Act and the Apex Act by allowing local
government to participate in the process of identifying lands
to be disposed of and also in sharing in the increased land
values brought by providing that infrastructure through the 85/
15 split of the proceeds from the sales of Federal lands. It
would only partially reimburse us for the water infrastructure
that is providing the value to these Federal lands when they
are sold.
H.R. 449 will reestablish a cooperative working partnership
between the Federal Government and local government as we seek
to provide water service to the growth which will occur in the
next decade through the continued disposal of Federal land
holdings within the Las Vegas Valley. We urge you to expedite
the bill's enactment so the terms of this cooperative
partnership can be immediately applied to the next block of
Federal lands that are made--that are released for development.
Thank you very much.
[Statement of Richard Wimmer may be found at end of
hearing.]
Mr. Ensign. Thank you. Mr. Hobbs.
STATEMENT OF STEVE HOBBS, NEVADA STATE DIRECTOR, NATURE
CONSERVANCY
Mr. Hobbs. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the
committee, for allowing me to come before you and talk about
this bill. My name is Steve Hobbs. I have been the State
Director for the Nature Conservancy in Nevada for three years
now. As I am sure you know, the Nature Conservancy is an
international, nonprofit organization whose mission is the
conservation of plants, animals and natural communities that
represent the diversity of life on Earth. To date, the Nature
Conservancy and its more than 900,000 members have conserved
more than ten million acres for future generations.
While in Nevada, I have been involved in several
transactions involving land exchanges in the Las Vegas Valley.
I see both the opportunity and challenge of the current system.
As you know, the Las Vegas economy is booming as never before.
Nearly 5000 new residents per month come to Las Vegas to share
in this prosperity. And the challenge to local and Federal
Government is daunting. Our natural resources and the
attractive environment that draws both new residents and
tourists is in jeopardy.
The Las Vegas Valley sits as an island in a sea of Federal
land. To meet the demand for residential housing spurred by
this phenomenal growth, developers must look to expand onto
Federal lands that do not enhance the public land portfolio.
The current Federal land exchange process has helped to
facilitate this growth, but in a way that is largely
unsatisfactory to all parties involved.
A recent report from the President's Council of Economic
Advisors recognized that matching the desires and financial
expectations of both parties in a Federal land exchange is very
difficult. The report states ``a land purchase fund that
decouples buying and selling land assets is superior to direct
swaps.'' The Nature Conservancy agrees. Besides solving the
problem of finding lands that match in value, we believe that a
system that sells government land at auction, keeps the
receipts off-budget and then uses them to improve the public
land portfolio has several advantages.
Number one, by auctioning the land we use the power of the
free market to decide the value of the public lands. Too often
the science of objective land appraisals becomes the art of
speculation, especially in as volatile a market as exists in
Las Vegas. This leads to endless debate over the validity of
various appraisals for the same parcel of land, often without
clear resolution.
Second, such a system would give much more flexibility to
government agencies to acquire land and reduce the overall
costs of acquisition. The current land exchange system is
needlessly complicated and often takes more than a year,
sometimes two, for a single transaction. This time lag leads to
lost opportunities and increases the overall cost to taxpayers
to acquire these lands.
Third, a system of competitive bidding maximizes financial
return to the government. It is quite likely that in an
expanding real estate market such as Las Vegas the winning bid
for land will exceed the assume fair market value that the
Federal Government might derive through an appraisal.
And last, an auction system would make the Federal land
acquisition and disposal process more transparent to the
American people.
The Southern Nevada Public Land Management Act of 1997,
H.R. 449, establishes a new land disposal system for Nevada
that incorporates these ideas. Besides solving the problems of
acquiring environmentally sensitive land through the exchange
process, H.R. 449 provides funding for the nation's natural
treasures in Southern Nevada that have become overrun by the
burgeoning resident population and increased tourism.
H.R. 449 is sensitive to the needs of rural Nevada, as
well. H.R. 449 provides for compensation to local governments
through the payment in lieu of taxes program. This program
ensures that local property tax revenues remain stable when
government purchases convert private lands into public
ownership.
H.R. 449 also requires that Federal agencies consult with
local government before they acquire private lands to ensure
that the proposed acquisition is compatible with the long-term
goals of the local community. The Nature Conservancy feels very
strongly that sustainable conservation is only possible when
the social and economic needs of the local community are
considered. And we wholeheartedly support this provision of
H.R. 449.
The natural treasures of Nevada are the nation's treasures.
Our scientists in 25 years of extensive ecological surveys have
determined that Nevada is the sixth most ecologically important
State in the nation.
H.R. 449 solves the myriad problems that exist with the
current land exchange process while providing the funding
necessary to ensure a lasting legacy of environmentally
sensitive land. The Nature Conservancy fully supports H.R. 449.
[Statement of Steve Hobbs may be found at end of hearing.]
Mr. Ensign. Thank you, Mr. Hobbs. Let me ask a few
questions of the panel. And we do have a vote on, so we are
going to try to wrap the hearing up within the next, oh,
probably seven or eight minutes, so we will try to be as brief
as we possibly can. I want to ask--first of all, Dick, I would
like to just address one quick question to you. You mentioned
the $14,000 an acre. Could you also talk about some of the
impacts on land as far as paying for water, for rights-of-way
and things like that, the impact that that can have on
basically local rate payers?
Mr. Wimmer. Absolutely. At the present time we are in the
position where we have to either buy private lands or we have
to go through lengthy processes and pay for sites for
reservoirs and other right-of-ways necessary for water
facilities. That adds significantly to the cost to the public
for those water facilities. And this would help in that
tremendously.
Mr. Ensign. OK, thank you. Mr. Hobbs, under the current
process versus what you foresee under H.R. 449, do you foresee
that groups like the Nature Conservancy would have more or less
input into what lands are then purchased?
