Amid concerns of Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and congressional Republicans wanting to selling millions of acres of public lands to developers to build urban sprawl, and endangering Western quality of life, Washoe County’s Interim County Manager in the wings Kate Thomas sent an extensive email to County Commissioners last week outlining her thoughts.
“As you are likely aware, Senator Lee (Utah), as the Chair of Natural Resources in the Senate, has released reconciliation language that involves Nevada lands provisions. The current language includes most western states and requires the Secretary of the Interior (and Agriculture for Forest Service) to sell between .5 and .75 % of federal land in listed western states including Nevada,” she wrote.
Land sales proposed as part of the Republican “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” now under consideration have faced opposition from multiple directions including environmental groups and some Western Republicans. The current proposal requiring the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service to identify and sell between 2.2 million and 3.3 million acres of public lands across 11 Western states would be to get money and to build housing.
Last month, an earlier smaller proposal to sell about 500-thousand acres of federal land in Nevada and Utah was taken out of the House version of the tax bill after opposition from former Interior Secretary Montana Republican representative Ryan Zinke.
In her email titled Land for Housing / Local and Federal efforts, Thomas, who takes on interim duties July 1st, and is currently Assistant County Manager, said that a few of the parameters would include the following:
“ Must consult with State Governor and local governments (and tribes) on which pieces to sell
Cannot sell any federally protected or sensitive land (defined in the bill, the standard stuff like conservation areas)
Private entities cannot buy more than 2 tracts of land at any given time, public can buy as many as they want
Local governments have the right of first refusal on any tracts of land
The Secretary shall set up a revenue share with the local governments of jurisdiction for the federal land sold (this is his answer to SNPLMA)
5% of gross sale – monies to be used for infrastructure or housing
5% of gross sale to go toward deferred maintenance projects in the area where the federal land is sold (another SNPLMA answer)
Priority will be given to land which is identified by the local and state governments or is adjacent to development, resolves a checkerboard, or is suitable for infrastructure particularly housing
This sale would occur over 10 years (not later than 10 years).”
“In an effort to be proactive to the potential of a quickly moving opportunity to unlock federal lands to increase housing supply in our region, Washoe County initiated discussions with our planning partners at the Cities of Reno and Sparks as well as Truckee Meadows Regional Planning,” Thomas concluded in her email.
“The group has identified federal parcels both included in the current version of the Land Bill as well as other potential federal lands that have a higher probability of development in a shorter period of time. The discussion has only been at a staff level with the objective of identifying lands nearer to infrastructure (transit, sewer, water, gas, electric), and with fewer physical constraints, that would have lower potential input costs to begin construction.”
Our Town Reno reporting, June 2025