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PNMTA needs your help in support of Nevada Senate Joint Resolution 2 (SJR 2) and Senate Concurrent Resolution 6 (SCR 6). SCR 2 “Urges Congress to take certain
actions concerning wilderness areas and wilderness study areas”. SJR 6 Urges counties to map and document certain county roads to preserve rights-of-way
over public lands in Nevada.
Background for SJR 2 Nevada currently has 2,552,457 acres of Wilderness Study Areas (WSA) created pursuant to a federally
mandated inventory conducted almost 30 years ago. This inventory and the resulting studies concluded that 1,831,979 acres were
“not suitable for wilderness designation” – yet the U.S. Senate has not passed a bill to remove the WSA classification from these
lands. As an aside and to make matters worse, the U.S. Senate recently passed S.22 – The Omnibus Public Land Management Act of
2009 – that will put all WSAs, regardless of their suitability for wilderness, into a newly created protection class – The National
Landscape Conservation System (NLCS). Here is the full text of S.C.R. 6.
S.J.R. 2 is a resolution that urges the Nevada Congressional Delegation (Reid, Ensign, Berkley, Heller and Titus) and the U.S.
Congress to:
- Complete a timely release of the WSAs that are not suitable for wilderness; and
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Not to adopt any legislation that creates new wilderness areas, wilderness study areas or alters the use of public lands
without obtaining supporting resolutions from the Board of County Commissioners from the affected counties.
Background for SCR 6 Many rights-of-way that cross public lands administered by the Federal Government were granted by
Congress pursuant to section 8 of the Act of July 26, 1866. Although these provisions were repealed by the enactment of the Federal
Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 Congress explicitly recognized the continued validity of such rights-of-way in the Federal
Land Policy and Management Act of 1976. As the administrative decisions of the BLM and USFS may threaten the validity of such
rights-of-way this resolution encourages counties to inventory and catalog existing county roads crossing public lands. Here is the
full text of S.J.R. 2.
Both resolutions have been assigned to the Senate Natural Resources Committee. This committee must vote to send the resolution to the
full legislature or the resolution could “die in committee”. Take Action Please show your support for this resolution
by:
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Vote and comment – this link will take you to the Nevada
Legislature opinion poll web site. CAUTION: be sure to select S.J.R. 2 NOT S.J.R. 2* (the * indicates a completely different
resolution),. Select Vote FOR, and add any comments you like and fill the required identification fields (your identity is
confidential). You will need to use this link twice: once of S.J.R. 2 and once for S.C.R. 6.
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Send an email to the Senate Natural Resources Committee members:
- The email Subject should be - I support S.J.R. 2
- The body of the email can be as simple as - I support S.J.R. 2 - or any message you wish to send.
- The list of committee members is below.
- Senator David R. Parks, Chair (dparks@sen.state.nv.us)
- Senator Allison Copening, Vice Chair (acopening@sen.state.nv.us)
- Senator Senator Bernice Mathews (bmathews@sen.state.nv.us)
- Senator Senator Bob Coffin (bcoffin@sen.state.nv.us)
- Senator Senator Dean A. Rhoads (drhoads@sen.state.nv.us)
- Senator Senator Mark E. Amodei (mamodei@sen.state.nv.us)
- Senator Senator Dennis Nolan (dnolan@sen.state.nv.us)/ul
As a shortcut you might try to SELECT, COPY and PASTE the following into the To: line of your message.
dparks@sen.state.nv.us, acopening@sen.state.nv.us, bmathews@sen.state.nv.us, bcoffin@sen.state.nv.us, drhoads@sen.state.nv.us,
mamodei@sen.state.nv.us, dnolan@sen.state.nv.us
The Senate Natural Resources Committee meets this Thursday, March 10th at 3:30PM in Room 2144 of the Legislative Building, 401 S.
Carson St., Carson City and the public is invited.
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The 75th Session of the Nevada Legislature is now in session. There are two proposed Senate Resolutions that are of interest. Mark
Amodei has introduced a Resolution that would urge Nevada's Counties to inventory all county roads that cross Public Lands. In 1866,
and again in 1976 Congress passed was that provided right-of-way for county roads across Public Lands. Senator Amodei wants to see
the counties inventory these roads to keep the BLM and USFS from closing them. There is also a proposed Resolution asking Nevada's
Congressional Delegation to work with the BLM to withdraw any WIlderness Study Areas that do not meet the strict definition of potential
Wilderness; to stick to the strict definition of potential wilderness areas in proposing any acts to designate wilderness areas; and to
get local support for any such acts. These Resolutions will be discussed in Committee hearings on March 5th and 10th.
There are two Bill Draft Requests in the works. One from the Legislative Committee on Public Lands concerning the registration and titling
of OHVs. A second Bill Draft Request is seeking to increase the penalties for dumping on Public Lands. We are waiting for the proposed
Bills to be drafted before commenting.
For additional information see our Nevada Legislature page.
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