Mr. Hobbs. Well, I think the benefit of H.R. 449 is that it
provides more input from the entire environmental community,
local governments, Federal Governments. I think it just makes
the whole process more of a cooperative process than exists
today.
Mr. Ensign. OK, and, Lance, welcome, by the way.
Mr. Malone. Thank you.
Mr. Ensign. The comments--we had a discussion earlier about
joint selection, and you mentioned that in your testimony. As a
newly elected local commissioner, you have seen--one of the
reasons you probably ran for office was--in our conversations
was seeing some of the frustration out there at the local
level. I guess I would just like you to discuss a little bit
about that, how important and just kind of elaborate a little
more of what the joint selection process--what that would mean
to local government.
Mr. Malone. Mr. Chairman, it is going to be imperative that
Clark County Commissioners and the other municipalities that
are surrounding the area have a say in what goes on when it
comes to land exchanges. It has, of course, great importance to
us when they are allowed to make the exchanges without--other
than just consultation, without going with our use, our
planning, our zoning decisions that are being made. We have
what is called--and Mr. Hobbs eloquently stated it,
leapfrogging effects, which is very costly, which the taxpayers
have to pay. And that, of course, then increases the homes. And
so it makes it a little bit more difficult for home buyers to
come in and purchase a home because they will be financially
impacted. So I can assure that the joint selection is really
the heart of this legislation.
Mr. Ensign. Thank you. Ms. Christian-Green.
Ms. Christian-Green. Just wanted to thank you for your
testimony. And as a freshman here in Congress and on this
committee, I thought we would be looking at having continuing
conflicts between developmental concerns and environmental
concerns. And it is very encouraging to come here this morning
and to see your representatives in Congress on both sides of
the fence, developmental interests and conservation interests
coming together and working out an agreement on an issue of
importance to the State.
Mr. Ensign. Thank you, Ms. Christian-Green. We in Nevada
like to think that we are a little bold in our thinking that
the--maybe we are a little also arrogant in that we think that
the rest of the country can learn a lot from our State. But let
me just conclude. Maybe each of you could make a brief
statement on this from your perspective of identifying just the
number one reason you think H.R. 449 should be--as brief, 30
seconds or less--why you think H.R. 449 should be moved forward
as quickly as possible. We will start with you, Mr. Hobbs.
Mr. Hobbs. Thank you. I think that this really is the
legacy for the State of Nevada. And I see this as a model for
what can happen in other States. I think we have a unique
situation in the State of Nevada. I think we can capitalize on
that. This is a unique opportunity for us and we need to act
now in order to really realize a dream for conservation and for
the entire State.
Mr. Malone. I think mostly the western parts of the United
States is owned by the BLM, which is of course great concern to
local government entities, being able to have a say. We have
several environmentally sensitive areas such as Nellis Air
Force Base, that is contiguous with private ownership, and
their live munitions area. And we are trying to, of course,
work out with our State senators and with our delegation in
land exchanges to those extent. But when it comes to land
sensitivity, we have a lot of wonderful areas in the Las Vegas,
Nevada, in general that needs to be conserved. And I think the
only way we can do that is by pushing for H.R. 449.
Mr. Wimmer. It defines the outer boundaries of the disposed
area of land so that we know what the size of the municipal
area will be in terms of private landownership. This lets us
plan for infrastructure and for other things. It also
contributes a little bit back in terms of the costs that we are
incurring that is actually creating the value in the Federal
lands when they do sell.
Mr. Ensign. Well, I would like to thank the panel and
everyone, our senators and Mr. Millenbach, for your testimony
today, and especially for those from Nevada that you traveled
out here. I appreciate your work. Just a final note. Lance, we
will be meeting up in my office--my staff will be taking you up
there--after I vote. This Subcommittee is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:28 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned;
and the following was submitted for the record:]
Statement of Mat Millenbach, Deputy Director, Bureau of Land Management
Thank you for the opportunity to testify on H.R. 449, the
Southern Nevada Public Land Management Act of 1997, regarding
land disposal in the Las Vegas Valley. The Bureau of Land
Management (BLM) supports the concept behind this bill. We
believe that through continuing discussions with the bill's
authors in the House and the Senate, a final bill can be
produced that would receive the Administration's endorsement.
Let me provide some background and context for this
legislation. In many parts of the West, the legacy of
settlement has left us with a scattered ownership pattern. The
Las Vegas area is a good example. As communities such as Las
Vegas expand, the BLM works with local jurisdictions to make
public lands available through sale or exchange and also
provide lands for public purposes through Recreation and Public
Purpose (R&PP) Act patents and leases. In the Las Vegas Valley,
BLM is working with all jurisdictions and private interests to
facilitate the disposal of public lands, mostly through
exchange. Our program of land exchanges in the Las Vegas Valley
is designed to dispose of land with high commercial value,
which allows us to acquire resources significant to all
Americans, including:
<bullet>prime recreation areas;
<bullet>riparian and wetland habitat;
<bullet>critical habitat for threatened, sensitive and
endangered species, and
<bullet>significant historical, archaeological, and
cultural sites.
H.R. 449 and its companion Senate bill, S. 94, specifically
affect several thousand acres of public land in the Las Vegas
Valley, which are managed by the BLM. In recent years, the Las
Vegas Valley has become the fastest growing metropolitan region
in the country, but development has been influenced by the
presence of public lands in the area. The rapid expansion has
also had an impact on the Las Vegas District of BLM, which has
experienced an increase in applications for permits to use
public lands. These requests have included rights-of-way for
power lines and roads, R&PP leases for fire stations and
schools, land exchange proposals, and other realty actions.
This bill seeks to resolve the future of these public lands by
requiring BLM to sell, exchange or transfer public land in the
Las Vegas Valley.
Mr. Chairman, the BLM strongly believes that the land
ownership pattern in the Las Vegas area needs to be addressed.
