Environment
PA Two-Dollar Bargain — Gasoline
Despite the outcry over high gasoline prices, gasoline in the U.S. is a bargain, even at two dollars per gallon. How can this be? Let’s look at a few comparisons.
Babbling Little Girls? Or Markets?
By now, Las Vegas homeowners have received their August bills from the Las Vegas Valley Water District. The Water District has divided its customers into water groups—A through F. Included with the bill is a flashy color-coded glossy card that lists when a homeowner may water his or her lawn, depending on the time of year.
SNWA's Secret Toxic Spill
An alleged benefit of the proposed takeover of Nevada Power Company by the Southern Nevada Water Authority is that everything the Water Authority does is open to public scrutiny.
The $3.2 Billion Nameplate
When it comes to power, Patricia Mulroy and her friends on the Clark County Commission can’t seem to get enough. Not satisfied with controlling Southern Nevada’s water resources, they’re now seeking to take over Las Vegas Valley electricity, too.
A Cautionary Tale
Al Qaeda's unseen ally: Environmental extremism
"[D]ue to my experience in [construction], I was thinking that the fire from the gas in the plane would melt the iron structure of the building and collapse the area where the plane hit and all the floors above it only. This is all that we hoped for."
- Usama bin Laden, the 'smoking gun' video
No American will ever forget the images of the World Trade Center towers on September 11—huge holes gaping, smoke pouring out.
What is the Real Problem?
Why the multi-year wait for new power in Northern Nevada?
For several years, Northeastern Nevada leaders have been explaining to state lawmakers, the public utility commission (PUC) and the Guinn administration why the deregulatory green light should be given to the proposed Ruby Gas Pipeline and power plant project.
Power Policy -- Or Power Politics?
Why the Silver State's Electricity Market Should Be Deregulated
California's electricity crisis has given foes of the free market ample ammunition to fire at the concept of deregulation. In Nevada and across the nation, politicians, bureaucrats and "consumer advocates" are pushing to delay-or even scrap-their states' electricity-deregulation plans. Even lawmakers who generally support market-oriented public policy have begun to lose faith in the promise of electricity deregulation. But since California's power market was never deregulated, this concern is unwarranted. Blaming California's crisis on deregulation, as writer Chad Reichle has quipped, "is like blaming capitalism for the poverty of the North Korean people." Herewith, a look at the Golden State's flawed blueprint for consumer choice in electricity, and a description of the four key ways in which Nevada's approach to power deregulation differs from California's experiment.
California's Cowering Governor
California’s destined-to-fail restructuring of its electricity market has sent politicians in the Golden State scurrying for cover. As costs soar and blackouts roll across their state, officials are making patently false statements and demanding that neighboring states clean up the mess California’s central planners created. Leading the charge is Governor Gray Davis, who has chosen to obscure the real causes of his state’s power debacle. His dangerous demands and irresponsible rhetoric are sending ripple effects across America. “What's happening here could potentially create a national backlash against deregulation,” says Adrian Moore of the Reason Public Policy Institute, a Los Angeles-based think tank. The crisis is also having a much more direct impact on the residents of the Golden State’s neighbors. Already, utility customers throughout the West are paying higher bills. As governors from throughout the West meet today to discuss the crisis, they should make it clear to Davis that their citizens will not be sacrificed for his state’s folly.
Can Land Trusts Be Trusted?
Since 1996, The Nature Conservancy (TNC) has worked to acquire the Torrance Ranch, a parcel of land north of Beatty. Earlier this month the Las Vegas Business Press reported that buying the property will enable TNC’s Nevada chapter to protect "a complex of springs, wetlands and a riparian corridor that included habitat for numerous species, particularly the Amargosa toad." Many people see TNC and other land trusts as welcome alternatives to government land management. That’s certainly the case for locally owned and operated land trusts. National land trusts, however, have strayed from their original mission. Increasingly, TNC and similar organizations act as stalking horses for the federal government. Rather than purchase and maintain land in private hands, the groups buy properties and turn them over to government agencies. Herewith, an examination of the state of America’s land trusts.
The Fallout over Fallout
In the 1950s, almost 100 nuclear bombs were set off in Southern Nevada. It is now known that residents, livestock and military personnel in the immediate vicinity of the blasts suffered adverse health effects. But for many years, activists have claimed that nuclear fallout from atomic testing made thousands of additional Americans sick—people who did not live or work close to the Nevada Test Site (NTS). This claim received a bit more credibility last year, when a federal health institute concluded that as many as 75,000 children developed thyroid cancer due to nuclear fallout. While there is no doubt that Americans were exposed to radioactive material from explosions at the NTS, the public health consequences of the blasts remain murky. Earlier this month, two federal science panels concluded that there is little evidence to indicate widespread thyroid cancers from nuclear testing, and thus a national screening program for the disease is not needed.
