- Nevada Week also sat down with Congresswoman Dina Titus who Nevadans reelected to a seventh term, her sixth term representing Nevada's 1st Congressional District.

Well, Congresswoman, unlike the 117th U.S. Congress, the 118th Congress is going to have a House with a Republican majority.

What impact does that have on what bills you decide to support?

(Rep. Dina Titus) Well, most of my political career has been spent in the minority, and that counts the state legislature and the Congress.

So I understand what it means to have to work hard to get things done when you don't have the votes on the floor.

I think you just have to pick your battles more carefully.

You look for issues that aren't so ideological, so you can find people that you can compromise with.

I'm on the Infrastructure Committee, for example.

Roads and bridges don't know party lines.

Everybody should support that for their own district.

So there's some potential there.

And I've partnered with some Republicans on some of the animal issues, animal testing by the VA, for example.

Brian Mast is a partner there.

So I'll continue to work on those issues.

Some of the things that we were able to push in a democratic House, though, we're now playing defense.

And that would be like the abortion issues, some of the climate issues, even protecting Social Security.

-Infrastructure and animals.

Do you have particular legislation planed?

-Well, yes.

In the animal area, we have a Wild Horse and Burro Protection Act.

And that's to be sure that we have a safe healthy way to manage horses on the range.

You know, Nevada has the most wild horses.

Right now they round them up with helicopters.

And you have seen those horrendous pictures of how they just run a colt to death or something.

So I'm working with Interior and our own committees, Grijalva chairs that now from Arizona, to get that done.

But another thing is animal testing.

The VA has stopped testing on dogs, but a number of the agencies test on dogs, puppies and kittens.

And as I said, Brian Mast is my main partner there.

But people just don't want to see that because animal testing really doesn't translate to humans anymore.

-As of this recording, we are still in the 117th Congress.

And you recently introduced, along with three other members of Congress, the Impact Human Trafficking Act.

What will that do if it does become law?

-Well, we hope that it'll maybe get in the final appropriations bill.

But we've seen human trafficking just growing internationally, not just in this country.

And Las Vegas is a place where it occurs, and it occurs both for sex trafficking but also for labor trafficking, and from other parts of the world.

And we want to be sure that state, local, and federal governments can work together on this issue, that there are resources for identifying the problem, and then helping the victims.

Sometimes when an underaged person is caught for prostitution, the person is a victim because they've been trafficked, but then they become the criminal because they're the ones doing the prostitution.

We'd like to see that cleared up and address the issue here locally as well as nationally.

-About the Impact Human Trafficking Act, it was introduced at the end of November.

To me that seems awful late.

But there's got to be some sort of thinking behind it, some practicality?

-Well, a lot of getting legislation through is in the timing.

Sometimes you start something this session of Congress because you want to see it continue into the next session.

That's the way with the wild horses.

We've been working on that for a long time.

Sometimes you do it at the last minute in hopes not that the bill will pass, but that it'll be turned into an amendment to get on a bill that has to pass before the end of the session, which would be like funding the government.

-Okay.

So then it is possible that if you introduce something now, it may not get passed this session, but because it's put together already, you can reintroduce?

-Exactly.

That's right.

You've got the information, you got the bill drafted, you got the supporters lined up.

So you're ready to go.

-Okay.

Anything you introduce this session, you plan to reintroduce?

-Well, I'll continue to work on the wild horse issue if we don't get that passed.

Some of the environmental issues are very important to me here in Nevada, certainly.

Avi Kwa Ame is something that they've been working on for 20 years, and now I've just picked it up.

We think that's going to be done by the President through the Antiquities Act, but we'll continue to watch that in the next session, too.

-You brought up, and you pronounced it "Avi Kwa Ame."

-Avi Kwa Ame.

-It's interesting, though, because you talk about the environmental issues, and there's two sides of that because you are protecting some land and species on that land.

But then there are solar and wind projects that could potentially happen there to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

They won't be able to be built there because now it's a federal monument.

How do you rationalize those?

-Well, I've been a strong supporter of renewable energy since I was in the legislature.

I had the bill that did net metering where you can generate your own solar power, sell it to the power company back and get some reduction on your own bills.

And also the Portfolio Standard, which forces the power company to buy so much solar as a percentage of their portfolio.

The projects that keep coming up on the Avi Kwa Ame monument territory are kind of wannabe projects.

They have not even been approved by the BLM.

It's just a potential thing that maybe could happen sometime in the future.

Look how much land is here in Nevada.