In fact, our draft Resource Management Plan (RMP) for the area
targets the vast majority of BLM-managed lands within the Las
Vegas metropolitan area for disposal in order to meet the
growth needs of the community. The lands specified in H.R. 449
are nearly identical to those identified for disposal in the
RMP.
As part of it's planning process, BLM's Las Vegas District
works toward partnerships with local governments in southern
Nevada. The BLM is a charter member of the Southern Nevada
Public Lands Task Force, and BLM personnel meet regularly with
the Clark County Planning Director at quarterly meetings. In
January 1996, BLM initiated the Southern Nevada Land Exchange
Strategy Project to improve the effectiveness of the land
exchange program and other realty actions in the Las Vegas
District. Coordination and communication with local governments
continue to be key to success of the project. In the area of
land exchanges, our goal is to prioritize land exchange
opportunities and move forward with timely completion of high
priority land exchanges that meet the public interest and
respond to local needs.
One of the best examples of sound legislation that
addressed public land disposal is the Santini-Burton Act of
1980. The law gave the Department of the Interior the authority
to sell land in the Las Vegas Valley and to use 85% of the
revenue to purchase National Forest System Lands in the Lake
Tahoe Basin. The Federal government shares a reasonable portion
of the receipts (15%) with Clark County, the City of Las Vegas
and the State of Nevada. In return, lands in the magnificent
Lake Tahoe Basin have been protected and made available for the
enjoyment of the public.
The intent of H.R. 449 is to capture the best qualities of
the BLM's land exchange goals, the Burton-Santini Act and the
partnerships that have been developed with local government.
This bill provides for the disposal, by sale or exchange, of
certain Federally-owned, BLM-managed lands within a limited
area of the Las Vegas valley. Fifteen percent of the proceeds
from these land disposals would be distributed to local
entities. The balance of the funds would be used, for the
benefit of natural resource management within Nevada for
Federal land acquisition, capital improvements, development of
a multi-species habitat conservation plan in Clark County and
the development of recreation and natural areas within Clark
County. The bill also provides for the transfer of lands to
Clark County, at no cost, within the airport management area
for McCarran International Airport. Should those lands be sold
or leased, the United States would be paid 85% of the fair
market value received. The bill also includes a provision
allowing local governmental entities to select public lands
needed under the R&PP Act prior to their conveyance. Local and
regional governmental entities may also apply for rights of way
for flood control and water treatment purposes which can be
granted in perpetuity and at no cost. Additionally, the
Secretary is authorized to transfer the R&PP reversionary
clause from one parcel of land to another upon request by the
owner of those lands.
Under existing BEA rules, this bill would have significant
PAYGO costs. However, the Administration is planning to propose
changes to the current rule that prohibits scoring asset sale
proceeds as PAYGO savings. Such a change would mean that the
lands sale proceeds could be counted as offsetting the land
acquisition and other costs in this bill. We will continue to
work with OMB and the sponsors of the bill to resolve these
issues.
Nearly a year ago, the BLM acting Director, Mike Dombeck
testified in opposition to an earlier version of this bill. At
that time, Mr. Dombeck stated, ``while we support the goal of
disposing of certain public lands within Las Vegas to
accommodate the city's growth, the Department strongly opposes
this bill.'' He pointed out that the earlier bill would divert
huge amounts of Federal resources and funds to local interests,
offering a windfall to a few at the expense of many. Since that
hearing a year ago the Nevada delegation staffs have worked to
resolve many of the problems we identified with the bill, as
originally introduced in the 104th Congress.
Since H.R. 449 was introduced in the House (and its
companion bill S. 94), a number of technical issues have been
discussed and resolved between BLM and Congressional staffs.
Those details are unnecessary to pursue here. However, there
remain a few issues that are as yet unresolved that need to be
remedied before the administration can endorse the bill.
First, section 4(a) waives FLPMA sections 202 and 203 for
land disposals and section (b)(3) waives environmental laws for
construction of a youth activity facility. The Administration
opposes waivers of environmental laws in legislation. Such
waivers undercut the applicability of the laws, undermine
enforcement, possibly lead to serious environmental problems
and set a dangerous precedent. We urge that these waivers be
removed from the bill.
Second, section 4(f) of the bill establishes a special
account for 85% of the proceeds of land sales. Creating a
special account that makes funds available without further
appropriation is a significant departure from Administration
policy. However, the Administration could support the
establishment of such a fund if its uses were limited to land
acquisition within Nevada and reimbursement of costs incurred
by the local BLM offices in arranging sales or exchanges.
Third, Section 4(d) of the bill is entitled, ``Joint
Selection Required''. This section appears to require the
Secretary to obtain local government concurrence before any
land disposal action. The Secretary, just like a corporation or
a private homeowner, should have the discretion to dispose of
lands without having to wait for the local government to
approve that transaction. After all, local government has the
ultimate control of land development through planning and
zoning. We believe strongly in consultation with local
governments, but do not believe they should have veto power. We
request that the term joint selection be changed to
``consultation''.
Fourth, Section 4(g) of the bill transfers 4,600 acres that
are located within the Las Vegas Airport noise area to Clark
County, at no cost. Specifically, the bill requires the
Secretary of the Interior to transfer lands that are identified
in a current Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) with the BLM to
Clark County, at their request and at no cost. If the lands are
later sold or leased, then the Airport Authority is required to
pay the Federal government 85% of the value received. Although
this approach is superior to the straight donation as designed
in earlier versions of the bill, it still requires modification
to assure that we are not conveying more lands than necessary
for the airport's needs. I am sure the airport authority would
like to keep this process as simple as possible without
creating unnecessary long-term actions. Some additional
modifications would also be necessary to insure that any
conveyance (for example land exchanges) or use authorization
upon the lands results in a sharing of receipts as intended in
this section. We would be glad to work with the subcommittee
staff and the airport authority on this issue.
