Benjamin Spillman

bspillman@rgj.com

A proposal that would unload millions of acres of federal public land in Nevada fell flat Friday in Carson City.

Dozens of hunters and anglers told the Nevada Wildlife Commission they oppose the proposal contained in Congressional bill by Rep. Mark Amodei, R-Nev.

The commission, a state body which oversees the Nevada Department of Wildlife, voted unanimously to summarize the hunters’ concerns in a letter to Amodei.

The original version included two phases of transfers of Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service property to the state.

The first phase includes about 7.2 million acres in a 40-mile-wide swath roughly parallel to Interstate 80, the Union Pacific Railroad and the Humbodlt River in northern Nevada.

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The second phase called for a much broader transfer of federal land from across the state, excluding wilderness, wildlife refuges, national parks and tribal land.

That bill died at the end of the prior congressional session but Amodei has pledged to re-introduce another version.

It’s backed by people who say the federal land agencies are slow to respond the needs of ranchers, miners and other land users.

Hunters, conservationists and others, however, oppose the idea because they say the state isn’t prepared to manage the land and would eventually sell it to private owners which would eliminate public access.

“We don’t have to worry about these lands being sold off,” Remi Warren of Reno told the commission.

Warren, a hunter and host of the television show Apex Predator, said after the meeting public land is critical for younger people seeking to escape the demands of constant online connectivity.

“I call it a shift back to nature,” Warren said.

Paul Dixon of Las Vegas told the commission he was struck by the age diversity among people testifying against widespread land transfers as well as agreement between hunters and non-hunting conservationists.

“Today we are united and that says something powerful in a nation that is deeply divided,” Dixon said.

Before public testimony commissioners heard testimony from Demar Dahl, an Elko County Commissioner and chairman of the Nevada Lands Council, a leading advocate in favor of transferring public land to the state.

“Do you believe and do I believe the state can manage our public lands as good as our federal government does,” Dahl said. “We can do better, the state can do better.”

Dahl’s testimony was scheduled as an update to the commission on the status of the bill.

Of the nine commissioners seven asked questions or made statements criticizing the idea of widespread transfers.

“In my opinion we should look at preserving these high value habitats and movement corridors as public lands,” Commissioner Jeremy Drew said.

Several people who testified said they would support smaller-scale transfers aimed at providing specific tracts of land to rural communities for development or other local uses.

But among people who testified at least 15 were in opposition to widespread transfers and no one besides Dahl testified in favor.

Drew said he will lead the process of creating a draft of the letter and bring it back to the March meeting of the wildlife commission for review.

Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, had a similar bill that would have transferred about 3.3 million acres across the west out of federal hands. But Chaffetz withdrew the bill citing widespread opposition among his Utah constituents.