Senator wants change in energy assistance

Monday, Feb. 3, 2003 | 9:42 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- More than 15,000 low-income families in Nevada received help in paying air-conditioning or heating bills last fiscal year.

But Sen. Dean Rhoads, R-Tuscarora, wants to scrap a part of the program that is supplying millions of dollars to make those energy grants.

"The people we're trying to help are the people who are paying the bills," said Rhoads, who has proposed to repeal the 2001 low-income energy assistance law.

But Assemblyman David Goldwater, D-Las Vegas, who sponsored the bill two years ago, said: "It has worked very well and it has helped a lot of people."

He said any attempt by Rhoads to repeal the law will have to come before the Assembly Commerce and Labor Committee, of which Goldwater is chairman.

Revenue from a tax imposed on natural gas and electricity is added to a federal grant helping pay the power bills.

"It's pennies on the bill," Goldwater said. But Rhoads said there could be a better way than imposing a fee. He suggested a grant program by the state or donations from private sources to help pay the bill.

Goldwater challenged Rhoads' statement that low-income people are taking the hit. He said big companies, such as those in gaming and mining, pay $100,000 into the fund.

"I don't see how this hurts the poor people," he said.

Goldwater said many workers who were laid off in Southern Nevada after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, benefited from this subsidy.

Last fiscal year the state program collected $6.8 million. Combined with federal money, it paid an average benefit of $296 to 15,655 people, said Linda Mercer of the state Welfare Division.

In the first six months of this fiscal year, the division has received about 13,000 applications and the benefit has been raised to an average of $500. Between the federal and state funds and another housing allocation, Mercer said, the division should have enough money to take care of 25,000 applicants.

Of the money collected in the state program, 75 percent goes to energy assistance and 25 percent goes to the state Housing Division to weatherize homes.

Craig Davis of the Housing Division said his division expects to receive $4.9 million, of which $845,000 comes from the federal government, this fiscal year. He said he expects to weatherize 1,640 houses of low-income families.