Finally, the bill contains a provision which allows
affordable housing to be an acceptable use of the R&PP
authority anywhere within Nevada. The R&PP Act authorizes the
sale or lease of public lands for recreational or public
purposes to State and local governments and to qualified
nonprofit organizations. Examples of typical uses under the act
are historic monument sites, campgrounds, schools, fire houses,
hospitals, parks and fairgrounds. These lands are conveyed at
costs below market value, with the exact price dependent upon
the type of use or the restrictions placed on the lands. Most
sales under the R&PP Act are made at $10 per acre or 50% of
market value. The United States sells lands under this
authority with a reversionary clause that requires the lands to
remain in the ownership of the patentee and to be used for the
purpose requested. Sales of these lands or changes of use
result in a reversion of title to the United States known as a
divestiture. Because of these requirements in the R&PP Act,
this affordable housing provision causes potential problems
should the property be conveyed or the use of the property
change. The BLM could find itself in the position of having to
divest title to hundreds of one-quarter acre tracts or a
converted apartment house complex. We would suggest that this
provision be removed. Taking back these types of properties is
time consuming and offers no benefit to natural resource
management in Nevada.
Finally, we need to continue discussions regarding the need
and location of any Red Rock NCA boundary modifications as
called for in the legislation. The bill as written does not
specifically delineate which areas are included--we would like
to work with staff to insure that this boundary modification is
in the best public interest.
CONCLUSION
Mr. Chairman, we all recognize that a population explosion
is occurring in many western communities. Las Vegas is seeing
an increased migration of people from southern California and
large metropolitan areas in the east. Public lands can be part
of the solution, and an effective land disposal program can
assist in orderly growth. The Bureau of Land Management agrees
that we need to move to dispose of much of the urban lands in
the Las Vegas area when appropriate. Of the 130,000 acres
within the area affected by this legislation, about 20,000 of
those acres are public lands. These public lands should be
disposed of in harmony with the needs of the local or tribal
jurisdictions. We also believe that all land disposals must
benefit both the American people and the local community as
well.
This legislation provides a framework to allow for a fair
approach to dealing with the situation in the Las Vegas area.
The bill deals with disposal of public land using a nearly
identical boundary as developed within the BLM Draft Resource
Management Plan. With changes to address the concerns outlined
above as well as some possible changes of a more technical
nature, the Administration could support the legislation. We
would be happy to work with the Nevada delegation to provide
such a solution.
Mr. Chairman, I appreciate this opportunity to appear
before the Subcommittee and discuss this bill. I will be glad
to answer any questions.
------ 0
Statement of Commissioner Lance Malone
Introduction
Thank you for inviting me to testify in support of H.R.
449, The Southern Nevada Public Lands Management Act. I offer
testimony today on behalf of the entire seven member Board of
County Commissioners from Clark County. In August of 1995, the
Board of County Commissioners adopted a resolution calling upon
Congress to introduce and enact the Southern Nevada Public
Lands Management Act.
This bill is the product of extensive community discussion
among local government, federal agencies and all affected
stakeholders through numerous public lands task force meetings
organized and conducted by the members of the Nevada
Congressional delegation. On behalf of the Board of County
Commissioners, I would like to thank the leadership of our
entire delegation for their efforts to achieve consensus
solution to an issue that has been controversial and
troublesome, the disposal of federal lands in the Las Vegas
valley.
Infrastructure Costs and Local Government
Right now, local governments and Nevada's legislature are
struggling to determine how best to pay for new infrastructure
for water, sewer, roads, schools, fire and police protection
for the new neighborhoods which have been built on vast tracts
of federal land opened up through BLM land exchanges which
proceeded despite local government opposition to many of the
exchanges.
Right now, the BLM has pending applications for over 20
land exchanges that could privatize another 53,000 acres of
land in the Las Vegas Valley. Six of these proposed exchanges
remain a priority with the BLM, and total over 10,000 acres of
land. The County Commission believes that federal land disposal
policy should privatize land in accordance with local
governments' planning policies and zoning guidelines. This
would ensure that growth would occur in areas of the valley
where services are in place or planned. We must avoid the
leapfrog development which drives up the cost of local
services.
Santini-Burton Act
In 1980, Congress adopted the Santini-Burton Act which
created a federal-state partnership to the disposal of federal
land in Clark County. Under the Santini-Burton Act, local
government nominated the federal land to be sold at auction and
participated in sharing fifteen percent of the revenue. To
date, only 2,696 acres of land have been privatized under
Santini-Burton land sales. Compare this to over 22,000 acres
which have been privatized through land exchanges just in the
last few years. The problem with Santini-Burton is that it
applies to only a small area within the valley. Federal land
outside that area is disposed of through a land exchange
process where local governments have not always been listened
to. The land exchange process has contributed to urban
development occurring on the fringes of the valley, far from
existing services costing us more to provide roads, water
service, sewer, schools, police and fire protection.
Zoning Limitations
While we local officials have to make decisions about
zoning and land use, increasingly, a local government's
authority to deny zoning for land uses is becoming limited by
court decisions. Some would say to us ``just use your local
authority to deny land use applications,'' however, the reality
is that we often can't. Clark County does have community
development zones which reflect where public infrastructure and
services are available. The CD 1, 2, 3, etc. designations are
used by the Board to approve or disapprove zoning applications.
We cannot, however, succeed at our local efforts to manage
growth without having a say in when, where, and how federal
land within the valley is disposed of to private developers.
When local governments build infrastructure systems, the
value of federal land is increased. It's our local residents,
through taxes and fees, that contribute significantly to the
value of the federal land. Under the land exchange process it's
the federal government that gets the benefits from that local
investment.
Clark County supports the proposed legislation for several
reasons. We see three major benefits:
1. We get to be more involved. Like the Santini-Burton Act,
under this bill, local government will have a say in the
process of federal land disposal.
2. We get some of the financial benefit for our water
development and for our parks, recreation and open space--the
people who have made the investment that contributes to the
value of federal land will be partially reimbursed for
infrastructure costs.
