Columnist Jon Ralston: Good politics to bash power company

Wednesday, Nov. 28, 2001 | 8:42 a.m.

Jon Ralston hosts the public affairs program "Face to Face" on Las Vegas ONE and also publishes the Ralston Report. His column for the Sun appears on Sundays and Wednesdays. Ralston can be reached at 870-7997 or through e-mail at ralston@vegas.com

IN 1982 Richard Bryan was running for governor when political consultant Don Williams asked him to look at an ad he had crafted.

Williams knew Bryan had been a critic of serial rate increases sought by Nevada Power, which had coincidentally just opened a gleaming new office building on what was then the far western edge of Las Vegas. Bryan looked at the spot, and even one of the state's most prescient political minds did not know what he had seen. The ad lambasted the rate increases and ended with this kicker: "If it makes you mad, honk your horn."

The campaign became a sensation, with ads morphing into news stories featuring people blaring their horns, shaking their fists and extending their middle fingers as they drove by the new edifice. It remains one of the more memorable commercials ever conceived in a Nevada political campaign.

Two decades later that honking will seem like a muted chorus compared to the cacophony of political noise about to be visited on the power company by every politician imaginable and probably some we can't imagine today. And as the power company prepares this week to unveil the first part of a billion-dollar rate increase request, the real questions are these:

Which party and which candidates can take full advantage of the power company's politically prostrate position? What damaging precedents might be set by politicians interfering in the regulatory process? And what will the impact be on the financial health of the state's only power company, Sierra Pacific, which now owns Nevada Power?

The rumblings have been heard for some time -- at least since the Legislature sine died and agreed to let the power company recover costs of purchasing and providing energy. Democratic leaders have been needling the Republicans on now-moribund deregulation legislation -- although most Democrats supported deregulation, key leaders such as Senate Minority Leader Dina Titus and Assembly Majority Leader Barbara Buckley did not. A couple of weeks ago Titus, Buckley and Speaker Richard Perkins urged the Public Utilities Commission not to approve what they called an "excessive power rate increase." They, as others have done, accused the company of "poor management or purchasing decisions" that consumers should not have to bear, while company officials have insisted that federal price caps have forced them to boost their rate requests.

It was pure politics, but smart politics. But it also raised the specter of elected officials trying to taint the regulatory process, where independent appointees are supposed to make decisions based on facts, not spin.

Then, Clark County Commissioner Dario Herrera, who coincidentally is running for Congress, put an item on the agenda for next week's meeting that would allow the local government to intervene in the rate case. That is, have a forum to pound the power company. Again, pure politics, but good politics.

Finally, this week on "News One Live at Nine," Gov. Kenny Guinn made his strongest statement to date about the pending rate case, one that sounded like a nuclear bomb after the others had fired off pop guns. Here's what he said:

"I assure you that they're not going to get the money they're coming in to ask for. It just doesn't work that way. And we're going to go over their books with a fine tooth comb. If I have to I'm going to be personally involved because we just cannot afford those kinds of rate increases."

So how far does the governor plan to go, and can he explain to the public why he is doing so? Will he actually instruct his regulators not to approve the rate increase? And, if so, what about the power company's fiscal well-being, which he has fretted about?

It's one thing for Guinn to criticize the power company or even question a PUC decision after the fact, especially in these dire economic times.

But to try to influence regulators -- either utility or gaming or any other kind -- is a precedent that he better provide a very sound reason for setting.

Maybe he can, beyond seizing the only issue that could create an opening for that phantom Democratic gubernatorial candidate. But it better be good -- i.e., the faltering economy, the effect on displaced workers, that this is no usual time in this state's history.

The danger of seeking any short-term political gain is the long-term carnage wreaked on a system or an institution. The independence of regulators and the solvency of the power company are no small concerns, especially because if a federal bankruptcy judge were to take over Sierra Pacific, the PUC would have no say.

But the public won't care a whit about that issue, and, alas, neither will pols of either stripe as they follow the mantra of the coming campaign season, which I wrote two months ago would be very simple, which Richard Bryan knew 20 years ago and a variation of what Bill Clinton knew about the economy 10 years ago:

It's the energy, stupid.