[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 166 (Thursday, September 24, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5860-S5862]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                   NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT

  Ms. CORTEZ MASTO. Mr. President, I rise to enter into a colloquy with 
the junior Senator from Nevada, regarding sections 2861 and 2862 of 
title XXVIII of the National Defense Authorization Act that was 
recently considered by the Senate. These two sections of the bill 
include complex, intertwined history of public lands, Nevada's cultures 
and economy, Native American Tribes, and the Silver State's proud role 
in hosting and training our men and women in uniform.
  Ms. ROSEN. Mr. President, I thank the senior Senator from Nevada for 
joining me today for this colloquy. The Senator correctly notes that 
these two sections of the National Defense Authorization Act raise 
profound historical public policy questions about how to protect our 
public lands, recognize the voices and issues raised by Native American 
Tribes, local governments and concerned citizens, and maintain Nevada's 
proud role in support of our Nation's Armed Forces and our national 
security. These public policy questions are amongst the most 
consequential natural resource issues facing the Silver State and have 
prompted Nevadans from every corner of our State to engage on the best 
path forward.
  Ms. CORTEZ MASTO. Mr. President, I thank the junior Senator from 
Nevada for her partnership on these important questions. This year's 
annual defense authorization bill is more than 1,000 pages long, but 
sections 2861 and 2862 together take up less than one page. As the 
Senator knows, while the legislative text seems quite simple, 
significant and historical public policy questions underpin these two 
sections of the bill.
  Section 2861 provides for a 20-year extension of the public land 
withdrawals specific to Fallon Range Training Complex which is utilized 
by the U.S. Navy. Section 2862 provides for a similar 20-year extension 
of the public land withdrawals specific to the Nevada Test and Training 
Range, otherwise known as NTTR, which is utilized by the U.S. Air 
Force. The reality of what this legislation means to our constituents 
in Nevada, our Nation's public lands, and its potential impact for 
current and future generations is far more complex. Given the 
importance of the public lands, Native American Tribes, Nevada's 
culture and economy, and our Nation's military, can the junior Senator 
from Nevada provide more detail on that history with respect to NTTR?
  Ms. ROSEN. Mr. President, to best answer the Senator's question, it 
is important to start with the history of the Desert National Wildlife 
Refuge. The establishment of the Desert National Wildlife Refuge 
predates the Nevada Test and Training Range and was created by 
President Franklin Roosevelt on May 20, 1936, via Executive Order 7373.
  FDR created the Desert Game Range, as it was known then, to provide 
habitat and protection for desert bighorn sheep, Nevada's State animal. 
Originally the Range totaled more than 2.25 million acres, including 
lands both north and south of U.S. Highway 95.
  We know even more today about the value of this area. The Desert 
National Wildlife Refuge contains six mountain ranges and seven 
distinct life zones, with elevations ranging from 2,200 feet to nearly 
10,000 feet. The variations in elevation and rainfall have created 
diverse habitats, necessary for its hundreds of species of native flora 
and fauna to live and flourish. There are currently two species listed 
as endangered or threatened: notably the Pahrump Poolfish and the 
Desert Tortoise. This area was under the joint administration of the 
Bureau of Fisheries, the predecessor to the Fish and Wildlife Service--
USFWS--which was not created until 1940, and the Bureau of Land 
Management--BLM.
  Today, the Desert National Wildlife Refuge is the largest wildlife 
refuge outside Alaska. The Refuge has gone through various legislative 
boundary adjustments and currently encompasses 1.615 million acres of 
the Mojave Desert. Public Land Order 4079, issued on August 26, 1966, 
and corrected on September 23, 1966, revoked EO 7373. This PLO changed 
the name to the Desert National Wildlife Range, reduced its size to 
1.588 million acres, and transferred sole administration to the USFWS. 
Lands withdrawn in PLO 4079 were set aside specifically for the 
protection, enhancement, and maintenance of wildlife resources, 
including bighorn sheep. Then, in 1974, as part of a Wilderness review 
required by the Wilderness Act of 1964, 1.3 million acres of the Desert 
National Wildlife Refuge were proposed as Wilderness by USFWS. This 
history is important, but these lands also remain central to Native 
American Tribes in Nevada.
