An attempt by U.S. Sens. John Ensign and Harry Reid to enact public lands bills for many counties, like Nye County, are being put on hold due to opposition over proposed wilderness areas, Reid said Friday.

"John and I are just going to kind of back off. If the counties don't want the lands bills we won't do them," Reid said.

Nye and Esmeralda County officials applauded the news, saying they were being "held blackmail" to the public lands bills in their individual requests for federal legislation.

Reid made his comments during a routine conference call with reporters about the upcoming wildland fire season Thursday.

Reid boasted a public lands bill enacted for White Pine County included $140 million from the Southern Nevada Public Lands Management Act to reduce fire danger from wood and rush fuels that could cause wild fires on the Carson Range.

"That funding came from the lands bill Sen. Ensign and I passed several years ago for White Pine County," Reid said. "That's why I became so disappointed people are raising hell with the lands bills John and I are trying to do. They just don't understand how good these lands bills are."

In his weekly e-mail update to constituents, Ensign boasted about the plan to protect fire danger through the bill he authorized as the White Pine Lands Bill in 2006.

Reid said the Lincoln County public lands bill released a lot of land managed by the federal government in that county, which is 99 percent under federal control. Lincoln County Commissioner Ronda Hornbeck participated in the conference call.

"It's too bad Mineral County, Esmeralda County and Lyon County are worried about wilderness," Reid said. "I wish that's all I had to worry about. I wish they'd put their arms around what we're trying to do."

Esmeralda County Commissioner Nancy Boland said, "The pluses they offered didn't offset the negatives with the wilderness request.

"That's good news. That was one of our worries in Esmeralda they would do it anyway," and pass the lands bill without their approval, Boland said. "There was a big push by all three (counties) that they were not going to continue on without our OK."

Nye County Commissioner Joni Eastley said the senators have been offering to approve requests by local officials for land for a Pahrump landfill, the Amargosa Valley Science and Technology Park or a community college in exchange for the county's support of the public lands bill.

"I am not in favor of being held hostage to a lands bill in order to get these other things. My fear is we would have to give up significantly more than we would get in a lands bill," Eastley said, mentioning she was speaking as an individual commissioner.

"There were some communities that said they absolutely did not want to participate, Round Mountain being one of them, because they felt there was enough wilderness in Nye County and they didn't want a lands bill to be introduced designating more land off limits for mineral exploration," Eastley said.

Commissioner Butch Borasky was asked by representatives of Sen. Reid's office to sign off on a public lands bill in exchange for 230 acres of land for a Pahrump community college.

Borasky refused, citing his objections to the wilderness areas.

Nye County environmental compliance specialist Mary Ellen Giampaoli told the Pahrump Town Board last June the public lands act was a wish list of land the county would like to acquire from the BLM. It is designed to meet the county's land needs over the next 25 years, she said.

Requests could include land needs for flood control, sewer treatment facilities, water supply, solid waste management, parks, recreation and municipal facilities.

"We've been asked to look at everything," Giampaoli told the Pahrump town board. But she said there were no guarantees. Particular requests from communities would be in the bill.

The Pahrump Town Board passed two resolutions requesting that land for the future Pahrump Valley Airport and the expansion of Chief Tecopa Cemetery be included in the bill.

A variety of interest groups would be contacted for input into the plan, from environmentalists, ranchers and miners to off-road groups and Indian tribes.

Officials in Nye and Esmeralda counties have been asked to sign on to a county lands bill to resolve trespass issues in communities like Ione in northwestern Nye County and Gold Point in Esmeralda County, Eastley said.

"It's been essentially blackmail. We've been trying to solve the trespass issue in Gold Point for years," Boland said.

Esmeralda County commissioners passed a resolution requiring that the designation of a wilderness area should meet the approval of residents.

Esmeralda County is concerned about wilderness designations affecting mineral exploration and alternative energy, she said. Access through wilderness areas would only have a 100-foot right-of-way, where Boland said repairs couldn't even be performed on the road with mechanical vehicles.

Reid did have some good news for the upcoming wildland fire season. A provision in the Farm Bill that was passed over President Bush's veto includes a provision compensating ranchers $50 per head for cattle that are prohibited from grazing on land destroyed by wildfires.

BLM State Fire Management Officer Rex McKnight said five "dry hydrants" -- basically used fuel oil tanks cleaned out and filled with non-potable water -- will be used to fight wildland fires in Kingston, Midas and Austin. That enables fire crews to have 50,000 gallons of water handy, instead of 10,000 to 20,000 gallons.

Joe Guild, representing the Nevada Cattleman's Association, urged the use of crested wheat grass to replace more invasive, flammable species like cheat grass.

Reid said he is looking to work with Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne toward putting in a native seed warehouse in Ely. Sunrise Acres in Pahrump is supplying seed "plugs" to the BLM to replant in burned areas.

Hornbeck said Lincoln County has the opportunity working with the BLM to develop a huge weed project from the top of their watersheds to the Clark County line.