Two weeks into the new school year and Joe Lombardo is already failing. He vetoed guaranteed school meals for all Nevada students, which raised costs for hardworking families, and now school districts are either having to foot the bill to make sure all students are fed or risk some slipping through the cracks. Not to mention him being nearly two years late on his climate homework and still not understanding the assignment.
Washoe County School District, one of the nation’s largest school districts, is using its savings – which are meant for salaries and cafeteria improvements – to guarantee school meals for the first four weeks of school and fill the void Lombardo left. For the 2024-25 school year, a family of four making $40,056 or less would be eligible for free meals. But for families on the fringes, earning even $1 over the limit disqualifies hardworking Nevadans regardless of other circumstances.
Then, not only did it take nearly two years for Lombardo to release a nothing-novel to replace the state climate plan, he lazily copied and pasted entire sections from other state agency websites, and leaned on the work that Democrats have already done under former Governor Sisolak’s leadership and at the federal level, without offering any real, measurable steps or commitments to protect Nevada moving forward, even as Nevadans suffer under the impacts of climate change.
When it comes to supporting working families, lowering costs, and taking real action on the climate crisis, Lombardo gets an F.
Read more Lombardo lowlights below:
Daniele Monroe-Moreno and Rochelle Nguyen
- [Kamala Harris’s] climate and clean energy record speaks for itself: When asked to compare Harris’ and Trump’s energy and climate policies, voters say they prefer Harris’ approach by a +12-point margin.
- As two women of color who are also climate and clean energy champions in Nevada, we’re excited about Vice President Kamala Harris’ leadership on this issue and determined to help spread the word about what’s at stake for our state this election.
- Like us, Kamala Harris understands that communities of color and low-income communities are all-too-often on the front lines of the climate crisis, from extreme weather to pollution.
- As if all that wasn’t enough, Harris played a key role in the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act. This legislation, part of the Biden-Harris administration’s clean energy plan, has created 20,448 jobs and $14.5 billion in investment in Nevada in the past two years alone. The plan is projected to bring over $2.7 billion of new investment in large-scale clean power generation and energy storage to Nevada by 2030, supporting the more than 32,000 clean energy workers already in the state.
- One example of the innovation that the clean energy plan is bringing to Nevada is the battery materials manufacturing campus being built by Redwood Materials in McCarran. Thanks to a $2 billion loan from the Department of Energy, the Redwood Materials facility will create 3,400 good-paying construction jobs comprised of union, minority-owned, or woman-owned businesses. The facility will employ 1,600 full-time employees.
- Reno and Las Vegas are two of the fastest-warming cities in the country. By 2050, the number of heat wave days in our state is projected to increase from 15 to nearly 55 days each year. People living in urban heat islands, outdoor workers, and the unhoused are especially at risk when temperatures soar to dangerous heights. The extreme heat in Nevada brings a flip side of untapped solar potential.
ThisIsReno: School district urges families to apply for free meals as state-funded program ends
Michelle Baker
Key Points:
- Beginning on Monday, Sept. 9, the Washoe County School District’s Universal Free Meal program will end in 35 schools across the county. WCSD officials are urging families who might be impacted by this move to apply for free or reduced lunch programs by Sept. 6.
- “There’s some big changes coming this school year,” WCSD Chief Operating Officer Adam Searcy said. “About one-third of our schools are moving away from universal free lunches that they’ve been receiving for the last four years.”
- The Covid-era program offered free meals across the state and the nation and was extended by the Nevada Legislature and the Nevada Department of Agriculture over the last few years. In 2023, AB 319 was vetoed by Gov. Joe Lombardo and funding for the program in Nevada was not extended to the 2024-2025 school year.
- Searcy said WCSD Trustees approved funding the free meals program for the first four weeks of the school year to provide transition time for students and families.
- For students in the 35 schools no longer offering the program, Dan Pimm, director of nutritional services for WCSD recommends that families check their eligibility.
“In those 35 schools, families need to fill out a household income verification application to see if they qualify for free meals,” Pimm said.
The Nevada Independent: Indy Environment: Is Lombardo’s revised climate plan a ‘missed opportunity?
Amy Alonzo:
Key points:
- Elected Democrats and environmental justice groups on social media called the plan everything from “AI-generated” to “utterly inaccurate,” while proponents of the plan touted it as “INCREDIBLE.”
- Climate change and its effects are issues that transcend party lines, and I wanted to see what scientists and climate experts had to say about the plan. But state officials were hard to pin down for comment, while policy and research organizations, climate centers and those affiliated with the state’s old plan were also silent or declined to speak on the record.
- The sheer volume of people uninterested in discussing it perhaps speaks louder than the plan itself.
- When Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo took the state’s climate plan offline in early 2023, there was no longer a publicly available plan for Nevada, an emerging leader in the critical mineral and renewable energy industries, and no clues as to when a new document would be available.
- Drafted by Democratic former Gov. Steve Sisolak’s administration, the state’s 2020 plan served as a blueprint outlining, among other things, steps for the state to curb its carbon emissions.
- A year later, it was still offline with no replacement. Lombardo deflected questions from The Nevada Independent Editor Jon Ralston at an event earlier this year about the plan before acknowledging it still wasn’t complete.
- Finally, earlier this month, the governor’s office published the new plan, issuing a press release several days later.
- But it functionally ignores carbon emissions, even though the state is not on pace to meet its reduction goals. It neglects to include policies to deal with extreme heat, although the number of people who died from it rose nearly fourfold between 2015 and 2021 in Southern Nevada.
- Other than the governor’s office, only a handful of Democrats and environmentalists unaffiliated with the plan were willing to speak about it.
Las Vegas Weekly: Extreme heat not the only climate change impact Nevada is feeling
Shannon Miller
Key points:
- Las Vegas saw its all-time hottest temperature on record of 120 degrees Fahrenheit on July 7. That week, the city also set a record streak with seven days at or above 115 degrees—and we’re still seeing highs above 110 in August.
- According to 2022 data from nonprofit research group Climate Central, Las Vegas has warmed nearly six degrees Fahrenheit since 1970, making it the second-fastest warming city in the U.S. The fastest is our northern neighbor, Reno, which has warmed 7.7 degrees since 1970.
- And according to the New York Times, Vegas’ nighttime temperatures have been getting hotter “much faster” than its days, due to an urban heat island effect that’s trapping daytime heat in impermeable surfaces—roads, dark rooftops, asphalt parking lots—and releasing that heat at night.
- Nevadans are feeling climate change in many other aspects of their lives.
- Last year, Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo withdrew Nevada from the U.S. Climate Alliance, which set benchmarks for the state to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in accordance with 24 other states in the alliance.
- The Weekly asked the governor’s office for comment on Nevada being behind its greenhouse gas emissions goals prescribed in statute. They did not respond.
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