Attorney General Adam Laxalt has
taken exactly the right action in joining, and now leading, the lawsuit
against the Bureau of Land Management, the Department of the Interior
and other DOI agencies. The details of the lawsuit document the
irreparable harm that will come to many Nevada counties and the State of
Nevada.
This is the federal
government choosing to implement its agenda through executive action, a
consistent policy of the Obama administration.
Gov. Brian Sandoval recently alleged Laxalt does not represent the
State of Nevada, the governor or any state agencies. In reality, the
majority of counties (Elko, Eureka, Lander, White Pine, Lincoln,
Humboldt, Washoe, Churchill and Pershing) are directly parties to the
lawsuit, the Nevada Association of Counties (NACO) has worked hard to
organize the lawsuit, and Sen. Dean Heller, Congressman Mark Amodei,
Congressman Joe Heck, state Sen. James Settelmeyer, state Sen. Pete
Goicoechea, Assemblyman Ira Hansen, NACO, the Nevada Farm Bureau
Federation and numerous other assemblymen, county commissioners and
private groups have issued statements in support of Laxalt’s decision to
join the lawsuit. The bottom line on the comments of the family
ranchers and miners is that without intervention their family ranches
and mining claims are out of business.
Beyond that, numerous mines and
ranching operations were give explicit go-aheads from Federal Agencies
for their plans, made big investments, and now unexpectedly face
financial Armageddon. Commitments from local DOI agencies can no longer
be trusted because they are subject to being unexpectedly overridden
from Washington.
The direction is
clearly to use greater sage grouse actions to shut down as much of land
in the western states as possible, legal and ethical, or not. We have
heard from local BLM personnel who vociferously say it is not them — the
orders are from Washington, and they fully expect these actions to lead
to litigation. Unless an injunction can be won, the impact will hit
Nevada long before a resolution in the courts.
As an indicator of the ethics and approach being taken by the BLM and
other DOE agencies, BLM has denied every single public comment,
including many from government agencies like Churchill County, in the
sage grouse decision and in several local Resource Management Plans. How
can anyone, in good conscience, say that not a single comment of those
from more than 600 separate citizens is valid? The message is clear to
me — even if in violation of Federal Law the Federal Government is going
to ignore all of our input and do exactly as it pleases, and they have
as much of our money as they need to defend any lawsuits.
Nevada’s own sage-grouse conservation plans spearheaded by Sandoval
were completely ignored in the recently issued 3,500-page Sage-Grouse
LUPA/FEIS, this to the frustration of Sandoval who sent a 12-page
response letter. Perhaps it is time for Sandoval to realize that in
spite of his best, proactive efforts, the direction from the White House
is now to ignore all of those efforts, ignore the requirements of
federal laws including the requirement for federal agencies to
coordinate their proposals with local plans and policies, and ignore all
cooperative efforts by state and local governments.
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