[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 150 (Tuesday, November 19, 2002)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11654-S11655]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




       CONVEYANCE OF CERTAIN PUBLIC LAND IN CLARK COUNTY, NEVADA

  The bill (H.R. 2937) to provide for the conveyance of certain public 
land in Clark County, Nevada, for use as a shooting range, was 
considered, ordered to a third reading, read the third time, and 
passed.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I would like to engage my friend, the 
chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, in a discussion 
regarding the Clark County Shooting Range bill, S. 1451. The chairman 
has been very helpful in moving this important legislation through the 
process and I appreciate and am grateful for his hard work. As we moved 
this bill through the committee process, the chairman made two 
constructive suggestions regarding how my bill might be improved. I 
believe that it would benefit the full Senate for us to review those 
issues briefly at this time.
  Mr. BINGAMAN. I share the assistant majority leader's view that this 
bill would address an important need for a safe recreational shooting 
facility

[[Page S11655]]

in southern Nevada and believe that S. 1451, which my committee 
reported favorably with amendment, is a good bill. The two primary 
concerns raised by many interested parties were that the original bill 
would have released land from wilderness study area status and that the 
parcel of land conveyed was possibly too large, and therefore the bill 
might set an unfortunate precedent on those two issues.
  Mr. REID. As the chairman knows, we worked together on these two 
issues and developed a compromise solution that he, Senator Murkowski, 
Senator Ensign, Congressman Gibbons, Congresswoman Berkley, Clark 
County and I could all support. The compromise included conveying the 
full 2800 acres to Clark County but requiring that only the core of the 
area, 640 acres, be developed for facilities and that the remainder of 
the area remain as open space to serve as a valuable buffer around the 
range. This compromise if completely consistent with Clark County's 
intended use of the land because the county realizes the absolute 
necessity of having a substantial buffer around a shooting range. In 
fact, the county provided their plans for the facility, which embody 
the compromise.
  As I have noted many times on the floor of the Senate, Clark County 
has nearly doubled in population from 770,000 to more than 1.4 million 
people since 1990. This growth has placed greater demands on public 
lands throughout Clark County for recreational activities such as 
hunting, fishing and target shooting. There are literally dozens, if 
not hundreds, of makeshift shooting ranges across Las Vegas Valley that 
pose extreme danger to nearby homes and our increasingly busy roads. 
This facility will provide a great public benefit by creating a safe 
centralized location for this important purpose. It will enhance public 
safety by reducing indiscriminate shooting. The need for this shooting 
range is crystal clear and I am grateful that the chairman has 
recognized the urgency associated with this issue.
  In addition, I would like the Record to reflect that the issue of 
wilderness study area release is now a moot point because the 
wilderness study area in question was released earlier this month when 
President Bush signed the Clark County Conservation of Public Lands and 
Natural Resources Act into law. Public law 107-282 designated about 
450,000 acres as wilderness and released 220,000 acres from wilderness 
study area consideration in Clark County. Having made this point, I 
would like to ask the chairman whether he shares my view that no 
precedent could be set on the issue of wilderness study area release 
given that there is no wilderness study area in existence?
  Mr. BINGAMAN. I do share that view and appreciate the fact that 
wilderness study area release is no longer a concern in this 
legislation.
  Mr. REID. I appreciate the chairman's concurrence on that point and 
his leadership on this and other public land related issues very much. 
We now face a dilemma. The very good Clark County Shooting Range bill 
that was earlier reported by the Senate Energy and Natural Resources 
Committee cannot pass this year because the House of Representatives 
has gone home for the year. However, the House passed a similar bill 
earlier this year. The substantive difference in the House bill is that 
it does not include the buffer requirement we put in the Senate version 
of the bill. Given that we agree that no wilderness study area 
precedents can be set here, and given that the county's plan for the 
range were used to create our buffer compromise. I hope the chairman 
might allow for the passage of the House version of this bill so that 
this important project can be started this year.

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