Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Faraday Future Special Session:

Bills cementing Faraday deal cross first legislative hurdles

Faraday Future Special Session

Michelle Rindels / AP

The Nevada Senate begins a special legislative session Wednesday, Dec. 16, 2015, in Carson City to consider incentives for electric carmaker Faraday Future.

Updated Friday, Dec. 18, 2015 | 11:30 p.m.

The state Senate and Assembly were in and out of session Friday, working on an omnibus bill and a workforce training bill to seal the deal to bring California-based electric car startup Faraday Future to Nevada.

Follow below for updates throughout the day.

All four bills cleared out of Senate in two hours

Just after passing the omnibus bill, the Senate heard and voted on three bills in two hours, officially passing the torch just before 11 p.m. to the Assembly, which will take up the omnibus bill and two water bills Saturday.

The Senate introduced, heard and passed two water bills, one which solves a water rights issue that arose Thursday and a second that settles the dispute over who controls the water at Apex.

Legislators had concerns that the water rights provision, originally written into the omnibus bill, was too broad in the way it expedited the water right procurement process for major economic development projects. But today, Sen. Pete Goicoechea — whose district includes Apex — said the new, more narrow language in SB2 will facilitate water delivery to the site without jeopardizing the way that water rights are decided across the state. The bill passed unanimously through the Senate.

“This is a good bill,” Goicoechea said. “It protects water rights in the state of Nevada.”

The second water bill, also passed unanimously, tackled a dispute between the city of North Las Vegas and the Southern Nevada Water Authority over who should control the water infrastructure at Apex, ultimately giving complete control to the water authority.

Representatives from both the water authority and the city testified to the Senate that they supported the final language of the bill. Still, turning over complete control of water at Apex wasn’t an easy decision for North Las Vegas to reach, Ryann Juden, deputy city manager, testified to the Senate.

“Removing ourselves as purveyors of water at Apex is the prudent thing to do to make sure that in this session we not only resolve the challenges of Faraday but we resolve the challenges of water at Apex,” Juden said.

The bill also includes safeguard provisions for the city — one intended to ensure that Apex stays within North Las Vegas’ jurisdiction and a second requiring a check-in with the Legislature in 2021 over the effects of the bill.

The Senate also easily approved the workforce development bill, passed by the Assembly earlier today, with a 17-1 vote.

The Assembly will reconvene at 8 a.m. Saturday morning, while the Senate will come back at noon to see if the Assembly has made any amendments to the bills it passed Friday night.

Senate passes omnibus bill, plans to tackle three more bills tonight

After a more than five-hour recess, the Senate passed an omnibus bill Friday night that will create the tax abatements and incentive package necessary to seal the deal to bring Faraday to Nevada. The bill passed with a 17-1 vote, with Republican Sen. Don Gustavson voting against the measure.

Most senators said on the Senate floor that the bill would open up Apex and create jobs for residents of Southern Nevada, primarily in North Las Vegas. However, Gustavson opposed the bill, saying that the state needed to do more to help mom and pop businesses instead of a large out-of-state business like Faraday.

“If we as lawmakers truly want to boost job growth, then we should extend tax relief to all Nevada businesses,” Gustavson said.

Senate Majority Leader Michael Roberson criticized Gustavson for those remarks, noting that Gustavson voted for a tax incentive package last year for Tesla which “benefited the folks in (his) backyard” but planned to vote against this bill. “Let’s have consistency. Let’s be one Nevada, Northern Nevada and Southern Nevada,” Roberson said.

Two amendments in the final language of the bill specify who counts as a Nevada resident under the provision of the bill that requires that companies receiving the abatements hire at least 50 percent Nevadans. Under the new language, workers must have had a Nevada driver’s license or identification card for either more than 60 days or be a veteran.

A second amendment further clarified that gaming and mining operations are not eligible for the tax abatements discussed in the bill.

Assembly approves workforce training bill, 37-4

The Assembly took the first vote of the session, approving a workforce development bill, which creates a program to train workers for Nevada businesses or those seeking to come to the state. The bill passed with a 37-4 vote and is now headed to the Senate.

