Official cleared in ethics case

CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP) " On a 3-2 vote, the state Ethics Commission has cleared former Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects administrator Bob Loux of charges that he improperly gave himself and staff unauthorized raises.

Loux said after the vote Thursday that he was relieved, satisfied that justice had been done and felt all along he had done nothing wrong.

Ethics Commission member George Keele said Loux had authorization to set salaries at whatever level he desired as long as the total pool for salaries authorized for his office was not exceeded.

One of the dissenting commissioners, Robert Weise, said he felt Loux had been exonerated on a technicality.

Loux appeared before the Ethics Commission in response to a complaint by Assembly Minority Leader Heidi Gansert, R-Reno, that he broke ethics laws last year when he took the salary of a woman who retired from his agency and converted it into 16 percent salary increases for himself and five members of his staff.

He also was accused of giving himself salaries during three consecutive years, including two when Kenny Guinn was governor, that exceeded authorized limits. Gov. Jim Gibbons demanded Loux resign following his acknowledgement of the salary switch.

According to the Gibbons administration, Loux made a $151,442 salary last year when he was entitled to $114,088. Governors of Nevada earn $141,000 a year.

Loux was recently replaced by Bruce Breslow as head of the nuclear projects office. Loux spent 23 years running the office and working to block federal plans for building a nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

The Ethics Commission voted 3-2 previously to not accept a proposal by Loux to pay back more than $29,000 in salary in exchange for dropping the ethics complaint.