All Our Wins Are Temporary; All Their Wins Are Permanent
Reflections on the battle to save the Desert Refuge, and what lies ahead
All Our Wins Are Temporary; All Their Wins Are Permanent
“We’re not just saying no, we’re saying hell no!”
-Me in January 2018, while delivering public comment at the Air Force’s public meeting for the Draft Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Nevada Test and Training Range expansion. I subsequently led a chant “Don’t! Bomb! The! Bighorn!” as the Air Force officer in charge motioned for security to remove me.
“When this campaign began we said ‘not one acre.’ We meant it.”
-Me, last week
In case you didn’t hear, the final National Defense Authorization Act [PDF] came out of conference committee last Thursday containing zero acres of expansion for the Nevada Test and Training Range and Fallon Naval Air Station. Yep, you saw that right. After requesting 1.7 million acres of public land to drop bombs and conduct warfare exercises on, the military got zero. Nothing. Zilch. Nada. Do not pass Go, do not collect $200.
It was almost anticlimactic really – after the Air Force published thousands of pages of (shoddy, half-truth-ridden) environmental review for their massive proposed public land grabs, tucked away in Sections 2843 of the final National Defense Authorization Act, were some very simple words: “Notwithstanding section 3015 of the Military Lands Withdrawal Act of 1999 (title XXX of Public Law 106–65; 113 Stat. 892), the withdrawal and reservation of lands (known as the Nevada Test and Training Range) made by section 3011(b) of such Act (113 Stat. 886) shall terminate on November 6, 2046.” That’s it. That was the denouement of a five-year campaign to save the Desert Refuge. A straight 25 year extension on the withdrawal. Status quo boundaries. No changes to management. A similar provision in 2842 was in there for Fallon Naval Air Station. We won.
Folks may wonder what that withdrawal is all about, and I guess that’s the inside baseball which has mostly escaped public notice outside of policy circles. I didn’t know this before starting to work on this issue, but military bombing ranges are technically public domain that has been “withdrawn” for military purposes. Those withdrawals need to be renewed every so often. Technically, if the withdrawals lapsed, the bombing ranges would revert back to public domain and we could go out there and start filing mining claims and camping in one place for no more than 14 days and presumably lobbying our congressional delegation to sell it off for sprawl, as one does. Since nobody wants NTTR or Fallon to revert back to public land (nobody, not even us, was arguing for that), the withdrawals have to be renewed. And since the current withdrawals expired in 2021, some language, we didn’t know what but something, was going to be in the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act. The Department of Defense figured that while they were renewing the bases, they might as well tack on, oh another 1.7 million acres of public land to the request. The point of this little anecdote being, we all knew that the culmination of this whole fight was going to be the conference committee text of the NDAA – it was just a question of who got to decide what that text said.
It’s hard to convey what a wide-ranging campaign this was. Nevada’s Native American nations played a crucial and decisive role – we worked alongside the Moapa Band of Paiutes and the Las Vegas Band of Paiutes on the Desert Refuge, and in coordination with the Fallon Paiute Shoshone Tribe on the Fallon expansion. We worked alongside the group Veterans for Peace, who brought a tremendous amount of credibility to this fight. Outdoor business played an important role, with Patagonia and the Nevada Outdoor Business Council both joining us for our lobbying efforts on the Hill. We had the very active participation of the former manager of the Desert Refuge, Christy Smith – having a retired Fish and Wildlife Service staffer on our team helped add vital perspective. And of course, there were the environmental groups. Hard to call it a “coalition” per se, inasmuch as we all wanted to get different things out of this situation (more below), nonetheless the combined voices of the environmental community, loud and sustained, is what got the message through to decision-makers in DC. Active groups on this issue included the Sierra Club, the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada, Defenders of Wildlife, Earthjustice, the National Wildlife Refuge Association, Basin and Range Watch, Friends of Nevada Wilderness, The Wilderness Society, Pew Charitable Trusts, and probably more.