3. The federal agencies that serve our local community (and
our tourist population that comes from all over the world)
would get some financial help for improving and maintaining the
national treasures that are located here in Southern Nevada
such as Lake Mead, Red Rock and Mount Charleston, and are
impacted by the growth brought about when federal land is made
available for private development.
Joint Selection
Mr. Chairman, I want to respond to several of the suggested
changes being proposed to the bill by the Department of the
Interior. First, let me point out that most of the provisions
which BLM wants to fix are already law in the Santini-Burton
Act and currently apply within the geographic boundaries of the
Santini-Burton disposal area. H.R. 449 essentially extends
these provisions to apply to a larger disposal area covering
most of developable land within the Las Vegas valley.
Specifically, the Interior Department testimony recommends
eliminating the requirement that BLM and local governments
``jointly select lands to be offered'' for disposal. In
addition, the BLM wants to eliminate provisions which require
that BLM land disposal activities be ``consistent with local
land use planning and zoning requirements''. Both these
provisions are part of the existing Santini-Burton law.
Mr. Chairman, the joint selection section is the heart of
this legislation. It creates a true federal/local government
partnership by requiring that both governments work
cooperatively to coordinate the needs, impacts, size, scope and
timing of BLM land sales and exchanges. When the Administration
raised these same concerns last year, Clark County accepted a
compromise which deleted a sentence copied from the Santini-
Burton Act which gives local government an explicit veto over
any sale or exchange of BLM land. If BLM desires to gut the
joint selection section of H.R. 449, I would respectfully
disagree and request that you keep it as originally passed in
Santini-Burton including the local government veto language.
Protecting McCarran International Airport
Mr. Chairman, the Administration's testimony recommends
amending the section which transfers lands within the current
The Clark County Department of Aviation (DOA)/BLM Cooperative
Management Area which protects the clear zones at the end of
McCarran International Airport's runways. Let me provide some
background, the Clark County Department of Aviation, as the
owner and operator of McCarran International Airport, has
received more than 200 million dollars in federal grant
assistance over the past ten years. Federal grant recipients
are required to comply with grant assurances which specify
airport policy on many issues. One of the most significant is
maintaining compatible land use. The federal government does
not want to provide financial assistance to an airport that
does nothing to protect the public investment by enacting
zoning and other preventive aircraft noise mitigation measures
in high noise areas. If the airport or airport sponsor fails to
maintain land use compatibility then the federal investment in
the airport becomes worthless because aviation growth is often
impeded nearby residents, who have moved close to the airport
in places where there have been no land use controls. These new
neighbors then vocally oppose airport expansion and advocate
restrictions on aircraft takeoffs and landings.
To make things even worse for airport proprietors, the
Airport Noise and Capacity Act of 1990 took away an airport's
right to enact any type of operational restriction on large
aircraft. The only control an airport has left is to utilize
land use control measures to try to maintain compatibility.
History of McCarran Airport Land Use Compatibility Planning
In 1988, as part of the Airport & Airway Improvement Act,
Congress authorized a program for conducting noise
compatibility studies. These studies are commonly referred to
as Part 150 Studies. The Part 150 Study consists of two
products: (1) Noise Exposure Maps depicting equal areas of
noise exposure for specific levels of aircraft noise and (2) a
document containing plans for how to abate and mitigate
aircraft noise at the subject airport. These two products are
then submitted to the FAA for approval and evaluation. The FAA
goes through a meticulous evaluation process for every proposed
noise abatement and noise mitigation measure. They do this
because if they approve a measure, it must be (1) lawful; (2)
feasible; and (3) it legitimizes the measure as a valid and
effective noise abatement or mitigation measure and thus makes
it eligible for federal funding.
What is a compatible land use for an airport? According to
the guidelines in Federal Aviation Regulation Part 150, the
answer to this question is more easily expressed in terms of
what is not a compatible land use. Essentially, non compatible
uses include any residential land uses, schools, churches and
hospitals. Most other land uses (commercial and industrial land
uses) are compatible.
A newly promulgated policy by the FAA has put much more
pressure on airports to maintain compatibility. Under the
former version of FAR Part 150, if an airport had conducted a
Part 150 study they could be eligible to use federal funds on
areas in the 65 ldn and greater for noise purchases, even if
they did nothing to prevent incompatible development from going
in. This is no longer the case. If an airport wants to receive
funds from the federal government for land in noise impact
areas, it needs to have adequate land use protections in place
for existing land.
The Inefficient Planning Past
During the 1980's the BLM, which owns most of the land to
the west of the airport's departure runways allowed for the
disposal of several parcels of land within the noise impact
area. There are repeated efforts to dispose of land in the area
through land exchanges with developers who want to exchange
environmentally sensitive lands in other parts of the Nevada
and the country for land in the Las Vegas valley. This has
resulted in a planning nightmare for local BLM officials, and
it has also jeopardized Clark County's land use compatibility
plans for McCarran Airport.
Cooperative Management Area (CMA)
In response to this problem, the Department of Aviation and
the BLM negotiated the Cooperative Management Agreement in
1991. Our two governmental entities were attempting to meet
their respective mandates in a mutually beneficial, cooperative
fashion. The Bureau of Land Management has the mandate of
managing thousands of acres of land in southern Nevada and they
do that with very limited resources. Clark County, as the owner
and sponsor of McCarran International Airport, has the
obligation of complying with a federal mandate which requires
maintaining land use compatibility around the airport. Since a
great deal of federal land underlies the primary departure
flight tracks from McCarran Airport, and since most of the
private land that is intermixed with the public land is
undeveloped, the opportunity for some innovative compatible
land use planning existed.
