Courtesy of Nevada Newsmakers
Rep. Mark Amodei -- the only Republican in Nevada's congressional delegation -- said on Nevada Newsmakers this week that he understands the ire of his Democratic colleagues in Nevada's federal delegation after his late-night amendment to sell off more than 93,000 acres of public lands in Nevada.
"Listen, I get it," Amodei told host Sam Shad. "I get it because I have been doing this for a long time."
Amodei, representing Nevada's 2nd House District since 2011, was not apologizing for his move on the House Committee on Natural Resources. He was laying out the reasoning for his actions during the Nevada Newsmakers interview. The complaints by Democrats, including Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto and Rep. Dina Titus, include:
* None of the money from the sale will stay in Nevada,
* The amendment was passed in the middle of the night, and,
* None of Nevada's other delegates were consulted before Amodei made his move.
Cortez Masto reportedly called Amodei's move "insane." Titus said Amodei's move, "is not the way you do things." Rep. Susie Lee, D-Nv, sent Amodei a letter, asking him to to rescind the Clark County portion of his amendment.
Said Amodei: "I don't think that we disagree on the policy, but they can't come out and say, 'Well, maybe this is a good way to start, or something like that."
"They've got to go, 'Oh my God, blah, blah, blah and add all those Sierra Club talking points and all that stuff," he added. " So I get it, there's no hard feelings."
Perhaps the most vocal complaint Amodei heard was that the money raised from the land sales will not stay in Nevada, as it had previously.
Instead, it will go to the U.S. Treasury. The reason U.S. House Republicans approved the land sales in the first place was to help cover the Trump administration's proposed tax cuts.
The total bill will generate more than $18 billion in revenue and savings, according to a statement from Rep. Bruce Westerman, chairman of the House Committee on Natural Resources
“These budgetary measures will deliver on President Trump’s agenda to make our nation energy dominant today and into the future,” Westerman said.
More importantly, Amodei also said that no one in the Nevada congressional delegation has had the moxie to ensure money from land sales stay in Nevada since the days of former U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
"Real brutal answer, it's because we don't have Harry Reid in there now," Amodei said.
Reid retired in January 2017, after declining to run for re-election in 2016. He passed in 2021. Nevada has never regained the influence in Congress it had when Reid was there, Amodei said.
"You need somebody with the stature of a senate majority leader or a minority leader who has the ability to impose their will on both sides of the Capitol," Amodei said. "In the overall scheme thing -- and I'm saying this about me, too -- we don't have that person."
Amodei also noted that the House Natural Resources Committee was bound by the "Byrd Rule," which bars non-budgetary issues from being added to reconciliation bills because of their expedited legislative process.
"In a brief, it has to have an impact on the U.S. Treasury," Amodei said. "So there's people griping about, 'You didn't do a conservation element.' Hey, I can't bend the rules. I can't do any of those things and it has to have the Byrd Rule.
"Frankly, you take that into account because you don't want to try something and get it blown out in the Senate," Amodei added.
The bill must still be approved by the U.S. Senate after it gets full U.S. House approval.
The land bill's components include 12,000 acres for Fernley and the Tahoe-Reno Industrial Center II, about 356,000 acres along Interstate-80 for Pershing County and an expansion of more than14,000 acres for Sparks and Washoe County that has been requested by Sparks Mayor Ed Lawson.
All have been long-standing requests from other previous land-transfer bills, he said.
"The stuff is in there because it's been in front of both committees for several Congresses now," Amodei said. "So it's not, 'Oh my God, where did this come from?' We don't draw lines on a map."
Amodei said he tried to do what his constituents wanted in the Northern Nevada portions of the land deal.
"Sparks wanted about 14,000 acres to kind of go a little north and south," Amodei said. "Some of it's in Washoe County, but nonetheless, that's the Spark City Council. That's those folks. That was in (Sen.) Jacky Rosen's Washoe County lands bill last time. Not a shock."
Most of the controversy with his Nevada federal delegates stemmed from the 65,000 acres in Clark County included in the bill -- land not in Amodei's congressional district.
"That (Clark County component) came from speaking with the Clark County Commission to try to help them through the process from our side," he said.
Amodei said there was little time for consultation in the reconciliation process.
"Dina (Titus) and I did not talk about this because it came up kind of quick," he said.
However, Amodei said he had spoken with other representatives from Clark County.
"Over over the last three Congresses, I spoke with (Commissioner) Jim Gibson. I've spoke with (Commissioner) Marilyn Kirkpatrick ... I spoke with the county manager," Amodei said.
Amodei noted that the Democrats in Nevada's delegation are not in the current majority in Congress and their land bills have languished.
"It helps to be in the majority," Amodei, the Republican, said. "And so I'm trying to make that work for the four pieces in Nevada -- a Fernley piece, a Sparks piece, the consolidation of the checkerboard (of federal land) in Pershing (County) and then to also give them something to talk about in Clark."
Amodei also scoffed at the idea that he somehow tried to sneak the amendment through in the wee hours of the morning.
The amendment was debated by the committee after midnight only because the chairman wanted to hear all of the Democrats' amendments first, Amodei said. Democrats had about 100 amendments, he added.
"We started at 10 (o'clock) in the morning," he said. "And Bruce Westerman, who's the chairman of the committee, goes, 'We're going to do your amendment when we get done with the Democrat ones.
"Well, when we got done with the Democrat ones, it was about 12:30 (a.m.)," Amodei said. "Listen, if it was up to me, I'd love to have done it before dinner. I mean, I'm not exactly a college kid where I just hit my stride at 12:30, you know? So we did it when it was our turn. "
Visit www.nevadanewsmakers.com to watch the full interview.
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