Facebook
Fark
Digg
Reddit
Stumble
Wednesday, June 22, 2011 | 2 a.m.
Brian Sandoval
Sun coverage
Sun archives
CARSON CITY — Gov. Brian Sandoval entered office with an impressive resume and sterling reputation, a moderate-to-conservative governor for a moderate-to-conservative state.
If there was a criticism, it was that he, like many Nevada politicians who climb the ranks, was too close to the traditional interests that pull the levers of power in the state.
Some are rethinking those assumptions, however, after Sandoval vetoed a bill rammed through the Legislature at the last minute.
The legislation was Assembly Bill 416, which was pushed by NV Energy, the state’s powerful electric monopoly that once employed Sandoval, and its hired lobbyists, Pete Ernaut and Greg Ferraro, the friends Sandoval credits with first suggesting he leave the federal bench to run for governor.
They both later served as volunteer campaign managers.
The veto “demonstrated he’s not owned by anybody. He’s his own man,” said Susan Fisher, a Nevada lobbyist who represented Valley Electric Association, a rural utility co-op, which opposed the bill. “It put to rest a lot of questions and rumors swirling around even before (Sandoval’s) election. These buddies, are they going to tell him how to vote? Clearly, no.”
Timothy Hay, a former state consumer advocate forced out when Sandoval was attorney general, said, “I think it showed the governor has enough independence to look beyond the short-term politics of legislation, to the long-term impacts of energy policy. It’s a refreshingly good sign to me.”
The transmission bill was NV Energy’s top legislative priority. It would have allowed the utility to build transmission lines to export power using Nevada ratepayer money to fund it, a policy that critics said risked as much as $1 billion in consumer financing.
Not only the legislation was questioned. It was the way it passed.
NV Energy lobbyists, including Ferraro and Ernaut, pushed to get the language passed in the final hour of the session, after traditional avenues to pass legislation failed. The Sun detailed the last-minute maneuvering and the fact that some lawmakers didn’t know what they had voted for.
“Media coverage played a huge role,” Fisher said, specifically pointing to the telling of the final hour.
“There are concerns about the process, the appearance of how it passed,” said former Gov. Bob List, who lobbied against the bill on behalf of a company interested in developing transmission lines. “There were political consequences for the governor if he signed it. It was a very unpopular bill.”
The bill, after it was amended, would have:
• Authorized NV Energy to fund, using Nevada ratepayer money, transmission lines to export renewable energy to other states.
• Kept agreements between large solar projects and the utility confidential.
• Allowed geothermal projects to qualify for tax breaks without county approval.
• Created incentives for renewable energy projects.
All provisions had opponents and supporters. But except for the performance-based incentives, none had gone through the normal legislative vetting process.
Critics, including the state Consumer Protection Bureau, said the transmission lines could cost $1 billion, which would have been funded by Nevadans’ electricity rates.
NV Energy called that cost estimate a “red herring.”
The bill was necessary to move Nevada forward as an energy exporter, according to the utility. It’s the only way for Nevadans to benefit from the export of energy to other states, such as California and Arizona.
The governor’s approval seemed, if not certain, at least likely.
It was, after all, the No. 1 priority of NV Energy, which spread around $300,000 to Democratic and Republican leadership during the 2010 cycle, according to followthemoney.org.
The utility hires the best lobbyists in Nevada, including the firm R&R Partners.
Sandoval’s chief of staff, Heidi Gansert, was on the Senate floor in the final hour providing information to Republicans who had concerns about the bill.
On top of that, Sandoval had worked on behalf of NV Energy shareholders in private practice in the 1990s. While running for office, he took a job with the private law firm Jones Vargas that does regulatory work for the utility.
And he did not seem sensitive to the concerns his associations had raised.
When a vacancy opened on the state Public Utilities Commission, his choice, Luis Valera, was a lobbyist unknown in energy circles but known to be a friend of NV Energy executives.
In a message accompanying his veto, Sandoval expressed concern about the policy and the potential effect of an electricity rate increase.
Sandoval and his senior staff declined to comment for this story, or provide any more background on his thought process for the veto.
