Reid reintroduces Moapa Paiute reservation expansion bill
WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. Harry Reid introduced legislation this week to grant nearly 26,000 acres of federal land to the Moapa Band of Paiutes outside Las Vegas.
The bill is similar to one the Nevada Democrat introduced a year ago in the 113th Congress that was advanced by the Senate Indian Affairs Committee but was not considered further.
About 200 members of the Moapa tribe live on its 75,000-acre reservation 30 miles northeast of Las Vegas.
"This bill will return a portion of southern Paiute homeland and provide the Moapa Paiutes with space for additional housing, economic development, conservation and cultural protection," Reid said in a press release. "I commend the tribe for their perseverance on this legislation, and I look forward to furthering this progress together."
In the 1870s, the Moapa Paiute reservation spread over 2-½ million acres, including much of what today is Moapa Valley, Bunkerville, Logandale, Glendale, Overton and Gold Butte. But most of it was stripped away by Congress.
In 1980 President Jimmy Carter restored 75,000 acres, roughly 117 square miles, to the reservation.
At a Senate hearing in 2014, tribal Chairwoman Aletha Tom said the Moapa Paiutes plan to use the additional land to pursue more solar energy investments.
In May, federal officials cleared the way for a new 200-megawatt photo-voltaic array to be built on tribal land with the backing of NV Energy. The facility on 850 acres is expected to generate enough electricity for about 60,000 homes.
And in March, the tribe broke ground on a 250-megawatt plant billed as the first utility-scale solar project approved on tribal land. The project could generate electricity to feed 93,000 homes by the end of 2015. The city of Los Angeles has agreed to buy power from the 1,000-acre array for 25 years under a deal worth about $1.6 billion.
The investment in alternative energy production ties in to Reid's own ambition to see Nevada become a major player in solar and wind energy generation.
Contact Peter Urban at purban@reviewjournal.com or at 202-783-1760.
