EDITORIAL: Feds should release 23,000+ acres in Vegas Valley

It’s time for Democrats and progressive green activists to stop pretending that releasing federal land for new housing is akin to building strip malls in Yellowstone or fast-food restaurants in Yosemite.

Housing prices have emerged as a significant political flashpoint. The cost of owning a home has risen dramatically over the past decade. In the first half of 2015, the median home sales price in the United States was less than $290,000. This year, it topped $415,000. Prices are higher locally. In Southern Nevada, the median sales price last month was $485,000. At the end of 2015, it was $217,000.

Mortgage rates have jumped dramatically, too. This year, the average rate on a 30-year fixed-rate loan has been almost 7 percent. For most of 2015, it was under 3.7 percent.

As a result, many people in their 20s and 30s feel that homeownership isn’t realistic. They fear the American Dream is now inaccessible.

To address this, many liberal officials are pushing rent control and other heavy-handed government interventions. If those prescriptions lowered prices, blue cities wouldn’t be as unaffordable as they are.

On the right, conservatives are warning that a society of renters will be more susceptible to the siren song of socialism. “If we do not improve the material conditions of the younger voters, and do it quickly, the (Zohran) Mamdani effect will spread,” Charlie Kirk told The Washington Post recently. He advocates for a Marshall Plan-style initiative to build 10 million homes.

While the government’s record of building efficiently leaves much to be desired, at least Mr. Kirk understands that supply must increase. But there’s one more challenge: Those millions of new homes must go somewhere. When land is scarce, home prices increase. This is something the Trump administration can fix — in Western states such as Nevada, at least.

A recent study from ECOnorthwest, a policy research firm, found that the federal government controls more than 23,000 acres of undeveloped or underutilized land in and around the Las Vegas Valley. That’s only a tiny portion of the federal government’s holdings here, which encompass around 4.5 million acres. Even if environmentalists claim otherwise, it should be obvious that releasing those parcels for private use isn’t the same as plopping a housing development in Zion National Park.

Congress failed to release more federal land for housing in the big, beautiful bill. But Interior Secretary Doug Burgum still has the means to speed up the release of unused parcels controlled by the Bureau of Land Management. Anyone who is serious about making home prices more affordable should push him to do so.