  Could the senior Senator from Nevada expand upon their importance?
  Ms. CORTEZ MASTO. Mr. President, I thank the junior Senator for her 
question and would begin by noting that the mountains of southern 
Nevada are sacred lands, where Native Americans carved their stories 
onto its mountains and cliffs and left artifacts which detail how they 
lived and thrived. The bighorn sheep which are central to this area are 
sacred to Nevada's Native American Tribes, including the Moapa Band of 
Paiutes, who are among the most acutely impacted by these public policy 
questions raised by Senator Rosen. The creation story told by the Moapa 
Band of Paiutes include references to bighorn sheep, and the Las Vegas 
Paiutes also regard the Desert National Wildlife Refuge as culturally 
significant. With the history of the Refuge properly established, can 
my colleague, a former member of the House Armed Services Committee, 
help provide history on NTTR?
  Ms. ROSEN. Mr. President, the history of NTTR begins in the 1940s 
when it was known as the Las Vegas Bombing and Gunnery Range, later 
changed to the Nellis Air Force Range in October 1987, and finally to 
NTTR in August 2003.
  The NTTR is a military training area consisting of approximately 2.9 
million acres of Federal land used by the U.S. Air Force Warfare Center 
at Nellis Air Force Base in southern Nevada. The NTTR includes a 
``simulated Integrated Air Defense System'' and several individual 
ranges with 12,000 targets. The NTTR area has been used for aerial 
gunnery and bombing, nuclear tests, as a proving ground and flight test 
area, and for aircraft control and warning exercises.
  These 2.9 million acres have been withdrawn from public use and 
reserved for military use, including the approximately 842,254 acres of 
the Desert National Wildlife Refuge land that overlaps with the NTTR. 
The legislative history surrounding this history begins in 1940, with 
Executive Order 8578 giving the military joint administration with 
USFWS of the western half of the Desert National Wildlife Refuge, for 
war purposes and restricting public access. The NTTR land withdrawals 
were extended in 1962, with the issuance of PLO 2613, and in 1986, the 
withdrawals were extended for another 15 years with P.L. 99-606. Most 
recently, the withdrawals, were again extended through 2021, with P.L. 
106-65 signed in 1999.
  This law in 1999, included as part of the National Defense 
Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2000--P.L. 106-65--transferred 
primary jurisdiction of 110,000 acres of bombing impact areas on the 
Desert National Wildlife Refuge from the USFWS to the Department of 
Defense. These lands were reserved for use by the Secretary of the Air 
Force as an armament and high hazard testing area; for training for 
aerial gunnery, rocketry, electronic warfare, and tactical maneuvering 
and air support; and for equipment and tactics development and testing.
  More recently, in 2014, the House of Representatives considered 
legislation, H.R. 4253, which proposed repealing the existing 
withdrawals found in section

[[Page S5861]]

3015 in P.L. 106-65. Furthermore, the legislation would have 
permanently transferred administrative jurisdiction of the withdrawn 
lands in Nevada and put them under control of the Air Force. This same 
provision was again included in the 2015 NDAA, H.R. 1735, which was 
ultimately vetoed by President Obama. In 2018, the House of 
Representatives included provisions which would have again attempted to 
repeal the existing withdrawals found in Section 3015 in P.L. 106-65 
and permanently transferred administrative jurisdiction of the 
withdrawn lands to the Air Force.
  With that history established, can Senator Cortez Masto provide the 
history behind the legislation that is still under consideration by the 
Congress?
  Ms. CORTEZ MASTO. Mr. President, I appreciate that question, because 
the process by which we find ourselves considering this legislation 
began on August 25, 2016, when the Air Force published a notice in the 
Federal Register to notify the public that it would begin preparing a 
legislative environmental impact statement related to the NTTR. This 
process, pursuant to the National Environmental Policy Act, kicked off 
public, Native American, and government agency engagement on any 
potential expansion of the NTTR.
