Please explain this Washington water lobbyist

Posted on | June 20, 2009 | No Comments

A SMART bit of reporting by Joe Schoenmann in the June 20 edition of the Las Vegas Sun follows up Clark County Commissioner Steve Sisolak asking questions about payments to consultants, lobbyists and public relations experts. First in line in the Sun story is Marcus G. Faust, an oddly Sidney Greenstreet-like figure among Washington lobbyists, whose influence is pervasive in Western water.

From the story:

  • [Sisolak’s] questions were simple: Who’s getting the contracts and what are they doing for the money? …  Washington, D.C., lobbyist Marcus Faust, for example, has had a Southern Nevada Water Authority contract for 17 years. The authority pays $150,000 a year to Faust, who also has contracts with the Water Reclamation District, Department of Aviation, Las Vegas Valley Water District and Regional Transportation Commission. Sisolak said the interests of some of Faust’s other clients — Coyote Springs Investment, a massive development north of Las Vegas, water districts in Utah, and the Reno-Tahoe Airport Authority — might be at odds with those of the county or other local agencies. “You mean to tell me we can’t find other people here, or in Washington, who might be able to do the same job?” Sisolak said. Faust could not be reached for comment.

 Via Great Basin Water Network

Editor’s note: A business story in the Las Vegas Review-Journal from earlier in the week (June 17) touched on Commission approval for an “one-year extension of a lobbying and governmental affairs contract with Marcus G. Faust valued at $200,000 annually.”

For how Mr. Faust figures in the current efforts by the Southern Nevada Water Authority to drive a pipeline into the Great Basin, see part 3 of the 5-part Sun series “Quenching Las Vegas’s Thirst”

 

 

 

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