Nevada’s Sandoval, 16 other governors announce clean energy, transportation agreement

From staff and wire reports

Tuesday, Feb. 16, 2016 | 12:39 p.m.

CARSON CITY — A coalition of 17 governors, including Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval, have joined to promote clean energy and transportation and to build a better electrical grid.

Govs. Jay Inslee of Washington, Jerry Brown of California and Sandoval conducted a telephone news conference to announce the Governors’ Accord for a New Energy Future.

The governors intend to work together on energy planning and policies. The accord says the goal is to expand participating states’ economies while protecting citizens’ health and the environment.

Brown talked about a regional grid for states to share green energy resources, and Sandoval said Nevada is building a line to transfer excess renewable energy to California. Inslee said research on batteries to store excess energy is important.

Brown said the states want to “bypass the bureaucracy in Washington” but that the coalition could lobby the federal government for more funds.

“We believe that this is a robust driver of economic growth, not a brake on economic growth,” Inslee said.

The governors purposely avoided mentioning the divisive issue of climate change and instead concentrated on how states can cooperate, Brown said.

He said that includes building more sophisticated, energy-efficient regional electrical grids; pooling buying power to get cheaper clean-energy vehicles for state fleets; and lobbying the federal government for more research and development on energy storage, clean fuels and the electric grid.

Other participating governors are from Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Iowa, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont and Virginia.

Senior advisers of the governors expect to meet soon to discuss the initial steps to meet the goals.

Las Vegas Sun reporter Cy Ryan and the Associated Press contributed to this report.