May 8, 2025 - Executive Director Shaaron Netherton issued this statement following Congressman Mark Amodei's move to sell off public lands:
"Friends of Nevada Wilderness has spent the past 25 years working across the state in good faith with
a broad range of Nevadans trying to solve public land issues for both conservation and
development.
As part of this, we have worked closely with our Congressional delegation, republicans,
and democrats together for Nevada. We worked for years with many others on the Truckee
Meadows Bill, on the Pershing County Bill and on the Southern Nevada Bill. We like many others
here today had a lot of skin in the game.
This is a sad time for all Nevadans regardless of your political ties. This isn’t republicans versus
democrats, Congressman Amodei has betrayed all Nevadans. Congressman Amodei has single
handedly ended 25 years of our Congressional delegation working in a bipartisan manner for the good
of all Nevadans on public lands issues; working with local governments, sportsmen, Tribes, ranchers,
recreationists of all kinds and coming together and figuring out what Nevada needs and wants with
her public lands.
It is not the process in Nevada that is broken, it is the ideological zealots in DC who won’t support
legislation from Nevadans, Nevadans who have shown they can roll up their sleeves and work
together to make balanced decisions about development and conservation on our public lands.
People who work and recreate on or just love visiting these lands and enjoying our starry skies.
People who care that our wildlife have the habitat they need to survive.
Instead of continuing to support a bipartisan effort in Congress, Congressman Amodei is going it
alone and throwing Nevadans and our public lands under the bus as part of a wonky budget
reconciliation process with midnight amendments blindsiding Nevadans. If Congressman Amodei
wants to force selling a half million acres of our public lands he should do it in the open, through the
regular congressional process of engaging the public and introducing a bill. It appears Congressman
Amodei no longer cares what Nevadans think.
Oh sure, now developers will have more access to our public lands with fewer checks and balances,
mining companies can buy large chunks of public land in Pershing County, we can have yet another
massive industrial complex in Lyon County, and proceeds of the sales in Las Vegas will now go to
support the Administration’s tax cuts instead of supporting education, wildlife, recreation, and our
communities here in Nevada. Although I am not sure how this will be done when our land
management agencies workforce is being decimated.
If Congressman Amodei’s midnight public lands sell off amendment passes Congress and is signed by
the President, Nevadans will have lost the leverage needed to help chart how our public lands are
managed and find a balance that works for all of us."
