Alarms didn’t sound when the snowflakes stopped falling in early January. The snowpack was above average midway through the climatologically wettest part of the year, and there were still several months for the state to build up its snowpack. But January storms were slow to materialize — other than last weekend’s storm that dropped disproportionate amounts of rain and snow across the state, the month was largely dry. Now, two-thirds of the way through its snowy season, the state’s valleys remain largely snow-free and snowpack is sporadic across Nevada’s mountains.
In an effort to strengthen the nation’s domestic battery supply chain and electrify the transportation sector, the federal government closed a $996 million loan guarantee for a controversial lithium mine on the habitat of an endangered Nevada wildflower. On Friday, the Department of Energy (DOE) announded it had finalized the nearly $1 billion loan to support the development of Ioneer’s on-site processing facility at the Rhyolite Ridge Lithium-Boron Project in Esmeralda County.
On March 21, 2023, President Joe Biden designated Avi Kwa Ame National Monument in southern Nevada. Located at the confluence of the Mojave and Sonoran Deserts, the national monument protects innumerable objects of historic and scientific interest, including its namesake Avi Kwa Ame – or Spirit Mountain – and the surrounding arid valleys and mountain ranges that are historically important and sacred places for several Tribal Nations. (Department of the Interior photo) Nevada’s only Republican in Congress, Rep. Mark Amodei, announced plans Thursday for legislation that would require Congressional approval of all future national monuments in Nevada.
Attorneys general from 18 states sued Tuesday to block President Donald Trump’s move to end a decades-old immigration policy known as birthright citizenship guaranteeing that U.S.-born children are citizens regardless of their parents’ status. Trump’s roughly 700-word executive order, issued late Monday, amounts to a fulfillment of something he’s talked about during the presidential campaign. But whether it succeeds is far from certain amid what is likely to be a lengthy legal battle over the president’s immigration policies. The executive order could have major implications in Nevada, which has the largest per capita undocumented population of any state and the largest share of mixed-status families in the nation.
Gov. Joe Lombardo’s recommended two-year budget is $335 million in the red without offsetting revenue, state officials confirmed Tuesday, setting up a process that Democrats say will require corrective action from the governor by next week. State officials acknowledged the shortfall and said they have already made revisions to the proposed budget. But an $85 million deficit remains with those changes included, according to testimony given Tuesday by staff of the Governor’s Finance Office during the first pre-session legislative budget meeting of the year.
A bipartisan effort to give mining companies more legal rights to federal lands and speed up the permitting process did not make it past a contentious five-week lame duck session, dashing hopes to reverse a major court ruling adopting a stricter interpretation of federal mining law, at least for the time being. In the final weeks of the 118th Congress, before the 119th was sworn in early this month, the Energy Permitting Reform Act of 2024— a mining reform package shepherded by former independent U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin— fell apart despite a strong bipartisan desire to implement permitting reform.
RENO — The annual PBS Reno Writers Contest and PBS Reno is inviting local students in kindergarten through third grade to submit their own illustrated stories.
PANACA — Game wardens from the Nevada Department of Wildlife (NDOW) are seeking the public’s help to solve two separate poaching cases that occurred near the Nevada/Utah border. The first ongoing investigation involves a bull elk that was shot and killed in Lincoln County on Labor Day weekend (Aug. 30-Sept 1).
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden signed bipartisan legislation that expands Social Security benefits for more than 2 million Americans. The bill was approved by Congress late last year. The ceremony on Sunday marked one of the last times Biden is expected to sign major legislation as president, since Congress is now controlled by Republicans and his term is set to end on Jan. 20, when President-elect Donald Trump takes the oath of office.
Dwarfed by drought, the warming climate and other, more immediate environmental threats, earthquakes aren’t at the forefront of most Nevadans’ minds. But through the mid-20th century, Nevada was known as an earthquake state. While the state has experienced few sizable quakes since then, recent temblors have caught the attention of those who monitor earthquakes.
In 2021, President Joe Biden signed the American Rescue Plan (ARP) into law, a massive funding package that delivered more than $2.7 billion in flexible state aid to Nevada. At the time, Gov. Steve Sisolak, a Democrat, pledged to use the funds to stabilize the state’s economy, continue reopening schools and “maximize these funds for long term benefits.”
Nevada’s Democratic House delegation backed federal legislation that allows undocumented immigrants to be detained for nonviolent offenses like shoplifting, and at least one of Nevada Democratic senators says she’ll vote for the bill when it is heard in that chamber. Immigration attorneys and coalitions warn the measure would “deny due process” for people accused of a crime without conviction.
NV Energy is asking the Public Utilities Commission of Nevada to allow it to establish a $500 million self-insurance fund in order to have adequate liability insurance in the event of a catastrophic wildfire alleged to “have been caused or exacerbated by utility equipment.” The fund would bring the utility’s coverage to close to $1 billion. The self-insurance policy would be funded by customers, based on their electricity usage.
Nevada is using a secret algorithm to determine which students are considered at-risk enough to warrant additional education funding, raising concerns about transparency. Developed for the State of Nevada by Minnesota-based tech company Infinite Campus, the algorithm is said to use “machine learning and decades of student data to identify patterns of predictability.” It assigns each K-12 public school student a “graduation related analytic data” (GRAD) score using dozens of data points, including their cumulative GPA, tardies and absences, changes in home address, and immigrant status.
A rare tiny butterfly found only in a remote stretch of Northern Nevada will soon gain federal protections under the Endangered Species Act. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced Tuesday that the bleached sandhill skipper, a small golden-orange butterfly that typically measures under 2 inches long, warrants federal protections as an endangered or threatened species.