In exchange for giving the airport the opportunity to
review and comment on the proposed disposal of federal land in
the Cooperative Management Agreement (CMA) area, the Department
of Aviation agreed to provide continual property patrol and
management services of the land in the CMA. Under this
agreement the BLM is assisted in the management of the land and
Clark County has the opportunity to review and approve of any
proposed sales or transfer of federal land. This helps to
ensure future development of the area will be compatible with
the high levels of aircraft noise produced in the area.
Clark County undertook a Part 150 study for MIA in June of
1987 and an update of the study in June of 1991. As part of the
1991 update, Clark County included the Cooperative Management
Agreement with the BLM as a new preventive noise mitigation
measure. The measure was subsequently approved by the FAA in
March of 1994. Despite this agreement however there has still
been incompatible development on the CMA through the release of
federal lands. BLM says that it is simply unable legally to
convey property with deed restrictions which will protect the
airports noise impact area.
H.R. 449
The bill being considered today reflects a new agreement
reached between the airport and the local BLM with respect to
the CMA lands. The bill transfers the land to the airport. We
will manage the lands in conformity with the CMA Agreement and
the FAA regulations on land use compatibility. Because most of
the land is located within the original boundaries of the
Santini-Burton Act, the County agrees that if any development
is allowed to occur on these lands that is compatible with
airport noise, 85% of the proceeds will be given to the federal
government for the acquisition of environmentally sensitive
land in the Tahoe Basin pursuant to the original terms of the
Santini-Burton Act.
The BLM now proposes to amend the area being protected and
transferred to cover only areas where there is a 65 ldn noise
level (because this is the level at which federal money is
provided to buy residences) rather than the 60 ldn level
provided for in the agreement. Once again, I am astounded that
the BLM is recommending this change.
The federal government will receive 85% of the proceeds
regardless of whether the 60 or 65 ldn level is used.
Furthermore, Clark County will still exercise its rights under
the existing Cooperative Management Agreement to prevent the
BLM from disposing the land between the 60 and 65 ldn level
because BLM cannot adequately insure airport compatibility.
Finally, the BLM is simply wrong with respect to which noise
level deserves protection. The Board of County Commissioners
has selected a 60 ldn level of noise protection based upon
information which is supported by recommendations from the
Environmental Protection Agency, the Federal Interagency
Committee on Noise, and the National Resources Defense Council.
Even the FAA's new policy recommends land use planning
protections at the 60 ldn level.
Public Housing
Lastly, I want to respond to the BLM's criticism of the
section of H.R. 449 which allows local governments to acquire
land for affordable housing projects under the provisions of
the Recreation and Public Purposes Act. Every year Congress
appropriates millions of dollars to the Department of Housing
and Urban Development to assist local governments with
affordable housing projects. The Clark County Public Housing
Authority however is limited in its ability to acquire land for
these projects because the federal land is largely unavailable
and the private land is extremely expensive to purchase. I want
to commend the Nevada delegation for recognizing the need to
solve this problem.
Affordable housing is a growing need in today's cities. The
problem of homelessness must be attacked by all agencies of
federal government in cooperation with local government.
Affordable housing is just as legitimate a public purpose as
local parks or fire stations to merit free federal land under
the Recreation and Public Purposes Act.
Conclusion
The Nevada Public Lands Management Act is a growth
management tool that makes sense for Clark County and the State
of Nevada. It creates a true partnership between the federal,
state and local gonads. Management of national resources like
the Lake Mead National Recreation Area, the Red Rock Canyon
National Conservation Area and the Toiyabe National Forest will
benefit from the privatization of public land in Clark County.
Whether you think about economics, conservation, growth
management or just plain and simple fairness, the Southern
Nevada Public Lands Management Act makes sense.
------
Statement of Richard Wimmer, Deputy General Manager, Southern Nevada
Water Authority
Introduction
Chairman Hansen, Rep. Ensign and other members of the
Committee, my name is Dick Wimmer and I am the Deputy General
Manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority (SNWA). The SNWA
is that unit of local government which represents all water
purveyors in southern Nevada.
Growth and Water
As many of you have probably heard, we have significant
water challenges in southern Nevada. Our biggest water
challenge is not the amount of water Nevada has but rather, it
is how do we handle the infrastructure costs needed to deliver
our water to the growing parts of the valley.
This bill H.R. 449 will provide us with the tools necessary
to cope with this significant growth which is resulting in part
from the Interior Department land exchange policy which has
released over 17,000 acres of land to developers in areas of
the valley where our system has had no delivery capacity.
Leapfrog Development Caused by Land Exchanges Creates Third
Party Impacts
The Southern Nevada Water System (SNWS) was constructed in
the 1960's and 70's by the Bureau of Reclamation and was sized
for a maximum delivery of water from Lake Mead of 380 million
gallons per day. For the past two summers we have watched
nervously as peak deliveries reached our system capacity. This
summer will be the true test of our ability to manage the
system so that everyone receives the water they need and
expect. Recognizing this system problem, the SNWA agencies have
embarked upon an accelerated plan to augment the treatment and
delivery capacity of the existing system by 100 million gallons
per day and to design and construct a new regional system to
deliver future water supplies from Lake Mead. The total cost of
this capital program will exceed $1.7 billion. $1.7 billion is
a large commitment for a community of just over a million
people.
One reason the cost is so high is that as we sat down to
design our new water system we found that we were forced to
engineer a whole new system to supply water to those areas of
the valley that were far beyond the boundaries of our existing
system. Because the BLM land exchanges opened land that
leapfrogged past existing development and infrastructure, they
created demand we could not meet by simply running another
extension of pipe or extending our existing system to provide
water service to these areas. Rather than grow like other
cities, from the inside out, adding incrementally to our
existing system similar to the expanding ripples in a pond, we
have been forced to design a new stand alone system that
surrounds our existing infrastructure.
To illustrate these added costs for you, the Las Vegas
Valley Water District did an analysis of the facilities we have
built and will build to the year 2000 which are needed to
provide water to land exchange areas in the four major areas of
growth in the western part of our system which could have been
avoided if the land exchanges had not occurred.
