harry reid

As Senator Harry Reid retires from Washington, eight stories were put together to highlight a career that spans decades.

Here is one of them, and to read the rest, visit the Las Vegas Sun story.

Hometown is bracing to lose its greatest champion

When this tiny desert town’s most famous former resident visited in recent years, he sat in the same corner booth at Terrible’s Road House while his entourage of black sport-utility vehicles lined the parking lot.

Late Friday night, the U.S. House of Representatives joined the U.S. Senate in passing the Water Infrastructure Improvements for the Nation (WIIN) Act of 2016, which will bring $415 million in future funding to Lake Tahoe over the next seven years. The decision brought cheers from many local agencies, including the League to Save lake Tahoe and the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency.

At the Lake Tahoe Summit last month, we saw the power of what we can accomplish when we work together. Progress over the last two decades was showcased when President Obama made his first-ever visit to Tahoe and said conservation and restoration efforts like ours are more important than ever as the nation works to adapt to a changing climate and create a more resilient environment.

Protecting Lake Tahoe and the Sierra Nevada is the job of many stakeholders. Its not just a local job, not just a California job, not just a Nevada job, not just a national job, and as witnessed through President Obama's visit to the Lake Tahoe Summit Wednesday, it can only be successful through partnerships of all of those entities along with agencies, local and private investment.

On Tuesday, August 29, the day before the Summit, California Senator Diane Feinstein hosted a lunch for local officials, agencies and federal counterparts, described as the "Lake Tahoe Stakeholders Luncheon".

"We're here to celebrate because we love Lake Tahoe," Nevada Senator Harry Reid said at the 20th annual Lake Tahoe Summit on Wednesday. Reid, who started the focus on Lake Tahoe along with President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore with the first Summit in 1997.

"Like a World Series team who can't rest on their laurels," said Reid, "we need to build on progress."

Reid went on with his World Series antidote and introduced the "All Star Lineup" at the 20th Summit, his last in office as he won't be seeking reelection after serving the state in Washington since 1987.

With President Barack Obama visiting Lake Tahoe for a landmark 20th annual Lake Tahoe Summit this month, the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency has published a special summit edition of Tahoe in Depth.

This special edition of the award-winning newspaper tells the story of 20 years of summits at Lake Tahoe—from the organization and importance of the first-ever summit and the successful work it sparked, to major issues such as climate change that will confront the Tahoe Region in the decades to come.

Lake Tahoe was at a crossroads in 1997. The lake’s famous water clarity, once measuring 100 feet, was declining year after year because of stormwater pollution from roads and developed areas and erosion from streams damaged by logging and cattle grazing.

It once housed The Shiek, a boat named in honor of Rudolf Valentino, friend and frequent guest to the Pope Estate in South Lake Tahoe. The Shiek was the biggest and fastest boat of its time on Lake Tahoe.

In the late 1800's it housed the boats of William Tevis who owned the 75 acre sprawling estate along the South Shore.

The Lake Tahoe Restoration Act of 2015, a bipartisan bill sponsored by Nevada Sen. Dean Heller, passed the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works on Wednesday.

The legislation, created alongside senators Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., Harry Reid, D-Nevada and Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., provides federal, state, and local partners important tools to reduce wildfire threats, improve water clarity, jumpstart innovative infrastructure projects, and combat invasive species.

Decisions made in Congress over the next few months may well determine the extent to which Lake Tahoe remains blue and clear, with healthy forests, resilient watersheds, and its ecology protected from the threat of new aquatic invasive species.

For two decades, the Lake Tahoe Environmental Improvement Program (EIP) has provided guidance for the shared investments made by our federal, state and local governments, homeowners, and businesses to restore and protect Tahoe’s unique environmental qualities and enhance its diverse public recreation opportunities.

July 17-Aug 23 Lake Tahoe Shakespeare Festival: "Romeo and Juliet" @ Sand Harbor
July 29-Aug 02 Shayla Rivera / Pete Banachowski @ Improv at Harvey's
July 31-Aug 16 Lake Tahoe Summerfest classical music series @ Sierra Nevada College
July 31-Aug 01 Lisa Marie Johnston @ Moodys Bistro
Coburn Station @ Bar of America
August 01 Three Dog Night @ Montbleu
Robert Cray @ Harrah's
Forget the Roses @ Hard Rock Hotel
Drought Relief @ Heavenly Village
DJ Rick Gee / DJ Rockwell @ Peek Tahoe
Daze on the Green @ Cabo Wabo
JKC Band @ Steamers
Darren Senn @ 968 Park Hotel

This week, the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency voiced its strong support for legislation to reauthorize the Lake Tahoe Restoration Act that has been introduced in Congress by Tahoe’s Senate delegation.