NV Energy issued a statement, expressing respect for the governor.
Ernaut said: “The governor has always been his own man, but that isn’t the point here. He vetoed this bill because he disagreed with the policy.”
“There is an upside and downside with being close to the governor. The upside is our friendship, the downside is when he vetoes a bill I worked hard on, you write a story about it.”
Let the shareholders of NV Energy float bonds to pay for transmission lines. If California wants energy the costs will be borne by those utilities and not the citizens of Nevada. No question the governor made the right decision.
BS
The NVEnergy transmission line was designed to bring Northern Geothermal and Wind Energy south to Clark County and at that point, enter the existing energy grid. This is the plan they presented at past Renewable Energy symposiums at UNLV.
The solar energy that Southern Nevada has been ignored. NVEnergy wants to sell Clark County Northern Nevada Renewable energy and have Clark County pay the bill to bring it here.
Paying for an 800 mile transmission line, when solar cells could be built in the Southern deserts is totally RIDICULOUS and WASTEFUL. We have abundant solar energy within 30 miles !!! We don't need an 800 mile transmission line from the North. This transmission line is designed by lawyers to create big houses, not competitively priced energy.
I'm with NVFisherman! Why would Nevada citizens fund lines to EXPORT energy!?? Don't we need a break in our electric bills after 30 some plus years of rate-rising each and every year? How about some of that glorious energy from our Sun bumped back to those of us with $400 a month summer electric bills?? So, now, what I want to know is...what's the catch? When is the other shoe going to drop? I will believe it when I see it. How about NV Energy give us back some of the $185 million they overcharged us? But, noooooooo, they just raised our rates not only the 5% but an additional 24% on top to compensate for the overcharging. I thought I paid for the energy I used, not what NVE thought I was going to use. So, in essence, my monthly bills are more than I should be paying for the energy I used, right? If I'm wrong on that, someone please set me right....because I'm confused~!!!
Becker is spot on. The insolation piling into Southern Nevada is a wealth which is being used against us by the energy monopoly. Their oft discussed option of importing the geothermal and wind sourced energy from the North makes them WAAY more $$, especially if they get us peons to pay for it. It's not unlike forcing slaves to build the ships that take them into slavery across the waters, only it's time not water.
Meanwhile the sun piles onto the Clark County roofs like nowhere on Earth, heaping up the profits of NVE. When will the logical path of integrating some of this solar energy come to pass??
answer... when our community says enough is enough and we don't want to keep getting screwed by monopolistic opportunistic investors with absolutely zero respect for us or our future, but whose only concern is their fleecy pockets.
If Clark County were a PUD, rates would be half, solar would be thriving, our CEO wouldn't be making millions but would be one of us along with reasonable benefits - not the jillions in bonuses for thoroughly hosing us every chance they can find.
We'd have jobs to spearhead a solar movement to electrify the planet with clean and simple installations. Kids would become cognizant of how their futures are in their own hands, schools would thrive, and we could stop the outflow of our hard-earned dollars as the sun becomes our source of enlightenment, not the scorching ball of enslavement.
They over charge us $185 million and keep it?
Why don't we have solar energy in Nevada? Why aren't we producing solar power?
hey mike schneider...
see what you did...
as a proud liberal democrat...
i just have one thing to say to you...
resign...
today...
before 5:00pm...
this was wrong all along...
dead wrong...
it made a mockery of the political process...
resign...
today...
before 5:00pm...
Hey Mikey, how is that wine tasting now?
How can we be an energy exporter when we cancelled 3 coal plants two years ago? Oh, wind power. Sure.
And did you know that Solar Trust of America (formerly Solar Millennium) is converting their Amargosa Farm Road project to a cheaper solar panel design (photovoltaic)because they can not afford the cost of the project? This one will probably not see a federal loan.
Finally, these green energy Nazis are getting kicked in their green gonads!