In our analysis we assumed the same rate of growth, however
we located that growth in other areas of the system which had
been previously approved for development and where capacity
existed within the system. Our analysis showed that the added
costs of providing water service to these land exchanges
covering 9,700 acres was $136 million. This is an average added
cost of $14,000 per acre for exchanged lands. The irony is that
much of this land was originally appraised and exchanged for
$10,000 or less per acre. Southern Nevada water purveyors are
the victims of third party impacts associated with the BLM land
exchange policies within the Las Vegas Valley.
We have looked at whether we should follow the examples of
the Central Utah Project, Central Arizona Project, and
California's Central Valley Project and come to Congress and
ask for 65 percent federal cost sharing to help us expand our
water project. We have recognized however that there is no
money to be found in Washington these days. We are therefore
resolved to build the system without federal assistance.
We believe however that we are justified in asking for some
federal assistance because the federal government is the single
largest landowner who will benefit from increased land values
resulting from the provision of water to these desert tracts.
What we are seeking is a partnership with BLM in future land
sales or exchanges.
Santini-Burton Act and the Apex Act
In discussing our problems with our Congressional
delegation, we proposed to expand upon two federal statutes
governing the disposal of public lands in Clark County
previously approved by this Committee. These statutes are the
Santini-Burton Act and the Apex bill, already referred to by
Commissioner Malone. This federal legislation created funding
partnership between the federal government and Clark County in
developing federal desert land at Apex. The Apex Project Nevada
Land Transfer Authorization Act of 1989 (Public Law 101-67)
recognized that BLM desert has no value if it cannot be
developed. That statute created a real partnership with BLM
which reimbursed the County for the value of the improvements
which were made to the land. Under the terms of this Act, Clark
County provided the infrastructure to develop the Industrial
Park and negotiated the sale of land parcels to private
industries desiring to locate at the Apex Industrial Park. Both
BLM and the County have shared in the profits equally.
H.R. 449 borrows from both the Santini-Burton Act and the
Apex Act by allowing local government to participate in the
process of identifying lands to be disposed of and also in
sharing in the increased land values brought by providing
infrastructure through a 85/15 split of the proceeds from the
sales of federal lands. For the SNWA, this approach is
critically important to defray the added costs of building a
new water system to provide service to the expanded rings of
BLM lands which surround the developed parts of Las Vegas. It
will partially reimburse us for water infrastructure that is
providing value to otherwise barren desert tracts of federal
land.
Conclusion
H.R. 449 will reestablish a cooperative working partnership
between the federal government and local government as we seek
to provide water service to the growth which will occur in the
next decade through the continued disposal of federal
landholdings within the Las Vegas valley. We urge you to
expedite the bill's enactment so that the terms of this
cooperative partnership can be immediately applied to the next
block of federal lands that are released for development. Thank
You.
------
Statement of Steve Hobbs, Nevada State Director, The Nature Conservancy
The Nature Conservancy is a private, nonprofit corporation
whose mission is the conservation of plants, animals and
natural communities that represent the diversity of life on
Earth. To date, the Conservancy, its nearly 900,000 members,
and its like-minded partners have conserved more than ten
million acres in 50 states and Canada. The Conservancy has
helped conservation organizations in the Caribbean, Latin
America, and the Pacific conserve millions of acres through
innovative debt-for-nature exchanges and community-based
solutions that enable sustainable economies. While some lands
acquired by the Conservancy are sold to local, state, and
federal government entities, the Conservancy owns 1,340 nature
preserves--the largest private preserve system in the world.
The Nature Conservancy was incorporated in 1951 and has
sought to establish state chapters in each state. The Nature
Conservancy of Nevada is the newest chapter in The Nature
Conservancy having been established in 1995. However, the
Conservancy has been very active in the past throughout Nevada
from helping to acquire the largest oasis in the Mojave Desert
at Ash Meadows to our effort to restore important wetlands
while maintaining a strong agriculture-based economy in Fallon.
We are currently working with Clark County officials, various
federal agencies, and community leaders in crafting a Multiple
Species Habitat Conservation Plan in an attempt to get ahead of
the endangered species issues which confront this community.
The Nature Conservancy is the largest conservation organization
in Nevada with more than 4,200 members that provide financial
support for our activities.
Nevada is a state of contrasts. From the mosaic of high
mountain ranges to the stark beauty of the deserts, Nevada
contains some of the most diverse landscapes in the West. This
diversity led The Nature Conservancy to rank Nevada as the
sixth most ecologically important state with more than 320
species being either rare or unique to Nevada.
However, the wide-open spaces of Nevada are undergoing a
rapid transformation. The growth that Nevada has experienced
over the last five years is unprecedented. The vibrant economy
of Nevada has attracted workers from all around the country.
At a rate of 5,000 new residents per month, the Las Vegas
Valley has exploded and maintaining the clear skies and
beautiful surroundings that attract tourists, the basis of the
Las Vegas economy, is challenged by this growth.
The Las Vegas Valley exists as an island in a sea of
federal land. To meet the demand for residential housing
spurred by this phenomenal growth, developers must look to
federal lands. The federal land exchange process has helped to
facilitate this growth, but in a manner that is largely
unsatisfactory to all parties involved.
We need to explore alternatives to the current land
exchange process. The Economic Report of the President,
transmitted to the Congress last month, addresses this issue.
The report includes the annual report of the President's
Council of Economic Advisors (CEA). The CEA report includes the
following statement (page 227):
``Achieving the most efficient mix of public land private
lands may require reconfiguring the public land base, adding to
it in some places and divesting in others . . . Reconfiguring
could be accomplished directly through swaps of public for
desired private lands, as is most common today, or public lands
could be sold and the proceeds put into an account for land
purchases elsewhere. Economists have long recognized that the
swap option is limited by the ``double coincidence of wants''
problem. It is often hard to find a swap partner who both owns
an asset the government wishes to acquire and places a similar
value on an asset the government wishes to sell. For this
reason, a land purchase fund that decouples buying and selling
land assets is superior to direct swaps.''
