announcer: this program was made possible in part by caesars entertainment, tom campion, utopia foundation, the cloobeck family, masimo foundation, mgm resorts, and nv energy.

man: in the american west, most of the land is public land. it's owned by all of us. this is nowhere more trurue in e lowewer 48 than in nevada, w whe close to 90% of the land is owned by the federal government. it's owned by us. chisholm: particulularly in nevada, so many people are oriented to spending timime outn public lands, whether you hunt, you fish, you just enjoy it casually, you horseback-ride, you're a rancher, you're a miner,r, you're a farmer. whoevr you are, you spend time out on your public lands, and it's an

amazing part of our legacy, and it's something that really distinguishes the united states, distinguishes nevada as a great, great place to live. baca: one e of the beauties of nevada is that we have these millions and millions of acreses of public lands,s, but sometimes this canan lead to c conflicts,s you u have generations of f peoe who come through and engage e wh the laland in difffferent ways. [applause]

nancy pelosi: today we unveil a portrait of one of the greatest leaders the e senate has ever known.. hillary clintoton: both a trustd colleagugue as well l as a frie. joe bibiden: i i love yoyou, pa. i know that embarrasses you, but i dodo. [applause] [c[camera shutter clicks] harry reid: when i retired from the senate, we had hundreds and hundrereds andundrededs of boxes of paperers. archivists,s, wheny start ininventorying this, fouod out t more of a half of the stuf that i did in the senate, well, dealt with the environment. peopople have asked meme on a nr of occasions, , "how ce e you bebecame iererested in environmenent?" it wasas becausf pipiute springngs. oh, itit was a place of my d dr. for a young boy, i it was beautiful. they had great big, tall cottonwood trees. most of

alall, there was a fort there. it was called d fort piute. itit was made e out of rocock. it hadad been buililt in 1864 4o track the e mail routetes. you cacan still sesee some of fe windowows where ththe gunningg plplacements were. there were ponds and you had lily pads, cattails. i mean, unbebelievable. i mean, gegee w, as a little boboy coming from searchlight. as i look back, growing up in searchlight, i couldn't believe where i was raised. i was born in my parents' housee in searchlight. we didn't have much money, but they left me something better. they taught me that by hard work, in america, you can succeed. my dad was a hard rock miner who--a lot of times, he worked and nobody paid him, and when they paid him, the checks bounced. my mother took in wash. now, you might ask, in town of a few hundred people, whose wash would she take in? when i grew up in searchlight, it was a town of prostitutes. at one time, we

had as many as 13 bordellos in searchlight. searchlight itself had no trees, , no grass. it was just a place where there was no water. i'd wanted to go bacack to piute springs because as a boy, mymy youthful mind, it was likeke paradise. . and i went back. somebody had burned the trees, the big cottonwood trees. the fort had been knocked down. the lily pads were gone, the ponds were gone. i felt so bad about that. if we couldn't protect that gem of the desert, then we're in big trouble as a country. christensen: so reid's had a very interesting, "only in nevada" kind off political career. womaman: congressman hryry reid, democrcrat of nevada, rerepreses the first district, which includes las vegas.

man: graduated from utah state and earned his law degree om george wasashington hool of law in washingtoton, d.c. woman 2: and served in the nevavada assembly from 1969 to '71. reidid: i'm out t with a couplef my friendsds. one of t them just noncnchalantly s says, "why y dt you run for lieutenanant govevernor?" "hmm. never thought of that. ok, i'll r run for lieieutenant governor."." that wawas my preparation fofor running g for lieutenant governor. woman: h he was lieutenant governor of nevada from 1971 to '75. christensen: then, in 1974, he ran for u.s. senate against paul laxalt. reid: i never lost anything.g. freshmhman, sophomorore class presidident. christensen: lost by 524 votes. he went back to las vegas, ran for mayor, lost t again. reid: nonobody k knew who i was. callaghan:n: i first m met harry rereid when i i was teachihing h school i in hendersoson, nevada. christensen: then mike o'callaghan appointed him to the g gaming commission.... reid: regular r meeting of thehe called to order.g commissision s

christensen:n: where he playayea centntral role in rooting ououte mob b from the g gambling indus. man: the chairman called me a liar. you can dish it out, but you can't t take it, can you, harry? christensesen: then,n, in 1982,h nevada's booming population, the state got a second congressional distririct. reid: we need to get people who appear in the halls of congress whwho speak for the consumer. christensen: and harry reid ran for that new open seat and won. and that was t the beginni of his long congressional career. reid: i will continuto be consistentnt... conservation, you know, , is noa democratatic issue. to be independent..... tv a announcer: independenent le nevada.. for our r state.ork hard this is gridlock in spades. and i'll always do what i thinik is right foror nevada. christensen: when he won that congressional seat in 191982, nevada was still seen by many as a wasteland. [wind howling]

tv narrator: the nevada desert, some of the mostst desolate acrs to be found anywherere in the united statates. chishoholm: the fefederal gogovernment's's role in n nevas been one o of using itit, quite frankly, as s a colony. goes bak to the mining history, where the mines generated all the wealth for san francisco, but also werere important to the unn cause. it goes to the cold war, whenen it was the testing g grod and proving g ground for the atomicic weapons. at t the height ofof the colold, the u.s. government t was testig atomic w weapons abobove ground, underground, just 90 miles from las vegas. tv narrator: t the nevada a test site. it's sort of a backyard woworkshop. [explosions] ok, so nevada is important. chisholm: people would watchch mushroom clouds from l las vega. cocktails were namamed after the atomic t tests.

i mean, it's absurd to think that we were allowing the type of atomic teststing that was occurring so clolose to a populalation center. man: ...minus one minute. chisholm: it was as a result of the cold war, the atomic testing that peoeople really came to see nevada as being a waststeland. narrator: ...in n the new worldf the atomicic age. [poignant music plplays] [slide projejector clicks] baca: it's interesting. in nevada, where we have these incrededible wilderness areas, e have these beautiful night skies, there are so many assets. however, we had nono national parks. so few places were really being celebrated for the incredible beauty y that they h. christensen: when reid got into congress, he wanted to change that. he wanted to put nevada on the map in a different way. id: i wawanted to do somomething about wilderness. because e neva wawas growing so fast,t, i kneww people unintenentionalally would

ruin the envnvironment. i had a a press secretary. i'd'd been out looking aroround rural nevada, anand she called me. she said, "senator, i'm in ely. these peopople up here think you should forget t about this nationalal park."and go for a chisholm: before harry r reid ws elected to congress, i if you we an e environmentntalist in neva, you didn't have a friend in congress. in fact, you had people who were e working against you. laxalt: the values i have now are very much the values of having beeeen raised i in an old-country family, , first gegeneratition, and alalso of small-totown values. reid: a national park,k, which i wawant for nevada, it would be e first park i in thunitited stats in almost 1515 years..... christensen: reieid is advocatig for a big park of 12129,000 acrs that wouldld cover the entire wheeler range. laxalt and the other senator, chic hecht, want a smaller park of 44,000 acacres to protect the