  The outreach and scoping process on the proposed update to the 
legislative environmental impact statement was flawed from the 
beginning. For instance, in a letter dated March 8, 2018, Nevada's 
former Governor Brian Sandoval, a Republican, wrote to the Air Force 
that ``during the preparation of the legislative environmental impact 
statement, there was little interaction with our state agencies'' and 
that ``better coordination with the Nevada Department of Wildlife would 
have led to a more complete analysis and an opportunity to develop a 
compromise alternative that would both enhance training opportunities 
for the Air Force and continue to provide essential protections for 
Nevada's wildlife and outdoor recreational experiences.'' 
Unfortunately, the process for incorporating concerns expressed with 
the Air Force's plans for the NTTR have not improved over time. All 
told, more than 30,000 comments were submitted to the Air Force during 
their consideration of the legislative environmental impact statement, 
but these concerns were largely ignored by the Air Force and left 
unaddressed in the final documents released by the Air Force in October 
2018.
  The issue was considered by the 80th session of the Nevada 
Legislature which, on a nearly unanimous basis, passed Assembly Joint 
Resolution 2--AJR 2. AJR2 strongly urged Congress to ``reject any 
proposal by the United States Air Force to expand its use of land or 
exercise of jurisdiction within the Desert National Wildlife Refuge 
beyond that which it currently possesses and to limit any proposal to 
extend the Air Force's authority over the Nevada Test and Training 
Range to not more than 20 years.'' The legislature further urged 
Congress ``to work collaboratively with all interested parties to 
develop a compromise alternative that would both enhance training 
opportunities for the United States Air Force and continue to provide 
essential protections for Nevada's wildlife and outdoor recreational 
experiences for Nevadans and visitors.''
  The inability for the legislative environmental impact statement to 
yield a consensus, compromise proposal was a major factor in my 
decision to begin developing my own legislation on this subject with my 
colleagues in the Nevada congressional delegation. My goal was to find 
a solution that would allow the Air Force to modernize its training 
while also respecting and preserving one of the country's largest 
wildlife refuges. This process included extensive discussions and 
engagement with Nevada stakeholders including Tribal 
communities, conservationists, sportsmen and hunters, private 
landowners, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the United States 
Air Force.

  Among other items, our legislation, S. 3145, firmly establishes 
public access to the Desert National Wildlife Refuge, provides that the 
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service maintain primary jurisdiction over the 
entirety of the Refuge, preserves Fish and Wildlife Service 
jurisdiction on Refuge lands east of the historic Alamo/Old Corn Creek 
Road, creates several Wilderness areas, and establishes an interagency 
committee for resolving management conflicts between the U.S. Air Force 
and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. It also allows for the Air Force, 
in consultation with the Department of the Interior, to place up to 15 
threat emitters to maximize and enhance realistic pilot training, 
provides a buffer zone west of the historic Alamo/Old Corn Creed Road, 
and provides a modest expansion of the NTTR to facilitate increased 
training activity on an additional 86,000 acres.
  Ms. ROSEN. Mr. President, I thank the senior Senator for her 
comprehensive answer. As I have previously stated, I am hopeful this 
bipartisan compromise legislation will help resolve land management 
conflicts, preserve public access to the Desert National Wildlife 
Refuge, and serve to strengthen our national security. I have met with 
environmental advocates, Tribal leaders, and Air Force senior 
leadership on this issue. I will continue working with our local 
stakeholders--including military leaders, environmental and wildlife 
advocates, and members of Nevada's Tribal communities--to make sure all 
voices are heard.
  Ms. CORTEZ MASTO. Mr. President, I appreciate the Senator's 
partnership on this matter and share the Senator's commitment to 
ensuring an effective answer to the previously noted public policy 
questions. While the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 
2021 that was approved by the Senate on July 23, 2020, does not address 
the breadth of issues covered in our legislation, I hope it will 
provide an impetus for continued engagement so that we can build 
momentum within Congress, the Department of Defense, the Department of 
the Interior, and in Nevada for our bill. I will, and I am sure I speak 
for my colleagues in the Nevada delegation on this matter, commit to 
work with any and all reasonable parties on this matter. I hope that we 
can solve this matter with an eye towards its history in Nevada, our 
commitment to Native American Tribes, our precious public lands, our 
men and women in uniform, and our national security.
