Nevada Assemblyman Ed Goedhart, R-Amargosa Valley, said legislation passed this session granting 55 percent abatements on real and personal property tax to solar power projects will still generate ample revenue for Nye County, countering the concerns of officials like Commissioner Joni Eastley.
Goedhart used the figures to argue against requiring solar power companies to negotiate development agreements with the county.
Eastley told fellow commissioners last month she would like to sign development agreements with solar power producers. She noted 35 right-of-way applications have been submitted for renewable energy projects on public land in Nye County, most of them in Amargosa Valley.
Assembly Bill 522 states of the remaining 45 percent in taxes after the abatements, 55 percent will go to local governments, the rest to the state general fund. The taxes are payable on the actual plant, the mirrors and other infrastructure.
Goedhart said if a company like Solar Millenium built two 250-megawatt concentrated solar power plants in Amargosa Valley, enough to power roughly 180,000 homes, using a cost of $2.4 billion, the project would be taxed at 35 percent of its value or $840 million.
After the 55 percent tax abatement, the project would still generate $13 million in tax, of which $7.2 million would go to local governments and $5.9 million to the state general fund, Goedhart said, citing figures from the state Legislative Counsel Bureau. That's based on the property tax rate in Amargosa Valley which is at the maximum cap of $3.66 per $100 of valuation.
Goedhart showed figures detailing how the local government revenues would break down: $2.8 million per year for Nye County, $2.75 milion for the Nye County school District, just over $1 million for the Town of Amargosa Valley and $652,396 for the tiny Amargosa Valley Library District.
Goedhart said such a solar project would generate more revenue than the $5.8 million in tax paid by eight traditional power plants producing 6,000 megawatts for NV Energy.
"Yucca Mountain this year is going to pay Nye County about $5.9 million. So you're telling me you want to take all this nuclear waste for $5.9 million or have a solar field for $13.8 million? Tell me what the better deal is," Goedhart said.
He was referring to the proposed payment equal to taxes to Nye County from the U.S. Department of Energy, which have been declining as the government cuts the funding for that project.
Goedhart said he researched the property taxes paid by Round Mountain Gold Co. Their average property tax payment is $2.4 million per year, along with a few million more in net proceeds tax paid to Nye County, he said.
"Depending on the price of gold, depending upon the market place, Round Mountain Gold is going to come up with somewhere between $4 million to $5 million per year," Goedhart said.
"I don't mind gold mining, but they have enormous slag piles and you have cyanide leach pads, you have mercury emissions and all the rest. What I find is interesting is Round Mountain Gold wants to do a massive, multi-thousand acre expansion. Has anyone in Nye County talked about making Round Mountain Gold sign a GDA (general development agreement) for their proposed expansion?"
Eastley said she was envisioning something more like a memorandum of understanding with solar power companies outlining things like providing ambulances for industrial areas and building their own roads to their project.
"I have to anticipate impacts before there is development. It's not fair to the residents who live there or residents who live elsewhere in the county to pay for the impacts of that development." Eastley said. "I do not see anything with the level of detail with what we have for residential subdivisions."
Eastley said language allowing counties to negotiate development agreements with solar power companies wasn't written into the bill but she was assured by author Marilyn Kirkpatrick, D-North Las Vegas, that it was made part of the legislative record the legislature supports counties having that ability.
"My issue remains that the state can grant an abatement on county revenue without the county agreeing with that abatement. That's my concern," Eastley said.
"I am absolutely against killing any goose before they have a chance to lay an economic golden egg in the county," she said. "However if the state is going to eliminate our authority or our input relative to the granting of any of those abatements, then we have to be able to have some means, if it is necessary, to pay for what we would be losing through that revenue stream."
Goedhart said he wanted to do an analysis of the impacts based on facts and figures, but up to now, no one has had them.
"Solar Millenium is also looking at a site in Blythe, Calif. They don't have the money to do both, so they basically have two separate teams looking at the project working independently. Whiever project comes together the quickest is the one that they're going to do," Goedhart said.
The assemblyman revised Eastley's analogy in describing his opposition to the development agreement proposal.
"We want to pluck every feather out of that goose," he said, "before it has a chance to lay the golden egg."
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