mining and ranching interests. tv repeporter: thehe town of e y could exexperience t the most impacts from the gre b basin national pk. mananresidentnts believeve that thehe park's populalarity could spill ovevero ely y and rejuvevenate an otothe dormant economy. christensen: w when he heard tht there was support for a national park, he saw a solution. rereid: i was willing toto compromisese significantly. laxt didn't kilill it. i'i'm sure he could d ve, but he d didn't. because of him, i made it aller than it should have been, and i also allowed g grazg on it. cs and shp could graze there. i got it passed, secretarary of agriculture at tt time. was recommending to president reagan to veto that. ronald reagan: demococrats and republicans s must join totogetr not to do what's easy, but to do what is right. reid: so i called william pepenn motttt, the direrector of papark service, and i said, "mr. mott, there's talk about vetoing my

park. how do you feel about it?" he said, "i, as a young park ranger, was asked by one of the senators from nevada to go out and find a place in nevada for a park." and he said, "i spent a lot of time, and i fouound the place at wheeler p peak. no onos going to veto this park." he says,s, "i have b been in far ofof this parkrk for over r 50 " mott: congngress recognizes that hehere, we do have naturural resources of nationanal significance. now w that it's a national park, people will begen to underststand that, and as wee begin to interpret t the natural and cultltural valueues, it'll e clear that thihis truly is a a national park. tv narrator: on october 17,, 1986, president reagan signed legislatioion designating a carefully prescrib area as t the great basin nationonal par senator harry reid, during his tenure in congress, was instrumental in the park's final push through congress.

reid: this statate is beauautif. we're nogoing to have a national park. it's a place of intersecting mountain ranges. it's a place of f beauty, and we want people to know of nevada as something other than a place to set off bombs and to store nuclear waste. christensen: i think we can see this first bigig victory as confirmation for reieid himselff that he can get things done in congress. great basin national papark is significant in an interesting other way. when the park was being inaugurateded, he was supposed to flfly out thereo join the ceremony, but the weather was too bad, and so he drdrove up eastern nevadada. ita couple hundred miles. reidid: and all the way, f from alamamo up, therere were grereat fieldsds of grain. what are e ty growing there? they were growing alfalfa, all t these h huge alfa fields. [slide projector clicking]

'cause we have so much sunshine, they g get as many as 5 or 6 6 cuttttings each year and b bundp for hay. a alfalfa's one of thte most water-intensive plants there is, so i thought to myself as i drove up there, "how are they able to grow that?" it's not from rainfall. las vegas has 4 inches a year. it's being irrigated.d. it's irririgated l. [water sloshing]or clicks] christensesen: werer is criall for life i in thamamericanestt and t t just foror ecosystems, t easterern part of the united states and in the midwest, agriculture can survive on rainfall. in the american west, it'sependent on irrigation. and late in the 19th century and early in the 20th century, sesettlers reaealized thatat toe

agriculture at the s scale that they envnvisioned, c couldn't jt be done withth local, small irrigatition projects, but required massive fedederal investmentnts for damsms and reservoioirs and cans,s, and leveling fieields and valleys to make agriculture possible, to make the desert bloomom. this wasas called rereclamation. narrator: parcrched scrurublands turned into green farms. rereid: the idea with reclamatin was toto find a way to harness particularly rivers in the west to put people and support families out on the ground, to expand agriculture. people weren't really looking at what was the impact on native americans, what was the impact on our rivers, our fish. people didn't think about t that. [gavavel poundnds] barbara mikulski: : thsenanator from n nevada a has the flfloor. reid: first bureau of

reclamation project ever to take place in the united states t tok place in nevada--the newlands project. [bell dings] the newlands project was funded for one reason: nevada has a shortage of water. christensen: what the newlands project t did was to dam thehe truckekee river and divert tha water r over to the carson river basin to e expand d agriculturue around the farming community of fallon. it also dammed the carson river and set up a network of canals to supply water to farms in what came t to be called the truckee-carson irrigigation districtct. ernie schank: i am a native nevadan. i was born in fallon. i live on the same ranch--in

fact, i live in a house that my grandfather built in about 1930. i amam the youngest who ever ran for the board of directors for the truckekee-carson i irrigatin district. my main occupation, however,r, is a farmrmer. this is what i love. our farm is now in the fifth generation. our family came to the fallon area in 1929, and when i asked my grandfather why, he said he wanted to go to a place where reclamation was in its infancy. the mormon pioneers pioneered reclamation as we know it today. they came to what was considered a wasted area because nobody thought ththat you could grow crops, but when they got here, they deterermined ththat if they would dam thstreams and build reservoirs, that soil could become very fertile. [water sloshing]

baca: however, what they did not take into consideration was the effefect of thatat reallocationn the e truckee river r itselflf n pyramid lake and on n so of f te other lakes s that were dependet on thihis water syststem. [water splashing] man: this lake came under a great peril beginning of the last century because water was diverted from here for other uses, primarily truckee-carson irirrigation district inin fallo it silted up the a area, made spawning very bad. it was very difffficult for r the fish t tod plplaces to spspawn, the b bedse wiped out. not only did the lake go down,n, but the timing of t e water and how w it came dodown d what it came down n with, thee cleanliness, all of that, , was just a big problem. tv announcer: since it is shrinking, t the lake isis becog less pure. it's hardrd to predit how long it t may be before fifh can n no longer r survive in it. yoyoung ely: i i would imagine,y the e turn of ththe century,y, e

fifisheries wowould be elilimind entirely. tv narrarator: just 3 fish toda, wherere there once were ththous. man 2: then n they murdered the fishsh, i would say. jt t a murdrder is whwhat it is. ely: at one point, the lahontan cutthroat trout were extinct in this lake. we were very much afraid that the cui-ui were going to b become extinct as we. tv narrator: pyramid lake is the only place they're found in all of the world. ely: we'e're cui-ui ticutta. wewe're cui-uiui eaters. w we fr them, wewe eat them,m, and we wt to do that againin. when i w waa kid, about this time of year, your ears would be listening and you'd hear somebody say, "they'rere running" 'cause we ew the cui-ui were e running. and when the cui-ui ran, you'd come to the lakeshore and there were people all up and down the lakeshore, catching cui-ui. so it was just this time of laughter and talk, and it was like a celebration.

