The federal government will auction 27,000 acres of public land near Las Vegas at market value, with most of the estimated $500 million to $1 billion in proceeds going toward the purchase of environmentally sensitive land in Nevada.
Under the Southern Nevada Public Lands Management Act recently passed by Congress and signed by Pres. Clinton, 85 percent of the proceeds will go to acquire privately-owned environmentally sensitive lands in the state. Another 10 percent will go to the Southern Nevada Water Authority to build drinking-water pipelines, and 5 percent will go to state public school funding (Greenwire, 6/26).
In the past, the feds had "been reluctant" to sell public land in Nevada because the proceeds went to the Treasury, not Nevada or the Interior Department. And land exchanges, in which the federal government swapped developable public land near Las Vegas for environmentally sensitive land in Nevada, became "mired in controversy." Federal audits found that the government got "far less" than equal value in "many exchanges."
The 27,000 acres are expected to be auctioned at average prices of $18,000 to $37,000 an acre. Parcels to be auctioned will be offered with minimum bids set by government-approved appraisals (New York Times, 10/25).
A Las Vegas Review-Journal editorial said the auction "mark[s] a fundamental change in Bureau of Land Management philosophy" and that "new legislation could go further toward bring free-market incentives to the public-lands distribution process" (10/6).
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