  In addition, I would like to recognize Congressman Horsford and the 
other members of the Nevada congressional delegation for their efforts 
in the House to ensure that impacted Nevadan stakeholders will be 
properly engaged and have a voice in the management and of the Federal 
lands on which the Air Force operates in southern Nevada. His efforts 
will help guarantee improved decision making and collaboration amongst 
the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S. Air Force as it 
pertains to the joint use of the Nevada Test and Training Range and 
Desert National Wildlife Refuge. I welcome his contributions in a final 
product approved by the full Congress.
  Would the junior Senator also care to comment on section 2861?
  Ms. ROSEN. Mr. President, I thank the Senator. As previously noted, 
section 2861 provides for a 20-year extension of the public land 
withdrawals specific to the Fallon Range Training Complex which is 
utilized by the U.S. Navy. Just like with section 2862, while this 
provision of the bill before us seems relatively simple, the underlying 
issues presented by the Fallon Range Training Complex present a range 
of complicated issues centered upon public lands, sovereign Tribal 
governments in Nevada and environmental justice, public access and 
recreation, energy and transportation infrastructure, and the ability 
for future economic development.
  Could the senior Senator from Nevada provide more detail on some of 
this underlying history which helps make section 2861 so important to 
our constituents?
  Ms. CORTEZ MASTO. Mr. President, I thank the junior Senator for the 
question. To begin, as before, it is important to understand the larger 
history in this area of Nevada before one can reasonably understand the 
magnitude of historical issues at play.
  The military's history in Fallon dates back to 1942 when the Civil 
Aviation Administration and Army Corps of Aviation began construction 
of an airfield as part of the Western Defense Program. The Navy assumed 
control in 1943, and the following year, Naval Auxiliary Air Station 
Fallon was commissioned. In the early 1950s, additional training ranges 
were established

[[Page S5862]]

under Public Land Order 898 which withdrew 56,011 acres of public land 
for military use. In 1986--P.L. 99-606--and 1999--P.L. 106-65--Congress 
enacted legislation on this general subject by withdrawing additional 
public lands for military activities. The law passed in 1999 was 
especially noteworthy. This law represented a major change to the local 
customs, culture, and economy because it withdrew approximately 201,933 
acres of land for military use for 20 years. The Fallon Range Training 
Complex now encompasses more than 230,000 acres of public land because 
of numerous map revisions and land surveys by the BLM since 1999. These 
land withdrawals, which took effect on November 6, 2001, expire on 
November 5, 2021, absent congressional reauthorization.
  While this history is important, it is also important to understand 
that the history in this area did not begin when the military became an 
integral part of the community. One such example is the Walker River 
Paiute Tribe, a federally recognized sovereign nation. One range, Bravo 
19, of the larger Fallon Range Training Complex, is located directly 
adjacent to WRPT reservation land and the Navy, as far back as 1942, 
has conducted military testing and training on lands adjacent to the 
WRPT reservation. The National Congress of American Indians--NCAI--go 
into more detail on the close physical proximity between these entities 
in Resolution No. ECWS-19004. The NCAI notes that the Walker River 
Paiute reservation land is ``south and adjacent to Bravo 19, which is 
one of the training areas for Naval Air Station (NAS) Fallon'' and that 
the ``Navy has encumbered tribal land (est. 6,000 acres), which has 
been contaminated with live ordinance, caused historical damage to 
range wells and facilities and has left such land useless as this land 
cannot be totally cleaned up of ordinance and bombs.''