You can find a lot of places to put wind and solar that just don't happen to be on sacred land with lots of things that need protecting, from the cave drawings to the bighorn sheep.

-For those who don't understand the importance of protecting land like that, what would you say?

-Well, I'd say go out there and see it, for one thing.

It's not very far away, and it just has majestic vistas.

We don't need to develop every place, and people would rather have some wild area around as the other side of Nevada from our urban core.

So I say visit it and then think of protecting public land for future generations, not just today.

-And what about the need for developable land in Nevada?

How do you justify that while protecting this land?

-Well, I think again, there are a lot of places you can build that don't have to be on sacred land.

There was a lands bill this time in the Congress, it didn't get out of the Senate, but that will probably come back too because you have to provide some land for development where the community can grow.

And I certainly support that.

But you have to be selective.

You have to have sustainable growth.

You have to have the water to feed that growth.

You have to put in transportation.

So it's a much bigger, more complex issue than just throwing up a few houses on a piece of land.

-And I think you're talking about the Clark County Lands Bill.

-That's right.

-Any insight into what negotiations may have happened to regain Clark County support if it has come back?

-I think it will come back probably in a compromised, more reduced manner where the environmentalists, the County, the State, the developers are all at the table and follow it through to the end.

It kind of went awry because some interests didn't feel like they were being protected.

-Well, was it because the amount of land was reduced that would become available for development?

-Well, it went both ways: There was land that was set aside for conservation to offset the land set aside for development, and in the development part, there were provisions for affordable housing, which is very important here in Southern Nevada.

But all the different parties have little pieces of it that they weren't too happy with.

So I'm sure you'll see it come back again.

-On the topic of affordable housing, when we had you here in October, you talked about the need to create incentives for the construction of affordable housing.

Is it just not all that attractive for companies?

-Well, you have to be sure that the company can make some money on it; you don't take away all the profit margin.

But we have to build it in places where it's needed, you have to build it quickly.

You know, we put-- I think $500 million came out of the, one of the recovery bills to the state, and then the governor created the Home Means Nevada.

And it had those kinds of incentives in it and help for people to pay mortgages and get into some of these lower income projects.

-Okay.

And from what we understand, though, that 500 million will be just a drop in the bucket in terms of how many units are needed, something like 85,000 affordable housing units are needed.

So what else can be done outside of, you know, the Low Income Housing Tax Credit, which is a huge federal program.

-That is.

And that's very important if you can get that tax credit.

Also in the recovery bills, there was help for people to get mortgages and also to pay the rent.

So that's been a little helpful, too.

But the lack of affordable housing is not new in Nevada.

This has always been the case.

And it ties to the homeless population.

People can't pay the rent, they move from house to house, sleep in their car, then they become on the streets homeless.

So again, it's a complex issue that ties with other things going on.

-And that tax credit, is it at risk?

-Well, you always have to protect tax credits.

That's another one of those bills you were mentioning that comes up at the end of every session is to move those tax credits forward where, whether it's the Child Tax Protection Act or the Housing Protection or protection for investments in renewable energy.

That's a tax credit as well.

-How tired are you of talking about gas prices?

-Well, gas prices are going down.

So that makes me a little happier.

I saw $4.15, and that's still too high, but it's a lot better than $5.50.

-And that's-- It's December right now.

So this may air in January.

And who knows the volatility of gas prices?

How much really can you do at the federal level to help?

-Well, the President has opened up the reserves.

That has helped.

And certainly there's more drilling going on now with the licenses that already existed.

There's several bills that I cosponsored to go after the gasoline companies for gouging, taking advantage of the situation just to raise prices.

If you look at the profits those companies made and the salaries those CEOs have, you can see that there's obviously gouging going on.

However, the war in Ukraine continues, and that's a factor.

And then all of European inflation and dependency on oil from--was Russia and now the Saudi Arabia-- that's something we have less control over.

-Do you anticipate more bills about price gouging and potential penalties on big oil companies?

-I'm sure those will be reintroduced, and I will continue to cosponsor them.

It'll be harder, though, with the Republicans in the majority in the House.

-Congresswoman Dina Titus, thank you for your time.

-Thank you.

-The Impact Human Trafficking Act did not make it out of the House, and neither did the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Protection Act.

However, through the final bill that funds the federal government through fiscal year 2023, Titus did secure funding to help address both issues.

Nevada Week has reached out to other Nevada lawmakers, including new Nevada Governor Joe Lombardo, and we hope to bring you those conversations soon.

In the meantime, a happy New Year to you from all of us here at Vegas PBS.