Nevada’s Powerhouse Profits While the People Sweat

By a Disbelieving Observer of Man’s Gall and His Corporate Appetite

We find ourselves in a fix as fine as molasses in mid-July. The mercury’s climbing in Nevada, and just as sure as the Devil sets his rocking chair out in the Great Basin this time of year, NV Energy is once again rattling the tin cup at our windows.

Only this time, it ain’t just about the heat—it’s about who’s getting burned.

See, while the people of Nevada, sunburned and broke, were busy wringing pennies from dishwater to keep the air conditioning whirring, the utility company was out there admitting—barely—that they overcharged some folk. Not a few, not once, not by accident, but systematically–and for years.

And for their trouble?

A partial refund, no interest, and not a whisper of apology. One poor soul, Miss Carlin Dinola, was stiffed more than a thousand dollars and got a $96 rebate for her trouble. That’s not a refund—that’s dumb money.

And what sayeth NV Energy?

Why, they dusted off some rule from 1980—back when folks still thought disco was the future—and claimed they only had to return six months’ worth of ill-gotten gains. Now, I ain’t no lawyer, but if I borrow your wheelbarrow and use it for six years, then tell you I owe you for just the last six weeks, you’d call me a cheat—and you’d be right.

Enter Assembly Bill 452, now wending its way through the hallowed halls of Carson City, a modest proposal that says, “Hey, if you overcharge somebody, you pay’em back—all of it—and with interest too.”

Revolutionary, I know.

Pastor Marlon Anderson, who spoke before the Assembly Committee, said it plain and simple, “Come on, man!”

And when a preacher pleads like that, you know the devil’s been in the accounting ledgers.

NV Energy, of course, sent their vice president to the hearing—Ms. Janet Wells—who danced around the numbers like they were hornets. She didn’t know how many people got overcharged, how much it added up to, or anything except that everything’s fine and the rules’re workin’ as they should.

Now, there’s a question worth asking–If the rules are working as designed, and folks are still getting fleeced, then who made the rules and whose pockets are gettin’ lined in the process?

But AB 452 wouldn’t just aim to fix refunds—it would stop NV Energy from tossing every spike in fuel costs onto the backs of the very customers trying to survive a desert summer. The way it stands–if war breaks out overseas or a snowstorm clogs the pipelines–customers pay the difference while NV Energy keeps the profits flowing like chilled sangria at a country club picnic.

Again, Ms. Wells testified all’s fair ’cause they “don’t mark up” fuel. And maybe that’s true—but passing 100 percent of the cost to customers while the company’s shareholders remain as safe and snug as a possum in a house don’t sound much like “sharing the burden.”

So here we are, watching the Assembly swing at justice with a bill that says–Pay what you owe, take your fair share of risk, and stop hiding behind century-old rulebooks while folks pawn their air conditioners to cover the light bill.

And I ask again, in the plainest language a still free man can muster–whose pockets are getting lined? ‘Cause it ain’t mine.