LAS VEGAS -- Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) today opened his annual clean energy summit by assailing skeptics of climate science and singling out his state's main utility with a call to shut down a controversial coal plant.

In his opening remarks at the daylong National Clean Energy Summit 5.0, Reid spoke of the economic and environmental benefits of reducing reliance on foreign oil before taking aim at the lack of broader action to address climate change. Reid noted that President George H.W. Bush, a Republican, spoke of the need to address greenhouse gas emissions a quarter-century ago but that many today continue to question whether human-caused climate change is a real phenomenon.

"These people aren't just on the other side of this debate. They're on the other side of reality," Reid said of climate change skeptics after running through a litany of recent weather anomalies, including severe droughts, heat waves and wildfires. At one point in his speech, Reid displayed a picture of Washington, D.C.'s famous cherry blossom trees in full bloom in February, their earliest bloom ever.

The gathering, now in its fifth year, is sponsored by Reid, the liberal Center for American Progress and others.

During the summit -- which also featured panels, speeches and presentations from industry and government officials aimed at promoting the continued growth of wind, solar, alternative fuels and other innovative technologies -- Reid leveled harsh criticism at a controversial coal plant in his home state, the 557-megawatt Reid Gardner facility. The plant, which powers about 335,000 homes in Las Vegas, sits next to the reservation of the Moapa band of the Paiute Tribe.

Reid assailed the plant's 2.8 million tons per year of carbon dioxide emissions along with high levels of other toxic emissions, such as arsenic and mercury, and particulate matter emissions.

"The soot -- and the dangerous chemicals inside it -- is literally killing the Paiutes," Reid said. "It's no secret coal plants kill. Each year, more than 24,000 deaths are attributed to emissions from coal-fired power plants in the United States alone.

"That's why it is time to close the dirty relic, Reid Gardner," he added. "Each of you, just imagine living two football fields from thousands of tons of poisons, ever present, always spewing their toxins on your home."

NV Energy Inc., which owns the plant, has proposed pollution controls as part of Nevada's plan to implement regional haze requirements, but members of the local tribe and environmentalists have called those proposed retrofits inadequate (Greenwire, May 4).

Reid said retrofitting the plant should not be an option and that NV Energy should instead expand renewable energy generation like solar power, which has seen costs come down as deployments rise. The utility, he said, "should turn out the lights ... forever" on the coal plant.

"The more dirty coal we use, the higher the price of coal gets. The more solar power we use, the cheaper it gets," Reid said. "Shutting down this one coal-fired power plant won't save the planet all at once -- but it would save an Indian homeland."