CARSON CITY — With less than half an hour until the end of the legislative session, lawmakers voted to send a budget funding capital improvement projects to Gov. Joe Lombardo’s desk — the last budget bill the Legislature is constitutionally required to pass.

Senate Bill 502 would pay for about $1.56 billion worth of projects, $1.1 billion financed through bonds.

It faced hurdles Monday after the Senate did not concur on an amendment that would have provided up to $50 million of general obligation bonds for attainable housing projects. The Assembly had first approved the amendment Sunday in a 38-4 vote, but it receded the amendment around 11:40 p.m., or else it would have faced going into a special session.

Before the housing amendment was removed, Assemblymembers Sandra Jauregui and Daniele Monroe-Moreno urged their colleagues to support the amended bill late Sunday night. It would have created the Nevada Attainable Housing Infrastructure Account for housing development projects. Up to $50 million of general obligation bonds would have been deposited in the account in the 2025-2027 biennium to be used for loans.

“With this amendment, we are keeping our promise to focus on affordable, attainable housing this legislative session,” Jauregui, D-Las Vegas, said Sunday night. “With the amendment, we are making sure that we are going to fund those projects that will help the affordability of housing in our state, and I want to thank the housing division and the executive branch for the hours that we have worked together to make this possible.”

Republican Assemblymembers Heidi Kasama, Danielle Gallant, Ken Gray and Jill Dickman voted in opposition Sunday.

In a statement, Kasama said she was concerned with structural deficits that were not resolved when the vote took place.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

Contact Jessica Hill at jehill@reviewjournal.com. Follow @jess_hillyeah on X.

Today, June 2, 2025, the 83rd Nevada Legislative Session ends. Several key processes take place. Bills passed by both the Nevada Assembly and Senate during the session are sent to the Governor for approval. The Governor has five days to sign or veto bills if presented before the session ends, or ten days if presented after adjournment, excluding Sundays. Bills not acted upon within these timeframes become law without the Governor’s signature. The Legislative Counsel Bureau begins compiling and publishing the session’s statutes, updating the Nevada Revised Statutes to reflect new laws, which typically take effect on October 1, 2025, unless otherwise specified. This means we need to tell the Governor he needs to veto at least the following bills before they become law!

The NVGOP sent out this list:

They include this link here to send Governor Lombardo a prepopulated email; it only takes about 30 seconds to do. Send the Governor an email and tell him he needs to veto these before they become law!

https://nevadagop.org/advocacy/?vvsrc=%2fCampaigns%2f127420%2fRespond

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Speak Up, Nevada! What’s on Your Mind? Send us your opinion!

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As a physicist born, raised and fully trained in the United States, I am concerned that the Trump administration has been severely defunding scientific research and universities that train the next generation of scientists and engineers. This effort comes at a time when America is $36 trillion in debt and needs to reindustrialize to produce more than it consumes.

We have myriad problems that only science can address — the adverse impact of climate change, food production, the quest for alternative energy sources, the decontamination of our poisoned ecosphere from PFAS chemicals, rampant cancers, safeguarding humanity from AI and natural resource management, for instance. China produces more STEM graduates per year than all U.S. graduates combined annually.

America is a superpower because of investments in science made in the 20th century — particularly after World War II. Some achievements from this funding include the transistor, integrated circuit and microprocessor, the bedrock of modern electronics that produced solar cells, cellphones, satellites, televisions and computers. The laser was invented here and is ubiquitous as a source of concentrated coherent energy. The blueprint of life (DNA) was discovered here and paved the way for gene machines/sequencers that were also developed here. Modern medicines (e.g., synthetic insulin) were made or discovered to help humans suffering from myriad ailments (e.g., diabetes), saving untold millions of lives.

Because of decades of government-funded research, our economy grew tremendously. Our health care has improved with myriad technologies such as MRI and PET scans and proton and radiation therapy, among many others. These miracles of modern medicine have unquestionably helped to steadily increase life expectancy in America.

Beyond this, our military has benefited greatly from STEM, as technological superiority has been the traditional means to win wars. America would never be able to project its power around the world without nuclear submarines, satellites, jet fighters, rockets/missiles, advanced tanks, etc. — all the result of decades of scientific research. Despite their obvious dangers, nuclear weapons have produced the longest period of relative peace in human history and their derivative (nuclear energy) produces a significant amount of our electricity.

Scientific research conducted in the public interest has made life more productive, healthy, comfortable and safe for all of us. Few Americans alive today have not benefited from the investments in science made decades ago to improve America’s standard of living.

Yet today, our leaders do not appear to understand just how vital support is for scientific research and the institutions that perform scientific research, which are largely universities. Universities also train future scientists and engineers. But because of funding cuts, the future of American science and properly trained American STEM professionals is threatened.

Persecuting and defunding universities and banishing foreign students (most of whom study STEM) will hinder our advancement. Where will America’s future scientists and engineers come from? Without scientists and engineers, America will have no future. Who will maintain and further develop nuclear energy? Who will continue the exploration of space and launching of satellites? Who will develop, design and build factories to reindustrialize America?

American technology is like a high-performance sports car. If you can’t train future engineers and technicians to understand, repair, improve and maintain it, the vehicle will soon become undrivable. You will be forced to reinvent the wheel. Knowledge is like a flame that is sustained by education.

Beyond this, China may soon overtake America economically. How will America compete with China when it is unable to innovate novel technologies because of defunding universities (which are repositories of knowledge and technical know-how)? How will we train sufficient engineers to translate scientific discoveries into economic and industrial reality?

Supporting science and higher education should be an apolitical issue. Defunding these pillars of America’s success will cause great harm by dousing the fire of innovation that has sustained, enriched and given hope to Americans for decades.

There is no better investment to make for America than to support science and higher education. This is what truly made America great.

Michael Pravica is a professor of physics at UNLV. He writes from Henderson.