Silver State Times

Washington, D.C.  – U.S. Senator Catherine Cortez Masto introduced legislation to make it easier to grow existing businesses and open new businesses in the Apex Industrial Park in North Las Vegas.

“Business is booming in Apex Industrial Park, and I’m working to update an outdated law that is causing too many businesses to get bogged down in lengthy permitting processes,” said Senator Cortez Masto. “It’s crucial that we continue to support sites like Apex that are diversifying our economy and creating hundreds of good-paying jobs for Nevadans.”

“The City of North Las Vegas is thankful for Senator Cortez Masto's steadfast commitment to supporting practical solutions to public land use in Nevada,” said Mayor Pamela Goynes-Brown. “The Apex Area Technical Corrections Act cleans up some policies which inadvertently make the job of our federal land managers much harder and hampers economic development and diversification. I look forward to working with the Senator and our congressional delegation in the House to advance this bill into law.”

“The Apex Industrial Park is a major source of investment, employment and showcases the area’s progress for North Las Vegas and beyond. We have worked with federal partners in good faith and are pleased that Senator Cortez Masto is working on this bipartisan effort to fix dated policies which unnecessarily burden those partners and hamper Apex development by introducing the Apex Area Technical Corrections Act,” said Lisa Cole, Vice President of Land Development Associates. “The Senator has always been a strong supporter of Apex and North Las Vegas and a leader on federal lands policy. We thank her for this effort and look forward to our continued collaboration.”

When the Apex Industrial Site was created in 1989, Congress passed legislation to transfer federal land to Kerr-McGee, a former U.S. chemical company, and to other private ownership. But, the Bureau of Land Management maintained control over large utility corridors that crisscross the whole development. Right now, every business that wants to start construction or expand at Apex has to go through a complicated permitting process with the BLM to get permission to run their sewer, gas, power, access roads, and broadband lines across those BLM-controlled corridors. In the original 1989 law, Clark County originally had authorization to facilitate a shorter process, but now it is the City of North Las Vegas and the Apex Industrial Park Owners Association who has primary management of the site, not the County. Without an update to the original legislation, the City and Association do not have the authority to permit new pipelines, power connections, or roads for businesses and their facilities, causing delays that can last years.

Cortez Masto’s bill will fix this cumbersome permitting process and promote economic growth by allowing the City of North Las Vegas and the Apex Industrial Park Owners Association to issue permits and get new and existing businesses the utilities they need to operate. Companion legislation has been introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives by Congressman Steven Horsford (D-Nev.-04).

Senator Cortez Masto has worked to strengthen and diversify Nevada’s economy and create new jobs by passing legislation to upgrade American infrastructure, support Nevada’s manufacturing industry and American economic competitiveness, and invest in Nevada’s booming clean-energy economy.

Original source can be found here.