"Desert Race Through Nevada Monument Under Fire"

"RENO, Nev. — 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 southern 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.

"BLM is playing fast and loose with its legal obligations in order to let hundreds of vehicles roar through the fragile desert before the monument's protections can be solidified," said Jeff Ruch, executive director of the Washington-based Public Employees for Environmental Ethics.

The move violates the National Environmental Policy Pact and threatens to circumvent President Obama's designation of the 1,100-square monument last June, Ruch said in a letter Friday to Interior Secretary Sally Jewell, who oversees BLM, and Christy Goldfuss, managing director of the White House CEQ."

Scott Sonner reports for the Associated Press June 13, 2016.