well, my kids have never experienceced that. i'm the last generation to experience that. my grandndkids havenen't experid it. they don't know at a all. [applaususe] we needed to fix t that. we're ouout to protect o our livelihood. we'r're out to prott our way y of life. those thihins ththat we hold near and d dear o usus, which are part of f our identity, papart of who we are,e want to protect that and keep that integrity in place, and we are willlling to do whatever it takes to do so. mid-part of the century, we decided to take it on ourselves. we were forced into a position of having to use the endangered species act. baca: many people probably don't realize that president nixon signed intnto law the clean watr act and the endangered specicies act. richd nixon: e each of us all acrossss this eaeat land hasas a stake inin maintaiaining and improving environmnmental quala. we must act. it is literally now

or never. ththe environmentall agenda now before the congress includes laws to deal with water pollution,n, ocean dumping, careleless land development,t, d many other environmental problems. these problems will not ststand still for polititics or for partisanship.p. [tv clicicks off] ely: we went to court and we took it on, and we were litigating it for years and years; decades, in fact. if the cui-ui gogo, that's a vey intricicate part of our way of lifefe, and it g goes, a bigig n our cultuture and tradition goes with it. man: well,l, if you didn't havee the water,r, there'd be no farming. w we have the water. presenently, we hahave the wate, and eveverybody else is wanting our water. man: we make a lot better use and more of a multiple use of the water within this irrigation district t than i thinink is possible in pyramid.d. they shod be compensated. tv anchor: the indians here filed suit in federal court to

stop the diversion of waters bound for pyramid lake. ely: the supreme court ruled on behalf of the fish... [gavel pounds thrice] becacause at thahat time, the lahotan cutthroat trout had been listed as threatened and t the cui-ui as enendangered. baca: winning that case, for the pyramid lake paiute, was really a landmark moment. it created ththe ability to actualllly negotiate and to frame things in a different way so that they could come in n and leverage a new deal. chisisholm: it was a c complete shock to t the system. the urban areas alall of a sudden alizized something thatat they thought ty hahad been counting on w wasn't gogoing to be available, a and t memeant working with the t trib. reid: : we havave to resesolve s issue.e.f not, it is goi t to be a long time e before it can be worked out, if, in fact, it t er can be becauause each year t tht goes by, more e demands are plad on the river sysystems. woman:n: a new water report indicacates the truckee meadados will not have enouough water to

meet t the demands here 50 yeaes fromom now without a negotiated settlement or a water pipeline. reid: reno was growing signifificantly, a and the busus community, t they knew t that someththing had toto be done o y were goioing to not be able toty any morere water. in water consumption indicatedep that the d day of reckoning abot ththe water supply situauation s rapidly y approaching. chriristensen: so, at the e same time t that this is happeniningn the e grnd in nevavada, paul laxalt is in wasashington, d.c., tryingng to push through a compt between california and nevada that would have divided the waters of the truckee river. he wanted to settle the water wars, but in the process, he also wanted to extinguish any possibility that the pyramid lake paiute tribe could claim

more water on the river. when you have a compact between two states, it has to be approved by congress. that's why it was so important for laxalt to get this compact, so he called a meeting with the tribe. ely: we had to g go to washihin, d.d.c., and we had a meeting behind closed doors with ourur 4 congressional delegation. christensen: s so imagine you're joe e ely of the p pyramid lake you're c called in t to a meetig wiwith one of the most powerful men inin america, senator paul laxalt. with him, nevada senator chic hecht, congresswoman barbara vucanovich, and harry reid. elely: we knewew prior to o the meeting where senator reid was on this issue. we had a pretty good idea that he would assist us in thisis process. reid: yeah, i remember the meeting. i didn't say a word. i just watched.

ely: senator laxalt is the one that took charge of the meeting, and it wasas very shorort. he cd a meeting to inform us that he was going to have the californrnia-nevada a interstate compact ratified, that he understood that we didn't like it, but that wasas too bad. and then he said, "i want you to unundersta t this. i wanant yoto understand that t we're going to geget this ratatified, andnd wee going to get it papassed." and e says, "d"do you understand me?" i said, "yes." and he got up a little bit. he says, "do you understand me?" i said, "yes," then he says, "do you understand me?!" and he stuck his finger about that far from my face. i walkeded outside and said, "we're going to kill that cocompact, and w we're goingng to get this ththing settled." christensen: so, over the next weeks and months, they walked the halls of congress, they knocked onon every doooor.

they met with the press, they talked to representatives and senators, and ththey told them what an injusticice this compact would d be. these representativs and senators had not heard this siside of the e story, but as ty began to h hear what t the costf this compact would b be for the pyramid lalake paiute tribe, thy began to question the compact. reid: byby the time that i wasas fofocused on stotopping ththat compact,t, i alreadydy knew my y around thehe house of representatives, so i felt that i was in a better position thahn they were, "they" meaning the xalt folks. and thenen i did what i could jusust to throw a monkey w wrench in e everythg.g. if i didn't want it done, it wouldn't get done. and the first hearing was in the house, and i didn't know the indians at all, but a number of them came from nevada tribes, and they stood and objected to

what he was trying to do. it surprised everybody in nevada 'cause you h had paul laxalt and all these bibig shots, w were tg to push this through. and the indians ood up and took them on, and the house members felt it was wrong, they were being, as usual, preyed upon. those indians enlightened me. they stopped i it, and i decidid after that to try to be sosome help to ththem. [applause] man: harry reid is the man. i think he's goingng to make it. reid: thank you very mucuch. christensen: the fall of 1986.6. man: i'm kinind of leaning toward hararry reid. man 2: personally, i think he's

a little wishy-washy. wowoman: i'm going to support harry reid. woman 2: senator paul laxalt will be retiring at the end of this term. laxalt: i've done e my political bit, and that's itit for me. [lively tune playing] reid: i've never taken my good fortune for granted. there's one other thing i've never taken for granted, and that's you. [rousing music plays] tom brokaw: ththere were enough votes s to bring aboutut a fundamental shift of power in washington. in nevada, congressman harry reid was a giant killer, winning the senate seat of president reagan's close friend, paul laxalt, now retired. christensen: i it's election night, harry reid has won the senate seat. big celebration, lots of reporters araround, microphones getttting stuck in s face. one reporter asks him, "what's the most important thing you're going to work o on?" reidid: i said, "watater." now, frankly, at that time, i didn'nt know whahat i was talkining abo. man: from a staff perspective, one of the things i really appreciated about him is his sort of decisiveness. he would make a decision, and then you would go do the thing. he

decided that he e was going g to save pyramamid lake.e. he decicd he was going to end the water war between california and nevada. there were components of doing that ththat were wildly politicalllly unpopular, and he didndn't care. h he knew thahats the right thing to do, and he set about doing it. [tires screech]] christensen: but he dodoesn't craft a a top-down solution like laxalt's compact. instead, he sends one of his top aides, wayne mehl, out to nevada to listen to all of the different interests s and try to negotiate a settlement. [slide projector clicking] reid: wayne mehl was a craftsman with legislation. his number-one gogoal was play all the e golf e could. he was a good golfer. and so, when we start on this, neither of u us knew what toto , bubut we l learned. . it was on-the-job training.

woman: wayne met with irrigators, , environmentalists, and cityty and county and statae people and thehe tribe. he met with everybody. thenen he went back to senator reid, and i am told he said, "well, it's going to be nearly impossible, but we might be able to get a deal here." reid: they were alall togetheren what they y wanted done. they jt didn't u understanand how they d work t together, a and that's st we were able to dodo, was kind f put them togetether. for the firsrst time in n the histstory of thihis dispe,e, wee abable to haveve people sit in the same room. initially, they didn't talk much-- [click] [s[silence] woman: we were pretty much locked in a room for about 4 days running. reid's office was facilitating it with, i remembmber, cake, and i'm not se why we had cake, to trtry and kp us all sweetened up?

