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On the Record: The policy positions of Rep. Mark Amodei, candidate in Congressional District 2

Daniel Rothberg
Daniel Rothberg
Election 2018
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It happens like clockwork.

Candidates announce their bids for office. Then the attack ads follow in short order, unabashedly targeting their voting records and more.

We’re here to help. The Nevada Independent already produces fact-checks for political advertisements and off-the-cuff remarks, but we also want to get ahead of the campaign game.

When politicians announce their candidacy for public office, we’ll roll out “On the Record” — our look at their voting history and stances on a broad array of subjects.

Now up: Republican Rep. Mark Amodei who is running against Democrat Clint Koble, former state executive director for the U.S. Department of Agriculture Farm Service Agency.

Health care

Amodei initially opposed the effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act last year, but ultimately voted with for the House’s bill, which he said in a recent interview with The Nevada Independent, wasn’t perfect but “started down the road.”

Initially, Amodei said he was concerned that the repeal-and-replace bill could plunge the state into debt because Nevada had expanded Medicaid under the act. After Amodei came out against the bill, he said he received calls from President Donald Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan looking for his support. He changed his mind after talking to officials at the Department of Health and Human Services who assured him that those eligible for Medicaid would not lose coverage.

Although the Trump administration has changed the Affordable Care Act through rule changes, Congress has been unable to fully “repeal and replace” the law.

In August, Amodei told reporters for The Nevada Independent that he supported solutions to the Affordable Care Act and immigration policies that were led by Congress, not the president. He criticized his colleagues for complaining about President Obama’s use of executive power only to give the Trump administration a pass on changing the law through its executive authority.

“I see it as the ultimate act of hypocrisy on the behalf of Republicans in the Senate and their leadership and in the House and their leadership to be sitting back now and going, ‘Well the administration can handle that immigration stuff now and they can handle that health-care stuff,’” Amodei said.

In the interview last August, Amodei said that he would support a state-sponsored or state-run health insurance plan, questioning the ability of national health insurance companies to provide care to Nevada residents and citing a potential crisis last December when it appeared 14 rural counties might not have coverage options available on the exchange.

The economy and minimum wage

Amodei’s opponent, Democrat Clint Koble, said he supports proposals by other members in his party to gradually raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2024. Amodei said he was not going to share his opinion on the proposal unless he saw more specific language from Koble.

“If Mr. Koble has a draft bill or any potential ideas out there, I’d be happy to respond and tell you if I agree, but generic statements on public policy that pander to people around voting time is something I always try to avoid,” Amodei wrote in an email.

In 2013, Amodei voted against a bill to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 by 2015.

During his time in office, Amodei has supported tax cuts. At the end of last year, Amodei voted in favor of the Republican tax bill.

During this campaign cycle, both gubernatorial candidates have expressed concerns about resting too heavily on the use of state incentives to lure companies to Nevada. Amodei said that he did not oppose their use if policymakers use good judgment about handing them out.

“We’ve been doing it for a long time and as long as it evolves and is used intelligently it’s a good tool,” Amodei said in an email.

Immigration and a path to citizenship

Over the last year, Amodei has pressured leadership to act on comprehensive immigration reform and bills to fix DACA. Earlier this year, he supported the use of a “discharge petition,” along with about two dozen other Republicans, that would have forced leadership to vote on immigration bills if the entire House Democratic caucus also supported the effort.

House leadership eventually brought two DACA bills for a vote on the floor this summer, but both failed. Amodei told The Nevada Independent that he was frustrated by the failure.

“That’s the height of my frustration — that instead of moving the ball five yards down the field, you’re going to say no unless it’s a political touchdown for whatever your definition of a political touchdown is,” he said.

Amodei said he supports a way for people in the country illegally to apply for citizenship.

“You can never say the word ‘path’ anymore. ‘Path’ has become a dirty word like comprehensive, like whatever, but there ought to be a way to earn status,” he said. “Status means you get a green card, which means under the plans that I support, once you get it, if you decide you want to go apply for citizenship, then you walk in there and apply for citizenship like anybody else.”

