Title: ERA OF EASY MONEY ENDS
Subtitle: Official defends state nuclear waste agency
Type: Newspaper article
Publication: Las Vegas Review-Journal
Date:  March 15, 1996
Page: 17B
Author: Harry Swainston

Jane Baughman's March 5 letter to the editor calls for a response. Ms. 
Baughman is the wife of Mike Baughman, the consultant who made hundreds 
of thousands of dollars from the nuclear waste gravy train before Con-
gress recently pulled the plug on local government grants. Together, the 
Baughmans operate Intertech Services Corp., which has contracts with a 
number of local governments, including the city of Caliente. The city of 
Caliente has paid the Baughmans big money to attend meetings with en-
tities such as the Department of Energy and for their advice on how to 
solicit megabuck grants from the federal government.

It was here that Mr. Baughman's advice put his clients in Lincoln County 
at cross purposes with the citizens of the state of Nevada. Nevada has a 
law that makes it unlawful to store high-level radioactive waste within 
its borders. The storage of such dangerous waste is a matter of state-
wide concern, and local governments do not have authority to make de-
cisions in conflict with state law. Nevertheless, after having been 
forewarned against such a course, a majority of the Lincoln County 
commissioners and the Caliente City Council approved a resolution in 
February 1995 which was intended to sell  out the state.

The resolution invited the federal government to construct and operate 
facilities in Lincoln County for the storage and handling of high-level 
radioactive waste in exchange for a yearly payment by the federal gov-
ernment of millions of dollars to Lincoln County and Caliente.

The attorney general's complaint, filed on March 20, 1995, invited these 
officials into the district court of Lincoln County to explain why they 
should not be removed from office for usurping the prerogatives of the 
citizens of the whole state. Eventually they saw the errors of their 
ways, capitulated and rescinded the objectionable resolution and the 
matter was closed.

It appears that Ms. Baughman protests too much. Far from being an abuse 
of power, it would have been an abdication of power for the attorney 
general to have ignored the unlawful scheme to victimize the citizens of 
the state.

Ms. Baughman's charge that the recent legislative audit of the Nevada 
Nuclear Waste Project Office suggests a disregard for state policies and 
regulations is unfounded. During fiscal year '94-95, the office spent 87 
percent of its contracting budget to fund Nevada universities, local 
governments, tribal entities and other state agencies including the 
Legislative Counsel Bureau.

The audit also took exception to a procedure the office uses to identify 
experts as contractors on the basis of their experience and training. 
The Nuclear Waste Project Office uses a competitive request for qual-
ifications to identify special competence and qualifications which the 
state needs in its oversight of the Yucca Mountain project.

The success of the office in this regard, as much as any other factor, 
has convinced Congress to cut funding for the Yucca Mountain project 
and, according to DOE's Nevada Yucca Mountain project manager, to ramp 
down and zero out all operations at the site by 1998.

Jane Baughman's real complaint appears to be that the Congress' re-
duction of funds for the project means that the era of easy money for 
Intertech Services is over. Maybe the Baughmans will have to get real 
jobs, like most Nevadans.

Harry Swainson is a senior deputy attorney general for Nevada in Carson 
City.

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