Editorial: Pollution audit is overdue

Tuesday, March 6, 2001 | 9:16 a.m.

It is understandable that key state legislators are upset that the Clark County Health District is unwilling to conduct an audit of its controversial air-quality program. Last year consultants for the Legislature discovered "serious deficiencies" in the management of the Air Quality Division and recommended that its emissions program undergo an audit. But so far the health district has resisted any self-examination of the program, which trades the right to put pollution into the air from industrial sources in exchange for reducing pollution from dust.

As the Sun's Launce Rake noted in a story Monday, the program has come under fire from environmentalists who have charged that the program basically has allowed some companies to pollute while others have made money by selling their emissions credits. Sen. Dina Titus, a Las Vegas Democrat, and Sen. Jon Porter, a Henderson Republican, believe that an audit is warranted. Both are warning that they will pass legislation requiring an audit if the health district refuses to do so.

Clark County Commissioner Erin Kenny, who is a member of the health district board, has resisted an audit, citing high costs to perform an examination as one reason. She even has tried to portray this as state government unnecessarily interfering with a local government agency, but such a suggestion is a smoke screen. This is about common sense. A reasonably priced audit should have been a no-brainer for the health district when it was first broached last year. The health district should wake up to the fact that a true self-examination not only would uncover past errors, but also would help ensure that the same mistakes aren't repeated.