When it comes to the Trump administration’s cancellation of the Temporary Protected Status program, which offered relief to immigrants of countries ravaged by war or natural disaster, Amodei said he thought “there’s got to be a better solution” than deporting thousands of people who have come to see America as their home. He said in August that barring a criminal record, those with Temporary Protected Status, should have some relief to gain legal status.

“But everybody goes to the polar ends like, ‘Look what the criminals have done,’” he said. “And it’s like, well, then treat ‘em like criminals, but that’s not most of them.”

Washoe County Public Lands Bill

Washoe County is considering federal legislation, modeled after similar efforts in Clark County, to change the land use of federal public land throughout the county. The proposal, which would require a sponsor from the federal delegation, could potentially open federally managed land to development and protect more land as wilderness. But it has been criticized by several groups, including conservation organizations, that argue the proposal doesn’t go far enough.

Amodei, who has recently worked on a number of public lands bills for counties like Douglas County and Pershing County, said he will only introduce a bill if it has broad support.

“On the Washoe one, what I have said is it’s your lands bill,” he said. “I’ve got no schedule.  When I see resolutions of support from the Washoe County Commission, Sparks City Council and Reno City Council, then great. We’ll introduce it and start working it over here.”

Amodei said the legislation only works if there is bipartisan support and buy-in from the conservation community. Even with a coalition behind it, he said that the process of passing a public lands bill can be “a lot like cats and dogs to get it done” in Congress.

In a state where the federal government manages more than 85 percent of the land, he stressed the importance of Congress’s role in ensuring that cities and towns can develop responsibly.

“Let me tell you why people do them,” Amodei said in an interview last month. “They do them because quite frankly every town in the state is surrounded by federal land. So if you want to grow responsibly, then you’re going to need some kind of a lands bill.”

“The feds own it all around here,” he added. “And that’s not Democrats and Republicans. That’s just the assessor’s office.”

Sage grouse conservation plans

In 2015, the Obama administration worked with a bipartisan group of Western governors to craft statewide conservation plans and defer a listing of the Greater sage-grouse under the Endangered Species Act.

A listing under the act could harm rural economies that rely on natural resource development in habitat throughout the bird’s expansive range. The goal of the plans was to impose proactive and voluntary limits on industry to avoid more punitive regulations that would likely come with a listing under the act.

But there was something for everyone to hate in the plans, and they remain a controversial topic for many Westerners. Most notably, a decision to include a ban new mining claims across the state angered lawmakers who noted that the Obama administration had not given the public an adequate opportunity to comment on the mineral withdrawal. That provision has since been removed, and the Trump administration has changed other elements of the plan.

Amodei said the Obama administration did not give enough consideration to what the state wanted.

“I didn’t think a lot of the plan because basically they went through this whole collaboration and communication process, created a draft and put it out for comment, and when it came back, it was like... why is nothing in the state plan in there,” Amodei said.

He said that it was important to protect sagebrush habitat but that there should be a greater focus on managing extreme wildfires, which have burned more than 1 million acres of land in Nevada this year, and wild horses, which compete for habitat on the range.

“When you say, ‘How did I like the 2015 stuff,’ there’s where we start,” he said.

Amodei backed legislation In 2014 attempting to exempt the sage-grouse from an Endangered Species Act listing, but the Obama administration said it would not change its course.

Amodei pushed an amendment this year to prohibit the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service from using funds on a rule for the bi-state sage-grouse, a subpopulation of the greater sage grouse that roams the state’s western border near the eastern Sierra.

Wildfire management

As two massive wildfires alone burned more than 1 million acres in Nevada this year, Amodei has been outspoken in seeking federal funding for managing and preventing fires in Nevada.

Amodei said that the federal government too often ignores the Great Basin, the region that encompasses most of Nevada, because of how sparsely populated it is. But wildfire, Amodie noted, can still have a devastating impact on ranching, and habitat for wildlife.

