Editorial: Don’t throw in the towel

Thursday, April 6, 2000 | 10 a.m.

Since that time, though, this hope has vanished. The harmony has been replaced by finger-pointing and even degenerated into a lawsuit by Nevada Power questioning the constitutionality of the deregulation legislation (a law, by the way, that the company helped draft). Competition was supposed to begin March 1, but the opening has been delayed for at least several months, if not longer. Casting aside a heavily-regulated monopoly system in favor of an unregulated free market naturally would be difficult, but this ensuing meltdown clearly wasn't anticipated.

What is particularly frustrating for the public, much of which doesn't have the foggiest notion how deregulation will work, is that the experts directly involved can't agree on how to proceed. Contributing to the failure to reach common ground was the unrealistic expectation that everyone would win and that no one would be harmed under deregulation. After all, free enterprise not only will create economic winners, there also will be losers.

Ultimately, the law leaves it up to Gov. Kenny Guinn to determine when deregulation should begin. Even Guinn's intervention, holding private negotiations with those involved, hasn't yielded progress. In fact, Guinn's negotiations veered off course and involved secret discussions to settle a Nevada Power rate hike case, which were clearly out of bounds. These secret talks even prompted the Legislative Commission, a bipartisan group that handles the business of the Legislature between sessions, to call on Guinn to end them, a suggestion he promptly dismissed.

Still, it probably is tempting for Guinn to take the easy way out, which would be to postpone deregulation's implementation and throw the issue back to the 2001 Legislature, where some of these disputes could be resolved. But the reality is that not everyone will get their way -- no matter how long these issues are delayed. The Legislature already has laid out its road map for deregulation -- every group involved needs to keep its nose to the grindstone and reach a resolution.