Heller Vote Jeopardizes 600 Nevada Jobs
Las Vegas, NV — In his zeal to appease his TEA Party base, Rep. Dean Heller voted for a GOP spending bill that could pull the rug out from under Nevada’s fledgling renewable energy industry, and put hundreds of his constituents’ jobs at risk.
According to the Pahrump Valley Times, “House Republicans identified for cuts more than $10 billion of unspent money for renewable energy, such as Section 1705 of the Energy Policy Act, the loan guarantee program, a creation of the stimulus bill, or officially, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.” Legislation that has been a focal point of TEA Party ire since its passage.
How would these cuts hurt Nevada’s renewable energy future and imperil jobs?
For starters it could jeopardize 600 jobs at the Tonopah-based Crescent Dunes project, which according to the Las Vegas Sun is a 110-megawatt energy storage facility that is “expected to power about 75,000 NV Energy customers and create 600 jobs on-site.” Further, “It would also be the first time that U.S.-developed, molten-salt technology has been put into operation anywhere in the world.”
The project’s CEO, Kevin Smith, told the Pahrump Valley Times, “The Department of Energy loan guarantee program is a critical part of that project. We’ve been asking for the loan guarantee program since the fall of 2009 and we’re just a few weeks away from getting approvals on that. So to pull that from us now would be very difficult for the project, certainly a 12- to 24-month delay and potential cancellation because we’ve got commitments under our power purchase agreement with NV Energy. We would miss those if we had to start over on the financing side.”
Heller conceded “his support for the Republican House budget could affect the project” and told Pahrump’s paper, “The problem is you’re looking down the road trying to figure out where the money is going to come from. That’s making it more and more difficult. Obviously we have to figure out what our prioities [sic] are. It’s a priority issue,” Heller said.
Apparently for Dean Heller, creating jobs for Nevada is not his priority.
“It’s shameful that Rep. Heller would actively work to deprive job-creating renewable energy projects of the critical funding they need to get off the ground and employ hundreds of Nevadans,” said Sam Lieberman, chair of the Nevada State Democratic Party. “Dean Heller needs to get his priorities in order -- and his number one priority should be working to create jobs in our state. Instead, he’s more concerned with supporting TEA Party-fueled legislation that hurts Nevada’s economy.”