Set emission limits in the open

Sierra Pacific Resources, Sithe Global Power and LS Power Associates are in discussions with regulators from the Nevada Department of Environmental Protection over the level of greenhouse gas emissions to be allowed from three new coal-fired power plants in the state.

Not toxic stuff like sulfur dioxide, mind you. American technology has enormously reduced those caustic by-products. Instead, the greens now worry about the estimated 70 million tons per year of clear, non-toxic carbon dioxide that a group of planned new coal-fired plants in the region are expected to produce.

The power companies and state regulators are already drafting a memorandum of understanding setting out emission standards for the three plants planned in Nevada.

"But to this point, the process has taken place behind closed doors," according to a letter issued this week by an environmental consortium billing itself as Nevadans for Clean, Affordable, Reliable Energy.

The coalition -- which includes the Sierra Club, Citizen Alert, the Nevada Conservation League, the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada and the Bristlecone Alliance -- thus asks the NDEP to open the negotiations to the public. "The worst thing for Nevada would be a toothless agreement to be thrown together in a back room," says group spokeswoman Lydia Ball.

Let's not be naive. These groups don't merely want someone to keep an eye on these power plants. They'd like to stop them, entirely.

In September, the Nevada Environmental Commission rejected a petition from the coalition seeking to stop the three companies from building the plants unless they control carbon dioxide emissions.

But commissioners also voted to require NDEP to draw up "memorandums of understanding" requiring the companies to capture carbon dioxide once the technology becomes commercially available, which industry spokesmen now estimate might be in 2017.

All on the theory that reducing our man-made carbon dioxide can substantially alter the current cyclical trend of global warming -- while water vapor does more warming; the vast majority of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere comes from natural sources, and India and China are going to continue burning coal whether we like it or not.

Meantime, Nevadans are supposed to hope we won't end up living in the dark or paying tripled power bills while we wait for windmills and solar panels to light the Strip.

So, given that they're largely wrong, is the NDEP justified in keeping these groups out of the room while emission limits are discussed?

Absolutely not. Those running such meetings have a right to expel anyone who gets unruly. But the public's business must be conducted in public. Nevadans for Clean, Affordable, Reliable Energy -- and anyone else who cares -- must be permitted to attend these meetings, to comment at reasonable length and have those comments become part of the record.

No side in this debate has a monopoly on truth, or immunity from error. Listening to the other side can be a wise inoculation against arrogance. NDEP Administrator Leo Drozdoff must open these meetings up, and do the public's business in the light of day.