“Quite frankly, I’m becoming the guy that says, ‘Listen, we’re concerned about the Chesapeake Bay, we’re concerned about the Everglades; we’re concerned about the Great Lakes; we’re concerned about Tahoe,’ Amodei said in an interview last month after the two fires. “All that stuff’s well and good. It’s time to get concerned about the Great Basin.”

Amodei said one tool he would support for wildlife management is more flexible grazing on public lands. The idea is that by adjusting when and where cattle can graze, federal land managers can reduce the amount of fuel that is left on the range to burn in a wildfire.

“I will say this, the [federal land managers] at the state level, at the district office levels want the ability to innovate, to get cows out on burned areas, to eat fuel like cheatgrass and other stuff when it’s appropriate,” Amodei said. “They’ve never done that before.”

Public land transfers

In 2015, the Republican-led Legislature passed a resolution urging Congress to enact legislation that would transfer millions of acres of federal land to the control of the state.

Amodei took up that cause in 2016 when he introduced the Honor the Nevada Enabling Act of 1864 Act. It provided for the wholesale transfer of federally-managed public land back to the states. One year later, Amodei abandoned the effort amid backlash from recreationists and hunters after a series of town halls in towns across the state, from Fallon to Elko.

“Like I told you before, my stuff is generated from the bottom up, not from me down,” Amodei said. “There was a lot of resistance to the concept.”

Since then, Amodei has said he would focus on other smaller-scale legislation, such as the county-driven public land bills, to solve conflicts involving federal land ownership. Amodei said the experience was eye-opening because it showed how many various interests, while critical of federal land ownership decisions, rely on the public access that comes with federal land.

“I’ll just say it was an educational experience, but I came away with it going guess what, I’m not going to go push a bill for Nevada that I don’t think has, you know, [support],” he said.

Energy ballot measures

With two statewide ballot measures focused on energy, the topic has been a main focus in most campaigns throughout the state. Question 3, known as the Energy Choice Initiative, would end NV Energy’s monopoly on supplying power and create a competitive electricity market. The battle over the ballot measure has been fierce and expensive.

At the same time, Question 6, a second energy-related ballot measure, would raise the state’s renewable requirement for energy providers to 50 percent by 2030 regardless of whether Question 3 succeeds.

Amodei declined to take a position on the measures.

“In my official capacity, I’m obviously focused on federal policy issues,” he said in an email. “Quite frankly, as a member of Congress, there is no upside in me getting involved in initiatives that have nothing to do with federal policy. However, as a registered voter in Nevada, I will be doing my homework on these issues, just like everyone else, and decide how I’m going to vote – but I have not done that yet as I’m obviously focused on the federal issues.”

Yucca Mountain

Amodei said he continues to oppose storing nuclear waste about 90 miles outside of Las Vegas at Yucca Mountain, an idea that has been revived by the Trump administration and Congress.  

“Since I was elected to Congress, I have always said I do not believe Yucca Mountain should be a simple dumping site for our nation’s nuclear waste,” Amodei said in an email.

But he said that as long as policymakers continue to seriously consider Yucca Mountain, he will fight to place Nevada in the best possible position should the repository ever be put online.

“I have always been cognizant that policymakers should not consider Yucca Mountain to be a ‘dead’ issue, meaning Nevada’s congressional delegation should use legislation as an opportunity to dictate the terms of the repository under the best conditions for our state,” he added.

Amodei said this was why, in May, he offered an amendment to Illinois Rep. John Shimkus’s bill to restart the process for permitting Yucca Mountain. The amendment, which was ultimately not considered, looked to create nuclear research opportunities in Nevada’s higher education and jobs through the creation of reprocessing facilities if the Yucca Mountain project was approved. It also aimed to create requirements for cleaning up contaminated facilities in Nevada.

The ideas were not included and Amodei voted against the Shimkus bill.

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