Tourists won’t want to come to a radioactive Las Vegas

Robert Lang and William E. Brown Jr.

Sunday, March 29, 2015 | 2 a.m.

Nevada must reject any offer Congress makes to open Yucca Mountain in exchange for enhanced federal funding. The reason is simple: Any deal is not worth the risk.

We understand well the siren song of securing more federal resources for Nevada given that both Brookings Mountain West and the Lincy Institute at UNLV have shown Nevada ranks at the very bottom in formula-based aid to the states. Our low rank concerns the governor and legislators, and there are three bills under consideration this session designed to improve Nevada’s performance in receiving and retaining more formula aid.

Repositioning Nevada to attract a greater share of federal money is the right way to bring more resources to the state. The wrong way to fix our formula-aid deficit involves a suggestion by first-term Nevada Congressman Crescent Hardy (R-NV) to risk our entire world-class tourism industry in exchange for, say, Interstate 11 (a funded road that starts construction next week), acquiring a larger water allocation from the Colorado River (which violates a nearly century-old multi-state compact) or receiving more money for education (an area we already are addressing within Nevada).

Why do we see Yucca Mountain as such a risk? The answer is simple: Southern Nevada’s largest export is tourism services. To consume our chief export, one must actually visit Las Vegas.

There are metros where the main export is royalties paid on intellectual property (such as on technology in the Bay Area or film/media in Los Angeles), a manufactured good (such as aircraft from Seattle or semiconductors from Boise) or professional services (such as financial services in New York or research and development services in Albuquerque). But according to Brookings Institution data, only two major metros need a customer to visit the region in order to consume its main export product — Las Vegas and Orlando.

So what does this mean in terms of opening Yucca Mountain? It means that the Las Vegas economy and our more than 2 million residents and 40 million visitors are at risk. A single slip up transporting, handling or processing nuclear waste could reduce dramatically a potential tourist’s willingness to visit. A mere rumored incident would do so. Even if after a minor “oops” a team of scientists vouched that “everything is safe” and “there is no risk,” it is unlikely that such expert pronouncements will easily convince many tourists, or convention organizers, to take a chance on Las Vegas.

Consider just one segment of our tourism market: foreign visitors. One of the most successful growth sectors in our tourist trade is international visitors. Not only have those numbers grown, but each foreign tourist spends more per stay in Las Vegas than domestic guests. According to the “Export Nation” project at the Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program, “accommodation services” to international visitors added $3.3 billion to our local economy in 2013. Even more impressive, these services led our export gains with a nearly $600 million jump between 2009 and 2012 (the heart of the Great Recession).

A large share of our foreign tourists arrives from Asia — with Japanese visitors especially well represented. Try and tell a Japanese visitor that nuclear waste storage near Las Vegas is safe in light of the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi disaster. The Fukushima near-meltdown story made world news and played around the clock through much of Asia. Chinese, Korean and Japanese tourists got a good look at government nuclear experts sounding a premature all-clear signal. One “tiny” nuclear waste mishandling around Yucca Mountain and you can kiss most of these tourists goodbye. And if our customers don’t show up in the state, we can’t export our main product.

Congressman Hardy, a large share of your constituents work in the Las Vegas tourism industry, and their jobs are at risk at the mere suggestion that you are willing to trade their livelihood for a grant or two from the federal government. You should pass on any Yucca Mountain “deal” and instead join the rest of our Nevada delegation, the governor and the state legislature to secure a greater share of federal aid the way 49 other states do. The next time you get pitched on swapping a nuclear dump for a token of federal aid, simply say Nevadans know a bad deal when they see one.

Robert Lang is the UNLV director of Brookings Mountain West, executive director of the Lincy Institute, and a professor of public affairs at the UNLV Greenspun College of Urban Affairs. William Brown is assistant director of Brookings Mountain West.