As ordered reported by the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources on June 18, 2013
S. 159 would require the Secretary of the Interior to sell, at fair market value, roughly 10,000 acres of federal lands to the city of Yerington, Nevada. The bill also would designate about 47,500 acres in Nevada as wilderness. Based on information provided by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the Forest Service, CBO estimates that implementing the legislation would have no significant impact on discretionary spending. Enacting S. 159 would increase offsetting receipts, which are treated as reductions in direct spending; therefore, pay-as-you-go procedures apply. Enacting the bill would not affect revenues.
Under the bill, the city of Yerington would be required to pay fair market value for the federal lands it acquires. Based on information provided by BLM regarding the appraised value of the affected lands, CBO estimates that proceeds from the sale would total $2 million in 2014. Those amounts would be deposited in the U.S. Treasury as offsetting receipts. Because the bill would require the city to pay any administrative costs associated with the sale, CBO estimates that completing the land sale would not affect discretionary spending.
S. 159 also would add 47,500 acres to the National Wilderness Preservation System and withdraw those lands from programs to develop mineral and geothermal resources. Because the affected lands are already protected for conservation and wilderness values, CBO estimates that implementing the bill would have no significant impact on the cost of administering those lands. We also expect that any costs to modify existing maps and other materials would be minimal. Finally, because the affected lands currently produce no income (and are not expected to do so in the future), we estimate that enacting this provision would not affect offsetting receipts.
S. 159 contains no intergovernmental or private-sector mandates as defined in the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act and would impose no costs in state, local, or tribal governments.
