How much land does the federal government control in Southern Nevada? Experts say it has gone up

The federal government has increased its control of land in Nevada since the passage of a law in 1998 that was specifically designed to direct the Bureau of Land Management to offload acreage to the private sector, said a consultant who formerly worked for the BLM.

Congress passed the Southern Nevada Public Lands Management Act in 1998 with the goal of offloading public land within a disposal boundary that is roughly Clark County’s jurisdiction, explained Mike Ford, who worked for the BLM for 25 years and co-founded Abbey, Stubbs & Ford, a public lands consulting firm, during a Thursday panel at the Commercial Alliance’s 18th Annual Educational Symposium.

He said the act has not lived up to expectations as federal ownership of land in the state has actually gone in the opposite direction