Sponsored by U.S. Senator Dean Heller (R-Nevada) along with Harry Reid (D-Nevada), Dianne Feinstein (D-California), and Barbara Boxer (D-California), the Lake Tahoe Restoration Act would authorize up to $415 million in federal funding over 10 years to help continue critical environmental restoration work at Lake Tahoe.

Sixteen local, state and federal agencies were recognized during Tuesday's Lake Tahoe Summit.

A proclamation signed by by Senators Dianne Feinstein, Dean Heller and Harry Reid, Representatives Mark Amodei and Tom McClintock and Governors Jerry Brown and Brian Sandoval honored the release of the Multi-Jurisdiciont Fuel Reduction and Wildfire Prevention Strategy.

The original strategy, finalized in 2007, has successfully guided wildfire risk reduction projects in the Lake Tahoe Basin.

The recent standoff at the last remaining ranch in Clark County, NV has been widely attributed to environmental protection around the endangered desert tortoise; with the right wing trying to pin the blame on Nevada Senator Harry Reid for his support of the recent Ivanpah solar plant which, generates 392 MW which powers Google servers (See Dana Loesch Radio for an example of the kind of coverage it gets http://danaloeschradio.com/the-real-story-of-the-bundy-ranch/ and http://mediamatters.org/blog/2014/04/11/the-nevada-tortoise-war-is-a-right-wing-false-f/198860 for a Media Matters article deb

The Tahoe Regional Planning Agency (TRPA) welcomes attorney Jessica Satre to its legal team as Agency Associate Counsel. Satre joined TRPA in November last year.

Most recently, Satre was a government affairs and legislative analyst for the law firm of Snell & Wilmer, LLP. She has also worked on Capitol Hill in Washington DC for Senator Harry Reid and held legal internships at the Federal Communications Commission and U.S. Department of Education.

The love and support of Lake Tahoe was on full display at the Tahoe Fund annual Founders Circle dinner on Sunday August 18. They raised more than $300,000 for the organization and four Signature Projects around the Lake. Tahoe Fund donors were joined by Senators Dianne Feinstein and Harry Reid and Governors Jerry Brown and Brian Sandoval, as well as special surprise guest Vice President Al Gore, as the public and private communities joined together to celebrate the work of the Tahoe Fund to restore and improve the Lake Tahoe environment.

It has been 17 years since President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore stood on the shores of Lake Tahoe and issued a challenge. They urged the frequently fractious perspectives in the region to come together in support of the restoration of Lake Tahoe.

Nevada Senator Harry Reid today co-sponsored, along with Senator Dean Heller (R-NV), and Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA), the Lake Tahoe Restoration Act that was introduced today by Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA). The Lake Tahoe Restoration Act continues the federal commitment to Lake Tahoe by authorizing $415 million over 10 years to improve Lake Tahoe’s water clarity, reduce risks from catastrophic wildfires, combat invasive species and restore and protect the environment in the Lake Tahoe Basin.

Sen. Harry Reid took aim at two very different targets in his 20-minute address to the Nevada Legislature Wednesday: NV Energy and the state's term-limits law.In his address, he described the te...

Nevada Sen. Harry Reid announced Friday that the Tahoe-Douglas Fire District will receive a $2,701,896 grant from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security as part of the Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response (SAFER) Program.

The SAFER grant funds will be used to increase the number of firefighters, as well as to develop better emergency readiness capabilities.

CARSON CITY – Democratic Rep. Shelley Berkley used a second Senate debate tonight to attack Sen. Dean Heller on issues ranging from Medicare to online poker legislation, while her Republican opponent took a more restrained approach in the hour-long discussion on public television.

Lake Tahoe will be thrust in the spotlight again when scientists, public agencies and elected officials meet Aug. 13 for the 16th annual Lake Tahoe Summit at Edgewood Tahoe Golf Course. To be discussed with great interest is the protection and health of Lake Tahoe's fragile environment and economy.
“The health of the environment and the health of the economy at Tahoe are linked,” Derek Kauneckis, political science professor and researcher at the University of Nevada, Reno said. “And the collaborations that have been established at the Lake have set the stage for future efforts.”

CARSON CITY – Gov. Brian Sandoval said Monday's U.S. Supreme Court ruling in the Arizona immigration law case points out the need for Congress and the president to come together and reform the country’s immigration laws.

CARSON CITY — Washoe County Republican and Democratic Party leaders may disagree on who the best choice is for president, but they agree on one point — Washoe is the “battleground” county in the battleground state that is Nevada.
Clark County is expected to go big for Democrats and President Obama, while Nevada’s rural counties are expected to go strong for Mitt Romney. But Washoe County, where Republicans lead in voter registration by 3,700, has gone for both parties in past elections.