the thing that came out of that really was the preliminary sesettlement agreement, , whichs an agreement between the tribe and ththe power company. female n news anchor: well, the war has raged on now for 100 years, but today, the fighting stoppeped, and a peace trereaty was sisigned. malele tv reporter: the agreemet was reachehed after a a lengthyt of negotiations sponsored by senator harry reid. tv anchor: according to o the agreement, the waterer can't be used foror new growtwth, only in times of drought. and in times when the water is plentiful, it will be used to improve flows along the truckee river for the pyramid paiute tribe's cui-ui fish. reid: i think it's realllly a gd deal for everybody. i don't know that we have a single loser. male news ananchor: but still to be determinened is how fallon farmerers, both on and off t the reservation, will fare. they have not signed off on the agreement. chisholm: the farmers in tcid began getting nervous about how

the discussions were going. they either walked out or were locked out,t, depending on who you asa. schank: there was lots of things that impacted the truckee-carson irrigation district. the largest was they gave an opportunity for the united states fish and wildlife service to buy water rights. people who are on the fringes of being able to maintain their farming business basically are forcrced to sellll out. a lotot of the farmland has been purchased, the water rights stripped. it's had a tremendous effect on the area. reid: i went from being the most popular person in rural nevada toto being the most unpopulalar. the people of fallon detested me. i came there once for an event. they were just awful. schank: when senator reid came

down, there was a few of the old-time farmers that got together, and one of them rented a gorilla suit. he was not pleased witith it. reid: ernie schank is a farmer, a big farmer, and he was one of my big obstacles 'cause he opposed everything i tried to do. he and people--there were other ones--ththat hung meme in effigy. schank: i dodon't think that's a true story. . uh... i, uh..... i have to--i have toto couch wht i say now. heh heh heh! christensen: the farmers left the negotiations for two reasonons. one wasas that theyey belilieved, and d they stillll believeve, that ththe water isis theirsrs. the secocond is thatay thought that they could win by fightiting. what they didn't

realize was that the politics of power had shifted all around them, and it wasn't going back. schank: all of a sudden, rural nevavada, which once had a a semimi-equal footing with thee metropolitanan areas, , now wert a severe disisvantage. chisholm: and you see that all across rural america these days, where rural communities are feeling under threat. the challelenge is that in many y c, thesese rural communities were built upon some injustices. we need to think about how to right wrongs, but we also need to consider how we help these communities s make adjustments. schank: this story is only one of many thatat are going on. it's all of the western states and even in the midwest now. anlittle towns that once thrived are just ghost towns

because the people have gone to the city. christensen: there's a strain of american environmentalism that sees reclamation as having built cities and a agricultuture in an environment where ththey never should havave been, thatat seese destruction of t the environment and the destruction of native people's c cultures and d tradis and livelihoods. the negotiated settlement showed ththat a new deal couould be crafted to re-engineeeer these sysystems to restore the e relationship betwn people and the environment. chisholm: the truckee river is profoundly different. there are hundndreds of thousands ofof new cottonwood and w willow trees. lahotan n cutthroat trouout arew

recovering. therere are fish now upward of 30 pounds being found at pyramid lake. there's talk about restoring them back to spawning runs in the truckee river. the wetlands have water rights. managers can call for that water when they need it. pyramid lake is recovering. it's a very different setting. to be an environmentalist working on thesese issues nonows you u can be in n a positionon f hope. . you can sesee things getting better.. ely: oftentimes, you have settlements in any country, or you have an adjudication in a country, then it's all done. it's on paper and lifefe goes on and nothing changes. that's not bebeen the casase here. ththe ls up, the region's been able t grow, everyone's benefited from it, and so you see results soon. we saw results immediately after this settlement was done. praise the lord. i it's good

for r everyone. christensen: in the end, reclamation did provide e for growthth in the american wesestt nonot always through agriculture and makiking the desesert bloom. in fact, the explosion of urban growth in the las vegas valley in the late 20th century was made possible by another reclamation project... [fililm projecector whirring] the hoover dam, whwhich was butt in t the 1930s to provovide watr and power to california, arizona, and nevada. las vegas really went through 4 distininct phases s of growth. [slide projector clicking] it started out as a small frontier town. the building of hoover dam and the expansion of a wartime industry and economy fueled the second phase of f urban growth n las vegas.

[lively jazz mususic playing] christenensen: with the poststwr period, we see the emergence of the mob-run gambling city. [music tempo quickening] christenensen: and then, in thte seventies,s, eighties, and nineties, the expansion of corporate gaming and the growth of an enormous metropolitan area. [lounge music playaying] and reid was a key p player instmental ithe gamihe w coission, cleaninup the gaming industry... reid: .statetethat you went t hiand you idid, "lk,k, i wt u to bre his leg" rizzo: n i did n. rizzzz thank y.mr.izzozo. christensen: ...making it acceptable for wall-street

investment... [opepening bell clanging]] which led to a massisive influxf capital and the transformation of l las vegas into ththe city we know today. [tapap shoes clack] women: yee-ha! christensen: family-friendly, resorts for young people... [crowd clamoring] christensen: resorts for retired people. reid: i watched las s vegas gro, not realizing g at the time that it w was growing like e it was,t asas i look backck, it grew vevy rapidly. [bell dings] i'm from searchlight, and i went to school in henderson, which, so v vas was always big to me, and i probably didn't recognize the growth that was taking place before my y eyes. man: we're growing, in the last couple of years, by any measure you wawant, faster than evereryy cocould have p predicted.. [power saw whirring] female tv reportrter: a new houe is built every 20 minutes in clark county foror a populatatin in flux--6,000 new residents

each month. male tv rereporter: lalas vegas, with a population of 1.6 million. it's the fastest-growing metropolis in the country. christensen: this explosion of population also led to an increase in dedemographicc diversity. las v vegas became increasingly latino, asian american, on top of its historic african american population and the white population. [overlapping chatttter] it became a vibrant, working-class unioion town where service-industry jobs paid a good middle-class wage that people could survive and thrive on, raise their families, enjoy the outdtdoors. man: nevadans s take great pride in the outdoor rececreational

opportunities that our great statate has toto offer. unfortununately, nevevada ha878% meanthat mosof the, whic recreaon must take place on protecng the mtiple use of our nds in nada is vy imrtant to our citens. [tffic noise] baca: development t in nevada, d southernrn nevada inin particul, started to happen fairly quickly and you could see this shift. you had the increase in the city of las v vegas, nortrth las veg, cityty of hendererson, and c clk coununty buttingng up againsnste desesert and statarting to e enh on n native habitats and d deset arareas. therere needed toto bea solution to come in to balance

these interests ofof growth and development with maintaining our native landscapes. christensen: thehe solution that was first usused to overcome this problem was land swaps. a developer would find some private land worthy of protection----say, up in the mountainins--and offffer to swap that land to the federal government i in order to be e ae to develelop one of f the public land parcels in the las vegas valley.. reid: they wouldld give the federal government that t land, and they would get something in exchangege for it. as time wenet on, it bececame a corrrrupt situatation. [hammering, power saws whirring] christensen: the danger and fear here was that growth in the las vegas valley could come to a screaming halt.

