Legislative panel cuts funding for nuclear projects agency

The reduction was so large that Bob Loux, executive director of the state Agency for Nuclear Projects, said his staff won't review two upcoming U.S. Department of Energy reports on Yucca Mountain.

Loux got $240,000 of the $860,000 he sought Wednesday from the Legislature's Interim Finance Committee.

The money will pay the salaries and office expenses of Loux and six staff members through January. Then he can return to the committee to seek more money.

Loux said the appropriation wouldn't permit him to hire professional contractors to analyze Energy Department studies.

"It isn't going (to allow us) to do much more than occupy space," he added.

"The Legislature didn't cause the problem," a peeved Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio responded. "It is the fault of your office."

Raggio said federal and state audits found Loux's office misused about $700,000 in federal money.

Until a couple of years ago, Loux's agency received $5 million a year in federal funds to monitor activities at Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

But Congress has been reluctant to grant additional money in the wake of the federal audit. Auditors questioned Loux's decision in the 1991-93 period to send staff members around the country to drum up opposition in the media to the Yucca Mountain repository.

The federal government wants to place more than 77,000 tons of high-level wastes generated by nuclear power plants inside Yucca Mountain. His state agency has received $73 million from the federal government over the years.

With the blessing of Gov. Bob Miller, Loux has been the key state official fighting the federal moves to put the dump in Nevada.

Raggio said no one in the Legislature wants Yucca Mountain to become a nuclear dump. But because state revenues aren't approaching projections, he questioned whether the state can finance Loux's office.

Loux told the committee the Senate has proposed spending $4.9 million on his office, while the U.S. House of Representatives wants to give nothing. He said his office's fate may rest on the success of U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee. Reid is being challenged for his seat this November by Rep. John Ensign, R-Nev.

Sen. Bob Coffin, D-Las Vegas, urged his colleagues at least to approve a bare-bones budget for Loux, saying the federal government simply has been trying to wear down state opposition to the repository.

"We have to do something or it shows we don't care," he said.

Assembly Speaker Joe Dini, D-Yerington, added that 75 percent of Nevadans remain opposed to the repository.

After the meeting, Loux said Raggio was wrong in his contention that the state audit showed misspending by his office. He also said the attorney general's office may file a lawsuit on his behalf to seek a return of the $700,000.

Until the federal audit, Loux said he thought the money could be spent on out-of-state activities.

The Gaming Control Board fared better than the Agency for Nuclear Projects. It won legislative approval of $150,000 study into problem gambling in Nevada. But the Desert Research Institute was granted only $250,000, about half of the money it sought for cloud-seeding activities this winter.

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