I also want to particularly acknowledge the work of Jose Witt. Jose was Southern Nevada Director for Friends of Nevada Wilderness, and the progenitor of the Desert Refuge campaign. It was just him in the early days, building support, raising awareness. After I moved to Las Vegas and started at the Center he took me for lunch at Tacos El Gordo and pitched me on the issue. He took me out to see the sand dunes, to see the petroglyphs, to feel that aching emptiness of Desert Valley in the heart of the Refuge. And I was hooked. Jose and I worked side by side on this campaign for three years, in particular taking partners and policy-makers out to see the Desert Refuge. We had a good schtick. He moved on a little over a year ago, and is now ED of the Southern Nevada Conservancy. I’m grateful for the time we had to work on it together.
But it took more than just citizen pressure. It took politicians who were willing to take up the mantle of our cause and put their reputations on the line to stop these military land grabs. It started in the Nevada legislature, with Assemblywoman Lesley Cohen and Senator Melanie Scheible each sponsoring resolutions which opposed the Air Force takeover of the Desert Refuge. Assemblywoman Sarah Peters sponsored the resolution opposing the Fallon expansion. These passed by astounding majorities. It’s worth pointing out the involvement of the six presidential candidates who weighed in on the issue during the Nevada primary – Warren, Sanders, Castro, Booker, Buttigieg, and Steyer. Folks may remember Castro ran an op-ed about it. And finally there was the drama this summer in Congress, which I won’t recount here. But it’s worth remembering that when things looked their bleakest, Representatives Steven Horsford, Dina Titus, and Susie Lee stood up, went up the ladder and said, “No way.” When the Horsford Amendment, as we called it, was adopted by the House Rules Committee, it felt like a sea change in the campaign. Like we just needed to hold on for dear life to the end of the year and it might happen.
As astute readers know, this wasn’t just a straightforward “let’s stop the military from blowing up bighorn sheep” campaign. Well, it was at first, years ago. But the further along this campaign got, new priorities developed for some, beyond just saving the Desert Refuge and stopping the Fallon land grab. There is a grand Nevada tradition, quite familiar to regular readers of this newsletter, in which deals are cut wherein less desirable uses of public land, like selling it to developers or giving it to the military, are accepted in exchange for designating wilderness or other conservation areas elsewhere. It’s the same exact fight we’ve been battling on the Clark County lands bill.
And indeed, toward the end of this campaign we started to see the signs here, first with Senator Cortez Masto’s legislation last autumn, which would have blocked much of the military’s request but still give them tens of thousands of acres of a wildlife refuge, in exchange for designating much of the rest of it as Wilderness. We saw a similar dynamic with Fallon, wherein Senator Cortez Masto introduced the hideous Northern Nevada lands bill, the mother of all land giveaways, which had many hundreds of thousands of acres of conservation designations as a consolation prize for a million acres lost. And indeed, some in our community supported those bills. (Not us.)
But no. The era of Harry Reid-style lands bills needs to come to an end. We can’t just trade away our public lands in exchange for shiny baubles anymore. If we’re going to designate Wilderness, it needs to be to protect resources and wildlife, not as a quid pro quo with county commissions and their real estate developer buddies, nor with the military. And these bills proved unpopular on Capitol Hill and they didn’t move.
But all of that aside, a final acknowledgement is warranted and that is to Senator Cortez Masto. The Senator made sure that whatever happened on The Hill happened on Nevada’s terms. There’s the power that one might accumulate and wield like Senator Reid, to muscle through whatever you so desire. Senator Cortez Masto isn’t there yet. But she made damn well sure that Nevada and Nevadans were given the respect we deserve in this process, and that the final answer was on Nevada’s terms, not someone else’s. I commend that.
Will the military be back next year, as everyone keeps saying? Maybe. I think that’s a narrative that the pro-“let’s cut a deal” set wants you to believe, because it increases the artificial sense of urgency they are cultivating to push a deal. The military will be back sometime. And we’ll be ready. We said from the beginning of this fight, “Not one acre.” And we meant it.
