Who released Nevada's public lands?

[struggle4progress]

... That land has remained in federal possession since 1848 following the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which ended the Mexican-American War ...

Nevada's Constitution further reflects the enabling act: "That the people inhabiting said territory do agree and declare, that they forever disclaim all right and title to the unappropriated public lands lying within said territory, and that the same shall be and remain at the sole and entire disposition of the United States" ...

Regardless of your opinion on this heated land-management issue, Nevada has never owned that land, and heading into its 150th birthday this October, the Silver State remains more than 80 percent federal land.

http://www.rgj.com/story/news/2014/04/16/ask-rgj-released-nevadas-public-lands/7794823/

[snappyturtle]

1. That is of course until the BLM decides to sell acreage in Clark County:

http://www.8newsnow.com/story/1014282/blm-land-sale-to-benefit-nevada

The article tells of the auction in Nov. 2002 and mentions another for May 2003. What goes? Wonder how the Desert tortoise fared in that deal?

snip....

The 42 separate parcels range in size from 1.25 acres to just more than 422 acres. The land is scattered throughout the Las Vegas area.

Hundreds of bidders lines up early. They all wanted a piece of something valuable: federal land right here in Southern Nevada.

John Ritter wanted the three largest parcels. He got all three. A grand total of $159,100,000. With that land, Ritter has plans for a 3,000 acre master community similar to Summerlin.

more....


On the Google search page was a link to BLM.gov about the sale of another 440 acres but I got this instead at 2:08AM Central time. Seems BLM is doing a little maintaince.

http://www.blm.gov/nv/st/en/snplma.html

Wouldn't allow me to copy and paste so I wrote it out to print here. The maintenance seems to be taking extra time.

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) website (www.blm.gov) and all associated website/pages are currently unavailable due to planned maintenance on Wednesday April 16,2014 starting at 8:00 pm Mountain Time until approximately Midnight Mountain Time. The total outage time should be no more than 4 hours.

[freshwest]

2. Well, the Koches will get right around to that.. Amending NV's state constitution, that is. Or...

Mexico may ask to have it returned. Prepare to hoist the Mexican flag, baggers. You know you wanna!

It's like the Gadsden flag you fly when you tell immigrants to get out of your (their) country. Who's gonna be illegal then, huh?

When you do, let us know how that Tenther thing worked out for ya, okay?

[proverbialwisdom]

3. Approximately one-year old NV maps via FOIA purporting to show new fracking leases are around.

And Reuters ran a story about some $5B deal with a Chinese solar company involving Reid's son's law firm. Not anything I know about, so that's it from me, but the framing sure isn't like anything I've read on DU.

[struggle4progress]

4. Facts that disprove conspiracy theory about Harry Reid, Cliven Bundy and solar power

By Karoun Demirjian
Thursday, April 17, 2014 | 2 a.m.

... That thought appears to have originated at the blog Godfather Politics and was picked up by writers in more mainstream conservative media outlets, such as NewsMax and the Washington Times ...

Bundy’s battle with the BLM started in 1993 when he stopped paying his grazing fees, 18 years before anyone talked about putting Chinese money into the Nevada desert for renewable energy. Talk about the Chinese solar project started in 2011 and ended in 2013. And the Bundy-BLM confrontation came this month, long after the solar project died ... It’s not exactly true that this was the first move of Reid’s former aide as BLM director. The roundup started April 5, and Kornze wasn’t confirmed by the Senate as BLM director until April 8.

http://lasvegassun.com/news/2014/apr/17/facts-disprove-conspiracy-theory-about-sen-harry-r/

[proverbialwisdom]

5. Talking Reuters & Public Citizen, not junk. FYI, 'US Just Finished 46th in a Press-Freedom Contest.'

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/02/the-united-states-just-finished-46th-in-a-press-freedom-contest/283798/

The United States Just Finished 46th in a Press-Freedom Contest
At least the birthplace of the First Amendment managed to come in one spot ahead of Haiti.

CONOR FRIEDERSDORF
FEB 13 2014, 5:56 AM ET

Every year, Reporters Without Borders ranks 180 countries in order of how well they safeguard press freedom. This year, the United States suffered a precipitous drop.

The latest Press Freedom Index ranked the U.S. 46th.

That puts us around the same place as UC Santa Barbara in the U.S. News and World Report college rankings. If we were on the PGA tour we'd be Jonas Blixt of Sweden.

If we were on American Idol we'd have been sent home already.

Countries that scored better include Romania, South Africa, Ghana, Cyprus, and Botswana. And 40 others. Put simply, it's an embarrassing result for the country that conceived the First Amendment almost 240 years ago. These rankings are always a bit arbitrary, but we're not anywhere close to the top tier these days. Why?

<>

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/08/31/us-usa-china-reid-solar-idUSBRE87U06D20120831

TOP NEWS
U.S. Senator Reid, son combine for China firm's desert plant
Fri, Aug 31 05:06 AM EDT

...The Langfang, China-based ENN Energy Group hopes to build what would be the largest solar energy complex in America. The site chosen with Rory Reid's guidance is in tiny Laughlin, Nevada, a gambling town of 7,300 along the Colorado River, 90 miles south of Las Vegas.

<>

...Craig Holman, a lobbyist for the non-partisan advocacy group Public Citizen, said the senator is dealing with "an iffy ethical landscape" because of the family connections and should recuse himself from the project. "Is this just happening because ... it benefits the Reid family, or did Harry Reid actually believe in this?" Holman said.

<>

In December, Clark County commissioners voted unanimously to sell up to 9,000 acres of public land to the subsidiary at pennies on the dollar.

The deal spurred local controversy. Separate appraisals valued the land at $29.6 million and $38.6 million. The commission agreed to sell it to ENN for $4.5 million.

More from Reuters (haven't look around elsewhere): http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/21/nv-first-solar-idUSnBw215764a+100+BSW20140321

Like I said, not a subject I know enough about to parse all this, but what's clear is that our media misses a lot.

[struggle4progress]

7. "... The site that ENN Mojave Energy was planning to buy in order to build a solar plant

is nowhere near the public land Bundy has been disputing with the government, and ENN gave up the solar project and terminated its agreement to buy land to house it as far back as June 2013 ..."

http://www.snopes.com/politics/conspiracy/nevada.asp

[proverbialwisdom]

6. What about the question of fracking in Gold Butte and the FOIA maps showing leases?

Here's a comment (Reed changed to Reid) just posted at your link. Again, I wouldn't know.

http://lasvegassun.com/news/2014/apr/17/facts-disprove-conspiracy-theory-about-sen-harry-r/

DexterRuez 16 minutes ago

Kornze was made the Acting Director of the BLM in March of 2013 so he was in charge on April 5th when the BLM began their raid.

Reid just a few days ago participted in a ground breaking ceremony for First Solar's new facility 35 miles from Bundy'd place.

The habitat Reid supports was used as the reason for the federal government claiming the land and ending ranching.

The Chinese found it impractical "at this time" to go ahead with their project because of the land disputes which they don't want to be part of. When that is cleared up (example the Bundy problem) they will be back.

The Las Vegas Sun should be ashamed for such half truth BS and calling it journalism.