Editorial: An industry’s clout

Thursday, Dec. 20, 2007 | 7:11 a.m.

Increased air quality protections for Great Basin National Park that would have blocked construction of new coal plants in Nevada did not end up in the final version of a $555 billion spending bill Congress approved this week.

The measure, sought by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, would have elevated Great Basin National Park to Class I air quality status, a designation that prohibits construction of adjacent projects that could affect the park's air quality. If the measure had passed, the building of two of three coal-fired power plants proposed for Nevada, which Reid rightly opposes, would have been blocked.

Instead, the spending bill that passed the House and Senate this week calls for the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, to study whether Great Basin's current air quality requirements are adequate "to ensure long-term protection of air quality and visibility."

Great Basin is near the Nevada-Utah border, about 15 miles from Baker and about 70 miles east of the sites of two planned coal-fired plants. A third plant, proposed near Mesquite, likely would not have been affected.

The Republican members of Nevada's congressional delegation, Reps. Jon Porter and Dean Heller and Sen. John Ensign, opposed elevating Great Basin's status and support the construction of the coal plants, which they say are cleaner than ones using older technology. Unfortunately, catering to the power industry is more important to those three than protecting the air quality of Nevada's only national park.

Nevada doesn't need a so-called "cleaner" version of air-polluting coal plants. It needs clean power generation methods that rely on alternatives.

Certainly, this is not the outcome for which we had hoped - not only because of the seemingly uphill battle against dirty coal-burning power plants, but also because Great Basin is worthy of protection.