Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2002 | 11:04 a.m.
It's refreshing -- a utility that actually cuts rates to consumers.
No. It's not Nevada Power. That would drive most Las Vegans into shock. So calm down.
Southwest Gas is the hero of the moment.
The Las Vegas-based company, driven by solid business decisions and a drop in natural gas prices, has decided to reduce rates overall by 4.1 percent this winter.
This is the third time in the past year that the company has lowered rates. A 12.5 percent decrease went into effect on Dec. 1, and another 17.4 percent reduction occurred on Feb. 1.
If the Public Utilities Commission approves the latest request on Friday, the average household will see its monthly gas bill cut from $67.79 last year to $46.82 this year. For those of you good in math, that's a savings of nearly $21 a month.
"It's the onset of winter," says Roger Buehrer, manager of corporate communications at Southwest Gas. "If we're going to have a decrease, it's in the best interest of all of our customers that they recover the benefits when the usage is the highest."
How refreshing is that -- a utility that thinks about us in penny-pinching times?
"Southwest Gas has been behaving like a responsible corporate citizen," Nevada Consumer Advocate Timothy Hay says. "They've been relatively easy for us to work with on implementing rate decreases as opposed to Nevada Power, which has been totally insensitive to these issues."
The only thing Nevada Power has been thinking about, it seems, is itself.
Now that you've heard what Southwest Gas has done for us in the past year, let's look at what Nevada Power has done.
It has sought a $922 million taxpayer bailout to make up for bad power purchases during the energy crisis in 2000 and 2001. When the PUC cut that figure by $437 million, Nevada Power put its high-priced lawyers to work suing the state in an attempt to recoup the money.
At the same time the company has spent large sums of money fighting a friendly $3.2 billion buyout offer by the Southern Nevada Water Authority, which has shown it can save ratepayers 20 percent on their power bills each month.
Nevada Power also has poured cash into a "coalition" of business groups opposing Question 14, which encourages the Legislature to remove a legal roadblock barring a government agency from pursuing a hostile utility takeover.
Expense reports filed with the secretary of state's office on Tuesday show the utility basically has funded the entire campaign, contributing more than $1.62 million since Sept. 30. The rest of the coalition has donated a mere $16,000 and change.
So we now have proof that Citizens Against 14, which includes the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce, is a sham designed to provide political cover for Nevada Power. It really is Nevada Power Against 14.
Nevada Power, it turns out, has paid big bucks, more than $572,000, to a well-known California consulting firm, Winner & Mandabach Campaigns, to spearhead the push against Question 14. One of the soldiers in the campaign is California consumer advocate David Horowitz, who has turned his back on Nevada consumers to film television ads opposing the ballot initiative.
Another California firm, Target Enterprises, has received $560,000 from Nevada Power.
The California outsiders have been trying to tell us what's in our best interest, or should we say what's in Nevada Power's best interest.
If Nevada Power really was concerned about our well-being, it would have committed the money it's spending in these expensive fights to lower our monthly power bills.
It wouldn't be in court seeking a massive taxpayer bailout. It wouldn't be trying to fend off a Water Authority takeover that is expected to save ratepayers money. And it wouldn't be bankrolling the Question 14 opposition.
Nevada Power would be acting like a company that cares about Las Vegas.
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