reid saw this problem and seset about to craft a s soluti. man: in congngress, the staff is everything. if you have a goodod staff,f, you're gogonna have a successful c congressmanan or senator. man: w we have both of our u und states senators,s, harry reid ad jojohn ensign with us. reid: : i didn't know they w wee gogonna be here. i'm reaeady to leavave. aren't you? [laughter] lopez: i was with senator enensn for 14 years. he was a very prpragmatic republican s senato. ensign: the usda can certify... reid: john ensign was a conservative republican, but our relationship in the senanate was just terrific. i never had anyone to workrk with in the sesenate that was more r reasone and d pragmatic than john n ens. ensign and i had a deal. if you have a problem with anything going on in my staff, you call me. i would do the same with him. and as a result of that, our staffs knew that they were to worork togetherer.

lopez: they brought me in the room with the top staffers from each office. we were told that "you wilill work together. you will not disparage each other. the staffs cannot say anything bad about each other, and if you do, you will get fired. regardless o of whatever differences we have, we are gonna work togetheher for the benefit of the statete of nevad" and that set the whole tone, and that set the whole tone for all the accomplishments that we achieved on a bipartisan basis. reid: we had to do something differently, and that's where the snipla came in. christensesen: sniplaba. lopez: s snipplemama. chisholm: : snipplema.a. chchristensesen: the southerern nevada... bacaca: public land..... lopez: m management t act. chisholm: sniplama. anderson: : truly horrible acronym. baca: it's onene of the weirdest acronyms, but t i love snplma, yeah. ensign: this bill fixes the faulty land exchangege process.

lopez: john enensign was the sponsor of snplma at the time, and senatotor reid and senator bryan were the senate champions for getting that legislation through. reid: we'll chanange the way weo things in the state of nevada regarding land. anderson: snplma, as it's lovingly referred to, was the seminal piece of legislation that created the nd sale paparadigm for r the las vegas valley. lopez: the concept was insteadad of e exchanging land, just auctn public land to the highest bidderer. that wayay, you brinig market f forces, and you jt t pt it out in the open and you auction laland. man: open n this bidid at 250,0. open this bid at 11 million. reid: have a public auction n ad none o of is tradingng business. ma now 60..... numberer 179 high bidder. baca: : it creates a level playing field for evererybody. man: he says he's out. 1414,200,000. close the e bid he at $14,200,000. reid: the money y that camame fm the land would go back into family sensitive things in nevada. baca: everything from lake

tahoe, building parks and trails, restoration projects, investing in visitors centers. man: parking areas, access that allow people to get into the outdoors. lopez: ovever its life, snplma generated d over $3 billion. man:n: 47... that man's a poker player, i think. christensen: in many ways, snplma built on the successes of the negotiated settlement on the truckee river that you could craft a new deal between a growing urban area and the environment. this is perhaps an example ofof governmenent at its best. it worksks and p people dt even notice it. chisholm: for the first time, it's really connnnecting las ves with the environment. and for the first time, you're beginning to see how, through these investments, las vegas is getting woven back into that landscape.

christenn: whilenplma was bipartisan compromise that worked in urban nevada, crafting the same kinds of solutions in rural nevada was not so easy. chisholm: so the 1990s were a time of great optimism for the environmental movement. i memea, you had a democratic president, you had brucuce babbitt as a secretary of the ierior. reform of grazing, reform of reclamation, reform of mining were all being discussed and being considered. and it seemed possible that types of changes would be made. but there was also, in some ways, a powerful wind that was blowing from rural communities that were concerned about the overreach of the envnvironmental community. in rural nevada, there's a t of distrust of government and of harry reid in particular. in 1999, harry reid was a

democratic senate whip. he was a master of senate procedures and policies, and he helped push through a wilderness bill in northern nevada. it was really the environmentalists' dream of what black rock-high rock should look like. part of the reason that occurred is that the hunting, off-road, mining community didn't think it would pass, and they didn't feel lilike they neneeded to enengagf course, , harry reid surprised s staff and got it passed. baca: black rock-high rock was a wilderness area that had been created largely from the conservation voice, but that voice had not taken into considideration some of the othr interests and other stakeholders, such as hunters and fishermen and some of the more active-use folks who'd been using it for a long time. johnson: i am native american by heritage. . i'm an engineering

geologisist by professssion. i'n outdoorsman by pasassion, reall. my earliest memory in lifefe isy father butchering a deer on the kitchen table in our cabin. i've hunted from the time that i could hold a rifle and hold a bow. i have lived it. i have loved it. we were in opposition to that bill. the bill offered us a number of problems, as it did to much ofof nevada. for hunters, it was disastrous as it was fofor certain miners, certain ranchers, et cetera. for example, the impacts on hunters--the wilderness boundary was set at a p particular road.t wowould be a 5-mile wildlderness across thehe valley y to a mounn

rangnge that we foformerly h hud wiwith no accessss to it a at al of our jeep trails were cut off. sportsmen, for example, chukar hunters, for a day hunt or for a 2-day hunt to walk 5 miles acacross the v valley to g get e momountains, to climb upup to a spring, to even find chukar or other uplandnd game, it was a physicical impossibility. so it essentially y eliminated entntie mountain ranges from hunting. christensen: and this wasn't the first time wilderness bills had come under criticism in nevada. in fact, they had been increasingly controversial since the 1980s. man: i'm here with some full- and papart-time reresidents ofof jarbrbidge, nevavada. we're stag on a road d that doesn't go anywhere anymore. itit used to o to some places that t these peoe were quite f fond of. womaman: we needed this roadad r multiple uses. we n need it for fishing and hunting and fuel f for the wintr

months, anand we can't get to 'm unless they open thiroroad up. man: the attraction n for us was the scenery and the accessibility. boy: we e can't have picnicscs d go camping. we need to be frfree so we cacan hunt with a vehiclc, 'cause older p people who don't like to o walk can't climb u upe mountains and hunt for deeeer le the younger people c can. johnson: the senator took a great deal of criticism--in my opinion, rightfully so--for the wording that was present and the boundaries that were present and the restrictions that were placed upon this land. but to his credit, he realized that at least some of this criticisism could bebe valid. rereid: yes, a lot of f them we. wilderness w was hated.. johnson: he sent one of his top aides, kai anderson back to nevada.

anderson: working on wilderness bills with reid was a great lesson for me and sort of outreach to a whole range of constituencies, many of whom weren'n't super ththrilled thaty boboss was in n thsetete or thai worked for him. johnson: right off the bat, i mean, i had a a significant levl of distrust because i felt this had beenen improperly rammeded n our throat. anderson: once you sit down with people and talk through issues, you pretty quickly come to the conclusion that even if you're not politically aligned, all the people i worked with out there love the state of nevada. johnson: therere is no plalace e nevada. anderson: there's sort of two different t venues for havining those sorts of conversations. one is the sort of classic open public meeting. you take all comers. those are important, particularly from the peperspective of making sure tht you're connected with everybody who woululd have an interest,, who's payingng attentition in a fashion that they y have ann opportunity to have a say. we would go until nobody else wanted to talk.

