HORACE LANGFORD JR. / PVT U.S. Sen. Harry Reid speaks to the crowd at the Bob Ruud Community Center Wednesday. Advertisement

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D.-Nev., said Wednesday he will fight to prevent a $3 billion, coal-fired power plant from being built in White Pine County and he urged utilities to invest in alternative power instead.

Reid made the comments during a town meeting Wednesday at the Bob Ruud Community Center.

The Senate leader from Searchlight focused on Nevada's role in achieving energy independence.

But attendees among the crowd of over 250 were able to get in questions about Iraq, Yucca Mountain, gas prices, Social Security and school prayer.

"I made the decision about a month ago that I could not stand by and let a White Pine County coal fire generating plant be built. Why? The first year this plant would be up, they would burn 7 million tons of coal in one year," Reid said. "Thirty-five miles below Searchlight we had the dirtiest plant in all of America, the Mojave Generating Facility -- 1,500 megawatts of power. We had polluted the Grand Canyon.

"It was a dirty plant, it was coal. It's closed and I'm glad."

"Let us spend a few billion developing what we have a lot of. We have a lot of sun, we have a lot of wind and we are the Saudi Arabia of geothermal energy," he said.

Reid said power companies haven't shown a willingness to buy alternative power. He said California only gets 1 percent of its electricity from coal.

The day of his speech, Reid said the U.S. will use 21 million barrels of oil, of which two-thirds is imported from overseas.

"The sooner we move toward the sun, the wind, geothermal, biomass, the better off we'll be, and we will never do it until we have a tax policy that gives people an incentive to invest in these industries because the big oil companies have controlled America.

"It has never been about energy. No one has been more supportive of the oil companies than this administration. Both Bush and Cheney made their fortunes in oil, and they have shown their gratitude by giving these oil companies everything they want," Reid said.

(Reid also said he will lend his support toward the effort to locate a federal detention facility in Pahrump. See the story on page A12.)

Two protesters held signs outside urging action to protect America's borders. Reid said his staff members suggested he talk about immigration, a major issue in Pahrump. Reid said he agrees with President Bush on few issues, but his immigration plan was one of them.

"Why are they here illegally? Because we have had a law that has not been enforced. We have a porous border, and we have employers who hire with impunity people who have improper papers," Reid said. "We're the only superpower left in the world. We should be able to control our borders."

The U.S. could follow Israel, which has detectors allowing border agents to quickly apprehend intruders, Reid said. He also spoke about supporting a $3.5 billion bill to help immigration officials better track people already in the country.

Reid said certain industries, like agriculture, need temporary guest workers. Legislation should be enacted, he said, to allow people like onion farmers in Lyon County to import guest workers.

The estimated 12 million people in the country illegally should be allowed to apply for citizenship, if they have a job, pay taxes, learn English, stay out of trouble and pay penalties and fines, he said.

Reid told another member of the audience he supports a national identity card that would be foolproof.

Some attendees were told Reid's office would look into their concerns. One was Gerald Homm, who complained Nellis Air Force Base was objecting to the height of a proposed 230-kilovolt transmission line around Mount Sterling.

"Valley Electric has been more cooperative than the other big company in Nevada," Reid said. "One of the things we need in Washington is to give tax incentives for alternative energy development."

Tax incentives for alternative energy have only been offered for a year or two., Reid said. "We need large sums of money invested so we need at least a 10-year tax package to allow people to come in and most of the time borrow money, invest money in these projects."

David Stevens called the local Desert View Regional Medical Center "a distribution center," complaining he still had to pay $12,000 for a helicopter medical evacuation. Reid said the federal government helped with the local hospital. But he added, "This is another issue we need to look at -- I have not had a report in many months with the hospital here in Pahrump." (Hospital CEO David Rencher abruptly resigned earlier this week -- see story on page A1.)

Reid told long-time Yucca Mountain critic Sally Devlin, "Yucca Mountain will never come to be."

(He said after the Sept. 11 terrorist attack, "There's no way in the world we're going to allow the shipping of tens of thousands of tons of the most dangerous substances known to man across our highways and our railways, past our schools, our churches, our businesses, our towns -- we're not going to let it happen.")

Floyd Banks asked if Congress will make sure future intelligence reports don't lead us to another Iraq war. Reid said he was the first Democrat to announce publicly his support for the invasion, based on reports Saddam Hussein had biological, nuclear and chemical weapons.

"I was misled," Reid said. "I believe we should start redeploying troops within 90 days. I think by May 1st of this next year, our troops should be out of Iraq except for people who are trained in counterterrorism, training Iraqis and protecting our own assets there. That would be a much, much smaller force."

It's more important for Americans to build good relationships with the millions of people in impoverished countries that may sympathize with the few thousand terrorists, the senator said.

Reid told another audience member it was a myth the Social Security is going bankrupt. He called it "one of the ploys of President Bush" who wanted to privatize Social Security ever since he ran for Congress in 1977 and "doesn't like anything that has government fingertips on it."

To Kathleen Rowland, Reid said the U.S. is too stretched militarily to attack Iran. He suggested diplomatic relations, as occurred with North Korea, which was persuaded to shut down their nuclear facilities.

Finally, Cynthia Jones asked about school prayer.

"My wife was Jewish and as a little girl she was humiliated a number of times with Christian prayer in schools," Reid said. "I would hope that those people who believe that prayer is so important do it on their own and don't force our prayers on me."