A Utah monument fight could hurt Nevada businesses next

^{By Mandi Elliott}

Every week, thousands of visitors land in Las Vegas, rent a car and head north.

Some go to Red Rock. Others loop through Valley of Fire, Zion, Bryce Canyon and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument before circling back through Southern Nevada. For many of them, Las Vegas is the gateway to the desert Southwest, and the businesses that serve those travelers, from hotels and restaurants to gear shops, guides and shuttle companies, depend on protected public lands across the region.

That is why the fight in Congress over Grand Staircase is not just Utah’s problem; it is Nevada’s problem, too. 

Some members of Congress want to use the Congressional Review Act, an obscure law designed to review federal regulations, to wipe out the monument’s management plan with a single vote. That should alarm every Nevadan who cares about public lands, tourism or the outdoor recreation economy.

This effort by members of Congress would erase years of local input, tribal consultation, scientific review and public process in favor of political posturing in Washington. And if Congress succeeds, Nevada’s monuments could be next. This move would set a dangerous precedent that threatens national monuments across the West. 

If lawmakers can nullify a monument management plan for Grand Staircase, what stops them from using the same playbook against Avi Kwa Ame, Gold Butte, Basin and Range, or future protections that support Nevada’s economy and quality of life?

For outdoor businesses, certainty matters. Stable public land management plans are the rules of the road. They allow guides to book trips months in advance, small towns to invest in tourism infrastructure, retailers to plan for seasonal demand and gateway communities to grow around reliable visitation numbers.

Political chaos does the opposite. It injects uncertainty into the very places that power rural entrepreneurship and Southern Nevada tourism.

That economic value is enormous. Nevada’s outdoor recreation economy now generates $24 billion in economic benefits, supports more than 75,000 jobs and contributes $8.8 billion to state GDP. This surpasses the mining industry’s contribution to the state economy. Those are Nevada jobs in hospitality, retail, guiding, conservation, transportation and local businesses. They exist because people come here for world-class public lands.

Las Vegas is central to that economy. Harry Reid International Airport is one of the biggest gateways to the Southwest’s public lands network. Visitors rarely think in state lines. They build itineraries around landscapes and treasured American destinations, particularly our national park and monuments network. Nevada businesses benefit from that larger ecosystem of protected lands across the region that draws people from around the world. 

The same Congress members advancing this effort are not just targeting one monument plan. They are testing whether long-term public lands stewardship can be replaced by the whims of whichever political party happens to hold a temporary majority.

It’s bad governance and bad for business.

Nevada has spent decades building a durable understanding that public lands are a core part of our prosperity. Protected landscapes attract visitors, entrepreneurs, talent and investment. They support small businesses from Las Vegas to Ely. They sustain the quality of life that makes people want to live, work and build companies here.

For Nevada’s outdoor industry, uncertainty threatens the stability that businesses need to hire, expand and invest in communities. Utah’s Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument is the first to be attacked, but Nevada’s monuments and public lands will not be far behind.

Congress must reject this dangerous misuse of the Congressional Review Act before the damage spreads across the desert Southwest and puts Nevada’s public lands economy in the crosshairs.