Gov. Steve Sisolak orders terror, emergency plans secret

CARSON CITY — Gov. Steve Sisolak quietly declared this week that documents detailing terrorism response plans and the vulnerability of public buildings are confidential.

The order, signed Tuesday without any public announcement, casts a wide net over the types of documents that will now be confidential in Nevada, meaning they are not subject to subpoena, court discovery or public records requests.

Those include: handbooks, manuals and other information detailing procedures for first responders in the event of a terrorist attack or other type of emergency; evaluations that detail the susceptibility of police, fire and other law enforcement buildings to terrorist attacks or other emergencies; maps and plans of key infrastructure facilities, such as those that handle and transport water, electricity, natural gas as well as communication equipment used by public safety agencies; and vulnerability assessments and emergency response plans of utilities, public agencies and private businesses in the state.

Sisolak’s office said the reasoning for the order was due to concerns about those documents being disclosed to the public.

‘Proactive decision’

“Based on input from security experts in the emergency response community, along with consideration of national security best practices, Governor Sisolak invoked the authority granted to him by the Legislature to deem those documents confidential. This was a proactive decision by the governor and not based on any specific or immediate threat,” Sisolak’s spokesman Ryan McInerney said in an emailed statement.

Richard Karpel, executive director of the Nevada Press Association, said that there are two key dangers he sees with the governor’s order.

“The first is the chance that hiding information from the public will be more harmful than reducing the possibility that someone uses that information for nefarious purposes,” Karpel said. “But the far greater danger is the near certainty that government agencies will misinterpret this executive order and apply it broadly to records that have nothing to do with security or terrorism prevention.”

“Nevada governments already intentionally distort Supreme Court precedent to deny public access to records and assert various privileges that don’t exist to stifle public scrutiny,” he added. “Gov. Sisolak has proven time and again that he’s a strong supporter of transparency and open government, so our association would hate for this order to lead to all-new barriers to routine requests for essential public information.”

A 2017 investigation by the Review-Journal found that the state’s emergency management division had little resources to review and monitor the security plans, including those at Mandalay Bay, where a gunman fired into an outdoor music festival. Emergency response plans also cover fires, acts of terrorism, cyberattacks, communicable disease outbreaks and natural disasters.

In 2019, Sisolak signed a bill that strengthens the law requiring casinos to file emergency response plans with the state in the wake of the Route 91 Harvest festival shooting that killed 58 people when a gunman fired into the crowd from his hotel suite at the Mandalay Bay. That law requires casinos to submit updated emergency plans to the state each year, and also increases state oversight of plans filed by local governments, school districts and utilities.

Last week, NV Energy, the state’s largest electricity provider, said that it is working on a plan to mitigate and respond to events like massive wildfires and severe storms and sought public input on the proposal.

The order goes into effect immediately.

Contact Capital Bureau Chief Colton Lochhead at clochhead@reviewjournal.com. Follow @ColtonLochhead on Twitter.