Amodei’s public land bill dropped from House funding package

Rep. Mark Amodei’s amendment to sell more than 93,000 acres of public land in Nevada has been scrapped from the House reconciliation bill.

Nevada’s sole Republican congressman led the House earlier this month in putting forward an amendment to the giant funding package known as the “Big, Beautiful Bill” that would have sold more than 65,000 acres of public land in Clark County to be used for housing and economic development, as well as land in Northern Nevada and Utah.

The move was met with criticism from Nevada’s Democratic congressional delegation, which began working to remove the language. Earlier this week Rep. Dina Titus, D-Nev., introduced her own amendment to scrap the Clark County portion of the bill, and Rep. Susie Lee, D-Nev., spoke with Rep. Ryan Zinke, R-Mont., and other Republican lawmakers to get support for pulling the amendment, according to Lee, who also added an amendment to scrap the Utah land sale, which she said could have resulted in a controversial pipeline to pump water away from Nevada.

On Wednesday night, Titus posted on X that her amendment was included in a manager’s amendment, though Amodei’s entire amendment, which would have also included land sales in Washoe County and Lyon County, was removed.

In a phone interview Wednesday night, Amodei expressed his frustration. He said Zinke threatened to vote no on the entire reconciliation package if Amodei’s lands bill wasn’t removed, and leadership decided not to call Zinke’s bluff, Amodei said.

“You might have played checkers for a week, but the chess game starts now,” Amodei said.

“This was an opportunity to fast-track that stuff that was offered to us by the Natural Resources Committee, so we took it,” Amodei said. “It focused the need for us to act on lands bills in Nevada, and nowhere is that need more acute than it is Clark County.”

Amodei said his amendment would have sped up the federal authorization process for the land sales, but now the land bills will go back to the Natural Resources Committee.

“I’m proud to say that nobody from my side of the fence in Nevada threatened the whole president’s bill over public land stuff, which is as important as it gets,” he said. “But that ain’t the way to get to where you want to go, in my humble opinion. And I’m looking forward to the next 120 days in this Congress on public lands issues in the Natural Resource Committee.”

Titus said in a statement Wednesday night that Amodei’s amendment would have created a burden on taxpayers who would have had to front the costs of infrastructure improvements needed for development in rural areas.

“It would have further strained our limited water resources. On top of that, this provision would have broken precedent by sending money back to Washington D.C. rather than keeping it in Southern Nevada to invest in conservation, preserving critical ecosystems, wildfire prevention efforts, and public schools.”

Lee called the removal of Amodei’s amendment a “huge win for Nevada’s and the Southwest’s water security.”

“I’m happy that my Republican colleagues, led by Rep. Zinke, acknowledged that it would wrongfully change the way federal lands are managed,” Lee said in a statement. “They stood their ground and we were able to stop the unprecedented Amodei proposal.”

Environmentalists also applauded the removall.

“We hope that Zinke’s move sends a strong message to lawmakers of all stripes: We can never break the public trust and the Colorado River for billionaire tax breaks,” said Kyle Roerink, executive director of the Great Basin Water Network, in a statement.

The Sierra Club Toiyabe Chapter called it a win for public lands and grassroots activism.

“This is proof that when people fight for the things and places they love, they win,” said Olivia Tanager, director of the Sierra Club Toiyabe Chapter, in a statement. “Nevadans stood up, raised hell, and made it crystal clear: our public lands are not for sale.”

Contact Jessica Hill at [email protected]. Follow @jess_hillyeah on X.