LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — Nevada elected officials on Friday touted a new law aimed at speeding the development of housing in Nevada but said resignations and terminations of federal workers may hurt Nevada's efforts to build.
Congresswoman Susie Lee — the author of the Accelerating Appraisals and Conservation Act in the House of Representatives — and U.S. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto said the bipartisan bill was a small but important step in building new houses in Nevada.
The bill — which passed both houses unanimously and was signed into law by then-President Joe Biden — would allow private appraisers to work across state lines to determine the value of land proposed for development.
Currently, only federal appraisers may work across state lines. By expanding the pool of available appraisers, the process will speed up, Lee and Cortez Masto said.
"We passed the AACE Act to help speed up this process so we can get more appraisals moving, more transactions moving faster," Lee said at a morning news conference. "It's not a silver bullet, but it's a commonsense way to cut government red tape and speed up homebuilding."
The news conference took place near land soon to be developed by Olympia Companies in northwest Las Vegas that was acquired from the Bureau of Land Management. The site will see 3,000 homes built.
Cortez Masto said state and federal officials need to work together to get land for development to address Nevada's ongoing housing shortage.
"We know if they slow things down that has a major impact on our communities, on where people live, on our economic development, on our workforce and so many other things," Cortez Masto said.
Cortez Masto said the shortage of appraisers was delaying the process, and that the bill should speed things along. Still, she said, elected officials will have to remain vigilant.
"So these bureaucratic barriers we're going to have to continue to push through as we look to bring more federal land here and build out where we need for affordable housing and for economic development as well," she said.
Using federal land is one issue that everyone seems to agree on, regardless of party. President Donald Trump embraced the idea on the campaign trail, and Gov. Joe Lombardo — who supported Lee's bill — agrees. The entire Nevada delegation has embraced transferring more federal land to increase the overall housing supply and also to increase the number of affordable homes in Nevada.
But officials part ways on other issues, including money for affordable and workforce housing. Former Vice President Kamala Harris made first-time homebuyer credits a part of her campaign, but that idea hasn't resurfaced since she was defeated by Trump in November.
Lee and Cortez Masto also said they were concerned about the recent push to fire or buy out federal workers, including staffers at the Bureau of Land Management. Those employees are key to the land transfers that will be necessary to expand Nevada's land for housing.
"There's a lot of, unfortunately, misinformation and disconnect about what some of these federal employees do here, and it's impact to Nevada that's essential," Cortez Masto said. "And this idea from President Trump that there should be just blanket 'let's eliminate everybody, let's cut these federal programs' without understanding the important impact they have on our state. So, it could be devastating to Nevada."
Trump and others in his government — including Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk — have advocated for cuts to the federal workforce, insisting it's bloated. They have begun firing workers and offered a buyout program that attracted 75,000 workers.
Meanwhile, Nevada Housing Coalition Executive Director Maurice Page — whose organization advocates for affordable housing in Nevada — put it simply: Nevada is playing musical chairs with a broken leg.
"The supply is not keeping up," he said Friday. "We're in dire need."
