Nevada

More than 300 Nevada businesses are backing climate and energy legislation in Congress that would create more than 4.5 million jobs and generate $280 billion in private investment, proponents of the bill said Thursday.

Rep. Dean Heller says he is worried about an Interior Department memo that calls for carving two national monuments out of parts of central and northern Nevada to protect American Indian cultural sites and habitat for sensitive wildlife.

A warming climate and continuing dependence on foreign oil increasingly are putting America's security at risk, requiring prompt political action, a group of veterans visiting Reno said Tuesday.

Sen. Harry Reid said Thursday the Senate will debate a sweeping climate change bill this spring, and he will use it as a vehicle to seek more federal research dollars and more generous tax credits for geothermal development.

The Reno area likely will be in violation of stricter health limits for smog as proposed Thursday by the Obama administration, local air quality officials said.

Western ski resorts have been losing nearly a day of skiing a year since 1990. Whether you call it global warming or climate change, warming temperatures - last week's cold snap notwithstanding - are having a serious long-range effect on skiing.

Nevada’s famous Great Basin bristlecone pines are experiencing a growth boom as temperatures have risen in their high-altitude homes.

Last month, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar issued an order coordinating Interior Department efforts on climate change and forming a Climate Change Response Council to bring global warming concerns into policy making.

Heavy rain in the Lake Tahoe basin earlier this month provided a test for an anti-erosion project intended to slow the flow of sediment that used to run down the ski slopes at Homewood Mountain Resort and into the lake.

For half of Nevadans, the debate over legislation designed to control the climate is just so much hot air.