i've missed flights doing those sorts of meetings. people do like to talk, and it's important that you hear them. [cheering and booing] that said, we didn't resolve most of the details of those wilderness bills. a lot of the work ended up happening after those public meetings, with sort of privatete side e conversatio. some people view things hahappening bebehind closesed ds untoward, and i think that's a real misconception. and the reason i say that is, people aren't inclined to share their bottom line in public. they're gonna tell y you whwhat their preferred course i, but they're not gonna tell you what they can live with. a--it's not human nature, and b--it's not verytrategic to have thehe other side understand exactly what you're willing toto do. we would sit down with folks, whether it was in the ranching industry or the mining industry

or in the wilderness community and say, "look, tell us what is most important to you. tell us what you're most worried about and tell us the truth. we're not gonna share ththat information with the folks that you view as your opponents." johnson: kai met with me first, and then latater i assembled representatives of a number of sportsmen groups and individuals who knew the area. kai, to his benenefit, not only met with us and the department of wildlife, but went in the field with ranchers who had similar concerns. and we expressed our concerns to kai. we laid out on this conference table detailed maps of each of the wilderness areas. we delineated needed access points on existing roads into the wilderness areas that had been closed off. reid: if they had a complaintt that was valid, we had maps with

us, and we'd just chanange it right there. th'd call me, "is that ok?k?" i'd say, "surere, go aheadad ano thatat." johnson: at best we wouldldn't get eveverything e asked fofor. andederson: at the end o of the, when we cut a deal, we're gogonna try to cut a deal that does as good a job atat minimizing ththe ings that you'r're concerned about ad maximizingng the t things that u want. johnson: this s process came to an end when an amendment was passed through congress. [gunshot] quite e frankly, we got moststf whwhat we wanted as did d the ranchers, as did the department of wildlife, as did some of the mining interests. and ququite franklkly, we haveve disappointments. alall in all, , with thatt amendment, m my conclusision ist has worked p pretty well. reid: my work on wilderness damaged my popularity significantly in rural nevada, but it all turned out for the

better. because after i got my wilderness legegislation d donei wowould go to o these communiti. no one evever raised w wildernes an issue, because once it's in place, people are proud of it. johnson: probably the closest ii will ever come to a religious experience is being on my horse on the crest of a mountain range in nevada with a tremendous vista in front of me. you are just at one with the earth. christensen:n: there are a lot of different ways of using political power. one of the ways is brbringing people together to craft a solution, but sometimes it's using power

behind the scenes. sometimes it's making a phone call. man: one of the most important energy sources for the nevada power company is the reid gardner powower plantnt, locacated just o off ierststate5 nearar moapa. the plant susuppls nearly 40% of ththe power for re las vegas community. man: reid gardner was the main popower plant to tak electric to las vegas when they first put it in. they located it out here next to the reservation, which is not unusual. it really just morphphed intthte big pollution factctorhat t ju put injuryry onto the rez. man: problblems first arose in e unfinished boiler complex,x, whn a varietety of conststruction trtradesmen n began complainingf respiratory probmsms 2 weeksks ago. woman: when i was growing up, i didn't realize that we were being affefected. my f friends, thinking bacack on my life, they would cough all the time.

my brothther was working dnn there. he'd always be covered in black. his clothes would be black, his face would be black. he died of an enlarged heart. lee: you know, it's a coal-burner, so o they had coal ash and they p put it up on the hill. ththey actually put it everywywhere. and d of course, n it d dried out, the dudust blewt would look like a big gray cloud blowing off from top of the hill right on us. baca: in the 2000s, there was a proposal to expand a coal ash pondnd at reid g gardner, anande were proposals to add additional coal-powered power plants around nevadada. womaman: this is all the

statemements from peoplef f 200. baca: : there was a significant amount of backlash from the trtribal communitities andnd frm consnservationisists regarding s potetential expapansion of coaol popower. chisholm: it was really sierra club's "beyond coal" campaign that put the focus throughout the country, but particularly in the wewest, on closising down cl plants. lee: the sierra club stepped up, and d they had t the resourceseh attorneyeys, scientists, and thy come in and they was helelping e tribe fight thisis battle. woman: it is a david vs. goliath fight. fewer than 400 moapa paiutes taking on nv energy, trtrying to shut down n the reid gardrdner coal plant. man: h here's the bottom linineu at home e pay for electricity me at reid gardnener withth your m. moapapa paiutes y they pay for ththat electricity with h their lives. lee: we filed a lawswsuit againt nevada power, the tribe and sierra club, and that's where things got real. man:n: i am paiute. i am proud f

who o i am, and d i'm proud d ol of youou to be here. thank y you very mucuch. raborn: they brought home their message through a 50-mile walk from the moapa reservation to las vegas s that took 3 days. the tribe ultimately succeeded, convnvincing the public, convincing the utility that owned the plant that it was time for them to close the plant after over 50 years. [explosion] reid: and so i started looking at that power plant--exacerbated heart conditions and everything else. so i made up my mind i was gonna get ririd of coal l in ne. i read in the paper that they were going to open 4 new cocoal-fired generating g plantn nevada. . i called mary, i calld my vegas operation. i said, "i'm

not gonna a let that h happen." and what i did, i called a hedge fund. i told the guy, "look, you back away from t that coal p pl, or i i will get even witith youi don't know what i'm gonna do, but i'll figure somemething out" [phone dial tone] biden: every time i hear a diall tonene, i'll think of f harry. [laughteter] chchisholm: it's a little bit oa joke in nevada around, you know, the harry reid phone call. "i want to see the grazing rights bought out of great babasin national park." and he hangs up. "i want toto plant some joshua trees. where do i findnd 'em?" d he hangs u up. pelosi: harry? [dial tone] christensen: by this time, people knew that they would write harry reid off at their own peril. he knew how to get thingngs done, and d they could eieither get on board or e left b behind. baca: while senator reid was working to kill coal plants, at the same time, the nevada state

legislature was actutually makig ititown moves s towards s ending coal powerer. atkinson: expand renewable enerergy, retirement of f coal plants. all thosose in favoror,y "aye." all: ayeye. baca: senate bill 123 was passed. it basically ended coal power in nevada, and it t mandad thatat there would be no more power plants and that the existing powerer plants had to e sunsetted. atkinsonon: ok, we a are adjour. raborn: right araround that same time was, you know, the recession. womaman: the stotock market t iw dodown 21%. man: 'cause e we're now down 43. man: the dow traders are ststanding thehere watchining in amazement, and i don't blame 'em. raborn: in d.c., senator and his leadership staff and congress worked to pass the american reinvestment and recovery act. reid: what we're trying to do is stst a depressssion. that's why prpresident obama says that this bill i is so important tththe american people. it's not only important for r the short t tero create millionons of jobs,s, but

it'll also d do things for the long-term, like start doing something about our energy grid. if we can produce renewable energy and take it someplace, it creates thousands of jobs in nevada, and that's what this legislation is all about. raborn: there was $6 billion in that act specifically for renewable energy developmenent and trtransmission line devevelopme. anderson: the staff quickly put together the plan that would lead to development of transmission in nevada that would connect the northern and southern grids in the state for the first time electrically. baca: an interesting element of this transition from coal power to green energy sources is some of the socialal justice component ththat you seeee at py with the moapapa band of p paiue who saw the end of this power plant that hadad been making thr commununity ill, a and they tranansitioned and really y bece part of the green n energy movement by building their own

