Letters to the editor of the Pahrump Valley Times

There is opposition to national monument review

I was disappointed in the article in Wednesday’s paper about the national monuments being reviewed. While I did offer the reporter a different point of view, it would seem, from the article, that opposition to reviewing and possible downsizing some of these behemoths, is nearly nonexistent.

Lincoln and Nye County commissioners both voted unanimously to oppose the Basin and Range when it was first brought forward. Some, at that time, said it was because of Yucca Mountain, but that was not the case and still isn’t.

Whether it is in place or not will not kill that project, as evidenced by the push from the current administration to follow the law and hear the science on Yucca, the same position as nine of 17 counties here in Nevada.

The Basin and Range “monument” is about 700K acres, which is there to protect a small piece of private property. No one can seriously believe we need to close off 700K acres to protect a “private” art project.

While the last administration called for consent in some areas, they completely ignored the local governments in our wish to not use federal authority to declare a private property as a national monument.

This shows, once again, how when a federal government project gets going it is nearly impossible to stop it. (Like the expansion of Medicare in the Affordable Care Act.)

Maybe less reporting about what Washington-based land groups want and a bit more from local groups and locally elected government in future articles would be better reporting.

If the president does decide to lessen the size of these monuments it will be because the facts didn’t support them in the first, nor did the local governments.

Dan Schinhofen

Chairman, Nye County Commission

Congressional oversight needed in defense system

In order to make the Ground-based Missile Defense System effectiveagainst attacks by North Korea or whoever, we should probably have rigorous congressional oversight (as well as any extra funding that is needed).

At the very least, we should work on the performance of small thrusters attached to the interceptors, and we should have rigorous testing on those interceptors.

Alex Sokolow