Lead Yucca Mountain foe asked to resign

Wednesday, Sept. 10, 2008 | 6:22 p.m.

CARSON CITY – Gov. Jim Gibbons asked today for the resignation of Robert Loux, the leader of Nevada’s fight against the Yucca Mountain project, who acknowledged this week giving himself and his staff unauthorized pay raises.

Gibbons, who said the unauthorized payments had occurred for years, has lost faith “in Mr. Loux’s ability to effectively manage this office,” according to the governor’s press secretary Ben Kieckhefer.

Loux, who could not be reached for comment, told staff in the governor’s office that he wanted to speak with his attorney and planned on retiring Oct. 8, when he will complete 30 years in state government.

On Tuesday, Loux admitted to the Legislative Interim Finance Committee that he had made an error in authorizing extra pay for himself and his staff. The governor’s office requested during the meeting that he repay $80,000, the amount that he and his staff had collected above their approved salaries.

According to research by the state Budget Division, Loux began overpaying himself and his staff in 2006.

-That year he was authorized $104,497 in pay, but gave himself $120,537.

-In 2007, the Legislature set his salary at $108,677 and he received $125,355.

-For fiscal 2008, ended on June 30, Loux was authorized to receive $114,718 but paid himself $145,718.

-For the current fiscal year, Loux set his pay at $151,542, while lawmakers had authorized $114,088.

The five other employees in the office during this fiscal year earned anywhere from 32 to 52 percent more than the amount set by the Legislature.

Kieckhefer said that research showed “it’s clear this was not a one-time occurrence and Mr. Loux has been paying himself and his staff salaries well above budgeted levels without gubernatorial authorization for years.”

The Nuclear Projects Office was created in 1985 and then-Gov. Richard Bryan appointed Loux to lead the office. He has served under Govs. Bryan, Bob Miller, Kenny Guinn and now Gibbons.

Loux is appointed by the governor but serves at the pleasure of the Commission on Nuclear Projects.

Gibbons has cut the salaries back to their authorized level and is working to see that the inflated pay is not used in computing retirement benefits.

Former U.S. Sen. Dick Bryan, chairman of the Commission on Nuclear Projects, said Loux made a “terrible mistake” but should not resign.

“His experience is invaluable,” said Bryan. He said Nevada is reaching a critical stage in its fight to stop the proposed nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles north of Las Vegas.

Bryan said the “reservoir of knowledge” that Loux has is nearly irreplaceable. Those who want the nation’s nuclear waste stored in Nevada are probably “popping the corks on their champagne” now that Loux is in trouble.

The former governor said Loux called him before appearing Tuesday at the Interim Finance Committee to brief him on what he has done. And he said he talked with Gov. Gibbons about the issue.

The commission will discuss the matter at its Sept. 23 meeting, said Bryan.

Discussion: 5 comments so far…

By dave202

9/10/08 at 8:16 p.m.

Comment removed by staff.
By letsciencedecide

9/11/08 at 8:19 a.m.

Suggest removal

Asked him to resign? Allow him to reach his 30 years of service? How about can him immediately and let him spend his retirement in jail!

Loux himself was overpaid $101,172 dollars in the last four years alone! Time to shut down the entire agency until a full audit is conducted.

Bryan things he is invaluable? Yea right, his testimony will have lots of credibility in front of the NRC.

As a supporter of Yucca Mountain I should be begging for him to stay in place - his ineptitude has done more for the project than you can imagine. Unfortunately as a citizen of Nevada - no way we should keep him.
By YuccaJohnny

9/11/08 at 8:35 a.m.

Suggest removal

Next stop...kickbacks from Egan, Fitzpatrick & Malsch.
By Ardent

9/11/08 at 12:58 p.m.

Suggest removal

Hear that? It is indeed the sound of corks popping. Not because Loux was in any way useful to the state now that the Yucca Mountain Project has submitted a license application. In fact, his obvious inadequacy on technical and scientific matters, demonstrated again and again over his career, has always been a detriment when it came to the audience that matters most -- not the residents of Nevada to whom Loux has been feeding propaganda for years, nor to the politicians that have maintained him as a loyal attack dog for purely political purposes, but rather to the NRC and its staff, which has been forced to deal with this state-sponsored buffoon for two decades.

No, the reason corks are popping is not because the Project was worried about Loux's influence on the proceedings, but rather because anyone who works on a science and engineering project has got to love seeing a Luddite-for-hire like Bob Loux get his comeuppance after spreading misinformation, lies, and anti-science propaganda for 20 years.
By Ardent

9/11/08 at 1:20 p.m.

Suggest removal

One final word from a supporter of the Yucca Mountain Project:

Consider Bob Loux's latest malfeasance, which amounts to the equivalent of embezzlement in the corporate world. Consider what kind of state government agency he must preside over, given this latest revelation and the many others we have had in the past. How much credibility should the pronouncements of such an agency carry with the citizenry it allegedly serves?

Now contrast that with the Yucca Mountain Project, which is tightly constrained by procedures, regulations, and federal law. When it came to light, for example, that three U.S. Geological Survey employees working on the project had exchanged emails complaining about the project's burdensome quality assurance controls, both the discovery and the announcement of the transgression were made by the project itself, which is self-policing as well as regulated by federal agencies.

And even though the data collected by the three USGS employees was evaluated and proven to be valid (when compared to data collected by 30 or so other employees doing similar work), the Yucca Mountain Project re-did the study to which that data contributed, to the tune of millions of dollars.

That's called doing the right thing; acting responsibly; working to find out the truth.

By contrast, Loux and his overpaid minions continued to blather and fume about "falsified data" (it wasn't falsified; the employees had merely griped via email about the stringent quality control requirements and peevishly brough up the idea of keeping "two sets of books"; the data they collected was scrupulously purged from the project anyway). And all the while, Loux's agency has essentially been embezzling from the government.

My, my. What a week! It began with the NRC's announcement that it has docketed the repository license application and will now move forward with its technical review, and it ends with the welcome and deserved ouster of Bob Loux. The only irony is that he deserved it long ago, for reasons more compelling than simple embezzlement. Then again, they got Capone on tax evasion....