Coverage from Las Vegas Review-Journal, Las Vegas Sun, E&E News, Nevada Current.
Post-script: County Lands Bills
As I said, everyone has known for years and years that something related to Nevada military installations would be in the 2021 NDAA. And since the NDAA is famously a Christmas tree, which legislators love to hang their shiny ornaments from, every rapacious County Commission in the state of Nevada saw it as a golden opportunity to ram through their quid pro quo lands bill legislation. At various times in the past few years county lands bill proposals have been floated for Clark, Washoe, Douglas, Pershing, Churchill, Lander, Nye, Mineral, and Lyon (Fernley specifically). There’s probably more I’m forgetting. The Ione lands bill. The Lunar Crater lands bill. The Metropolis lands bill.
The idea was all of these lands bills would be shoehorned into an uber-omnibus Nevada lands bill. Public records we obtained show that Clark County staffers told Senator Cortez Masto it would “legacy defining.” In a heroic sweep she would resolve lands issues across half the state and designate probably a few million acres of wilderness. And indeed, in Clark County in particular, they were gunning for the 2021 NDAA for years. The County Commission resolution in 2018, the various drafts that have kicked around since then, the chess pieces they were moving into place, all of it was geared toward inclusion in this NDAA.
As readers are aware, the Clark County lands bill has been a defining issue for the Center for many years. It would be the death of the urban growth boundary around Las Vegas, allowing the city to sprawl beyond the borders of the Las Vegas Valley, and generally signaling that land use planning done in Clark County is done in bad faith, as an instrument to just grow, grow, grow, damn the torpedoes.
So I’ll tell you the truth friends, when I went to the hot spring for my celebratory soak last week was I celebrating the success of the #DontBombTheBighorn campaign? You betcha. But really, the real victory, was that we derailed the sprawlmongers’ starry eyed visions for ramming through their sprawl plan in the NDAA. Honestly I felt like it was the first time I could truly breathe in years. Will the County be back? Sure. I could file yet another public records request tomorrow and probably find more of the same – County staff scheming to greenwash their sprawl proposal and figure out the next avenue of attack. We’ve heard rumor there could be a bill introduced before the end of the year.
But again – we’ll be ready. We are ready. The lands bill isn’t just about tortoises, it’s about climate and it’s about justice. And for today anyway, the sprawlmongers lost. This was a quiet victory, to be certain, but satisfying.
Finally Made It to Court for the Blue Butterfly
After four years of sabre-rattling we finally made it to the courthouse and sued US Fish and Wildlife Service and the US Forest Service over their decision to turn Lee Canyon into an extreme downhill sports amusement park. Powdr Corp’s devious plan to criss-cross the essential and protected critical habitat for the Mount Charleston blue butterfly with downhill mountain biking trails and a “mountain coaster” was given final approval by the Forest Service in October. So now we head to court to try to save one of the most endangered insects in the country.
But wait, haven’t we said we’re going to sue them before? Like at least twice? Indeed. Section 11(g)(2)(A) of the Endangered Species Act requires written notice of violation to be provided to the Secretary of Interior (and other any other alleged violators) at least 60 days before commencing litigation. Ostensibly, the 60 days gives the Service or other violators time to correct their purportedly unlawful actions, before litigation commences.
Attentive readers may recall that we submitted not one but two notices (also called NOIs – Notices of Intent [to sue]) to FWS regarding the blue butterfly this year. First, we submitted an NOI on April 1st, alleging woeful inadequacies in FWS’s analysis of the impacts (known as a “Biological Opinion”) of the proposed development on the butterfly. Somewhat surprisingly, this was met with a rather quick response from FWS, saying just a few weeks later that they’d go back to the drawing board and revise their BiOp based on the information highlighted in our notice. A few months later, they indeed released the new BiOp, but other than some window-dressing type changes, the fundamental flaws remained. So we submitted a second NOI on August 20th, raising primarily the same issues we raised the first time. Since then, FWS and USFS plowed forward with approvals, so now we have filed the litigation resulting from that NOI.
