Nevada BLM Land to Stay in Federal Hands

A plan to transfer Bureau of Land Management (BLM) lands to state control will not be brought to a vote, in part because its author Rep. Mark Amodei was unable to build support for it. "A Colorado College poll of voters in Nevada and six other western states in January also showed majority opposition among Democrats, Republicans and independents to transferring federal land to state or other hands," Benjamin Spillman reports for the Reno Gazette Journal. Amodei himself, doubted the public's appetite for the change after meetings with the public.

The Honor the Nevada Enabling Act was to be a several step phase moving lands out of federal control, "The first phase covered nearly 7.3 million acres, with about half within a checkerboard pattern that traverses the state from Sparks to Wendover," Spillman writes. But now that looks unlikely to happen.