Sponsors (2)
The bill strengthens the Las Vegas Tribe's land base and enables renewable transmission access while prohibiting gaming on the new trust land and preserving state-law water claims, but it shifts local tax revenue away from counties, imposes a rapid, large right-of-way that limits tribal land-use control, and leaves unresolved water-rights and administrative uncertainties that could prompt litigation.
Las Vegas Tribe of Paiute Indians: receives ~3,156 acres placed in trust and added to its reservation, strengthening the Tribe's land base and self-determination.
Utilities, clean-energy developers, and regional power users: a ~300-foot right-of-way is required to enable high-voltage renewable transmission, facilitating new clean-energy projects and potential local jobs.
Las Vegas Tribe and Nevada state government: the bill preserves the Tribe’s state-law water claims, helping protect existing water entitlements under Nevada law.
Local counties, municipalities, and taxpayers: placing land into trust can reduce local property tax revenue and alter jurisdictional tax bases, straining municipal finances and services.
Las Vegas Tribe and tribal residents: a required large (~300-foot) right-of-way to be granted within 30 days limits tribal control over land use and constrains future tribal land planning and sovereignty.
Las Vegas Tribe, Nevada state government, and other water users: leaving federal reserved water rights unresolved creates the risk of future litigation and ongoing uncertainty over groundwater and surface-water management.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Transfers ~3,156 acres of BLM land into trust for the Las Vegas Paiute Tribe as reservation land, with a required utility right-of-way, a gaming ban, and preservation of state-law water claims.
Transfers about 3,156 acres of Bureau of Land Management land into trust for the Las Vegas Tribe of Paiute Indians and makes that acreage part of the Tribe’s reservation. The transfer is subject to existing valid rights and several conditions: the Secretary of the Interior must complete a boundary survey within 180 days; the Tribe must grant, within 30 days, an approximately 300-foot-wide right-of-way to a qualified electric utility for renewable high-voltage transmission consistent with existing agreements; and Class II and Class III gaming is prohibited on the land. The law preserves the Tribe’s state-law water claims while neither affirming nor denying federal reserved water rights, leaves a March 2021 intergovernmental agreement with the City of Las Vegas unaffected, references a November 14, 2024 map of the acreage, and repeals a specific prior statutory provision from the FY2015 NDAA (Section 3092).
Introduced December 19, 2025 by Alice Costandina Titus · Last progress December 19, 2025