Consumer advocate favors giving Elko County a break

He said there even could be legislative fine-tuning to make Elko a pilot project.

Elko Mayor Mike Franzoia proposed the idea of creating a pilot project for Elko County to Gov. Kenny Guinn earlier this year so the county would have a better chance of getting the proposed Coastal Corp. pipeline and power plant project.

Coastal Corp. and its subsidiaries and Southwest Gas Corp. and its subsidiary, Paiute Pipeline, want to be assured there will be deregulation before they decide to spend hundreds of millions of dollars bringing the pipeline through Elko County.

The natural gas-fired power plant would be the pipeline's best customer, but Coastal wants to know it has a competitive market to sell the power it generates at the plant.

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