While unemployment rates have nearly fallen to pre-pandemic levels and high-tech companies such as Google are taking an interest in the state, economic diversification continues to be a top-of-mind challenge for cities in tourism-dominated Nevada. 

Sponsored by Sen. Chris Brooks (D-Las Vegas), SB448 would expand the state’s transmission infrastructure in line with NV Energy’s multibillion-dollar Greenlink Nevada initiative, along with requiring a $100 million investment in electric vehicle charging stations, expanding rooftop solar to multi-tenant and commercial buildings and proposing a host of other measures aimed at lowering carbon emissions and building up renewable energy infrastructure.

A legislative attempt to establish a state Division of Occupational Licensing brought together practitioners of homeopathic and oriental medicine, athletic trainers and cosmetologists on Thursday — all of whom oppose greater executive branch oversight.

After stonewalling, Gov. Steve Sisolak's office addresses questions about the governor's relationship with Blockchains LLC, which is proposing a massive project that is being cast as an important part of the state's post-pandemic economic strategy.

“I just ask that all involved understand that the end goal is a massive economic development investment in Nevada, and a chance ... to set down a marker that Nevada is the blockchain technology center of the world.”

The starting point for much of the governor’s legislative agenda comes from another source: the long-awaited update to the state’s economic development blueprint, created by the Governor’s Office of Economic Development (GOED) in conjunction with a cadre of think tanks — SRI International, RCG Economics and Brookings Mountain West.

In this edition: major updates from state grants office initiatives, criminal justice updates, how Vegas police have changed policies after Black Lives Matter protests this summer, a Sisolak Promise Tracker update and some noteworthy numbers from the higher education system.

State lawmakers are moving quickly to process a bill that would provide an additional $50 million for a pandemic-related grant program aimed at small businesses and nonprofits, holding a hearing and unanimously voting the measure out of the Assembly on Wednesday.

The PETS program offered broad eligibility, and in the four days the program was open for applications, the state received more than 13,500 submissions — about 10 times the amount the rent program received.

Services allowing physical contact around the state have been allowed to resume service, with tattoo shops, estheticians, and massage parlors open since May. Women who work in Nevada’s legal sex industry say they feel they’re being ignored not because of the risk their business poses but because of a bias against their industry.

Federal coronavirus relief funds must be spent by the end of the calendar year, and commercial rental help is not the only program with a relatively low disbursement rate. Less than 10 percent of the $70 million Nevada applied to tenant rental assistance has been distributed about halfway through the program’s existence.

Amid unanimous approval of the two applications during the Wednesday meeting of the Governor’s Office of Economic Development (GOED) board, GOED Director Michael Brown said he planned to bring recommendations to the board — composed of Gov. Steve Sisolak, other elected leaders and several business representatives — at its next meeting in December raising the threshold level needed for new or expanding businesses to receive tax abatements.

That’s the message that Governor’s Office of Economic Development Director Michael Brown and Department of Business and Industry Director Terry Reynolds sent to lawmakers in the state’s interim Sunset Subcommittee last week as to what steps, if any, the state can take to improve its occupational board system.

Brown, the former head of Barrick Gold USA, said the COVID pandemic has forced GOED to reflect and find ways to adapt to the new economic reality. He reiterated that every state was facing major financial difficulties, and that those best positioned to succeed would need to do the nitty-gritty tasks of workforce development rather than look for a silver bullet to solve economic woes.

Gov. Steve Sisolak announced last week that there would be something “uniquely Nevadan” about the state’s reopening plan: It would empower local governments to execute it. However, as the dust has settled from the governor’s reopening announcement, county managers and commissioners across the state have been left scratching their heads as to exactly what power they have been given.

Brown’s vision for the agency matched public comments made by Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak, a skeptic of the incentive-heavy approach to economic development pioneered by his predecessor, Republican former Gov. Brian Sandoval, and who has promised major changes in the state’s approach to diversifying its economy.

There is a large difference between government support for Big Business, and government support for free market capitalism, even though the two are often conflated by both the political left and right (though for vastly different reasons). Giving what amounts to large cash giveaways or writing functionally company-specific regulations on an ad hoc basis is a bad approach.

Those promises came during the Monday meeting of the Governor’s Office of Economic Development (GOED), which saw Sisolak and other board members approve more than $14.6 million in property, sales and payroll tax abatements for eight businesses that plan to hire an aggregate 529 people over the next five years and generate an estimated $63 million in direct and indirect tax revenue.

Brown's appointment comes after the position was vacant and filled by an interim director for nearly seven months. The agency had paused new and pending applications from businesses for tax incentives — the corporate perk the office is perhaps best known for — and Sisolak has expressed interest in rethinking the incentives the state offers to attract companies.

During a meeting of the search subcommittee on Friday, board members almost unanimously praised Brown, hired by Gov. Steve Sisolak in January 2019, and recommended that he be hired to be the next full-time leader of the agency, which is best known for offering a variety of tax incentives and abatements to new or expanding businesses in the state.