I want to highlight two special people who are supporting us on this litigation. Former Clark County Commissioner and Nevada progressive icon Chris Giunchigliani is supporting us based on her many years of visiting Lee Canyon and having seen the rare butterfly herself. We are so grateful that someone with Chris G’s prestige would join us in trying to save this butterfly. We are also supported by Mount Charleston resident Brenda Talley, a fourth generation Las Vegan who remembers going up on the mountain in summers during her youth and her grandmother telling her about the rare endemic species up there like the Mount Charleston blue butterfly and the Palmer’s chipmunk. We are so pleased that Chris and Brenda will be joining us as standing declarants on our litigation – putting their names on the line to protect Lee Canyon.
And really, it’s important to keep the context in mind. It’s about more than a 1” long butterfly. Lee Canyon is a beautiful place, a rare alpine environment towering above the Mojave Desert and home to one of the most spectacular assemblage of endemic species in the entire country. The Mount Charleston blue butterfly is special in its own right, but also by virtue of the network of relationships it maintains with other special species – the dozen or so species of endemic wildflowers that it nectars on, the three species of endemic wildflowers that it oviposits on. Mount Charleston is one of the great biodiversity hotspots in North America, Lee Canyon is the beating heart of that biodiversity, and goddamnit we’re not going to let them turn the whole thing into an amusement park for the financial benefit of some Park City, Utah millionaires without a fight!
Read more: Center for Biological Diversity press release; Las Vegas Review-Journal; Reno Gazette Journal; Associated Press.
Quick Hits
Momentum is building in the campaign to see Rep. Deb Haaland nominated by President-elect Biden to be the first indigenous Secretary of the Interior. House Natural Resources Chair Rep. Raul Grijalva spearheaded a letter signed by more than 50 House Democrats urging President-elect Biden to nominate Haaland. I also recommend reading this excellent Politico Magazine piece by Julian Brave NoiseCat.
Kyle Roerink of the Great Basin Water Network has an outstanding pieces in the Las Vegas Sun looking at SNWA’s latest resource plan which for the first time in decades does not include the Las Vegas pipeline. Kyle wonders if those pushing other unsustainable plans like the Clark County lands bill will take a similar tack?
Nevada released a climate plan. Cheers and geers. Cheers for proposing to phase out natural gas from residential and commercial buildings. Jeers for proposing a 100% renewable energy standard and literally not mentioning the words “rooftop solar” in the policy proposal. I mean, I know NV Energy calls the shots in Carson City, but god that was galling. Read more on our perspective in our press release, and check out the Nevada Environmental Justice Coalition press release. Also articles in Las Vegas Review-Journal, E&E News, The Nevada Independent, Las Vegas Sun.
Governor Sisolak has named the new chief of the state Agency on Nuclear Projects. Dr. Fred Dilger, who worked as an administrator with the agency after many years as a consultant to same, will take the helm of the agency tasked with saving Nevada from Yucca Mountain. He says in his letter for consideration to the Nevada Commission on Nuclear Projects, who vetted him for the governor, “For more than two decades, my work has demonstrated an enduring commitment to protecting Nevada from the Yucca Mountain Project. I am prepared to lead the fight to finally kill the Yucca Mountain Project.” Godspeed, Mr. Dilger. Godspeed.
CSN Professor Sondra Cosgrove, until recently the League of Women Voters Nevada Chapter president, appears to have been the victim of a witch hunt after she dared defy party orthodoxy with the LWV’s proposed redistricting commission ballot referendum. The Nevada chapter of LWV has now been dissolved. Also see more in the Review-Journal’s a-little-too-cute editorial. Good on Professor Cosgrove for standing on principle. I’m eager to see what she does next.