EDITORIAL: Hypocritical Democrats attack Amodei’s lands bill

Imagine someone receiving free tickets to the Super Bowl or a Taylor Swift concert and then complaining about the concessions. That’s analogous to the Democratic reaction to the possibility of the federal government releasing more Nevada land for development.

On Monday, Rep. Mark Amodei added an important amendment to a reconciliation bill. His proposal would direct the federal government to sell more than 90,000 acres in Nevada. That includes around 65,000 acres in Clark County that would be set aside for affordable housing.

Let’s remember that this is a tiny fraction of the 55 million acres — more than 80 percent of the entire state — that the federal government controls in Nevada.

A lack of available land is one factor driving up housing prices in the state. Even Democrats have called for Washington to release more land into private or state hands. In March, Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto introduced a bill to do precisely that. Rep. Susie Lee supported a similar effort in the House. The proposal would allow “Clark County to develop up to 25,000 acres for affordable housing and business growth over the next 50 years,” a release from Ms. Cortez Masto stated.

Rep. Steven Horsford is also working on housing issues. In a Tuesday statement, he said one of his proposed bills would expand “available federal lands for property development.”

What’s happening around the country confirms the nexus between higher housing costs and a lack of available private land. Home prices in the Northeast and Midwest continue to increase, The Wall Street Journal recently reported. But they’re dropping in many Southern states.

In response to people moving to states such as Texas and Florida, “homebuilders built aggressively in those areas,” the paper found. But higher interest rates and higher prices have tamped down demand. Now, some Texas and Florida markets have “a surplus of newly built homes, leading to price declines.”

Supply and demand remains undefeated.

Given all this, one would expect Nevada Democrats to praise Rep. Amodei for pushing forward a policy they claim to support. Nope. They reacted in fury, either blinded by partisan politics or revealing that, in truth, they don’t actually support loosening the vise grip the federal government has on Nevada real estate. Or perhaps it’s both.

Rep. Lee called Rep. Amodei’s plan a “slap in the face to Nevadans.” The always colorful Rep. Dina Titus said, “Nevada gets screwed.” Sen. Cortez Masto moaned that it would be the “single biggest sell-offs of Nevada public lands in history.”

The implication is that Rep. Amodei wants our federal overlords to auction off the Great Basin National Park or other protected treasures to rapacious developers. That’s a crock. The land in question is not considered environmentally sensitive.

Reducing the federal government’s hegemony over the vast majority of Nevada by an infinitesimal margin will hardly trigger environmental disaster and degradation. In fact, it’s the most promising means of increasing housing supply. And that — not misguided government interventions such as rent control — remains the key to lowering housing prices in Nevada and elsewhere.