Nevada Assemblyman Ed Goedhart, R-Amargosa Valley, attacked Assembly Bill 522 Wednesday, which he warned could effectively kill the renewable energy industry.

Testimony on that bill and a few other pieces of legislation concerning renewable energy, was heard by the Assembly Commerce and Labor Committee.

The heart of Goedhart's objection concerned a proposed excise tax of 39 cents per kilowatt hour. While Goedhart was calm during the committee discussion, he expressed his outrage in an interview afterwards. The excise tax would be several times what is charged at the Reid-Gardner coal-fired power plant, he said.

"We're going to have a business tax on nothing because nothing is going to get built. We're going to kill an industry before it gets built," Goedhart said.

Assemblyman Sheila Leslie, D-Reno, a senior member of the Assembly Democratic Renewable Energy Caucus, in introducing the bill, said, "This really represents our ongoing effort to prevent our renewable energy from being exploited to provide energy to other states with no benefit to Nevada. We don't want companies to come into Nevada to bring in workers from other states to do it and then export our energy to other states."

What she called "a modest production fee" would be used to lower energy rates for Nevadans, Leslie said. She noted neighboring states have corporate profit taxes of 4.8 percent or more, which Nevada doesn't have.

The bill also establishes a Nevada Energy Commission, which would regulate transmission of renewable energy and work with the Public Utilities Commission to make a new conservation standard for public buildings, among other duties.

Assemblyman David Bobzien, D-Reno, said the energy commission would resolve a fragmented, haphazard way Nevada has dealt with energy in the past. The energy commission could provide a centralized plan of improvements on energy plans, he said.

"I think it's time to step forward, take it up a notch and deal with energy policy in the state in a much more concerted, comprehensive fashion. Someone recently made the analogy: Renewable energy policy in this state is like a whole chorus of crickets: a whole lot of crickets making noise, not sure what the score is, what the sheet music is to bring this all together," Bobzien testified.

Assemblywoman Marilyn Kirkpatrick, D-North Las Vegas, said the bill would extend renewable energy incentives set to expire in June.

"We wanted to add a little bit more accountability," Kirkpatrick said.

The billl requires solar power developers to buy 30 percent of their materials in the state, she said.

Kirkpatrick admitted Section 85 of the bill, the excise tax, was the most controversial.

The excise tax wouldn't include geothermal energy which Kirkpatrick said is protected in the Nevada Constitution. She said 39 cents was "very small" and compared it to the Alaska rebate program in which residents get a reimbursement for oil royalties.

Goedhart said he worked on renewable energy projects not only in Nevada but in Arizona and California.

"We're almost in an area here where we're charging five or six or seven times as much property taxes on renewable energy as coal-fired power plants," Goedhart said. He added, "There isn't a single state out there that has an excise tax and a property tax."

Goedhart told committee members the state doesn't put an excise tax on exporting alfalfa or gold. He said California attempted to slap an excise tax on milk imported from Nevada, but his dairy won a Supreme Court case to strike it down.

Nevada already has a couple of hurdles to overcome in siting solar power plants, Goedhart told the committee. It requires building a transmission grid long distances to the cities, and developers have to deal with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management to acquire federal land.

Kirkpatrick replied, "I pay $900 per month for a power bill. My constituents want to know what they're getting back."

In his phone interview, Goedhart said Solar Millenium, which has plans to build two 250-megawatt solar power plants in Amargosa Valley, has teams also working on projects in Arizona and California. He's afraid the company will choose one of the out-of-state sites if the legislation passes. Among other things it would require paying federal prevailing wages, Goedhart said.

When it comes to using the excise tax to subsidize power rates, Goedhart charged, "It's going to penalize an already higher cost technology and use it to subsidize the technology of the past."

Goedhart didn't like the idea of the energy commission, calling it "paralysis by overbureaucratic analysis."

"I talked to the governor this morning ... He told me, if that comes across his desk, 'I guarantee I'm vetoing it,'" Goedhart said.

Goedhart said he endorses instead Senate Bill 395 introduced by Gov. Jim Gibbons this week.

That would provide a 50 percent abatement of real and personal property tax for up to 10 years for renewable energy projects; and require utilitlies to get 25 percent of their power from renewable energy by 2025 including 5 percent from solar power.

"We've got to embrace renewable energy to make sure we as Americans diversify our economy, protect our environment and it's going to be good for national security. But with these kind of hare-brained bills, it's going to kill renewable energy in Nevada," Goedhart said.

* The sophomore legislator did agree with other legislation discussed in the committee Wednesday. Assembly Bill 387 would allow the Public Utility Commission to review renewable energy zones to plan transmission lines.