EDITORIAL: Trump should fast track new Las Vegas airport

It took five years to build the Hoover Dam, yet it will take another 12 years to open a new airport outside of Las Vegas. This is an example of how modern government red tape hampers progress.

In 2000, the late Sen. Harry Reid helped pass the Ivanpah Valley Airport Public Lands Transfer Act. It gave Clark County access to 6,500 acres to build a new airport between Jean and Primm south of Las Vegas. The move is a proactive effort to prepare for the day when further expansion of McCarran International Airport — now Reid International — was unrealistic. That day is arriving. Reid served a record 58.4 million passengers last year. Its annual capacity is 63 million, which officials believe it will reach by 2030.

Time to get moving on a reliever air field. But there’s a hurdle. The required environmental review could take up to four years, officials with the Clark County Department of Aviation told lawmakers in 2023.

But given the penchant for litigious environmental groups to gum up virtually any major infrastructure project in the courts, it will likely take longer than that. Patrick Donnelly, Great Basin director of the Center for Biological Diversity, believes that threatened desert tortoises will be found on the airport site. That could mean a whole new set of obstacles and delays. Making matters worse, the white-margined penstemon, an obscure flower, may be found there, too.

It’s worth noting, though, that environmental concerns didn’t stop a previous land-intensive project in the area. In 2013, the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System began operating just south of Primm. It covers 3,500 acres and consists of three large towers surrounded by thousands of mirrors. At the time, it was hailed as a great innovation for clean energy. The project even received $1.6 billion in federal loan guarantees. The plant is now a major failure as its utility customers want out.

What’s interesting is that there were also concerns about desert tortoises regarding the Ivanpah solar boondoggle. In 2010, the Center for Biological Diversity signed a settlement agreement with the plant’s builder, BrightSource Energy, agreeing not to sue over the project. “While a successful lawsuit can sometimes slow or stop a project, very rarely does a lawsuit by itself result in permanent protection of an area,” a center fact sheet about the settlement said. “Often a win simply requires an agency to revisit its analysis of the impacts of the project, with the project proceeding after the new analysis is complete.”

That’s the outlook of environmental extremists in a nutshell. Needless delays that accomplish nothing but waste a lot of time and money.

Las Vegas will soon need a new airport. The Trump administration should fast-track federal approvals and do everything it can to squash nuisance lawsuits.