solar power plant. reid: this power plant in moapa is really the e first solar projecect to be built on tribal lands, certainly in nevada and likelyly in the whole countrtry. lee: senatoror reid, in our opinion, was for us. the actual actions ththat he took, i'm nott sure aboutut, but i knknow thers influeuence there 'cause he'e'sa vevery powerful person and he es a friend t to us. [busy signal] [dialing] christensen: so behind the scenes, reid is helping to set up this architecture for a transition to renewable energy. he's talking to the companies that want to build new coal power plants in nevada, and he's saying "no way, but i will let you build a tranansmission line" he's calling up the mayor of los angeles, and he's persuading him to agree to buy power frfrom t moapapa solar facility. [phone rininging] reid: so i called the mayor of l.a., and i said, "i know you're

trying to go to a renewable energy. i can get you 600, 700 megawatts within a period of time. in a year,r, we'll buiuila facility. can you use it?" he said, "you bet."." the indians sold their powower to los anang, and now they've added to it and done more. lee: the moapa solar, it's sitting onon 2,200 acres--phohotovoltaic. i it's a fixed system, as opposed to single axis, which tracks the sun one way or a double axis which tracks it both directions. chchristensen:n: each of thehese pieces adddds up to a a dramatic transformation of the energy sysystem in nevada and the american west.t. baca: it's an interesting example e of how youou can he ee just transition. lee: a just transition means that as we transition from one formrm of energygy to anoth,

from fossil fuels to renewable, as we transition our economy, that we also address historical injuststices, like the injususts to the moapa tribe. the main thihing is it gives us the means, financial means to grow. we got guaranteed income, and it's's not based on crops sr the weweather or f floods or nothing. t this is basased on tt the sun'n's gonna shine, you'r'e gogonna get elelectric outut of. the credit rating for the tribe went up, and the fact t tt we did this industrial scale solar,r, it kind of put us i ina different kind of a club. simmons: we led the way. we were breakingng the ground for solar, especially for indian tribes. and of course we're really proud of that. and it's changed the lives of many, because oncnce yu wowork on a a solar planant, yo, you cacan makeke enough h moneyo change youour whole life. so i think we wewere able toto o that for the younger people.

we created a name for moapa, and wherever we go we're known for that. christensen: in the obama administration, reid is at the height of his powers as the leader of the democratic senate caucus. he's the most powerful democratic politician, aside from obama, but he's still fighting a battle that has dogggged his whole career, and that's the push toto bury high-levevel nuclearar waste att yucca mountain that bebegan with the screw w nevada bill in 1987. anderson: nuclclear waste policy act papassed in 1982, the sasame yearar that reidid was electcteo the hohouse. basically, it laid out a process by which the u.s. government wowould look at t a varietety of permanent t storage rerepositors for high-level nuclelear waste. man: thahat did not occur, and t did not occur because politics, not science dictated the

conclusion. man: senats s voti in n th afrmative... anderson: : growing weary of actutually doing that scieientic process in 17,7, theongrgress, in its wisdom,m, decided that it would rerewrite that bill andd choose yucca as ththe preferred alternative. chisholm: yucca mountain was site that was identified because it was within what was cacalled the nevada testst site, which is where the federal government's early atomic testing occurred. man: ...2... 1! [explosion] baca: it felelt like it was coming back to t that old narratative. nevada was a wasteland that n nobody neededo care about whahat they werere putting hehere. woman: now you may be wondering why yucca mountain is being considered a suitable site to dump nucuclear wastete. anderson: thatat was n not a scientific process. that was tom foley representing the state of washingngton, takig care of hanford. that was jim wright representing the state of texas, taking care of deaf smith county, texas, and senator reid

being g a freshman. man: thehe "yea"s are 61, the "nay"s"s are 28, a and the conference p port is agreed to. reid: i think it's important to recognize that nuclear waste is not a partisanan issue. chisholmlm: republicans, democrats, ranchers, miners, urban people, outdoor peopople--everybody knkw that thihis was... reid: the screrew nevada b bill. wowoman: the scrcrew neva a bill man: t the screw nevada bill. anderson: it wasn't chen on the merits. it was chosen for pure political reasons. man: who has only 2 senators, no political clout whatsoever, and who lives inin a place that is perceived atat least to be nothg but desertrt and wasteteland? ad they said, "a-ha! nevada." man: we in nevada will not stand for it. [applause] man: a coalition of elected officials,s, environmentalists,, and businessmen n is waging a guerririlla war toto kill a prot they believe has been shoved down their throats. reid: the e repulsive and mendacious polititical backststabbing represented b bye

deal cut against thehe people of nevada shohould bring g a blushf shame to t the face ofof every susuppted thth nuclear wastete well, ankly, ias a new senator, and i thohought we were doomed. i didn't know what to do about it. [explosion] man: wororrs drilleded and blasd a starteter tunn.. reid: the biggest openinwewe got was bill clintnton... al gore, to his credit. they knew what a big deal this was in nevada, so they came out publicly opposed to yucca mountatain. that w was one reaee were able to stall it as long as we did. raborn: as senenator reid gained more and more leadership in the senate, he was also able to use that power to put a stranglehold on the appropriations process and starve the project of funding. reid: i used my y seat on the appropriatioions committee to op cut $30 million frfrom the waste site bududget. i urgrge the president to veteto legislation

that would putut a temporarary p at the nevadada test site. i wot quit untilil my colleagues ununderstand that transpsporting nucleaear waste to nevada isis dangerous. and we don't t want a nuclear waste dump in our backyard. [children lalaughing] anderson: the nuclear industry has spent 4 decades underestimating senatotor reid and his ability to fight back. instead, they picked a fight with the wrong guy. man: the senator from nevada. reid: unsupppportable.e. mikulski: the sesenator from nevada. reidid: totally y unsupportable. we have the e nevada test site, nellis air force base, fallon air naval station, hawthorne ammunition depot. we have done our share. it's not compatible with tourism, which is our number-one indndusy.y. people ae afraid of it, based upon chernobyl, based upon the experience o of the people in s. georgege, where they have ththe highest cacancer rate in the world,d, literally. we don't't t it if it's 100 feet undergrounund or 10,000 feet ununderground.d. when nevada was first mementiond asas a possiblble dump sitite fr nuclear r waste, i s said, "no "

my goal is to deliver these signed petitions to the president and impress upon him that nevadans don't want a nuclear dumpmp in their backyar. man: joining me now live is u.s. senator harry reid. what's your strongest t argument to keeping nuclear waste out of nevada? reid: how are you gonna get it here? we had 400,000 truruck accidenes last year. 14,4,000 of those dealt with hazarus materiaials. we h had 2,100 train wrecks last year. over 1,00000 of those deat with hazardous materials. this is a an accident waiting t to happen. man: and they say y most amerirs will join the opposition once they see the web of highways and railroads for transporting the waste from 131 sites in 45 states.. chchisholm: in ordrder to move e radidioactive wawaste to yucucca mountain f for long-termrm stor, one of the proposesed approaches was to move it by rail car, particularly through an area

called garden valley... at the heart of one of the remotest parts of the great basin. baca: it would have permanently altered that landscape. you have these beautiful mountain ranges that encircle this massive basin that was once a giant inland seaea. it really takes you back in time. it shows you some of the most essssential pararts of nev. reid: part of that wonderful place is a man who's a famous, famous, world-fafamous artist. name is heizer--michael heheize.