The program was designed to make Nevada more competitive with Georgia and Louisiana, states that have robust workforce training programs and were also competing for Faraday’s factory site. Legislators in favor of the bill also said it will create high-paying, high-skill jobs for Nevada workers and help other businesses in the state.

“If we haven’t learned this lesson from the last recession that we need to diversify our economy … then we haven't learned that hard lesson we had to deal with a few years ago,” said Democratic Assemblywoman Olivia Diaz. “This is moving the state in the right direction and ensuring high quality jobs for our Nevadans.”

The Assembly made a number of minor amendments to the bill, including adding charter schools to the list of educational institutions that can offer workforce training programs and specifying additional details of a workforce diversity action plan.

Four Assembly members opposed the bill, saying it would hurt Nevada taxpayers and was unnecessarily creating new bureaucracy using government funds.

“It’s setting a dangerous precedent, the idea that we’re going to use government funds to fund private training programs," Republican Assemblyman Ira Hansen said.

Hansen said $1.6 million has been spent in the last three years with about 1,000 people receiving training from community colleges. And he complained this bill was being “rushed” through without public participation.

Assemblywoman Shelly Shelton, R-Las Vegas, also opposed the bill, saying taxpayer money was being used for a “chosen business.” She said businesses are moving out of Nevada because competitors are getting government help.

Amendments arrive on the omnibus bill

Several amendments to the omnibus bill were heard in the Senate this afternoon, including one to put some North Las Vegas funds on the hook for bonds to pay for infrastructure projects at Apex.

Money to pay back the bonds would come from revenue generated inside a tax increment area or a special improvement district, essentially a zone designated to finance these kinds of projects. Mike Willden, the governor’s chief of staff, testified today that the state is confident that those revenue would be enough to cover the bonds.

However, in the event that money is insufficient, any uncommitted funds in North Las Vegas’s general fund would be used to repay the bonds before any state funds. The provision is supposed to ensure that the local government, in this case North Las Vegas, has “skin in the game,” Willden said.

But the city argued that it has been under financial strain for years and that it needs that flexibility in its general fund to ensure economic growth, namely to secure financing for capital projects.

“The idea that North Las Vegas doesn’t have skin in the game would mean something if North Las Vegas had skin,” Deputy City Manager Ryann Juden said. “Give us some tissue and we’ll put our skin in the game.”

The city will push for that portion of the bill to be amended once it arrives at the Assembly, ideally removing the entire section.

Another amendment creates stricter requirements for workers to prove Nevada residency. Under the language of the bill, 50 percent of workers would have to be hired from in the state.

However, legislators raised questions about who might be excluded under the current language of the bill, including residents who do not have an Nevada identification card and veterans returning from deployment.

The Senate recessed while those questions were submitted to the legal department for consideration and possible amendment.

Slow morning at the Legislature

By noon, neither house had been called to order, as details of the legislation continued to be worked out behind the scenes.

Senate Majority Leader Michael Roberson said he expected it would an hour or two before the Senate convenes. Once it does, he said, he expects the body to take a vote fairly quickly on the omnibus bill, which includes the bulk of the Faraday deal like tax abatements and incentives.

One part of the original omnibus bill, which would speed up the process for securing water rights for major economic development projects, will be removed and added to a third bill yet to be introduced, Roberson said.

That bill, which Roberson said would be introduced in the Assembly, will tackle the water rights provision in addition to addressing other water issues, including who will oversee the infrastructure for water at Apex — the Southern Nevada Water Authority or the city of North Las Vegas.

“I’m not sure all those issues have been resolved,” Roberson said. “(The bill) is not necessary for the Faraday project, but it is necessary for Apex as a whole.”

Petition circulating against Faraday deal

The conservative nonprofit group Americans for Prosperity is urging Nevadans to email their legislators and urge them to vote “no” on the Faraday deal, criticizing the Legislature for considering tax abatements and incentives for Faraday after its June vote to raise taxes.

Sun reporter Cy Ryan contributed to this report.

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