  The Fallon Paiute-Shoshone Tribe has an equally important mark on the 
history of this unique area in northern Nevada. As detailed by the 
Inter-Tribal Council of Nevada in Resolution 06-ITCN-19, the Fallon 
Paiute-Shoshone Tribe is federally recognized and have lived, hunted, 
and prayed on their ancestral lands which encompass many significant 
areas in this region of the Silver State. This has resulted in a range 
of issues for the Fallon Paiute-Shoshone Tribe, including, but not 
limited to, access to traditional lands, including spiritual and 
cultural sites. These impacts are not trivial to the Fallon Paiute-
Shoshone Tribe, but it should be noted that the current Chairman of the 
Fallon Paiute-Shoshone Tribe, Len George, published a piece in their 
March 2020 Tribal newsletter expressing his support for reauthorization 
of the existing withdrawn lands, but not for the expansion as proposed 
by the Navy
  The broader community in and around NAS Fallon also has a long 
history with this military base. Churchill County and the city of 
Fallon are the proud home of NAS Fallon, and both want to remain the 
proud home of NAS Fallon. That being said, this military base and 
training range is only one part of a larger community which each have 
to work together to balance its activities on public land against a 
range of other interrelated activities such as agriculture, clean 
energy development, hunting, outdoor recreation, and mining.
  Given these factors, it is easy to understand the amount of attention 
the Department of Navy received in August of 2016 when it published its 
notice in the Federal Register that it was initiating its process under 
the National Environmental Policy Act to ``assess the potential 
environmental consequences of maintaining and modernizing the Fallon 
Range Training Complex (FRTC) in Nevada, which would include land range 
expansion through additional land withdrawal and land acquisition, 
airspace modifications, and public land withdrawal renewal.'' Scoping 
meetings drew hundreds of attendees, and the Navy's Draft Environmental 
Impact Statement resulted in the submission of nearly 1,500 unique 
comments. Unfortunately, the robust scoping meetings and good-faith 
efforts to work together ultimately has not fully resolved some of the 
fundamental issues with the Navy's proposal. The shortcomings of this 
process have been apparent and was captured in 2018 by our former and 
our current Governor in letters sent to the Navy in December 2018 and 
November 2019. Since then, the Navy has undertaken a serious effort to 
understand local concerns through a series of ongoing discussions and 
pledged commitments.
  The National Environmental Policy Act process was subsequently 
completed in March of 2020 with a signed Record of Decision from the 
Navy. The Navy's ROD proposes an expansion that includes approximately 
600,000 acres of public land and approximately 66,000 acres of private 
land located primarily in Churchill County, but affecting a total of 
five counties. When considering associated airspace modifications, the 
Navy's proposal will affect over half of all Nevada counties. While 
affected counties, Tribes, and State agencies worked with the Navy to 
identify key assurances in the ROD, which reflected the Navy's serious 
engagement, the ROD could not and did not alleviate all concerns.
  Shortly before the Navy made their decision in March of 2020, Senator 
Rosen, Congressman Horsford, and I wrote a letter to the Senate and 
House Armed Services Committees where we noted that the lack of 
consensus left us with ``no choice other than to initiate our own 
process to gather input from as many of our constituents as possible.''
  With regards to both sections of the National Defense Authorization 
Act, we continue to seek that consensus, and I would note in particular 
that Governor Sisolak and his administration have been helpful with 
this effort, especially in working with affected counties and the 
Nevada Association of Counties to bring State agencies, local 
governments, and Tribes together. I would also like to acknowledge the 
efforts of Churchill County which also worked with the State and the 
aforementioned stakeholders to collaboratively compile a list of 
outstanding concerns and suggested means of addressing those concerns 
with the Navy's proposal. The combined efforts from stakeholders in our 
State has been an invaluable resource.
  In the meantime, I appreciate that this bill does not attempt to 
force a solution upon the Silver State which has virtually no support 
from my constituents. Rather, by authorizing new 20-year extensions of 
the public land withdrawals, it removes uncertainty by reinforcing the 
critical mission of the U.S. military in Nevada and its efforts to 
modernize while enabling Federal, State, local, and Tribal stakeholders 
to continue their dialogue to find the right way forward.
  Ms. ROSEN. Mr. President, I thank the Senator for her leadership on 
this matter and share her commitment to working together with our 
constituents in Nevada to reach a consensus proposal. While critical 
concerns remain, Nevada's congressional delegation has a long history 
of finding pragmatic solutions to public land challenges, and I look 
forward to working with Senator Cortez Masto, Congressman Amodei, and 
the rest of the delegation to continue this tradition.
  Ms. CORTEZ MASTO. Mr. President, I thank the Senator for her 
partnership.

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