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By Brian Beffort, Toiyabe Chapter Director. This article ran as an op-ed in the Las Vegas Sun on May 11, 2021
Nevada is in the midst of a climate crisis. Las Vegas is currently the fastest-warming city in the country. The city’s ozone pollution is the 9th worst in the nation. In 2012, the public health effects of air pollution cost Nevadans nearly $1 billion. In 2017, roughly 147 people died from heat in Las Vegas, and heat wave temperatures continue to rise. We are also in the midst of a 21-year drought that experts from in and outside of Nevada have recognized is made worse by climate change. Forecasters expect Lake Mead's levels to drop below 1,075 feet before the end of this summer, triggering cuts under Congress's 2019 Drought Contingency Plan. And models predict all of this will only get worse in the future.
Unfortunately, the Southern Nevada Economic Development and Conservation Act (SNEDCA), introduced by Senator Cortez Masto and co-sponsored by Nevada’s entire federal delegation, will only make these and other impacts worse by proposing to expand Las Vegas’ growth boundary by 40,000 acres (about the size of Washington DC) to accommodate more than 3 million people by 2060.
(Clark County residents only, please)
This expanded suburban sprawl will bring more cars, more congestion, and more burned fossil fuels to heat and run it all. This all will create more carbon emissions and air pollution, hotter temperatures in the urban core, and greater demand on diminishing water supplies. Everyone in the region will suffer under worsening heat, pollution, congestion, and water scarcity. Communities of color will suffer more from air pollution due to their proximity to highways. Their neighborhoods will be hotter because they have less shade and fewer trees — a legacy of redlining. Families struggling to make ends meet will face ever higher air conditioning and water bills. For most people already living in Southern Nevada, SNEDCA will make life worse, not better.
To be fair, there are important conservation proposals in this bill that deserve Congressional approval. These include the proposed wilderness in the Desert National Wildlife Refuge and elsewhere in the county, the expansions to Red Rock National Conservation Area, and the return of land to the Moapa Band of Paiutes. The conservation designations will secure existing wildlife habitat from future threats and protect their current ability to sequester carbon and perform other important ecosystem services, while protecting local wildlife and providing recreational opportunities.
However, none of these protections would offset the net-increase of carbon emissions, pollution, heat, or water scarcity from the sprawl portions of this bill. SNEDCA would only make life hotter, drier, more polluted, and less healthy for millions of people in the Las Vegas Valley. But it doesn’t have to be this way.
Meaningful and promising solutions have already been proposed to address these crises. In December, Governor Sisolak released the Nevada State Climate Strategy, which proposes policies and initiatives to help Nevada meet its clean energy and carbon-reduction goals. All-In Clark County is developing sustainable recommendations to enhance quality of life, protect natural resources, and diversify our economy, all while meeting Nevada's goals of reducing GHG emissions 100% by 2050. Finally, President Biden’s January 27 executive order proposes taking a government-wide approach to tackling the climate crisis while securing environmental justice.
SNEDCA as written is a missed opportunity to align with these encouraging proposals to tackle Nevada’s climate and environmental justice crises. If enacted, it would move Nevada backwards in climate action while selling off your public lands so development investors can profit, as well as those who can afford the more expensive homes beyond the edge of town. This bill is intended to be the blueprint for the next 50 years of development. Yet UN scientists say the world has less than 10 years to get climate change under control. We can no longer pursue such unsustainable and dangerous urban sprawl. The time to change how we build and grow is now.
We call on Senator Cortez Masto and our entire federal delegation to remove the expanded disposal boundary proposed in SNEDCA, and work with state, county, federal and community champions to build a future that benefits all residents of the Las Vegas Valley. A sustainable urban environment would bring tangible climate relief in the form of infill and smart urban design that uses materials that reduce urban heat. It would include a transportation infrastructure that reduces the need for more cars, eliminates carbon dioxide and other toxic emissions, and increases people's access to economic opportunities. Nothing in these proposals prevents investors from profiting in the process.
We have the opportunity to create a climate-resilient Las Vegas Valley while supporting a vibrant, diversified economy and enviable quality of life. But we cannot do so while continuing the poisonous and inequitable development practices that have led us to a rapidly warming valley that is critically short on water. There are many exciting technologies, promising policy solutions, and leaders at the local, state, and federal levels who are ready to get to work to build the communities we need and future generations deserve. We know we will not have a habitable and sustainable future if we continue to expand in the same manner as we have in the past. Yet this is exactly what SNEDCA has planned for us. Cortez Masto and other members of the delegation have been champions in protecting our public lands and fighting climate change. We look forward to working with them to make this a bill that protects Nevada's special places and does not lead to more sprawl and more GHG emissions. Because we can, and must, do better.
Read more about the climate and sprawl impacts threatening Clark County.
Read Sierra Club's April 2021 letter to Nevada's Congressional Delegation.
Donate today! We're up against Nevada's Congressional delegation, the Clark County Commission, and the developers who contribute to them.
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