Wilderness bill defeated in House

WASHINGTON -- The House on Wednesday defeated a bill to set aside more than 2 million acres in nine states as protected wilderness as part of a measure that included transfer of land for the Nevada Cancer Institute, study of a Cold War memorial and authorization of the national landscape system.

Majority Democrats agreed to amend the bill to clarify it wouldn't make new limits on hunting, fishing or trapping, an amendment sought by the National Rifle Association.

A majority of House members supported the bill, but the measure was defeated because it did not receive the needed two-thirds votes. The vote was 282-144 in favor -- two votes short of approval.

Reps. Shelley Berkley and Dina Titus, both D-Nev., voted for the measure. Rep. Dean Heller, R-Nev., voted against it but said there is "plenty of time to consider this bill and work out a compromise."

"Simply put, the bad in this bill outweighs the good," he said through spokesman Stewart Bybee. "I cannot support legislation that gives the federal government greater authority to close access to public lands. This legislation should have focused solely on local projects and let legislation that will change nationwide federal land management policy stand on its own."

A provision by Berkley would have transferred 24 acres from an 80-acre parcel of public land at Alta Drive and Hualapai Way to the Nevada Cancer Institute for a new campus. Las Vegas would have received 20 acres for development and commercial projects, and the remaining 36 acres were for a cancer survivors' park, a flood control project and a water pumping facility.

The bill required that revenue from the development of this parcel "be used to pay for more parks and trails in the Las Vegas Valley and to preserve Nevada treasures like Red Rock Canyon and Lake Tahoe," Berkley said through spokesman David Cherry.

The bill would have given congressional authorization for the National Landscape Conservation System, which was established by President Bill Clinton in 2000 and carried over through the Bush administration.

The system within the Bureau of Land Management includes 45 wilderness areas and 62 wilderness study areas in Nevada in addition to three national conservation areas.

Also, the bill had proposed making part of the Amargosa River a wild and scenic river for inclusion in the landscape system.

Cherry said there was nothing in the bill that would have limited the rights of anglers and hunters who use the land.

House debate on the bill turned contentious, as Republicans complained that the measure, one of the largest expansions of wilderness protection in 25 years, would cost up to $10 billion and block oil and gas development on millions of acres of federal property.

They also said it should not have been brought up under special rules that blocked most amendments and required two-thirds support for passage. Such rules are usually reserved for noncontroversial bills.

The bill included a provision to study development of a Cold War memorial on Mount Charleston for possible inclusion in the government's inventory of historically significant landmarks.

That part of the bill was inspired in part by efforts of Southern Nevadan Steve Ririe, who has researched and documented the site atop Mount Charleston where a plane crashed in 1955 taking secret government workers to Area 51, where the U-2 spy plane was being tested along the dry Groom Lake bed near the Nevada Test Site.

Review-Journal writer Keith Rogers contributed to this report.