CARSON CITY -- It took 18 months and $450,000 in private attorney legal bills, but the Nevada Tax Commission on Monday finally approved a $40 million tax refund to Southern California Edison for the operation of its Mohave Generating Station near Laughlin.

The unanimous vote in favor, with two abstentions, came despite the continuing legal dispute between the commission and the attorney general's office over the interpretation of the open meeting law. That dispute is heading to the Nevada Supreme Court.

A vote by the Tax Commission in May 2005 to award the refund to the utility prompted the attorney general's office to sue the panel, arguing that the discussion and vote on the refund should have been held in public. A Carson City District Court judge in October ruled in favor of the Tax Commission, citing a separate statute requiring such appeals to be held in private.

Tax Commission Chairman Thomas Sheets said there was no legal reason to delay the refund to the utility, even though the open meeting law issue remains unresolved.

The refund is accumulating interest at a rate of $250,000 a month, and so is costing much more than the much publicized $450,000 in taxpayer money paid to a Reno law firm to represent the commission in the open meeting law dispute, he said.

The attorney general's office last week asked the Supreme Court to stop the commission from acting on the refund until the open meeting law issue is resolved, but that request was denied.

Norm Azevedo, the attorney for the utility, opposed the request to stop the refund's approval. Azevedo attended the Tax Commission meeting in Las Vegas, where it was being teleconferenced.

Last week he said the Tax Commission followed the law in considering the refund and that it was time to take final action.

Both Sheets and Commissioner Robert Barengo, who voted against the refund last year, supported the "findings of fact and conclusions of law" that led to the majority of the commission approving the refund on Monday.

Since the findings, which are confidential, were representative of the basis for the 4-2 refund decision in May 2005, they were supported by the two commissioners.

"This is not a rehearing," Sheets said. "This is not a time to retry the original decision. This is a simple ministerial act."

Carson City District Judge Michael Griffin ruled in October that the Nevada Tax Commission has the authority under a state confidentiality statute to meet in closed session to consider taxpayer appeals. Griffin agreed with the commission that taxpayer appeals have to be considered in closed session because of the sensitivity of the financial information required in such proceedings.

Sheets said commissioners could be subjected to criminal penalties for releasing such information.