anderson: who is michael heizer? um... charles kuralt: michael heizer isis a modern sculptor. . instef a chisel, mimichael heizer usuay useses dynamite e and bulldodozo create his art.. reid: heorked for r 40 years buililding this monument in the mimiddle of nonowhere. kuralt: in the nevada desert, hours from any big town, he has created massive pieces of scsculpture frfrom concrete and steel and granite and compacted earth. anderson: he's a scientist, he's an artist, he's an engineer--all in the sort of pursuit of building this thing that i'm not gonna describe, 'cause i can't. baca: "city," created by michael heizer, is a place that... the...just... chishoholm: "city" is... it's hard to d describe it until you walk it. reid: it is a mile and a half

long. it represents all these great artistic things that have taken place over the centuries. i fit heard about this project out in the middlof nowhere. and i thought, "who cares?" but all you had toto do was s go lot it, , and you know why people would cacare about i it. first of all, to meet him is to meet a true iconic american. there'e's nobody like him. heizer: you got my rock in the...? obviously, there's a lot of acreage in this part of the world that isn't developed. so there's a lot of potential, lot of agencies and opportunistic people see all this backcountry and want to exploit it. a highway from arizona thrhrough here. the mx missile silo truck, cause ththese water r companies. it's just endlesess. i think he ended up liking it.

i think he did. yeah, i'm pretty sure he did. i think after he sat out for a while, he liked it. rereid: michael heizer was trura nevadan, and i did everything i could to help with that project of his. i was bound and determined to preserve that city, that area. anderson: : senator rereid and s team were thinking through how to protect the landscape scale artwork by michael heizer in a fashion that was appropriate for the scope and scale of the project. christensen: it't's not lost on him anand his stafaff that whehe "city" i is located d is also te location through which the enenergy deparartment wantno run a railroad to bring high-level nuclear waste to yucca mountain. anderson: senator r reid set about t trying to o have the president of the uninited states use his authority under the antiquities act, an act which

dates baback to 1906, , to prott the e speciaial resources s in t place through executive proclamation. baca: the antiquities act gave presidentsts the authority throh executive ordeto createe nanational monuments. christensen: national monuments haveve protected a wide vavarief special plplaces--from buiuildis to battlefield graveyards to mount rushmore. raborn: president obama was in ththe white house. senator r red was very close to him. and senator reid cared deeply about the potential ability to make sure that that area was preserved in perpetuity. that was s a momement in time t thatd to be seizeded. reid: i was with president obama on an airplane. said, "mr. president, there'ss this thing in nevada." he said, "describe it." "i can't explain to youou what it is." try to describe this to somebody. and i said, "mr.

president, i really would like you to do an executive order creating a national monument." anderson: some people would say, "well, that short-circuited the system." i don't think it really did. i think that folks worked through the system best they could, came to an impasse, and choreographed a path forward that was a different one than using the legislative process. reid: it stops that land forever being spoiled. there'll be no railroads going through that land. right now, all the drilling equipntnt they had d up there, it hahas now been groundp for junk s steel. therere's notg there now. they would have to start all over again. we don't have nuclear waste, and i don't see it in the future.

baca: his career was bookended by protectcting great basin national park and basin and range. he's covered the mountains. now he's covered the basin and the ranges. chisholm: we have 70 wilderness areas because of him. we have 2 large national monuments because of him. he's also demonstrated the way to work through tough land use issues around wilderness, around national parks, national monuments. and the model that he pioneered can be used around the country. nevada's profoundly chananged in the time from whene started to w when he left. and he's really helped bring us along from that old west into the new west, and he's left us with a very different legacy. christensen: the old west is defined by the legacy of conquest and the dominance of the region by extractive

industries--mining, logging, rancnching, anand irrigated far. the new westst is defined by the demographic changes that come with the rapid expansion of urban areas, the rise of the service economy, and the rise of people caring about the environment and about the amenities they enjoy from the outdoors. he saw the changes that were coming to the west. he rode thosose changes throughoutut his career. he was an agent of those changes. baca: our new west--it's a different place. t there probaby are a lot of mixed feelings, honestly, for some people, a abt that new west versus the old west. there are some people who probably would love to go back to that untrammeled feeling of the old west. schank: his legacy is not very well looked at

by most t of the p people in rural nevada. in order toto appreciate rural nevada, you have to understand that it is part of the complete nevada. and so i think that that's a very, very important component that many, many politicians do not really look at. chriristensen: h harry reid d wo a complicated d character. enenvironmentalists somemetimes found themselves a at odds with him because he supported mining and he supported las vegas getting the water it needed to grow. and this complexity enableled him to s see the kinif pragmamatic solutitions that e d puriststs and ideoeologues. baca: the competing interests, the stakeholders with different needs and perspectives will always remain. and we're a alwas going to need somebody like a senator reid to come in and help

negotitiate througugh those compmpeting intererests. chisholm: this was about the politics of the possible. harry reid has pointed to a model of how work can get done, not just in nevada, but i also think nationally. you need to ththink pragmatically, b but you also need d to be willing to mae deals. lopez: the l legislation that a rerepublican and democraratic se duo were a able to accomplish togetherer i think could be aa template foror the whole nationo look at and ununderstand that working together pays huge dividends for your constituents, and they all appreciate it. no matter republicans, democrats, independents--your constituents will appreciate the fact if you can n deliver on quality-of-life promomises. johnson: i'm not shy in saying harry reid has done morere for nevada o outdoors than a any politician ever inin history.

baca: problem is, especially right now, there's this sort of zero sum gain, whehere no one'es willining to give anything. part of what senator reid brought to the dialogue is that you can have 100% of nothing if you're not willing to g give something awaway. chriristensen:n: he showed t tht bibipartisanan compromiseses cak to protetect millilions of acref wildlderness.. hehe saw the tremendous potentil of renewable energy in the nevada desert. he saw cononflicts that had ragd onon the truckee river f for a century.y. he showed how development t could be b balancd with prorotection ofof the envivironment inin public lalan. he's alslso provided peoplple in a majoror metropolitatan area access t to those pupublic land. i've asked harry reid many times if there was a grand v vision tt he hadad that stemmed from h his love of paiute springs andnd

animated, realally, his whole reid: nono. i just did one t thg at a time. never looked d at any grand vision of anything. christensen: but i think when we look back, it sure looks like there was some kind of vision there, and i think there is a vision there for a new kind of pragmatic environmental politics for nevada, for the american west, and for the whole country.

announcer: this program was made possible in part by caesars entertainment, tom campion, utopia foundation, the cloobeck family, masimo foundation, mgm resorts, and nv energy. ÷é÷é÷édd÷

host: it's become europe'sé÷édd÷ capital of cool anand artists around the world are joining the pararty. even peoeople whose grandparentnts had to flee for their lives. man: i moved to berlin recently, you know, just what shows you how ... up things are in israel. [laughter]