A system that sells lands at auction, keeps the receipts
off-budget, and uses them to purchase other lands has major
transactional advantages over traditional land exchanges,
including:
1. No need to match properties. In a traditional land
exchange, a private party trades a land tract to the Secretary
for a piece of land under the Secretary's control. The two
tracts must be of almost equal value. Finding such a pair of
matched tracts can be difficult and time consuming,
particularly since the private party seeking a government tract
rarely owns another the government wants. Most often, the
private party has to seek out and purchase such a tract before
the process begins. Turning government lands into cash first
avoids the need to find equally matched tracts.
2. Competitive bidding simplifies appraisals. Obtaining
agreement from two parties on the appraised value of two pieces
of property is probably the most difficult, time consuming, and
frustration-inducing element of traditional land exchanges.
Competitive bidding for the government property largely
eliminates the need for one of the two appraisals. By
definition, competitive bidding obtains a true market value for
a property, and can greatly reduce the uncertainty, risks,
controversy and delay that accompany having to set the value of
a property through appraisal and negotiation.
3. Competitive bidding maximizes return to the government.
Selling the government lands at auction provides competition
between buyers that will maximize the value received by the
government for its land. True competition is often totally
absent from traditional exchanges.
4. The system accommodates sellers and reduces costs.
Having cash on hand for acquisitions allows the Secretary to
act quickly to take advantage of selling decisions by
individual landowners. While negotiating an exchange is a
complicated process that often takes more than a year,
landowners' decisions to sell are often tied to an immediate
need for cash. Being able to meet that need in a timely fashion
greatly enhances the Secretary's ability to acquire lands in
these circumstances--and can reduce interest and transaction
costs the Secretary now reimburses to third parties for
purchasing and holding lands the Secretary wants to acquire
before funding is appropriated by the Congress.
Land exchanges have long been scored as not affecting the
federal budget in any way (except for transaction costs). But
when government land is sold, the receipts become general
receipts to the Treasury, and cannot be spent without further
appropriation by the Congress--which puts them back into the
budget process and its increasingly tightening limits.
Having an off-budget fund fueled by land sales, and using
that fund to buy land, is no different in its net fiscal impact
than a land exchange. The final effect is no expenditure of
appropriated funds, and no net change in the value of
government assets--just a change in where those assets are
located.
The Southern Nevada Public Land Management Act of 1997
(H.R. 449) addresses these issues in a way that does not impact
the Federal Budget. This concept has been proven to work with
the Santini-Burton Act through which more than 11,000 acres of
important natural areas surrounding Lake Tahoe have been
conserved.
H.R. 449 also provides the federal agencies in Nevada the
financial resources they need to accommodate the increased use
of our public lands and safeguard those precious examples of
our vanishing natural heritage. The explosive growth in
Southern Nevada places a burden upon the management of our
public lands. Not only has the hunger for land to develop
caused pressure upon the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to
dispose of many of their lands through the cumbersome land
exchange process, but this sudden increase in population has
created difficulties for our federal agencies in maintaining
the high quality recreational opportunities that can be found
at nearby Lake Mead National Recreation Area, Spring Mountains
National Recreation Area, and Red Rock Canyon National
Conservation Area. The pressure on our irreplaceable natural
resources in Southern Nevada, and elsewhere in the state, is
beginning to show and unless steps are taken soon to provide
the resources necessary to alleviate the problem.
H.R. 449 would also make the exchange process more
transparent to the American public than it is now. There is the
general public perception, be it real or imagined, that the
land exchange process is driven by powerful development
interests rather than the federal and local government agencies
charged with acting on the public's behalf. It is also the case
that the federal agencies do not have the level of control over
when and how offered lands are acquired making it difficult to
make informed management decisions. H.R. 449 gives us an
opportunity to amend this situation by giving the federal
agencies the opportunity to be more deliberate and thoughtful
in their land acquisition process to ensure that the public is
truly benefiting from the transaction.
H.R. 449 also provides for compensation to local
governments through the Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILT) Program
administered by the Department of the Interior and the U.S.
Forest Service. This program ensures that rural community's
property tax revenues remain stable. H.R. 449 also requires
that local governments be consulted before lands within their
jurisdiction are purchased. In the state of Nevada, where more
than 90% of the land base is owned by government, it is vitally
important that our conservation acquisitions complement the
goals of the local community while accomplishing the goals of
conserving Nevada's unique natural heritage.
To that end, The Nature Conservancy feels that it is very
important that the Public Lands Task Force in Nevada move
forward with the establishment of objective criteria for
evaluating potential projects to be funded by monies generated
through the passage of H.R. 449. These funds represent Nevada's
conservation legacy for future generations. It is our
responsibility to establish clear guidelines as to how this
money will be spent to ensure that this unique opportunity to
protect our environment in Nevada and ensure a lasting high
quality of life for Nevadans not be wasted. The Nature
Conservancy is eager to lend assistance in this effort relying
upon more than 40 years of experience in aiding government
agencies establish conservation strategies.
The natural treasures of Nevada are the nation's treasures.
We, as a nation, have a responsibility to future generations to
pass on nature's legacy. The Southern Nevada Public Land
Management Act of 1997 (H.R. 449) seeks to solve the myriad
problems of traditional land exchanges thereby ensuring
economic prosperity for the region while, at the same time,
providing the financial resources necessary to ensure that this
same economic prosperity does not result in the diminution of
Nevada's natural environment. Prosperity is not truly
prosperity unless it ensures a lasting quality of life for all.
We have a unique opportunity in Nevada to provide for both
economic growth and conservation of our natural resources. H.R.
449 is the legislation that will enable us to seize this
opportunity. The Nature Conservancy urges the passage of H.R.
449.
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