Another power play

LS Power Group has invested years of legwork and millions of dollars trying to make sure the lights -- and air-conditioners -- will stay on in Southern Nevada. Thus far, the company has parried the stabs of environmentalists and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, who have made clear they'll use every available legal and legislative maneuver to block the construction of a multibillion-dollar, coal-fired energy center near rural Ely.

Every defense delays the project and adds costs to the plant -- costs that will inevitably be passed on to consumers already stretched by skyrocketing utility bills.

Now LS Power must wait out the latest call from the environmentalists' obstructionist playbook: the threat carbon dioxide emissions might pose to various endangered species. The draft air permit for the generating station has been delayed while the federal Environmental Protection Agency reviews the appeal.

But the species that purportedly could be affected by the White Pine County plant aren't the usual Nevada weeds, bugs or fish bait.

"It involves a question about the impact on coral in the Gulf of Mexico," said Dante Pistone, a spokesman for the Nevada Division of Environmental Protection.

Yes, that Gulf of Mexico. The one 1,500 miles from Southern Nevada.

A reasonable examination of how coal-fired power plants might affect air quality in the areas surrounding Southern Nevada is totally appropriate.

But objective science simply isn't capable of establishing a definitive relationship between carbon dioxide emissions in a corner of Nevada and any hypothetical deterioration of coral off the shores of Texas and Mexico -- not when those emissions are dwarfed by the amount of soot spewing from developing nations on the other side of the planet, and not when any number of more imminent environmental threats exists in those waters.

If the Environmental Protection Agency gives this claim anything more than a passing mention in any document, regulators might as well halt the power plant plans to examine their possible effect on Maine's annual blueberry harvest, or Florida's citrus industry.

Eric Crawford, director of project development for LS Power, said the EPA review was "part of the normal permitting process." That's a scary thought. Because if any environmentalist in any city can put on a blindfold and toss a dart at a map of North America to launch appeals of any business enterprise they oppose, then Nevadans have no reason to hope for even stable power rates, let alone reduced electricity bills.