Hiding behind "renewable" energy was a great excuse for the power companies and a few sell out environmental groups to spike the power bills and place ugly transmission lines all over Nevada. The green energy bubble was never green. Big enviros and democrats have used this environmentally destructive plan to attack environmental laws, screw small property owners and pay off big developers. Democrats are very bad at trying to be Republicans. Let this be a lesson to the so called environmentalists who think that 10,000 acre solar farms are somehow "environmental". The amount of C02 one of these big solar farms spews out for construction alone is baking their beloved polar bears. Lot's of developed roof space in Vegas. Let's watch the big solar industry die!
IF the government is going to do any "GREEN STIMULUS," please, let is start with giving folks an option to have government sponsored solar panels, wind generators, geothermal units on their properties! Especially here in Nevada, the West, SouthWest USA!
With that, compell schools to incorporate career paths towards supporting those industries. Also, give our returning troops first shot at the jobs, school scholarships.
This would be a WIN-WIN plan given long term development. And our state and planet would be greener and more secure for it.
I have been out there..I know for a fact that private companies want to build this same transmission line. It has been on the table for years and all we have to do is approve it, get out of the way and it will be built...NOT with a risk of NVenergy over runs. Run the line from Idaho right down to the back side of the Dam. Problems is, alternative energies are still not viable with the costs. So, we could open the coal powered plant that is completed northeast of town, or how about a Natural Gas plant or two...
thank god for sandoval
I'm not so quick to give the Governor that much credit. He did the right thing by vetoing a bill that highlights everything that is wrong with Nevada politics and our part-time "citizen" legislature. However, given the vagueness of the bill's language, the media coverage of both the bill's language along with the way it was passed in the session's closing hours (Sen. Schneider telling the NV Energy lobbyist that he's now owed a bottle of wine FROM THE SENATE FLOOR is particularly horrific), the outcry from Consumer Groups, the PUC, the Attorney General along with grassroots organizations led the Governor to the only possible solution - veto.
Good job Sandovol. keep up the good work of smaller more efficent government.
I wish the legislators would write a bill to get rid of this monopoly. Increased competition would bring down rates.
Looks like Sandoval is anti-business, raises taxes and is against development, I'm going to call Grover Norquist! No VP slot for you.
The simple solution is to let HOA have have an ability to have solar panels being placed on all rooftops in their community. Use their pools of money to finance it. The the HOA can sell what the Homeowners don't use to NV Energy. But that would mean you would have to trust your local HOA.
Sandoval appointed Luis Valera to the Public Utilities Commission, a friend of the NV Energy executives. Enough said!!!!!
jbkayaker12 points out the reality of how politics here is what it is - plutocracy and cronyism dancing off to the bank with our money behind the screen of fairness.
Three appointees rule on whether we get a fair shake...So do you think we get a fair shake?? Ha ha ha
We get the shaft dressed up in fluff
In a better world where we owned the utility district, the rates would be 6 cents a kwh, not 12. The source would be the sun, we'd have gobs of jobs helping each other out and not hosing each other so the CEO gets millions plus gorgeous bonuses and benefits.
And the underlings also do quite well in all those categories, have a great time at the air conditioned office party and we pay through he nose.
Sustainability and self-determination, jobs for the future and self-reliant educations would supplant our failing systems of trashing the skies, begging for decency, disinterested school kids and handing our money to NV Energy to distribute to their stockholders and wealthy friends of the ruling elite.
The kayaker understands the currents and the current situation and the flow of currency. Heed the words of the crafty little floater with the straight talk.
'Politics' is a singular noun. Yes it ends with an 's' but that doesn't make it plural. In that regard it is similar to 'economics' and 'physics'
And while we're on those subjects let's look at the similarities. The money flows like things in motion stay in motion, and things just sitting here tend to just sit here, broke and lonely.
Nevader is one keen example of politics, economics and physics. They all look plural, but they're quite singular. Try and stop them. You'll see how the oneness coheres.
And the wisdom of the kayaker will become apparent in retrospect.
A good logical step by the governor, hopefully, because of the lack of merit of this bill as far as the expense for the transmission line for the residents of Nevada; and not otherwise. The governor should have added that he did not agree with the timing and methodology of passing this bill, that is without even the representatives in the state legislature even reading the said bill.
The more transparent the government the more efficient it will be for the people that it represents.