Wednesday, March 24, 2004 | 11:09 a.m.
It has become a recurring nightmare for Nevada Power customers.
The utility is racking up millions of dollars in legal bills looking to blame everyone but itself for its bad financial decisions, and we continue to be asked to foot the bill.
Unless its members have a life-altering experience, the Public Utilities Commission is expected today to approve as much as $211 million in Nevada Power rate increases that will hit each and every one of us hard in our pocketbooks.
It's likely to be the latest in a series of PUC decisions that have gone against the public, and it's prompting Nevada Consumer Advocate Tim Hay, the public's chief utility watchdog, to lose confidence in the PUC's ability to give Nevada Power customers a fair shake.
"Average citizens, I think, are justifiably skeptical about whether the regulatory structure is working as it should to protect their interests," Hay said Tuesday.
In other words, we're in deep trouble.
The hikes, as recommended by PUC members, would raise the average residential power bill of $104.28 a month to $115.87 on April 1.
Though the increase averages out to $11.59 a month, Hay said the additional charges on our power bills could be three times higher during the upcoming summer months when we use most of our energy.
I don't know about you, but with all of the other bills I have, I'm not looking forward to paying an additional $35 a month for any length of time to keep the lights on. This could be a major financial setback for many people, especially those on fixed incomes. Don't forget the average motorist also is paying $25-$35 a month extra to cover rising gasoline prices.
What Nevada Power is doing is not only unfair, but it is unforgivable.
It continues to ask us to pay for the mistakes it made during the 2000 energy crisis when it did a lousy job of price-speculating. It bought power at outrageously high prices with the hopes of selling it at even higher prices. But the market fell during the crisis, and the company was forced to sell the power at dramatically lower prices, losing hundreds of millions of dollars.
So this is a company with a lot of gall and very little compassion. It's willing to spend customer money -- whatever it takes -- to keep up the illusion that it's a responsible community partner.
Two years ago, after the PUC, in one of its fairer decisions, disallowed $437 million of a $922 million Nevada Power rate hike request, the utility filed a challenge in District Court. It lost the challenge after a judge found that the PUC was justified in scaling back the rate hike because of the company's "imprudent" power purchases during the energy crisis.
Unhappy with that decision, Nevada Power put its hired legal guns to work appealing the decision to the Nevada Supreme Court, which is still considering the case.
And we're still paying for the court's time.
Lately, Nevada Power has been spending a ton of cash on legal fees in its federal lawsuit that faults others, such as the Water Authority, the Colorado River Commission and Enron Corp., for its financial missteps during the energy crisis.
Everyone but Nevada Power, it seems, is to blame.
We're likely to be paying for this frivolous blame game for months -- maybe years -- to come.
If only we had a Public Utilities Commission that represented the public.
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