Tax breaks for ‘green’ buildings still murky

By David McGrath Schwartz

Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2007 | 7:34 a.m.

State lawmakers did little Tuesday to end confusion about tax breaks for construction of environmentally friendly buildings.

The Nevada Legislative Commission rejected language intended to clarify the law. The decision aggravated developers and reformers .

"I thought we had made a lot of strides," said Assemblywoman Marilyn Kirkpatrick, a leading advocate of reform. "I thought it was pretty tightly worded."

Carole Vilardo, head of the Nevada Taxpayers Association, said she was puzzled by the vote.

"They were supposed to have regulations in place by Sept . 1," she said. "If you put a gun to my head I couldn't explain the vote.

The language, proposed by the state energy office, was intended to clarify which projects could qualify for generous tax breaks if their developers built according to so-called green building standards.

Critics say the state stands to lose as much as $1 billion in tax revenue , with some major casinos not only recovering their costs but also making money on the 2005 law.

State staff will now have to come up with new wording for approval by the 12-member, bipartisan Legislative Commission.

Some legislators, particularly those from Clark County, worried that the regulation wasn't strong enough. Sen. Dina Titus, D-Las Vegas, said the proposed language gave the state Taxation Department too much leeway in determining the size of the tax breaks.

"That's how we got into this fix in the first place," she said.

Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley raised concerns that the language was too broad.

But the other side, particularly Sen. Randolph Townsend, R-Reno, clearly wanted to set the regulations on Tuesday. "Do we want to come back to this in two months?" he asked.