Columnist Jon Ralston: EPA could move in and take over

Saturday, Dec. 16, 2000 | 12:36 p.m.

Jon Ralston, who publishes the Ralston Report, writes a column for the Sun on Sundays and Wednesdays. Ralston can be reached at 870-7997 or through e-mail at ralston@vegas.com.

It may be the single most misunderstood, most complex and most potentially harmful issue in the valley: air pollution.

Most people don't cough when they step outside or choke on smog that is hardly L.A.-like yet. But what most of the public -- and too many politicians -- don't comprehend is that the window is closing to do something about a problem that could strangle the valley's economy.

The solution will not come in the form of monorails or carpools. No, and this is what makes the issue so nettlesome -- the only answer is to spend more money and pray the federal government doesn't find something else besides Nevada's sports books to stick its nose into here in Clark County.

Last week three of Southern Nevada's most influential politicians -- Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, Henderson Mayor Jim Gibson and Clark County Commission Chairman Bruce Woodbury -- received a briefing on the issue from the recently hired chief of the county's Air Quality Division, Chris Robinson.

What they heard was scary. To wit:

Clark County commissioners understandably were at their wit's end (no jokes, please, about the short distance they had to travel to get there) recently when they had to withdraw a three-year-old submission to the EPA. The process, like most with Big Brother on Capitol Hill, is arcane, illogical and sometimes just plain loony.

Nevertheless, the potential sanction clock is ticking. If nothing is done within the next year, Clark County will essentially become a wholly owned colony of the EPA, which will essentially become a punitive zoning agency for the valley. And people are worried that some state lawmakers want to take over this function of local control? Imagine a bureaucrat 3,000 miles away deciding if a development can be approved in Summerlin or Green Valley. Or in the era of electrical deregulation if the feds say that no more power plants can be erected in the valley?

I don't mean to be Chicken Little here -- the sky isn't falling, but it surely is getting harder to see. Still, there are some reasons for optimism:

And that time is now.