RENO, Nev. (AP) — Conservationists are asking the White House Council on Environmental Quality to put the brakes on plans to allow a popular off-road, desert race from near Las Vegas to Reno to run through a newly established national monument in Nevada.
The critics say the U.S. Bureau of Land Management jumped the gun by at least tacitly approving a "massive off-road race course running directly through" the Basin and Range National Monument about 150 miles northeast of Las Vegas.
Jeff Ruch, executive director of the Washington-based Public Employees for Environmental Ethics, says the move threatens to circumvent President Obama's designation of the 1,100-square monument last June.
He says it also violates the National Environmental Policy Act.