Yerington land swap bill getting more love in Senate than House

By Karoun Demirjian

Tuesday, June 18, 2013 | 7:10 p.m.

Back in February, the Nevada delegation agreed that the best way to get the Lyon County land swap legislation through Congress was to have the House of Representatives act on it first.

But lately, it’s been gaining more ground in the Senate.

The Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources voted to approve the Lyon County Economic Development and Conservation Act, which would give Yerington about 12,500 acres of land to develop a copper mine, in exchange for designating about 48,000 acres of the Wovoka Forest as federal wilderness.

“I am pleased the Energy Committee has recognized the importance of this legislation,” Nevada Sen. Dean Heller, a member of the committee, said in a statement Tuesday, citing the project’s potential to underwrite construction and mining jobs. “I am hopeful that Representatives Amodei and Horsford are able to move this bill through the House of Representatives to ensure the momentum on this important legislation is not lost.”

But at this juncture, Reps. Steven Horsford, the bill’s sponsor, and Mark Amodei, who sponsored Yerington legislation in the last Congress, have yet to get the bill onto the House Natural Resources Committee’s list of measures to be marked up and voted on.

Last month, Amodei, a Republican, was talking with committee leaders about how to package the Lyon County bill with a bill to designate wilderness in Pine Forest — a region of Humboldt County he had initially wanted to pair with the Yerington project before Sen. Harry Reid successfully pushed for the Wovoka Forest wilderness designation instead.

The House Natural Resources Committee has not yet announced the roster for their July markup. Horsford sent a letter to House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Doc Hastings on Tuesday, urging him to schedule the Lyon County bill for a markup, “given the unanimous local support for this legislation.”

Neither the House’s nor the Senate’s Lyon County bill has been scheduled for a vote in the full chamber.