Editorial: Conflict posed by moderator’s ties

Friday, Feb. 20, 1998 | 10:56 a.m.

The consultant, Amy Dirks Stevens, is employed by Jason Associates, which has a $20 million, five-year federal contract to study a proposed high-level nuclear waste dump in Nevada. "To guide the discussion about growth without revealing you're working in favor of a nuclear repository seems fraught with peril," Titus, a Las Vegas Democrat, told SUN reporter Larry Henry.

Some panelists on the 21-member Southern Nevada Planning Authority -- particularly labor unions and construction trades -- would likely agree that a radioactive dump helps them by providing jobs. Hiring a growth consultant who also works for a firm with a vested interest in seeing a dump built doesn't make any sense.

Stevens asserts that her job as moderator of the Southern Nevada Planning Authority is to keep the panel meetings moving along, and not to steer discussion. But the fact is her employer has a contract with the Department of Energy, which has long done the bidding of the nuclear power industry in trying to find a home for a high-level radioactive waste dump. There is no reason for local governments to hire people in key policy-making positions whose companies have contracts with a federal agency that wants to store high-level nuclear waste in Nevada.